MP Website Award Winners

We judge politicians on a lot of things – voting records, where they stand on policies, and other burning topics. But we don’t usually judge them on their websites.   Last week,however, British Members of Parliaments were judged on just that, in the British Computer Society MP website awards. The overall winner was Adam Price, MP for Carmarthen East in Wales.   ‘It’s an honour to win the award but it’s a team effort,’ said Price in his acceptance speech. ‘Many MPs aresceptics of technology but blogging and websites are becoming essential to politics in the same way that the printing press was when it was invented.’   Price said that he’d posted asuggestion on his blog about hos own political party, Plaid Cymru, working with the Labour party, and a few days later negotiations started. Price felt that he wouldn’t have been able to do this withany other medium than via a blog.   However, not all MPs have a website. Of a total of 646, 96 don’t publicly post a URL.   Paul Flynn won the award for best design, Derek Wyattfor engagement, and Alan Johnson for accessibility. Nadine Dorries, Boris Johnson, and George Galloway all received commendations from the judges.