Broken Britain & the Parliament and Internet Conference 2011

Yesterday was the annual Parliament and Internet Conference.

It’s held in the House of Commons ‘annex’ – Portcullis House – and chaired by the Deputy Speaker of the House. The final address was from Ed Vaizey the Minister of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.

Various MPs attended, including the fabulously name James Brokenshire, Minister of State for Crime and Security and MP – presumably from some rotten borough in in a rioting town.

From the Industries, we had Directors of Policy at Facebook, Google and Microsoft, a Baroness from Nominet, Billie Bragg (as himself) and, last and indeed least, my good self (as witness).

So how is it that today, that amongst all those magnificent people, portraits and architecture, my main memory is of Anthony Payne, Director Platform at RIM?

I’ll tell you then.

He had to sit in front of us amongst his peers from Google, Facebook and Microsoft when his platform – the Blackberry Service – was all in Brokenshire.

He did it with some aplomb, humour and style and I admire him for that.