I have just been told the astonishing news that it has been decided that
under election law all UK government Department Web Sites will have to be
shut down the moment the forthcoming general election is formally
announced, and stay off-line until after the election is over - - a period
of perhaps four or five weeks.

Apperently it has been decided that it might be claimed that the official
information on government WWW sites might be held to be of promotional
value for the governing Conservative Party and/or individual ministers in
the election campaign.  (Actually, the average National Heritage
Department press release is much more likely to send voters rushing to
help the the opposition parties, but perhaps I'm becoming an old cynic!)

For those living in democracies, and unfamiliar with what the
longest-serving CONSERVATIVE Lord Chancellor this century quite
recently described as "our elective dictatorship", the Prime Minister of
the day has the unrestricted and apparently uncontrollable right to
chose the date of parliamentary elections - providing each parliament is
dissolved not later that the 5th anniversary of its first sitting.  On
that basis there will have to be an election by the end of May and just
about everyone expects it to be on the (fixed) date for the County
elections, ie. Thursday 1 May.

However, the Prime Minister would not have to formally announce this until
three weeks before, though he could do so any time from now onwards.

Anyway, it looks as though the moment he does make the formal announcement
all links to UK government servers will go dead for anywhere between three
and six (perhaps even seven) weeks, though I have no intention whatsover
of spending hours editing all our Web site files and links.  Presumably as
the Queen is not running for election her Web site launched yesterday
(http://www.royal.gov.uk I think) may escape disconnection though since it
has a UK "gov" address I'm not sure hoew the rules will be interpreted in
this case.  (All Webmasters to be consigned to the Tower of London
perhaps?)


Patrick J. Boylan

City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887; e-mail: [log in to unmask]
World Wide Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/