Open Government
This the blogging equivalent of assorted notes jotted onto a piece of paper. You are forewarned.
There should be an RSS feed of new items placed in the House of Commons Library. None of this surreptitious “quietly slipped the written answer in while nobody was paying attention” lark.
TV content from the Commons, the Lords and the various Select Committees should be produced by Parliament itself, and distributed under “Crown Commons” (or similar). BBC Parliament should just be a convenient way to get at it.
Obviously, Westminster doesn’t have too much experience in TV production, so this would get outsourced. Presumably to the BBC or ITV. This wouldn’t make a huge amount of difference to the taxpayer, given that 90% of us (or whatever the current figure is) fund BBC Parliament as it is.
The side-effect of this is that there could be a video archive of Westminster proceedings. A video Hansard if you will. You could do audio, too. Distributed freely to anybody who wants it. Podcast in iTunes or Miro? You got it. Clips on YouTube? Fine. Freeview should just be one distribution channel of many.
