Thanks to French nuclear company AREVA, however, we’re now getting an idea of how those numbers break down and the spin around nuclear job creation is revealed. AREVA’s EPR reactor is one of two designs the UK government is looking at building and is also being considered in the US…

…a new U.S. EPR™ would create up to 11,000 direct and indirect jobs during component manufacturing (including AREVA’s Newport News heavy component facility in Virginia) and plant construction. On top if this, construction and operation would also create more than 400 permanent jobs and spur billion of dollars in investment in the local economy.

The UK government wants ten new reactors, so that would create 110,000 ‘direct and indirect’ jobs according to AREVA’s numbers, wouldn’t it? Well, it might. That number is in the same ballpark as the UK government’s figures of 90,000-100,000 but it assumes that all ten reactors are built at the same time.

It also assumes there will be no overlap between the people working on one reactor and the people working on another. Do we expect that there will be no transfer of skills between reactor projects especially in a time when nuclear expertise is scarce? Are there enough contractors with enough experienced workers and resources to provide 110,000 of them simultaneously?

If anything, these jobs will be highly transient. As the campaign group Shepperdine Against Nuclear Energy found when it visited the Okiluoto 3 EPR construction site in Finland late last year, ‘4,300 workers work on the site, but a total of 16,300 people have worked on site between 2005 and to date’. That doesn’t sound like job security to us.

Also, can the UK government guarantee that all those jobs will go to British workers as Gordon Brown wants? It looks like Westinghouse, the other company whose reactor design is being considered by the UK, would rely on thousands of workers from overseas. As Bulgaria found with its Belene reactor when it had to import foreign expertise, these promises of new jobs are not always kept.

Across the world, the industry and its supporters cannot even agree with themselves about the number of workers required to build a new reactor. In the US the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy Coalition) – ‘a large grassroots coalition that unites unlikely allies across the business, environmental, academic, consumer and labor community to support nuclear energy’ – says: ‘As many as 2,400 workers will be needed at a single site during peak periods of new nuclear plant construction’. That’s a quarter of AREVA and the UK government’s figures.

Then there’s the final sting in the tail of the nuclear jobs spin. According to AREVA building an EPR creates only around 400 permanent jobs. The rest will, by any definition, be temporary jobs. That falls a long way short of the ‘100,000 jobs’ hype. No wonder the workers at Olkiluoto are taking their time.

Justin McKeating blogs at Greenpeace’s Nuclear Reaction and Chicken Yoghurt

He should be congratulated on his little scoop. It’s worthy of a blogger, in fact. If only, however, he’d shown the same tenacity, doggedness, and vociferousness in chasing down the facts in 2003 when spurious statistics and misconceptions were left to fester in the public imagination without correction and ended up taking us to war.

If I remember rightly, Aaronovitch was quite happy then to take the peddlers of those spurious statistics and misconceptions at their word. Indeed, he crowed those false assertions from his column in a national newspaper. Afterwards, feeling a little sheepish, he said on the subject of Iraq’s WMDs:

If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again.

Given his propensity to shovel down and regurgitate any amount of government say-so since he said that, we can only assume his promise of future disbelief was also a misconception of some kind. Would anyone care to chase it down with Aaronovitchesque tenacity?

I note the irony that Aaronovitch once won the Orwell Prize for journalism. Can anyone pinpoint the precise moment he went from speak to power to speaking for it?

(Cross posted at Chicken Yoghurt)

Chapter 3: Access to information
How can I find out information in a way I understand and can use?

Information is power say the paper, and a lack of information leads to powerlessness. Jargon can ‘alienate, confuse and frustrate citizens’ and be exclusionary. Barely half of local authority residents feel that their council keeps them very or fairly well informed about the services and benefits it provides.

The Internet is a powerful information delivery system but those without online access should not be forgotten. Information across the range of issues is being made available via the likes of NHS Choices. The government wants to support the use of new technologies.

A ‘Digital Mentor’ scheme in deprived areas will support groups to develop websites and podcasts, to use digital photography and online publishing tools. Community radio can have a unique role in working within communities.

