Ed Vaizey

The debate about the Downing Street e-petition goes like this.  99 per cent say “Doh!  What idiots they are at number Ten.  They put up an e-petition and the whole country piles in to attack their policies.  The smart ones - ie Tim Montgomerie - quietly point out that Downing Street now has 3 million verified e-mail addresses which they can legitimately follow up at Government expense.  See this Guardian piece here where Tim makes the point.  I can guarantee that if you signed an e-petition in the last two months, you will receive two pieces of Government propaganda in the next two years…

Just returned from my six day husky sled across the north of Sweden and Finland.  Rather than bore you with too many details, look at Tania Branigan’s blog/podcast/slideshow HERE.  I am happy to report the following:

(a) I raised something in the region of £10,000 for Crimestoppers and the Oxfordshire Community Foundation

(b) It was hard work - freezing cold (minus 30 or thereabouts) and long treks of about 60 miles

(c) I was easily the most unpopular MP as I whinged all the way

(d) Tobias Ellwood was probably the most popular as he is ex-army and basically led us through

(e) No Lib-Con pact on the horizon - Nick Clegg ain’t budging

(f) best moment was when Emily Tornberry fell off the top of an igloo - but she is a wonderful lady who was cheerful throughout.

(g) I am never doing anything like this again.

The recess is here, and for reasons I still cannot work out, I am using it to go on a five day husky trek across the Arctic, thus missing Valentine’s Day and Joseph.  Oh yes, I remember, it is to raise money for Crimestoppers and a local charity, the Oxfordshire Community Foundation.  If you want to sponsor me, go to http://www.justgiving.com/edvaizey

I am going with one other Tory MP, two Lib Dems and one Labour MP.  And a Guardian journalist.  And an ITN film crew.  Apparently the trip is carbon neutral.  Some may deem it unnecessary as a cycle ride from West London to Westminster in the current weather is definitely as arduous and as worth sponsoring.  Having survived that today, the Arctic will be a doddle.

Another day, another royal visit.  Shilpa Shetty (and her mother) came to the House of Commons, among scenes of controlled pandemonium.  The visit was organised by Labour MP Keith Vaz.  Later today, Keith is taking Shilpa to visit his constituency in Leicester.  As  I write, apparently 5,000 people are already waiting for her arrival there.

Shilpa watched Prime Minister’s Questions, and afterwards met the Prime Minister, who told her she had behaved with “great dignity” during her time in the Big Brother House.  Then on to a lunch where she met Tessa Jowell, Peter Hain, Hazel Blears, Rob Wilson, David Amess and others. Oh, and I was there as well.

When Shilpa went into the Big Brother House, I said on this blog that I thought it would be a great boost for Anglo-Indian relations.  Despite the roller coaster ride and the criticism levelled at the show, I think that has proved to be the case.  As one of my Indian friends said to me, Britain has won, by showing to Indian eyes that we believe in fair play.  India has won, by reminding us (if we needed it) that India is a civilised and cultured country.

Given that result, I am not sure Channel 4 deserves the opporbrium heaped upon it.  The show provoked an important debate, and opened eyes to the good and the bad in the UK.  IT may be approaching its sell-by date, but it still has a way of breaking new ground that very few television programmes are capable of.

Screaming schoolgirls, hundreds of paparazzi, nose to tail limos.  Just another typical opening night for an exhibition at one of our national museums…No, it wasn’t Hogarth at the Tate, but Kylie at the V&A, and it was crazy.

The Queen of Pop made an entrance worthy of the Queen herself, to open an exhibition of her costumes, photographs and CD covers.  It was a cross between the Harrods sale and a bad day at Heathrow, and I realised I was already too old for my new job as I began to think the music was too loud and there were too many people.

Is it art?  Or to be more accurate, as the V&A is the home of design and costume, is it appropriate?  It’s a legitimate question to ask, especially as the V&A has been in this territory before (an ace Caff with quite a nice museum attached…).  The answer, of course, is an emphatic yes.  It’s a celebration of pop culture, a homage to a remarkable story, and a reminder that the pop industry is one of the manufactures, an enormous, and enormously professional and creative industry.  But above all, it’s just really good fun.  It will draw the crowds, make the place less formidable, and open minds.  Not only is it worth doing, it’s worth doing more of.

So far, I have avoided paying Ken’s congestion charge.  Last week, it became unavoidable.  Well, not unavoidable, but driving in made life a lot easier. It was Joseph’s first visit to the House of Commons, to prepare him for a life in public service.  As he cannot walk yet, nor use an Oyster card, and he was being accompanied by his mother, grandmother and great uncle, it seemed easier to drive.

