Harry Metcalfe

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India

Last week, I went to India as part of the Prime Minister’s business delegation. The trip came completely out of the blue, and I was surprised and honoured to be asked. We were only in India for a couple of days — a whirlwind tour — but it was an unforgettable trip.

In fact, having now spent 20 minutes staring at those two sentences, I’m finding it a bit hard to know where to begin. We spent quite a lot of time on the plane, but in between, we met a sparkling array of very interesting people from all sorts of backgrounds, visited places from the firmly affluent to the strikingly poor, and learned some valuable lessons about technology, democracy and civic engagement.

My bit of the trip was the hack day that we did at Google with some Indian developers. Rohan Silva, Liam Maxwell, Edmund von der Burg, Tim Green, David McCandless and I turned up at Google India, not quite knowing what to expect. After a very delicious curried breakfast we piled into a meeting room for a big chat with lots of Indian developers. I’ve written about the hack day separately, and David’s also done a piece on the Guardian Data Blog.

The Prime Minister

After a hurried lunch, we all piled back on to the plane for our flight to Delhi, which took several hours. Upon arriving we were briskly sent off to an evening reception, where the PM did a short speech (and where I just-so-happened to wander over and mention Dextrous Web, which he seemed excited about). The reception was fairly short, and we were soon back at the hotel, where — after a brief spell in the indescribably humid Delhi evening — we all went off to bed.

South Asia Foundation

The next morning, we went off to learn about the Panchayati Raj. It’s a system of elected village assemblies which receive money from the Indian government to spend on local services. It’s an interesting approach, and embodies many of the current government’s Big Society principles: radical decentralisation, with local decision-making and accountability. After a briefing from the British High Commission and a panel session at the South Asia Foundation, we left the city to visit several village Panchayats and see the work that they do.

Paved, with gutters

For me, this was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip. We visited several villages, saw how people there live, met elected Panchayat members and saw the improvements they were making to their villages. One had managed to pave all its streets, with proper gutters, and had built a school. Another was making a proper dirt road between their village and the next. We visited the workers as they were leveling the ground, and the difference between the completed road and the rest was remarkable — I doubt our minibus could have traversed the lumpen, muddy path that they were following.

Periodic Table

More than anything else, though, I was moved by the extraordinary welcome that we received. Every village gave us garlands and flowers, and sat us down for tea, water and spiced nuts. One processed us through the streets with music. They were warm, generous and proud. At one village we were drinking Chai in the local school when I spotted a periodic table on the wall and took a picture. The principal of the school came over and told me about how it had been made by his 11-year-old students. The chief civil engineer for the district accompanied us and told us all about the roads and schools that they were building. In the first village, we walked past an incongruously well stocked pharmacy, and one of the kids came over to tell me about it.

Of course, my impressions are skewed. I’m sure it’s unusual for westerners to visit these villages, and that that provoked a certain level of excitement — especially with one of the PM’s senior policy advisers leading the group. I would like to know what day-to-day life is like in these places. One of the officials we visited later said that he thought 80% of Panchayats probably experienced some degree of fraud or embezzlement, which I don’t doubt. But the improvements in these villages were clear, and the villages’ sense of pride was palpable. So fraud is, perhaps, an acceptable cost of doing business.

Eventually, and reluctantly, we got back on our minibus and headed for home. Upon arriving back in the city, we went to a plush reception thrown by BBC Worldwide at the hotel — wherein, incidentally, a 24-hour wifi pass cost the same as 7 days’ pay for one of the labourers building the dirt road we’d been standing on not two hours earlier. It was a stark contrast. India is definitely a country of extremes.

At the South Asia Foundation, the Minister leading the Indian delegation said that Indian governments had a history of promising people the world, and then failing to deliver. That India is just so big, and so populous, that central government couldn’t even make most of the people happy, most of the time. It’s this reality that he said the Panchayati Raj are there to fix. He said that radical decentralisation is the only system that can work in a country as big as India, and that it is vital to make it work to prevent people losing faith in democracy as a system of government.