Comments

It has to be said from the outset that for a document with an aim of ‘providing you with more access to information’, Communities in control falls at the first hurdle. You can pay £33.45 for a copy of the white paper if you’re one of the one third of the population who don’t have internet access. Or else you can download a 1,809 kilobyte PDF document or two three megabyte Microsoft Word documents. The white paper is 157 pages long by the way. Then you can read it off the screen or print it out if you’ve got a printer that’s up to the job. How’s that for encouraging engagement?

This isn’t unusual. As I’ve noted before, government websites more often than not militate against engagement and informed opinion. The poor quality of some government websites isn’t noted in the white paper.

It is however heartening to see that that large section of the population without internet access are not forgotten although measures to address this are vague to say the least.

In all seriousness, and my instinctive cynicism aside, it’s difficult to have or express a firm opinion. I’d be grateful to hear from anyone who can see deeper into it than I can. It all sounds very, well, nice and if it all comes to pass then great. There really isn’t very much else to say other than to ask if in the current economic climate whether such measures going to receive the priority they require.

That said, you can take the simplicity too far. Take John McCain criticising Barack Obama’s stance on nuclear power…

You know, the other night in a debate I said his eloquence is admirable but pay attention to his words […] We talked about nuclear power. Well, it has to be safe, environment, blah blah blah. […] Nuclear power is safe. We ought to do it now.

Pay attention to Obama’s words, says McCain. What about McCain’s words? Blah, blah, blah? Is that an ‘admirable eloquence’? Sure, the arguments around nuclear power and safety can be complex. They often need to be simplified so that people who aren’t nuclear scientist can understand then, but blah, blah, blah? Do the workers cleaning up at Hanford, the most radioactive place in America regard nuclear safety as blah, blah, blah, do you think? John McCain is 72, as if we needed reminding, not 7.

And ‘nuclear power is safe’, says McCain. Really? If it’s so safe why is McCain on the record as saying he would not want nuclear waste being transported through his home state of Arizona? Is it safe or is it not, Senator? If it’s as safe as you say, let’s see you call for nuclear waste to be trucked through Arizona. Let’s have a straight answer and make it a little less simple than blah, blah, blah. We’re intelligent enough to understand.

(Originally published at Nuclear Reaction.)

The latest troubles for the Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France began in early July when a solution containing unprocessed uranium was allowed to leak into two rivers. Areva, the company running the plant, said that although 30,000 litres had been spilled, ‘only’ 18,000 litres had reached the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers. That’s a strange use of the word ‘only’, isn’t it?

France’s nuclear watchdog, ASN, issued the reassurance that, while the leak was toxic, it was only ‘slightly’ radioactive. A funny kind of reassurance, when you think about it and not one likely to comfort local residents who were ordered not to swim or fish in the rivers, drink well water or irrigate their crops with river water.

Despite that use of the word ‘slightly’, the radioactivity released in that single day constituted 130 times the level of radioactivity the Tricastin site is permitted to release in an entire year. It was found that a faulty valve had caused the leak. A leak the previous week had been ignored. Lovely, safe and clean nuclear energy.

Traces of uranium in the two contaminated rivers were then found to be from an earlier leak. The French authorities immediately ordered tests of ground water at all French nuclear sites.

Less than two weeks later, on July 21, another leak occurred, this time at Areva’s Romans-sur-Isère site. The ASN said the fault in the pipe may have been several years old which makes you wonder just how rigorous safety inspections have been at Areva sites in recent times. ‘Only’ a few hundred grammes of uranium were leaked.

Three days later, Tricastin was in the news again. This time 100 plant workers were exposed to uranium particles from another leaking pipe. Again the workers were described by a spokesperson for Electricite de France (EDF) as ‘slightly’ contaminated as if that detracted at all from the fact that they shouldn’t have been contaminated at all. Like pregnancy, if you don’t want to be contaminated, you really should take the proper precautions.

And the stories just keep coming. Tricastin just can’t keep itself out of the news. If it was a celebrity it would be Britney Spears, a person for whom there were once high hopes but now, despite her best efforts, can’t help but find herself in very public compromising and embarrassing situations as the rest of us look on in horror.

Six days later, on July 30, over 120 workers had to be evacuated from Tricastin when a false alarm was sounded. At least EDF say it was a false alarm. ASN, having seemingly learned to take nothing coming out of the mouths of nuclear PR spokespeople at face value, are awaiting the results of an independent examination of the site. Forty-five employees were found to have small traces of radiation on them said to be remaining from the previous leak.

