The Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has posted a shortened version of a speech to the RSA on IT and government. Excerpt:

I think that our willingness to change needs to match the scale of the technological revolution taking place all around us. Just as companies all over the world are changing the way that they do business, so too must we evolve.

In short, I believe that we need to recast the political settlement for the digital age. We need open source politics…

The Guardian version of the speech attracted 45 comments, the majority of which seemed to miss the point in one way or another. Of the 45, only about four were genuinely thoughtful or illuminating, and perhaps another four were trying to be helpful by adding links or references. It’s a sobering illustration of the problems with online ‘debate’.

In the Blogosphere, though, there was a good deal of intelligent discussion — for example from David Wilcox. There’s something interesting going on here, with the New Tories sidling up to the Google/Web 2.0 gang while New Labour clings to Microsoft and Sir Billg.