Wandered over to a debate in Parliament yesterday evening entitled “The Internet: Saviour or Corruptor of Democracy?” with a panel of various new and old media types.

The panel was made up of Nick Robinson (BBC Political Editor); Peter Kellner (YouGov); Grant Shapps MP (Shadow Minister for Housing); Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes blog) and Michael White (The Guardian). The Chair was Danny Alexander MP.

I was hoping for two things from the debate – one, to learn about ideas and thoughts re the debate topic. However, to be honest, the other draw was the chance to see Paul Staines sparing again with Michael White and Nick Robinson – who he seems to have a rather fraught relationship.

True to form, the opening statements from the panellists swiftly degenerated into personal animosity between the three of them – which is amusing, but hardly informative.

Grant Shapps I thought was the most open minded about the whole concept of using the internet as a channel to talk to his constituents – although quite of lot of people expressed the usual concern that too many politicians use internet publishing tools as just A.N.Other broadcasting tool, and ignore the opportunities for two-way conversations.

I notice an increasing number of politicians using Twitter, and some do engage really well with other users, and some just use it as a broadcast tool to spit out news to all and sundry. I do slightly worry that people expect MPs who have Twitter to respond to every single comment fired at them, and that is unfair.

The other area where old media journalists just “don’t get it” is that Twitter can be conversational and it actually is nice to hear boring politicians using Twitter to chat with people and have non-political conversations. Grant Shapps has been told off by the media for daring to have a private life, and Tom Harris MP has faced the same problems.

Peter Kellner expressed this concern in a different way and suggested that if this goes too far, then people might actually start wanting to bypass MPs and seek direct democracy – with referendums on everything. He warned that would probably result in the instant return of the death penalty, where MPs are certainly out of step with public opinion – although I would have drawn more comparisons with the State of California where nearly perpetual referendums have almost ruined the State as a functioning entity.

I agree that direct democracy is bad, but doubt people want it as it is just too much hard work. We like to outsource the responsibility to MPs, and we can them blame them when things go wrong. In a society with a lot more direct democracy, we have to accept the blame for mistakes we make and I doubt many people will like that idea.

Nick Robinson seemed to me to be interested in the potential of the many strands of communication that the internet offers, but seemed more frustrated by the sheer amount of noise that it engenders. The internet phenomenon of trolls and sock-puppets also distressed him, and the panel agreed with the implications he raised. I read a heck of a lot of political blogs, but now rarely read the comments as they do often seem to bring to attract the most extremes of the political spectrum. I get the impression that Nick Robinson could become a huge advocate, but needs more time to work out a how he can be more comfortable with the medium.

I’ll be blunt about Michael White, who came across as incredibly arrogant though the whole evening and seemed to be really of the opinion that anyone who is not a “pwopper” journalist is just scum to be ignored. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just felt that he treated everyone with disdain and anyone who doesn’t get on the floor and do the “we’re not worthy” bow when meeting him is being disrespectful.

Throughout the debate, those of us in the room were using twitter to comment on the points being raised – as were people following the Twitter debate from elsewhere. A big screen was set up in the room so that everyone could see the (unmoderated) comments as they flowed down the screen. A bit like the weekly PMQs chat on Twitter, some of it was good, some funny, and some was just trolling.

While the evening was highly enjoyable, especially the evident animosity between several panellists, the problem is that I left the evening with actually only one comment that was at all interesting. Grant Shapps MP is aiming to have collected the email addresses of around 20% of his constituents before the next election and wants to use that as a tool to speak (and hopefully, listen) direct to his constituents.

Considering the huge success the Obama campaign had in the USA using emails as an additional route to talk to activists – it is surprising that this was the first time I had heard of a UK politician expressing an explicit “sales target” for collecting email addresses. Of course, the downside is that bulk email sending is much more complex than sending a few emails, and if the IT side is not managed properly, then he could find everything being blocked by ISP spam filters, who keep a rather closer eye on bulk-email senders than on private individuals.

The whole evening was basically how the internet changes the rules for news publishers – and a bit about use of email and social networking websites.

For me though, the BIG and exciting opportunity for the internet to improve democracy is in the very nature of what democracy is. A democratic nation is one where the electorate hold the elected to account and can remove them when necessary.