These incidences of leaks, incompetence, leaks, cover-ups, leaks, spin and leaks came to a head today when Greenpeace announced that it has filed two complaints against Areva with French prosecutors. The first complaint concerned the leak of 18,000 litres of uranium solution. The second is concerning nuclear waste being buried in a hill and covered with earth which then also leaked.

Tricastin is starting to resemble one of those circus clown’s cars, with its belching tailpipe, its doors falling off, and its alarming honking noises. We dread to think what might happen next. A clown’s car traditionally collapses with a bang. We hope there’ll be a full national debate on nukes in France soon to avoid any crash.

(More nuclear news can be found at Greenpeace’s Nuclear Reaction blog)

It could be argued what the Bishop said took the argument to the acceptable limits of taste. So. without further ado, let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

Here’s Andrew Ian Dodge getting high and mighty. Is it only a year since Andrew was calling supporters of the EU ‘federasts’? You know I rather think it is.

Here’s poor widdle Wonko, he of measured and tasteful Labour = Nazis logo fame, parading his bruised sensibilities exhorting us to join his letter writing campaign of complaint.

Here’s the never knowingly out-outraged Iain Dale, past master of the mass murder and Dachau jokes, getting uppity.

Here’s Devil’s Kitchen momentarily setting aside his not-at-all-disproportionate ‘socialists are evil/Nazis/cunts’ schtick to direct his Anglo-Saxon bludgeon at the Bishop. Poor Devil, whatever happened to ‘it is always fun being offensive to deeply unpleasant, vicious people’? It’s only fun if you’re not on the receiving end, that’s what.

The fact is they all think beyond-the-pale insults are fun for all the family until they’re turned on their own apparently delicate and so very easily bruised sensibilities. What’s the matter, lads? Cat got your swastika, death camp and federast/pederast jokes? Tell us another one about how us lefties are just like those blokes who murdered the Jews. Go on.

I have a seven year-old daughter. She’s not particularly tidy. Most days her bedroom looks like how I imagine how Daily Mail readers imagine how Eastern European migrants live. You see, she can and does make the most stupendous mess without the help, input or consultation of anybody.

But when it comes to tidying that mess? Ah, that’s not a job for a single person at all. No help is begged in making the mess but much is begged in its reversal. There are tears and shouting. A team effort tidies the room but a few days later…

And so it is with government. Or at least this government. Think of all the messes it has made in the last eleven years. Now think of how little clearing up has actually been done. How much mess has been edged away from, swept under the rug of media manipulation and generally ignored? Because all public service tends towards infantilisation. Someone will be along at some point to clean up for them.

The second part of the law involves respect for property. My daughter has a cuddly sheepdog toy called Charlie which is her most treasured possession. She’s always losing him in the house. Panic ensues at bedtime.

I always know where my keys, mobile, money and mp3 player are because I remember where I left them. Even I’m bored at the sound off me giving this lecture. But does it go in? What do you think? My back hurts from all the looking under the sofa I do for that sodding dog.

And so it is with government. Or at least this government. Think of all the important, important stuff it’s lost over the years. Laptops, laptops and more laptops. Data, data and more data. Dignity, dignity and more dignity.

The latest is military ID cards. Eleven thousand have been lost in the last two years.

Like my daughter, the government know just how important these things are to them but will they learn? But does it go in? What do you think? The loss is blithely announced but nothing much else seems to be done. And then there’s another announcement. We rarely even get a ‘sorry’, not that that would do much good.

Sorry, as I’m also bored of lecturing my daughter, carries an implicit promise to improve one’s behaviour. It’s not merely a placatory or assuaging device to smooth things over until the next crisis. Sorry’s no good without an attendant change in behaviour.

Because all public service tends towards infantilisation. Lost your laptops, data disks and military ID cards? Here’s some money to go and buy replacements. It’s an adjunct to the magic wallet theory.

Now, all this would be more forgiveable if the government didn’t itself treat us like children. The whispered conversations behind closed doors. The ‘this is for your own good’. The ‘do as I say or go to your room’. The ‘do as I say, not do as I do’. Being infantilised by the infantile is demeaning.

It’s like hearing a disapproving sigh at your behaviour from a seven year-old. Trust me, I get it all the time.

