Rory Stewart

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/04/maria-millers-great-hypocrisy-representing-people

If, as some people think, Rory is a snob, I wish you could have heard him talking about his trip to Afganistan. He was there on his own with no support.
He ate and slept in ordinary Afgan homes. Not something I could do.
The press are jumping on him because people are beginning to notice him. And the press, red or blue likes a rebel.

A snob wouldn't be able to connect with people the way that he does and he has a genuine interest in people from all walks of society. I wish the series could have been longer because I felt last nights programme had to cram an awful lot of stuff into an hour. I have throughly enjoyed it and it has made me think a lot about the issues he's raised. I agree that he's a self publicist of the highest order, though but there's nothing wrong with ambition.

Tegan I think self-publicising is the norm these days and not just for politicians.
Forty years ago professionals contented themselves with a small brass plate outside their premises, and possibly a small advert in the Yellow Pages.
The Internet changed all that and anyone who doesn't have an all-singing all-dancing website and/or a blog is consigning themselves to oblivion.

I guess you have to be a twit not to Twitter these days ; which means I now have to google 'Rory Stewart twitter'. However, is it just me but if I check someone out on Twitter I feel as if I'm stalking them in some way ?

No, it's not just you Tegan. I find twitter a step out of my comfort zone. Twitter seems like a good name for it to me

Same here, Tegan and iam. I also think that MPs should take their jobs more seriously. What's worse than tweeting is retweeting, great long lists of repetition. Such a waste of time and space.

Most MPs do take their job seriously and most MPs are not in the news much.

A thought: does Twitter take up any actual three dimensional space?

Takes up space on the internet, on every website I go on, so presumably two dimensional, and takes up the fourth dimension, time, but not enough of that, with people like Shapps tweeting the first thing that comes into his head.

You don't have to follow any of that though. It needn't take up your time. Those whose time it does "take up" have chosen to have it so. It's called democracy.

Space on the internet?

It clearly doesn't impose itself on me when I go on the interenet because i don't know who or what this Shapps person is. Obviously not that famous and all-intrusive. There are ways of avoiding what you don't like, you know.

I had heard of Grant Shapps but was never interested enough by what I heard to look him up on the stuffed full internet until just now. Conservative Party Chairman. Big deal. I'll continue not to follow him on Twitter. You have that choice too.

Agree Bags.
Jen, complaining that people take up 'space' on the Internet with their tweets is a bit like complaining that the newspapers are full of rubbish, but continuing to buy them.

I didn't do that, Jane. What I said was that tweeting was a waste of time and space. It's a waste of the time that MPs should be using to do more important things.
Bags, I do not follow anyone on twitter, but it cannot be avoided.
I just saw an item on the news about opencast mining in Northumberland. UKCoal are trying to get planning permission to opencast four new sites in the North East, despite the fact that they are in liquidation. The government refuses to comment on it, as does UKCoal.
If I want to comment on it on the local newspaper's website, I have to open a Facebook or twitter account. My voice cannot be heard locally, even though one of the sites is five minutes drive away, and another one ten minutes drive.

Well Jen I think it depends what they are tweeting.
We may not like it, but lots of younger people use the Internet (blogs, youtube etc)almost exclusively to read and form opinions, so if an MP is using Twitter to engage with younger people I think that's a good thing.

If they are tweeting frivolous things, as long as it is not offensive in any way, why shouldn't they? We can't expect them to be doing serious, work/type stuff 24/7 365 days a year.

Which local newspaper are you referring to?

I do not think they should be tweeting in the House of Commons when they supposed to be listening to a serious debate, not that many of them do listen. Most of them just turn up for the vote.

Bags, Shapps was the idiot who tweeted about the beer and bingo ad, after the last budget and caused quite a furore. I really do not know how you could have missed that.

Jane, it's the Journal. If you read an article it says you can comment by clicking on the link below. When you do that, it says you have to sign on with your Facebook account, or you can follow on twitter.

Jen you're doing better than me.
I looked at a couple of articles on the Journal website ( a new super-authority for the NE and the Duke of Northmberland selling paintings to pay for the flood damage at Newburn) and couldn't even see any comments, let alone work out how to leave one with either my Twitter or FB accounts!

www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/calls-north-east-opencast-plans-6933067
Here you are Jane. It was on the BBC news tonight. It has a link to the Pont Valley website with a petition on it to stop the opencast.

One of the local sites for opencast is just up the road to where I live it is previously derelict land spoiled by old mine workings and nothing look at but adjacent to it there are two small housing developments of really nice new houses (way out of my price range)but I cant help sympathising with the owners about the mess, noise and pollution so near their homes.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about the beer and bingo tweet. I didn't miss that indirectly but I did dismiss it fairly quickly, though I read one or two serious articles about its ramifications. But other than what is forced upon one's notice of such toerags, one really can avoid nearly all of their nonsense, so I know nothing more about The Chap Shapps, nor do I feel the need to know any more at the moment so he takes up none of my space and almost none of my time (only that time that I (ahem) 'waste' in discussions like this on gransnet) {you know that's tongue in cheek GNHQ }

Why can,t you write to your MP about things that concern you in your local area, you know, in the old fashioned snail mail way that people used to voice their concerns before Twitter and Facebook. Snail mail still works, you know, and it can be very effective.

Presumably a mine would bring some employment to the area?