This argument seems plausible to me. But it made me wonder how the UK could learn lessons from India, given that we don’t have the same problems of scale. We also don’t have the same degree of engagement in civil issues — or anything even close to it. But that is, perhaps, to be expected. India has more to do. And in fact, I suspect that the motivations for Indians to become involved in civil issues are much the same as those of Britons. You can bet that if London had no roads, schools or hospitals, a vast number of Londoners would be doing things about it. And, in fact, most people do get involved in some way when things happen that affect them directly: like school and hospital closures, or objectionable planning applications.

And that, I think, is the lesson. In these villages, everyone knew the Panchayat members. And when the members walk down the street, people go up to them, and air their concerns. As more than one person told us, politics in India is very personal. People know who to ask, and how the system works — primarily because it is simple, and they are close to it. At least, when it comes to Panchayati Raj*.

But that is the polar opposite of the UK, where almost no one knows their Councillors, and where engaging with local government means climbing a nigh-impassable mountain of tedious bureaucratic complexity. Where, unsurprisingly, most people decide it’s not worth the effort. And whence the chattering classes are born: that particular breed of people who enjoy traversing the peaks and valleys of big bureaucracies.

If that’s the problem that the Big Society is supposed to solve, I’m all for it. And I think the Indians are probably lighting the path.

*The rest of Indian government is notoriously bureaucratic!

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Who should I vote for?

I live in Islington North, and I’m in a quandry. Can you help me decide? It’s a tricky decision, and I’m not sure what to do. Islington North is a very safe Labour seat so there’s no tactical vote to be had, I don’t ascribe wholesale to any of the parties’ manifestos, and there are a myriad of competing factors. Here’s the running:

Jeremy Corbyn (Lab, incumbent)

Pros

Corbyn is an excellent constituency MP. He is responsive and personable. We seem to agree on most of the issues I’ve written to him about — primarily civil liberties things. He voted against the Digital Economy Bill. Though Labour, he is an arch-rebel: so I trust him to vote with his conscience rather than his party, most of the time.

Cons

I’ve been looking forward to voting against Labour for quite a long time. ID cards, Blair, wars, etc — Labour haven’t been all bad but they’ve been on the wrong side too often for me. Also, Corbyn is very old labour: a hard left socialist. Though I’ve been grateful for his votes against some of Labour’s worst legislative follies, I suspect we’d disagree more often than not.

Rhodri Jamieson-Ball (Libdem)

Pros

I’ve been very impressed with Clegg over the last month. I think he’s really held his own. If we could vote for a head of state, he’d have my vote in a flash. Unfortunately, though, we can’t. So Jamieson-Ball is my only choice if I want to support them. He’s been a councillor for some years, and is clearly active on lots of local issues. I do think it’s about time someone else had a go — since neither the Conservatives nor Labour are terribly inspiring — and the Liberals seem a natural choice.

Cons

I swing wildly from one extreme to the other with the LibDems. Sometimes I think they’re wonderful (Clegg in the first debate, good civlibs rhetoric) and other times, awful (utterly incompetent web-blocking amendement on the Digital Economy Bill). I do get a general sense that they just aren’t very organised (as I do with the Greens).

The thing that’s annoyed me the most, though, is a graph from this letter delivered last week:

This graph is a lie. The numbers are correct, but they bear almost no relation to the heights of the bars. It gives the impression that Labour and the Liberals are very close in the running. The text is also bigger and more prominent in the Liberals’ bar. I’ve produced a corrected version:

Which tells a rather different story.

If these people can’t even be honest in an election leaflet, why should I trust them to be honest in government? This is leaflet is deliberately designed to deceive people. And I think it’s cost them my vote.

Adrian Berrill-Cox (Con)

Pros

I am very impressed by the Conservatives’ technology policies. They’re saying the right things about the web, reforming procurement and making government IT better. But that’s about it.

Cons

Well. They’re the Tories. I remain to be convinced that “Progressive Conservative” is not a contradiction in terms. I’m not at all convinced by Cameron. Marriage incentives make me want to barf. And, if recent revelations are to be believed, they still shelter a veritable menagerie of homophobes. Not to mention people who still rue the demise of the British Empire. I don’t think they’ve changed much, no matter how hard Cameron has been trying.

Emily Dixon (Green)

Not really a possibility. I would probably vote Green tactically if I was in Brighton Pavillion. But I’m not, and their manifesto continues to contain “mad things”, like totally unworkable emission cuts, the mother of all tax rises and the abolition of nuclear power. No thanks.