(Cross-posted from Chicken Yoghurt)

Most people just stand around it, kicking the tyres and exclaiming, ‘nah, it’s alright, it’ll go round the clock another couple of times no bother.’ Jack Straw thinks it just needs another coat of paint and it’ll be sorted.

You get the impression that he knows what’s going on under the bonnet but doesn’t want to admit it to himself let alone those of us risking our lives by riding along in the death trap. It needs rebuilding or trading in, if we’re honest.

The old girl’s starting misfiring again, this time when ex-cabinet minister Jack Cunningham was taking it out for a spin:

Jack Cunningham, now in the House of Lords, is paid £36,000 a year – for an estimated three hours’ work a week – by the City of London Corporation to give political advice.

The corporation said that as part of his consultancy, he calls ministers to arrange meetings with the authority when it is having difficulty securing one.

Is that how it works? What’s the difference between a minister not wanting a meeting and a minister wanting a meeting? A phone call from Jack Cunningham. Why aren’t we all doing this?

The chances of getting a democracy that doesn’t revolve around who knows who and favours from and for mates is slim. We should therefore play the system. Thirty-six thousand pounds is not a lot of money in the greater scheme of things. That’s how cheaply democracy can be bought these days which should be good news for everybody.

Let’s all go on a binge-democracy bender if it’s so cheap. We should club together and buy our own ex-Cabinet minister. I can see the headlines now: ‘Minister’s fear cheap democracy is undermining society’.

Of course, that’ll only be because us proles can now afford to get our hands on the stuff. But hey, if they’re going to sell democracy cheaper than corruption, is it any wonder people are going to buy it and abuse it?

Sign the pledge, spread the word, be all you can be in this great democracy of ours:

I will give £36 to a fund to hire the services of an ex-cabinet minister but only if 1,000 other concerned citizens will do the same.

(Cross-posted from Chicken Yoghurt)

[I]f we look across the Channel we see the French who built one of these kinds of prisons in the 1980s and have never done so again.

Jack Straw dithered, Gordon Brown didn’t.

It occurs to me that the next step would be to wall in a town like they do in Escape From New York. Look out for it being announced soon as the parties try to outdo each other in the run up to the next general election.

One of the concerns about Titan jails is that all the money is spent on building the things and funding for other programmes could be lost. Programmes to cut the unbelievably high levels of re-offending for example.

In his interview on Radio 4 the other morning, Justice Minister Jack Straw had this to say (8 minutes 30 seconds in) about re-offending:

There’s a serious problem about prisoners who are sent to prison for less than 12 months because they’re not given the supervision they need and we wan to try and change that when we’ve got the resources.

Well, it seems, after 48 hours of will-they-won’t headlines about Titan jails, he’s found the resources:

The justice secretary has said fresh prison reforms will cut reoffending rates, reduce drug use in jails and give more skills to offenders.

Very good, and a welcome and useful sop to liberals and Chief Inspectors of Prisons everywhere. In his written statement to Parliament, Straw says:

The announcements I am making today signal a major drive to overcome some of the barriers to the rehabilitation of offenders. Our primary aim in doing so is further to aid the work we are already doing on cutting reoffending. These measures are focused on tackling drug use among offenders and providing opportunities for offenders to learn the new skills which might help them to a life away from crime outside prison.

Like I said, all very welcome. There’s no mention if prisoner serving less than 12 months will be included in the programmes, or indeed, who will be included specifically.

It’s also odd that Straw didn’t brag about these new resources and measures on the radio when he was being slapped about by John Humphreys on the subject of re-offending rates. Was he anxious not to alienate the hang ‘em/flog ‘em mob that forms so large a slice of New Labour’s constituency these days? Or is the ink on this idea still wet?

Let’s hope this isn’t a simple reannouncement of an existing policy (it wouldn’t be the first time under this lot). Let’s also hope that Straw’s ‘fresh’ prison reforms are different and more successful than ones announced in the past.

So yes, good idea Jack. Well done. But that’s all it is at this stage, an idea. And it’s a shame you slipped this out in a written statement to Parliament when a brave man, proud of his new idea, would have toured the radio and television studios boasting of how this new measure is going to make the country safer, save the taxpayer a bundle and fire the erogeoneous zones of liberals. Done right, this is a crowd-pleaser and no mistake.

