According to Tom Harris, the Scottish version of the Hatemail on Sunday has published an article under the headline “Proof at last… our MPs really are a bunch of prize twits” attacking himself, Jo Swinson and Eric Joyce for Twittering from the Commons camber during PMQs (the article is not online and so this is taken on faith).

Tom has, rightly, stated that he will continue to Twitter during PMQs no matter what Mail hacks think.

I think it is a good thing that MPs do this – I think that more should. I have always thought that MPs should be able to take Blackberries and the like into the Commons chamber – so long as their Twittering does not disturb the business of the chamber, whether during PMQs or not.

Surely the more direct the communication between MPs and the people they (at least purport to) represent the better? The only people who could possibly object to this are the hacks, like those of the Mail, who would much prefer us to only be able to get information through them and thus allowing them to tell us only what they want us to know and with their own spin applied.

Modern technology and the internet has provided us with a far greater ability to communicate directly with our elected representatives. That puts columnists out of work and gives hacks far less power to influence how and what we think.

More MPs should blog and tweet like Tom does – he is definitely one of the MPs who best use modern technology to communicate with the electorate. Long may he keep doing it (well, until the next election anyway…).