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MPs head home for their summer recess this week; seven weeks of downtime lie in front of them to fill.
Luckily, there is a whole host of tech they could spend some time with, and some of it might come in handy for when they get back to the Commons.
Drones are all the rage right now, and the Parrot Bebop is one of the best because while it’s still lightweight and portable, it also boasts the ability to record video in 1080p HD, and take photos with its 14 megapixel camera.
Getting hold of one of those would be quite handy for MPs given the blurred lines surrounding drone regulations currently, and also the pressing issue of privacy. Some hands-on time – away from crowded areas and well clear of any flight paths of course – could give MPs a better understanding of how to legislate around the technology.
Harking back to the early days of computing when hobbyists would take apart and build their own hardware, the Kano computer kit is more of an educational tool these days. Its aim is to introduce the building blocks of a computer, and then introduce users to coding via a series of programs that can be used with it.
Now that coding is part of the school curriculum, there would be no better way to get to grips with programming language and the nuts and bolts of computing.
Ed Balls and Ed Miliband both made appearances at the Lord’s Ashes test, and plenty of other MPs have shown a keen interest in cricket in the past. John Major was a regular at Lord’s don’t you know.
But if they can’t make it to any of the Tests this summer, the next best thing might be to fire up their games console of choice and play Don Bradman Cricket. The Australian-made game came out last year, but remains the most recent title based on the sport. It also does a pretty good job of replacing the hole in your gaming world that was last filled by Brian Lara Cricket – though it plays completely differently thanks to a third-person view when batting and bowling. There’s also a very good career mode.
The city-builder is something of a gaming icon these days, and handily for MPs versions of it stretch across all manner of devices from PC to console and mobile.
And with the ongoing struggles over the planning, building and deployment of the HS2 train line, the game would serve as a very handy opportunity for MPs to get some practice in. Could they create a cross-country rail line that doesn’t intrude on the environment, comes in on budget and cuts journey times? This would be a very good place to test it out.
Not flavour of the month with some Members right now, the BBC iPlayer app could serve as a very useful piece of summer homework for MPs.
Sit down and watch the entire first series of Poldark? Or catch up on Celebrity Masterchef – the next seven weeks would be a good chance to find out where the licence fee goes.
An impressively complicated app, Democracy 3 is essentially a digital version of what some MPs are doing; running the country. The game has AI-powered “voters” whose character and voting habits vary based on the 21 subsets and ideologies in the game. Every aspect of government policy is in your hands, with each one affecting another much like in reality.
For those on the Conservative benches it could be a good way of honing their skills or maybe trying a few things out – for the rest it’s a chance to try and show they could do a better job. Though maybe don’t wave your iPad around at PMQs as proof.
