Hip Hoppin’ Bloggin’ MPs at Deadpoet’s Cave

So, our born-after-~~separation~~-independence Members of Parilament are dancing and blogging to connect with youths.

The Rambling Librarian is surprised at the lack of vitriol directed at the new blogging effort. He concedes that it is early days yet. I think some are reserving their comments until they see more of what the P65 MPs blog about.

If they go down the same road as Teo Ho Pin, then the P65 blog will suffer the same fate as MP Teo’s old blog. Mr Wang has already pointed out how politicians can blog effectively. Going by what has been written in today’s Straits Times article about the P65 blog (click ‘Continue reading’ below), his advice seems to have been ignored.

Still, there is hope. In one post, Baey Yam Keng talks about the Singapore Biennale, heritage and conservation. It’s on a personal level, but it’s a start. Hopefully, he will expand on this in the future.

Here’s my first real criticism: Get rid of the fancy colourful design. If you visit via permalinks (e.g. click the Baey Yam Keng link above) in the P65 blog, all you get is a decontextualized plain-vanilla page.

More about the P65 blog at tomorrow.sg.

Before the Straits Times article, a short extract of a eeriely timely post by Shel Israel from the Naked Conversations blog:

[T]here is a growing number of candidates and office holders who blog. Some, like the president of Iran may have unseen controls on what people say but he has the guts and wisdom to use his blog, as he has stated, to at least apparently hear the voices of his people.

The Iranian president’s views are not all that different than David Miliband, the young and promising blogging cabinet secretary in the UK’s Blair Administration, who wrote that his blog is his “attempt to help bridge the gap - the growing and potentially dangerous gap - between politicians and the public. It will show some of what I’m doing, what I’m thinking about, and what I’ve read, heard or seen for myself which has sparked interest or influenced my ideas. My focus will be on my ministerial priorities and I will be sticking to the ministerial rules about collective responsibility. I will read and, as often as I can, respond to people’s comments on my posts. So please use this site as a notice board for new thought.”

So, to today’s ST article:

P65 MPs launch blog site to connect with young netizens
Site will reflect the 12 MPs’ personal side so youths can get to know them better

FROM dialogues to grooving to hip hop tunes, a group of new People’s Action Party MPs are not letting up in their bid to be more in sync with Singapore’s young.

Their latest effort has taken them online - a blog site that will contain posts by the 12 MPs born after Singapore’s independence in 1965 and who form the P65 team.

The aim, said Sembawang GRC MP Lim Wee Kiak, 37, is to link up with Net-savvy youngsters who get the bulk of their information online, and who might prefer sharing their views there.

‘It is really to show our more personal, non-political side, so they can get to know us. And from the comments, we can perhaps feel the ground a bit better,’ he said.

There are no set rules about what MPs can blog about, or how often they submit posts.

Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC MP Teo Ser Luck, 38, does not see the site as a place to debate policy, but as one where MPs can put down thoughts and ideas on just about anything, such as their constituency work and causes they support.

‘We may share our views on policies, but not to the extent where we debate whether a policy is right or wrong,’ said the Parliamentary Secretary (Community Development, Youth and Sports). ‘There are other platforms for doing that, such as Parliament and formal dialogues.’

The P65.sg blog, labelled It’s Where We Talk, went live yesterday. It has pictures of the 12 MPs which readers can click on to see their posts.

As of last night, five MPs - Hong Kah GRC MP Zaqy Mohamad, Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Baey Yam Keng, Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC MP Michael Palmer, Holland-Bukit Timah GRC MP Christopher de Souza, and Marine Parade GRC MP Faishal Ibrahim - had posted on topics ranging from conservation of old buildings to the hip hop dance demonstration the P65 team did on Tuesday. They will perform it at next year’s Chingay festival.

At least one blogger and blogger bulletin have already noted the site in their posts and spread the word about it to other netizens.

Mr de Souza, 30, quipped that he had to pen two drafts of his ‘first ever’ blog post to get the informal tone down pat. ‘I see this as a reflection of what MPs achieve on a weekly basis. Youngsters can see this without having to come to dialogues, or Meet-the-People Sessions,’ he said.

Mr de Souza is the youngest MP on the P65 team, which has been tasked by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong with connecting better with Singapore’s post-independence generation - the group that will form the bulk of voters at the next general election.

Of the P65 MPs, only three - Mr Teo, Dr Lim and East Coast GRC MP Jessica Tan - are experienced bloggers. They have personal blogs but declined to reveal the sites, saying they preferred to keep these private.

Other MPs have also begun blogging. Foreign Minister George Yeo, for instance, has been blogging on two sites, belonging to a grassroots leader and a friend. The Aljunied GRC MP has written about constituency events and meetings he attended in Cuba and the United Nations.

Northwest District Mayor Teo Ho Pin plans to launch a new blog, ‘hopefully in about a month’. He started www.teohopin.blogspot.com earlier this year, but closed it after the May election. ‘My blog wasn’t that hot, so now I’m thinking of ways to make the content more interesting, to reach out to my younger residents,’ the Bukit Panjang MP said with a laugh.

He wrote about community happenings in the old blog, but residents had a slightly different take on it. He recalled that some used his site to complain about bus services in the area, for example.

‘I think the blog should be a place where views are exchanged, and some feedback is given. But not a place where solutions are offered. For that, residents can e-mail the town council or the MP directly.’

lynnlee@sph.com.sg

Straits Times, Thursday 5 October 2006
(emphases added)