I duly paid the congestion charge, and kept a receipt.  I had heard stories of people being charged penalties even though they had paid.  Imagine my glee when a penalty notice duly arrived today.  Ah ha!  I thought.  The stories are true.  I’ll have fun with this.

Joy turned to tragedy when I realised that we had used my car, but I had entered my wife’s index number in the CCharge machine.  I don’t think the powers that be will accept my excuse.  My first congestion charge has cost me £58.  I won’t be driving in again.  But then I guess that’s the point… 

I spent this morning at Will Alsop’s iconic library in Peckham.  It is perched, like an insect, on large stilts, and provides Peckham with a sort of civic centre. While it is fabulous to look at, and has a wonderful interior, including amazing pod like structures, it has also been criticised for various failings (such as being too hot in the summer). Nevertheless, it gets 400,000 visitors a year and lends 250,000 books and DVDs.

I am going to be spending some time visiting libraries all round the country, as I contemplate how a future Conservative government might rejuvenate the sector.

The House of Commons library is exceptional, and the first one I have used since I was a student.  But I still remember the excitement I had as a kid when I used to go to the library to borrow books - it made you feel really grown up and in control.   Nowadays, the role of libraries is under scrutiny. What do they give you that Waterstone’s and Amazon cannot.  The answers are obvious - a community space and centre; a chance for people to be introduced to books when books are not the norm at home; a place to study.

I had a refreshing chat with the head of Southwark libraries.  There is no doubt that there is huge room for innovation in the sector, and there can be a lot of cross-fertilisation between book sellers and the techniques they use.  But we also have to remember that libraries will always have to serve those who cannot use mainstream facilites, such as braille and large print books.  It will also be important that libraries in the future are integrated into other council services, and do not exist as a service apart.

I’m going to stop now.  I’m beginning to sound like Richard SPring.

Like you, I have seen Pamela Andeson advertising telly on your mobile.  But to those in the know, that’s not really telly on your mobile.  It is DAB on your mobile.  Real telly on your mobile (are you still with me?) is, apparently, DVBH or something like that.  Anyway, it is a lot better quality and wildly sophisticated in terms of interactivity and advertising opportunities.  Apparently it is big in Italy, because spectrum has been made available, and it will soon be big in France.  But in the UK, there is still endless consultation before the right spectrum will become available.  So if things carry on as they are, the French and the Italians will watch the London Olympics on their mobile - and the Brits will watch it wherever they can find a telly.  I hope this is not another competitive advantage lost through Government dithering. 

I had a meeting with the video games industry yesterday.  The last time I played a video game was space invaders in Kensington Market as a teenager, so the gaming revolution has passed me by.  I probably won’t come across it at home again until Joseph is in his teens.  So it was usefil - and important - to be reminded that the gaming industry in this country employs 22,000 people, generates sales of £1.36 billion, and a net balance of payments of £200 million.

We only really read about it when it is being kicked by an MP for some violent game - and it’s important it takes those criticisms on board.  But it is equally important that we don’t simply think of the “creative industries” as film and music.  Canada (Quebec really) gives huge tax breaks to its indsutry, which has decimate the French sector, and the French are planning their own retaliatory tax break.  It’s interesting that in the UK films get a tax break but games don’t.  When you consider that a successful game employs 500 people and can cost up to £40 million….

I went to visit ISIS 2 yesterday.  Most of you won’t need me to tell you that it is a second generation neutron station, that, by firing a high-intensity proton beam at a metal plate generates neutrons to allow scientists to examine molecular structures.  Nor will most of you need telling that this £150 million project is based at Harwell in my constituency, which already has the Diamond Synchrotron and is now defacto the “big science” capital of the UK.

The ISIS building is astonishing.  I visited it with Andrew Taylor, the director of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and one of the country’s (ie world’s) top physicists, whom I normally bump into when he is doing his shopping at Waitrose in Wantage.  We stood at the point where the beam will hit metal, and Andrew proudly told me that if the machine was switched on we would be vaporised instantly.  The construction statistics, given to me by the construction supervisor, Jonathan Carkeet, are mind-boggling.  The central structure is made up of 1700 specifically constructed pieces of steel, which together weigh 6,000 tons and cost £10 million.  It could easily be mistaken for a monumental installation, which says something about the thin line between art and science.

ISIS 2, which comes twenty years after ISIS 1, is in a building designed to make science acccessible.  The designers, while dealing with a fiendishly complex structure, didn’t forget a coach park and viewing platform for children.  So while we moan about the state of science in our schools, it is good to know that our world-beating scientists always have the next generation in mind whatever they do.