The recent party conferences suggest that attempts to gain
political ground by being IT-friendly are on the wane. Bill Jacobs
reports
As Labour sweats it out in the opinion polls, the Internet and
the e-revolution are obviously not quite the buzzwords they once
were for Tony Blair. And neither do they have the same glittering
attraction they hadheld for the opposition.
Nevertheless, the prime minister repeated his commitment to
making the UK fully electronically connected and IT-literate as a
key part of his agenda for Labour's second term. Blair put the
issue first in his assessment of what the Government was achieving
- it was just a pity the figures were not new.
The chancellor Gordon Brown announced new tax breaks to lure
high-tech companies to inner-city areas and deprived parts of the
UK - and then trade and industry secretary Stephen Byers announced
them again. These will be heavily skewed towards high-tech firms in
fields such as electronics, IT and communications, although Byers
was vague as to exactly what these incentives might be. Byers also
promised a raft of measures to boost IT and other high-tech
industries in the regions.
But perhaps the most significant contribution came on the
conference fringe, where e-commerce minister Patricia Hewitt said
civil servants will have to change their attitude to modern
technology.
She told lobby group the Parliamentary Information Technology
Committee that the bureaucratic mindset of top officials in
Whitehall would have to go. They see paperwork as a way of
regulating the flow of information and keeping ministers under
control.
But a new knowledge network that will link 22 government
departments and agencies, due to go live next month, could change
all that, Hewitt said. Its aim is to allow ministers and civil
servants to "extract information from other government departments
without having to go through other lengthy channels'' and provide
ministers with information "immediately instead of several weeks
later in red boxes''.
Calling the current paper system "a nightmare'', Hewitt promised
"powerful incentives'' for people to use the new network and meet
the prime minister's "pretty heroic'' target of 2005 for
e-government.
So it seems that Labour's attempt to get political currency by
being IT-friendly is on the wane. Just a year ago Blair wrote in
Computer Weekly that IT is vital to UK business, following a flurry
of Internet-related initiatives and targets. The issue, if not
quite pushed to the fringes, is certainly no longer centre
stage.
But for the Liberal Democrats the world of IT and e-commerce
scarcely existed at all. In as far as it did impinge on their
Bournemouth conference - the opening event of the seaside silly
season - it was seen as an opportunity to work up a lather about
civil liberties. The Government's Regulat-ion of Investigatory
Powers Act was an attack on people's rights to be as liberal as
they like in the privacy of the World-Wide Web.
To end the party conference season, the Tories made attempts to
be more IT-friendly than their rivals. William Hague mentioned the
electronic and IT revolutions twice in his keynote speech, which
was Webcast to the world.
Hague said, "Our language is the global language of the new
economy.'' It turned out that this rather meaningless phrase was in
any case just a hook to launch into why Britain must keep the
pound, oppose European integration and "stay British".
The other reference was more instructive of where the
Conservative party is going on the e-revolution.
Attacking the Govern-ment's stealth taxes, the Tory leader
referred obliquely to the IR35 row. "Wanting to pay less tax isn't
greedy. The young software consultant that I met who shook his head
as he talked of his plans to move abroad because of the stealth
taxes he now faces wasn't being greedy," Hague said. "He just can't
understand how this country can ever succeed if he is being taxed
out of work in an era when business can go anywhere in the world
and we need innovators so badly.''
Once again, high-tech was being used as a peg - this time to
attack Labour on tax.
But the substance behind Hague's political rhetoric was made
clear when David Heathcoat-Amory, promoted to shadow trade and
industry secretary in one of the least noticed front-bench
reshuffles in political history, refused to give any details of
what a Tory government would do on the issue.
While the party clearly wants to give the impression that it
will scrap IR35, the reality is that shadow chancellor Michael
Portillo has vetoed such an announcement while he works out his tax
policies in detail. They will be revealed nearer the general
election, leaving Heathcoat-Amory on a very sticky wicket as he was
tackled on the issue time and again at fringe meetings.
Heathcoat-Amory did come up with one major Ann Widdecombe-style
policy blunder, floating the idea of merging the Inland Revenue and
Customs & Excise to reduce the regulatory burden on small
businesses.
This caused astonishment among high-tech experts because of the
huge problems that would result in merging the two bodies' computer
systems - the Inland Revenue's is run by Texan services giant EDS
and the Excise's by Andersen.
Heathcoat-Amory limited himself to just one IT reference in his
main conference speech when he said, "There are huge opportunities
for this country from the electronic revolution, the Internet and
e-commerce. These technologies are outward looking, tariff-busting,
distance conquering and they all use the English language. They are
not just liberating technologies themselves, they also reinforce
Britain's position and history as a global trader.''
It was left to Heathcoat-Amory's deputy Alan Duncan to do the
detailed work on the new electronic, communications and IT age. He
demanded deregulation to allow the new industries to prosper and
preened the party's feathers on its success in curbing the
Govern-ment's worst excesses by action in parliament.
At one major high-tech fringe meeting, Duncan said, "Last year,
despite being heavily outnumbered in the Commons, we forced the
Government to publish its e-commerce bill in draft.
"Thanks to us, businesses in the new economy were able to be
consulted properly instead of having legislation imposed on them by
an arrogant government. Thanks to us, Labour was forced to cut the
Bill in half and concentrate on the bit that mattered. Thanks to
us, the Bill was improved significantly in committee.
"The development of the Web ranks with those major milestones
which have shaped our civilisation. E-commerce is dramatically
changing the face of business. As far as we are concerned, the
Internet did not need government to get it going - and the last
thing it needs is government to get in the way. We favour the
minimum of intervention and the maximum possible freedom.
"On taking office, we will review the state of local Internet
connections and the charges that go with them. We will speed up the
DTI's procedures for granting licences to new telecoms operators.
We will consider establishing a single regulator for digital
broadcast and telecoms."
Despite his valiant efforts, the phrase that comes to mind after
the entire conference season is Hague's magnificent piece of
tautology regarding the once-trendy New Labour. "Nothing is more
unfashionable than a fashion that's out of fashion," he
declared.
And the new world of IT and the related high-tech industries are
now clearly last year's political fashion.