Dominic Lennon (UKIP)

Lol. No.

So: what do you think? Very grateful for your thoughts!

13 Comments

The Creative Coalition Campaign’s Guardian ad, deconstructed

Today, in the Guardian, the Creative Coalition Campaign published an advertisement urging MPs to vote for the Digital Economy Bill. An ad from the Open Rights Group (with which I am involved) and 38degrees also appeared, urging MPs to vote against. The difference? We’re standing up for people’s rights to due process, for constitutional propriety and for people’s digital liberties. They’re standing up for retrograde legislation to protect their own interests, at the expense of ours. And they’re not being very honest about it, either.

Today marks a critical day for the UK’s creative industries, as the House of Commons will debate the Digital Economy Bill. If passed, the Bill will provide urgently needed support for our creative talent and the businesses which have made the UK one of the leading creative economies in the world.

Indeed. A day where, after an afternoon’s discussion, a bill will be voted through the Commons for a committee stage lasting just a few short hours — the wash-up. Where the outcome will be pre-determined by the party leaders and whips, making back-room deals, out of sight of the public. This in place of a detailed process of scrutiny which usually takes days.

The digital age and high-speed broadband have brought a host of exciting new services, but what is holding us back is having to compete with illegal file-sharing conducted on a vast scale.

Is it? Really? Online sales of music now exceed CD royalties. Spotify gained 9 million users in six months last year. An 800% increase.

At what point will legislators and the general public look at the numbers and conclude that the record industry is just wrong, or lying? You cannot on the one hand claim that the Internet is a fundamental threat to your business, and on the other, report increasing revenues and massive growth. The two cannot be reconciled.

Considering that all this money is being made in spite of the record industry’s crippling conservatism and onerous demands upon innovators, it’s hard not to wonder how much more money they could be making if they’d just get with the programme.

The Digital Economy Bill is a sensible approach to tackling online piracy, focusing on education of consumers through notifications which must include advice to the internet account holder together with information on legal services. Only if technical measures are found to be necessary and are subsequently introduced would they be applied to the accounts of those who repeatedly ignore notifications warning them to stop illegally file-sharing.

Letters and education are positive things. I don’t think anyone objects to them. It’s the technical measures that are unacceptable. The CCC disingenuously insert an “if” into that paragraph (emphasis mine). Given that the Government have set an unreachable 70% target for reduction of unlawful file-sharing, it’s beyond doubt that they will be found to be necessary.

And then what? Hidden behind comfortable words like “technical measures” and “applied to the accounts” are serious extra-judicial sanctions; collective punishments that will be debilitating. Is it right to disconnect entire families from the internet because someone in the household persistently downloads Metallica albums? What if that connection is used to run a business? What happens to their income? What happens when the kids can’t do their homework and the parents can’t pay their bills?

I no longer have a cheque book. Do you? I no longer have a yellow pages. I no longer receive paper statements for my bank accounts or utilities. The Internet is a critical utility, as vital as electricity and gas. So says Gordon Brown. We don’t disconnect the water supplies of people who flout hosepipe bans, or the electricity of people who grow weed in the attic.

Of course, as part of this process alleged infringers will have access to a fair, fast and effective appeals process. Surely, this is a much better outcome for consumers and reatives than the current sanction of court actions against individuals for damages?

Fair, fast and effective? That’s a bit of a reach. A fair system does not presume guilt, strip you of due process and then restore bits upon payment of a fee. A fair system cannot be established on the back of dubious methods for collecting evidence that have been comprehensively rubbished in other jurisdictions.

The UK’s creative businesses now contribute economic output of at least £60 billion per annum and account for 1.8 million jobs in the UK; however, according to a report launched this month by TERA Consultants, more than 250,000 jobs could be directly at risk if immediate action is not taken against the huge growth in online piracy.

Again — this doesn’t gel with the reality that online revenues are rising, despite the record industry’s remarkable lack of nous in failing to create an environment that encourages new and innovative services to arise. That same report, highlights a 1130% rise in digital revenues between 2004-2008, and a 49% drop in physical sales. And a 228% increase in video on demand. In total, there’s a 13% fall in revenues — due, apparently, to a drop in filmed entertainment revenues.

