Political

PMQs with PowerPoint?

Hmm

The Environment Secretary has argued the House of Commons should be equipped with a projector to enable MPs to use visual aids in debates.

Many years ago I was a member of the organising committee for Amnesty International AGMs and a similar issue came up over whether people could use visual aids when speaking during the AGM debates. My brother certainly put this option to good use with a simple but striking graph in one debate. But subsequently, the issue caused some debate when someone wanted to use photographs to illustrate a point about human rights abuses.

I sympathise with Caroline Spelman’s underlying point – she often deals with issues that are best illustrated with the assistance of maps – but can you imagine PMQs with exchanges of death by PowerPoint bullet point slides?

Mind you, a little Nick Clegg could pop up on Cameron’s slides, Microsoft Office Paperclip style, to say “… but not all the parties in the coalition agree with that”.

One response to “PMQs with PowerPoint?”

  1. I'm not sure about using it as a regular thing, but maybe for major speeches, and certainly for TV. The State Of The Union is shown on the White House website with graphs and extra info to highlight what the President is discussing. It's brilliant and much more engaging.

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2012

    Then again, if all MPs get iPads…

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