Can you imagine one of our politicians doing something like this?

“Probably a first among government ministers worldwide, Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm is making his life public in cyberspace.

He is starting a blog, a personal diary on the Internet, to give people an idea of what it is to be a minister, with insights into his professional and private life.

‘Blogging’ may be the domain of teenagers and young adults in Europe, but Mr Zalm, 52, says he got hooked two years ago in his time as parliamentary leader of the VVD free-market liberals and continued the habit after he took office again last year.

Mr Zalm posts entries several times a week and says he spends about 20 minutes a day to blog - writing the entry on old-fashioned paper for an assistant to send into cyberspace.

‘It is a way of making it possible - for people who are interested, of course - to have some idea about what it is like to be a minister,’ he told Reuters.”