But then, Jack’s be-nimble approach is only to be expected when policy on such emotive issues has to be formulated with one eye on the tabloid press. It wouldn’t do for a Justice Minister to flash a soft heart at those looking for red meat.

(Cross posted at Chicken Backup)

There were many crimes committed by the Clinton Whitehouse. However, I don’t think there are many sane people in the world who think Bill getting a nosh from an intern was one of them. Or at least one of the major ones. How the odd happy finish from Monica impeded the Clinton presidency before right-wing prurience attempted to derail it has never been adequately explained to me.

Still, we are where we are. In his paean to Drudge, Guido Fawkes somewhat prematurely hails his hero’s coup as the end ‘once and for all [of] the gate-keeper ability, if not the mentality, of the mainstream media elite’.

Guido’s love letter to his mentor is interesting in that it fails to offer a qualitative judgement of how things have changed. How much Drudge earns and where that income allows him to live seem to be the essential yardsticks rather than any explicit estimate of whether what he produces is any good. That people in large numbers are prepared to consume a product is not always the most reliable gauge of quality. It’s a thought that’s kept the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Bernard Matthews and Noel Edmonds warm for many a year.

It’s also interesting how little change has actually been brought about despite the breathless talk of a paradigm shift. Guido talks of an ‘mainstream media elite’ without seemingly being overtly aware that he and his role model have had to largely appropriate that elite’s methods to gain what they judge and measure as success. Is there any true innovation going on?

Guido exhorts would-be one-man newsmakers to ‘go get the story’ but beyond the phone calls he makes which (unwittingly or not) come across as the transcripts of a radio show prankster, it’s difficult to see what ‘getting’ of stories he actually does. Drudge’s big moment, let us not forget, was publishing a story that a mainstream magazine had baulked at.

Guido, between rare forays into editorial, presents a diet largely consisting of mainstream scraps and off-cuts. Happy (for Guido) coincidence dictated that he also made his name by publishing a story of where another prominent politician (in this case John Prescott) was putting his penis. A story, like Drudge’s breakthrough, that the mainstream media elites had deemed unpublishable.

As such, you be forgiven for regarding both Guido and Drudge as mere conduits; alternative venues for other people’s legwork. There’s very little ‘making’ beyond the ability to string a sentence together. It’s repetition and reaction. It’s blogging.

Guido talks of his contact with and reliance on mainstream journalists but it seems to me more of a parasitic relationship rather than a symbiotic one. Like the unfortunate Monica, it sounds like he’s had to suck a lot of cock to gain his notoriety. The loyalty of the press can be rented but not bought.

And like an exploited woman who talks of empowerment when really she’s just being used, I wonder if Guido is fooling anyone else but himself. Guido’s medium is the message – journalists are happy to report on his antics and caperings rather than highlight what he’s saying. You can see why the likes of the Guardian’s Michael White might snigger at him – the lone wannabe walking the high wire without a safety net.

I’d argue that all we’re seeing is the emergence of another albeit smaller elite – not the tearing down of some great edifice. Guido is nothing if not just another monied Westminster villager only with a maverick spin. He gives off the same air of the privileged insider privy to access and esoteric knowledge forbidden to the rest of us.

But this new elite lacks the inherent quality control (sub-editing for instance) that make the ‘mainstream media elite’ even vaguely tolerable. It’s just as well that Guido gives his stuff away for free because you wonder how loyal his readership would be if he was charging for it.

Of course, Guido earns his money indirectly via advertising on his blog. He doesn’t or daren’t put a price or a value (financial or qualitative) on his product. It’s a new model, if only a cheap knock-off of the old model, down-sized and the corners cut. Despite copious evidence to the contrary, I sincerely wonder if Guido is truly happy about that.

Like a self-taught painter trying to copy an old master, surely it’s a melancholy matter of pale imitation and disappointment.

(cross-posted from Chicken Backup)

Needless to say most of the umbrage is coming from the Right. They might as well be saying ‘Gordon Brown can pry my liver from my cold dead hand’ for all the sense they’re making. They bang on about the ‘murder’ of foetuses by the ‘abortion industry’ but are seemingly willing to stand by and let walking, talking people die because their politics have been offended.