So, why haven’t they made an iTunes for TV, and seen a 1130% rise in revenue there, too? God knows. I don’t.

We must not let this opportunity pass.

A telling line. What opportunity is that? The opportunity, perhaps, to squeeze this bill through the legislature while the majority of MPs aren’t paying attention?

Opponents of the Bill have tried to block its progress through a campaign that distorted the truth about the Digital Economy Bill.

I don’t think so. I think the lies and spin are blowing in precisely the opposite direction. Hopefully, people will be able to tell the difference. Hopefully, this is one battle that corporate lobbyists won’t win.

In reality, however, the Bill is a sensible and much needed response to what has become an unacceptable situation for those whose livelihoods depend on the success of the creative industries.

In reality, the creative industries have long been making their own bed, and are now lobbying for laws that stop them having to lie in it. It’s Sony vs Universal all over again, but bigger. Why they and our politicians are unable to see this is mystifying. As usual, I suspect a heady mix of groupthink and ignorance is to blame.

In any case — we, who can see, need to fight the good fight. So go and join the Open Rights Group, and help fight for a Digital Economy Bill that makes sense.

Updated to add: And, on the very day that the bill has its second reading in the Commons, this press release from the BPI arrives in my feed — about how great things are and about how their wonderful online services are making so much money. I shit you not.

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Don’t let the Government zap your internet connection

The government have just announced that they do intend to introduce technical measures to reduce illicit file-sharing after all, and have tacked some extra questions onto an existing consultation file-sharing consultation. You need to write to your MP. Yes! You!

Among the points you could make:

This regulation is unnecessary

File-sharing is on the wane. Legal services like Spotify and last.fm are extremely popular, and heavily used. Spotify have been gaining 40,000 new users per day. The market is solving this problem. Heavy-handed regulation is not necessary.

These measures are disproportionate

The Government intends to introduce measures that would allow Ofcom to strip people of their internet connection. This is an extremely severe measure. The Internet is not a luxury that can reasonably withdrawn on a whim. It is a crucial part of modern life. Increasingly it is the medium by which we interact with the state, with each other, and with the banks, energy companies and merchants that are intricately woven into our lives.

To suggest that the Internet is something that can be withdrawn from a person on the say-so of rightsholders is as if we gave private companies the power to crush our cars for speeding in their car parks. It’s grotesquely disproportionate.

These measures will cause collateral damage

There is little or no way to gather evidence that ties illicit filesharing to a person. It can often be tied to an ISP account, and sometimes to a computer, but that’s about it. These measures would affect all users of an internet connection alike. What happens to people in houses of multiple occupation? Home businesses? Public wifi hotspots?

Is it right for all the users of an internet connection to be punished because of the actions of one person?

Unaccountable and Illiberal

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these measures are almost completely unaccountable. The Secretary of State is empowered to decide when technical measures are necessary. A private body collects evidence and supplies it to another private body, which supplies that evidence to a Quango who are empowered to remove people from the internet. Where are the courts? Who evaluates the evidence? Where is my right to confront my accusers? Where is the due process?

Why do we keep letting the executive pass laws which bypass the courts and place judicial powers in the hands of ministers? It makes me so angry I could spit.

What you should do

  • Write to your MP. Now. Go! Draw this consultation to their attention. Ask them to do all they can to oppose these measures.
  • Respond to the consultation
  • Join the Open Rights Group, who fight against this stuff every day.
  • Spread the word: blog this, tweet about it, post stuff on facebook. Tell your friends. Put it in your email signature. Make sure people notice.

Photo by DeaPeaJay

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Write to your MP about ID cards!

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do that. I fruitlessly wrote to my MP, David Lepper, while the ID cards bill was being voted on. Unfortunately, he never saw sense.

In any case, No2ID are raising the alert: a batch of regulations are being laid before Parliament next month which provide a lot of details about the scheme’s implementation. These regulations must be approved by MPs before they are passed, which means a vote — and which means that the time has once again come to write to your MP and ask them to vote against the regulations. From No2ID, here they are:

Please: write to your MP now and ask them to vote against these regulations next month — especially if you have a Labour MP.

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