To hold MPs accountable we need information – and while blogs etc are improving that to a degree, the real change could come from, to use some buzz-words, the power of mashups, crowdsourcing and open data.

Governments sit on a vast pile of information, statistics etc which are not available to the general public to look at, or when available are limited and in weird computer formats.

A good example of how the internet improves things was the day the expenses were finally published by Parliament – in a slightly odd PDF file format and with most of the information blacked out. The Guardian newspaper had a crowdsourcing tool up and running that let the general public flick through the files and flag up anything of interest. Something that couldn’t have been done (easily) by the newspaper on its own.

That is one specific example – but what if most government data was made available online, in machine readable code so that anyone can take it and do anything with it . Obviously personally identifiable stuff would be blocked.

People can sit at home and play with the numbers, throw them against other numbers and see what happens. Most of the results of this will be banal, stupid or plain mischievous – but someone, somewhere will do something that no one else ever thought of. Their pie chart will make us all sit up and gasp – and it will change government policy.

To me that is the most exciting opportunity for how the internet can boost democracy, and slowly (very slowly) that is starting to happen in some government departments.

Thanks to the Henry Jackson Society who provided me my ticket, and to co-organiser, DelibConsults. Some other bloggers who were there include, the aforementioned Delib, ToryBear and Guido Fawkes.

Update – Grant Shapps has added his opinion to the Conservative Blog.

The bike hire scheme being launched next year is one of those transport ideas that I like, a lot.

I was looking forward to cycling into the West End, dropping off the bike and staggering home on the tube via several pubs. Alas, the first phase doesn’t actually cover where I live.

Still, I applaud the concept.

However, I am a bit confused as to why the service is being advertised today on the Google advertising network – nearly a year before it is even ready.

The advert seems to point to just the generic cycling page on the TfL website, which in itself isn’t too bad as it promotes options available today, with a smallish link to next year’s hire scheme. But that then means the headline text is a bit misleading, and people clicking on it to learn about the cycle hire scheme they can’t currently use would not be taken directly to the suitable page on the TfL website.

Weird.

As much as a admire the Victorians for many achievements, they did have two rather annoying habits. One was to rewrite, or at least censor ancient history when they discovered the supposedly enlightened folk were rather keen on Bacchanalian propensities. Equally, while old traditions were carried out, only if they were by good upstanding persons, if the rude masses should try to hold a fair or party, such things would be frowned upon if not outright banned.

One such victim of the Victorian prudishness was a long standing Horn Fair held at Charlton – which was suppressed in 1874 due to the drunken antics therein. The fair was resurrected in 1973 but is a much more sedate (aka, family friendly) affair now.

In the 1820s’ Daniel Defoe wrote of the fair: The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify’d the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.

Ouch!

The Horn Fair has a somewhat dubious, if licentious history.

Peter Cunningham, in his Handbook of London, thus gives his version of the story:

“King John, wearied with hunting on Shooter’s Hill and Blackheath, entered the house of a miller at Charlton to refresh and rest himself. He found no one at home but the miller’s wife, young, it is said, and beautiful. The miller, it so happened, was earlier in coming home than was usual when he went to Greenwich with his meal; and red and raging at what he saw on his return, he drew his knife. The king being unarmed, thought it prudent to make himself known, and the miller, only too happy to think it was no baser individual, asked a boon of the king. The king consented, and the miller was told to clear his eyes, and claim the long strip of land he could see before him on the Charlton side of the river Thames. The miller cleared his eyes, and saw as far as the point near Rotherhithe. The king then admitted the distance, and the miller was put into possession of the property on one condition – that he should walk annually on that day, the 18th of October, to the farthest bounds of the estate with a pair of buck’s horns upon his head.”

Although it was a common tradition that the husband of an unfaithful wife should wear horns on his head as a mark of shame, I have some difficulty with the tale, as the idea that a King would grant a mere miller a swathe of land as vast as claimed for just one shag. Also if such a single (and hence incredibly rich) landowner actually did exist, then it would be recorded, and no such records exist.

Equally, the fair used to be held around mid-summer and was only moved to October around the 17th Century.

Despite saying that – there could just possibly be a related bit of history which could explain how such a legend arose.

