Big society, small minds, big laughs

The government’s attempt to harness the wisdom of the internet is having predictable results. The Spending Challenge website, set up so that we can tell them what we’d like them to cut, looks like Blair’s old e-petition site on steroids. And on cocaine. And on and on and on and on and on. It’s proving to be a refuge for all those people too illiterate and hateful to feel comfortable in the Daily Mail’s online comment boxes.

There are doubtless some sensible ideas in there as well, but the words ‘monkeys’ and ‘typewriters’ leap to mind.

Clifford Singer has the full story.