What it boils down to is putting your principles before the lives of dying people. And what’s more, you’ll be dead anyway and won’t even get to enjoy the smug satisfaction of putting one over on Gordon Brown with your clever principles. Because you’ll be dead (did I mention that?).

Unless you believe in heaven, obviously, in which case I suppose you could look down and blow raspberries in Gordon’s direction. If they let, smug, selfish, gloating pricks into heaven, that is. And unless you’re expecting an Assumption, you can’t take your guts to heaven either.

It seems that these people would rather take their organs with them to the grave or the crematorium out of some kind of spite. Even more amusingly, others are signed up to voluntarily donate their organs and they’re still complaining. They’re giving their organs when they die but they’re still all ‘Wah! The state wants to own my body! Wah!’

You could sort of see these people’s points of view if there was an alternative use to which you could put a human corpse. I suppose some of the egos we’re talking about would quite fancy being stuffed and put in a museum but they have to take your guts out to do that anyway.

Anybody planning to have their sweetbreads turned into pate to sell for the benefit of their dependents? No, you’re going to have them burned or buried with you unless Gordon Brown extends a bloody claw and tears them from your still warm corpse.

I think this stems from a certain attitude. Namely that mature strand of reasoning that non-ironically equates the state with fascism. You see it a lot on the less fun blogs. Sure, it might be a good idea and think of the lives that will be saved, they seem to be saying, but it’s Gordon bloody Brown’s idea so it must be shit, the one-eyed mental nazi.

‘It strikes at our relationship with the state,’ they say. Well get this: You can’t have a relationship with the state when you’re dead. You can’t assert ownership over your own corpse. Why? Because. You. Are. Dead. What other freedoms would you like to exercise after you’ve shuffled off? I take it you’ll be putting your favourite songs on your iPod to take with you as well? It’ll be as much use to you as your liver.

Do you really not have anything else to worry about? I’m more worried about the horrifying, demeaning death I’m likely to suffer at the hands of the NHS than what they might do to my corpse once I’ve screamed my last.

This state-as-bodysnatcher pose is perverse in the extreme and reflective of the implicit (rapidly becoming explicit) immaturity that’s taking this country back to the Middle Ages at a dizzying speed. Maybe these people just haven’t been shown enough footage of cute ickle children dying for lack of available organs. With a Snow Patrol song played over the top. That should sway them, surely?

Cross-posted from Chicken Backup

Specifically, I highlighted Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review, it’s call for the views of the public, and how if you don’t have the resources to print the review’s PDF pamphlets from the website, you are asked to contact the review team.

So, I did. I asked how I obtain a hard copy of the pamphlet ‘The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies‘. On November 6.

Still no reply a week later.

The Queen’s Speech seems the ideal place to start. So, head to the Number 10 website. Click on the special section all about the Queen’s Speech and select the list of bills, draft bills and statements to see what issues were covered in the speech.

Let’s take a look the Citizenship and Immigration Draft Bill. They’re hot, emotive issues right now. There’s not a lot of detail in the PDF document (what is it about this government and PDFs?) but there is a link at the bottom to Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review.

Except the link doesn’t work. You can’t click through to the review’s webpage from the PDF document. You can either type the web address manually into your web browser or try another angle.

Let’s try the Number 10 website’s search engine. It’s a pretty poor search engine and it’s all over the shop. Entering ‘lord goldsmith citizenship review’ into the search gives some pretty confused results. A lucky guess in clicking on the ‘related sites‘ tab gives us a link to the Ministry of Justice website and mentions Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review.

Finally, we find it. The review began on October 5 this year and reports to the Prime Minister in March 2008. View from the public are solicited but no deadline for them is given.

Each month the review plans to publish a pamphlet on ‘focussing on different aspects of the subject’. The first and only one so far is ‘The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies‘ (yup, a PDF – it certainly stops those pesky bloggers who might want to cut ‘n’ paste some of your text and, you know, discuss the issue, link back and give you inbound traffic). You can print it off and read if you have the resources. If you don’t and want a hard copy you have to email the review team to find out how to get one.

One of the barriers to this information is, obviously, having Internet access. Those without it (currently 36.2 per cent of the population) are probably unaware aware of Lord Goldsmith’s review, his pamphlets or how to obtain them.

