Bill's Comment Page

Hansard remixed for the net generation

This article in the Guardian discusses a new website designed to make the Parliamentary debates recorded in Hansard (and available for some years at the Hansard website) more readily accessible to ordinary users, as distinct from political journalists, 'think tanks' and lobbying firms; I have on occasion looked up information online in Hansard and, whilst I have usually found what I wanted eventually, it can be a cumbersome process. I have tried out the Theyworkforyou.com website and it does indeed seem to perform well; simply type in a word, or phrase in quotation marks (to avoid extraneous results), and up come the results - magic! Easy as pie, too, to find your MP and how (s)he voted on various subjects; there are other sources for this kind of search (e.g. The Public Whip). Try it out ...