When the famous Magna Carta was issued to King John, as part of the subsequent editing process, a lesser known Magna Charta de Foresta also emerged a couple of years later. This secondary document relaxed a large number of laws which made it almost a capital offence to hunt in the forests, which were solely the preserve of the Monarch. The forests and lands belonging to the Monarch had been greatly expanded, causing considerable anger among the populace, so the law also reduced the size of the land controlled by the Monarch, making it available for common folk to use.

It seems to me that the tale about King John granting land to a commoner is related in style to the actual law that his son signed just a few years later – which had a not dissimilar effect.

When the law was signed by King Henry III, there was considerable rejoicing – and it is possible that the Charlton Horn Fair owes its origins to those celebrations. There ware various other Horn Fairs dotted around the country, and a good many of them all seem to date from charters granted during King Henry III’s reign, and certainly the Charlton Horn Fair can be traced back that far as well, although its exact origins are uncertain.

The Horn aspect has been linked by some commentators to earlier pagan traditions, but another aspect of the Magna Charta de Foresta was to reduce the fines on hunting and encourage the reduction of earlier New Forests. The link between the law and hunting could explain the popularity of wearing horns, to show that the commoner has been allowed to hunt freely.

No one is really sure, and I am speculating about the link with King Henry’s laws – although I do rather like my idea

The Charlton fair seemed to reach its zenith in popularity during the Restoration period, and flotillas of boats would fill the Thames as they brought revellers down from London to Charlton – often in fancy dress or cross-dressing and wearing horns. William Fuller wrote in 1703: “I remember being there upon Horn Fair day, I was dressed in my landlady’s best gown and other women’s attire, and to Horn Fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the clothes were spoilt by dirty water etc. that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas to make atonement for the damage sustained.”

Cross-dressing seemed to be a very important part of the festivities.

While the fair itself was restored in the 1970s, the parade from Cuckold’s Point in Rotherhithe has remained notably missing – until today that is.

This morning, the procession from Cuckold’s Point to Charlton was resurrected – and I went along to watch.

The procession started fortuitously close to where I live, albeit on the other side of the river and after starting roughly where Cuckold’s Point would have been, progressed largely along the riverside blowing horns and banging drums.

Locals came out to watch this madcap gang of men in drag and a lady wearing horns pushing along a decorated wheel while a few photographers, myself included ran around the place trying to take photos.

Some passers by joined in the fun – and some did not.

They took a detour in the Surrey Docks city farm, which is directly opposite my flat (I can usually hear the cows), and I took a slight detour away to get a good vantage point by a tiny, if rather pretty alleyway known as Randall’s Rents (The Greenwich Phantom should have a look!). This is a row of former workers houses for people working in the local docks and is thought to be one of the oldest parts of Rotherhithe still standing.

Then round the docks and eventually about an hour later they stopped at the Dog and Bull for lunch, where I left them. Today there about 20 people in the procession – and maybe one day it will grow in size to match the earlier times when hundreds of people would progress to Charlton.

Being more than a little off-colour over the weekend, and exhausted from trotting around on a hot morning, I didn’t pick up the procession when it restarted or go over to Charlton, although I gather a local blogger was there today.

My full photo collection – as usual over at Flickr.

Two other recently resurected traditions that those charming Victorians frowned upon are the Jack in the Green and Easter Chair Heaving.

Those fine chaps (and chapesses) over at the London Parks & Gardens Trust, who organise the annual Open Gardens Squares Weekend have launched a new project to create an online database of every notable garden and park in London.

The 3-year project commenced in December 2008 and will be completed by late 2011, with new research, photography and historic images brought in to illustrate the entries.

In the first instance it includes core information on sites on the Inventory Database, which now comprises over 2430 entries, and these are gradually being uploaded.

They say that they wanted to make some information available now and to give people a taster of the full website, but they’d also like to encourage people to contribute comments, knowledge and feedback – so if you know about a garden or park (or geekish database knowledge), here is your chance to contribute to the project.

Details over at the The London Gardens Online Project

An FYI – on Friday 26th June 2009, there is due to be a flypast over Tower Bridge sometime between 12-1pm as part of the London Armed Forces Day.

I haven’t been able to confirm who is doing the flypast, and the usual suspects are either elsewhere, or their diaries are empty. Nonetheless, might be worth wandering over to watch.

There will be events all afternoon next to Tower Bridge as well – along with a Veterans parade over Tower Bridge at 12:15. There will also be a canon salute from the Tower of London during the parade.

Details here.