Then there’s the tedious and frustrating path to the information. It didn’t take me too long because I’m a desperately sad individual who trawls these sites for fun and has got a feel for for how amateurishly they can be put together. A less geeky or technically savvy citizen stands a very good chance of giving up in frustration.

The feedback mechanisms involved feel uncertain; more often than not it means firing an email off to an anonymous government inbox. The whole set up militates against engagement and informed opinion. Is it any wonder that so many issues are fed by ignorance and tabloid newspapers’ vested interests?

The state of affairs outlined above follows for many of the bills, draft bills and statements on the Queen’s Speech list. Some have links that are working, some have links that are not, some have no links at all and require the interested and those wishing to engage to embark on another hunt to find out more.

The casual browser who may or may not have something worthwhile to contribute is likely to give up at the first hurdle. A more serious and potentially important contributor might get no further either. As I’ve said before, a cynic might think that this is the intention on the part of the government.

I’m willing to accept however that it’s merely incompetence. Which is shameful when you see how many people in Britain successfully run easily accessible and searchable websites of their own for very little money in their spare time. Has any of the government’s people actually tried to chase down some information from their own websites? Or given any thought that herds of their PDF documents don’t exist in the real world for people to read and engage with?

I’d suggest that a government truly concerned about engagement, canvassing and informing opinion and debunking myths should investigate mature cross-media push technologies (sending information out) rather than pull ones (expecting people to go hunting for the information). Within reason, obviously, and away from the soundbites of glossy leaflets, party political broadcasts, tainted gimmicks like citizen juries and other propaganda.

Give the job to an independent, apolitical organisation to avoid accusations of bias and political interference. Deliver just the facts without any background noise. And it might be a good idea to stop patronising people – treat them like adults, value their contribution and say so: positive feedback can work wonders. Make it an engaging, fulfilling and transparent process and they’ll come back for more.

I’d bet there’s hardly an adult in the country without an opinion on immigration and citizenship. I’ll also bet that the vast majority of people are ignorant of the fact that there is a forum to express those views with the (possibly slim, admittedly) potential of reaching the Prime Minister’s ear.

From a government and Prime Minister that pay lip service to a more positive political engagement and to people’s ‘responsibilities’ to the society in which they live that’s something of an inexcusable disgrace.

Now, many people put this down to the normal Punch and Judy of blogs and blogging but when this is happening on what the media regard as the go-to blogs, it means trouble for all of us who have higher hopes for the blogging medium. You can’t ignore these people and expect them to go away. They’re the shock troops of a resurgent Tory party.

Comments deleted to shape the narrative of discussions. Criticism ‘disappeared’. Offensive, libellous comments left unchecked to be catalogued by Google for anyone to find. A refusal to give a right of reply to those who have been slurred. Leading right-wing bloggers are creating an atmosphere in which the admission of fault and the apology are taboo; they have their own ‘reputations’ to protect after all. People on the wrong end of this treatment find themselves in a dead end. Sooner or later one of them is going to have to reach for a lawyer to get redress. Anybody got a few grand to spare?

Why should liberal-left bloggers be concerned? So far, the big guns of Tory blogging have given left-wing bloggers a free pass because until recently most of us spent our time attacking the various sins of the Blair government. It was a marriage of convenience. But try sniffing around how prominent Tory bloggers conduct themselves and you’re off the Christmas card list pretty damn quick. ‘Stalker’, ‘obsessive’ and worse are the labels you can expect to have pinned to you by them if you dare to press for a straight answer to a straight question. Their online supporters (and they do have a lot of supporters) will question your mental health and your sexuality and libel you under the cover of anonymity. And you get no right of reply.

It pains me that more left-wing, Liberal, liberal and decent right-wing bloggers don’t get stuck in on this. Come a Conservative administration this could very well be the norm in political blogging instead of the behaviour of a just handful of high-profile opportunists. It’s a disease and it’s spreading fast. Tory central office would be fools if they aren’t paying attention to how debate can be controlled and opponents smeared online. At least one Tory MP has already adopted some of the tactics.

I have a feeling that a lot of bloggers trying to stick it to a future Tory government and their online cheerleaders in a few years time are going to wish they’d paid more attention to what’s going on right now. Sooner or later they’re going to target someone you care about. Real world reputations are at stake and are being damaged. It’s time to get in the ring and go toe to toe.