I’m not going to cover the Bill (or Act as it now is) as there is plenty of very well written stuff out there however I thought it worth mentioning the brief discussion I have had with Michael Fallon, our MP for Sevenoaks and Swanley.

I had originally sent Michael an email on Apr 7th at 18:25, the day of the vote requesting details on why he had according to published sources failed like so many MPs to show for the previous night’s discussions on the Bill.  By 19:44 Michael had written back stating the reports were not only wrong, he had in fact attended but that he also had voted against the second reading of the Bill.

Needless to say I apologised for the incorrect assertion he had not and indeed requested the source of the attendance report to be amended.

Today a formal letter arrived from Michael, you can read it below.  And excusing the minor grammatical omission on the first line he makes it quite clear that the Conservative Party Line was against the Bill by enclosing a statement to party members from Jeremy Hunt – who both spoke and opposed the Bill.  Those I have attached also.

Last night the BBC showed the latest Janet Street-Porter doco, looking at the future for print media – specifically newspapers.

Now I will admit I only caught the last 15 minutes or so and would love to hear from anyone who saw the whole thing.

From what little I did see there seemed to be little acknowledgement that it’s not the internet or expectation that online media should be free but rather the reliance upon out dated advertising models that poses the biggest threat to the printed media industry.

Did it touch on this?

UPDATE:  Doc Searles has just posted a piece on the Project VRM blog about just this.  Importantly he proposes a system called PayChoice which would afford readers the ability to easily pay for content on their own terms not just the archaic one-sided options talked about and lauded by the traditional press.