The mighty should quake before the Wiki man

As Robert Lindsay demonstrated unforgettably as Wolfie, leader of the Tooting Popular Front in Citizen Smith, anyone who shouts ‘Power to the People!’ can end up looking a prize idiot. So let me throw caution to the wind and say that this is precisely what the web, new media and mobile technology offer us, if we choose to seize the opportunity: democratisation on a new and unprecedented scale.

This, at least, is the conclusion I have drawn making two Radio Four programmes on politics and the internet. First, there is what you might call the direct impact of new media upon political practice: its basic instrumentality.

As D-J Collins, one of the rising stars in the Google firmament, told me: ‘We’re at the cusp of very profound change. The internet is a playground of innovation, and people are playing faster and faster than they’ve ever played before. Facebook wasn’t here three years ago; YouTube wasn’t here two years ago, and it’s amazing to think of a world without YouTube now.