Remote access to email is currently limited following the discovery of an attack intended to disclose passwords.  This also limits remote access to the intranet.

On June 24 a parliamentary spokesperson said:

“We have discovered unauthorised attempts to access accounts of parliamentary networks users and are investigating this ongoing incident, working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre.

Parliament has robust measures in place to protect all of our accounts and systems, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect and secure our network.

As a precaution we have temporarily restricted remote access to the network.

As a result, some Members of Parliament and staff cannot access their email accounts outside of Westminster.

IT services on the Parliamentary Estate are working normally.

We will continue to keep Members of both Houses of Parliament and the public updated as the situation develops.”

 

The UK lawyer and journalist David Allen Green has a series of tweets in which he offers his suggestions for places to look/people to follow for information about Brexit.  It’s presented here ‘without comment’

@davidallengreen tweets at
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/876681957991751680

---

1.  So – which accounts should you follow so as to follow the thrills and spills of the Brexit negotiations?

2. Having followed Brexit for a year, there is a broad hierarchy of sources of useful reliable information.

Without snark, as follows.

3. The most reliable information on Brexit will come from the EU institutions.

Unfortunate for UK, but sadly true.

4. This is the page of the EU negotiation team:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/brexit-negotiations_en#latest

5. The official EU commission account is @EU_Commission. But @MichelBarnier and (especially) @WeyandSabine are the ones to follow.

6. The latter is the EU’s deputy chief negotiator, and her RTs. tweets and likes are interesting and indicative.

7. Most of the EU key documents will be posted speedily and will be available in plain sight.

8. After the EU, the best sources are certain journalists. (You will see UK government will be further down this list, at number

9. In particular, peerless @alexebarker. If did not write for FT, I would subscribe for his stuff on Brexit. Also @ftbrussels generally.

10. Some other excellent journalists to follow on Brexit:

@JeremyCliffe
@mattholehouse
@JenniferMerode
@pmdfoster
@BrunoBrussels

11. (Apologies to those missed off, but I will RT their good stuff as well. Some outstanding Brexit journalism out there.)

12. The third best source for information on Brexit is, oddly, the UK parliament (not the government).

13. House of Commons library @commonslibrary has produced outstandingly thorough briefings on EU issues (pity MPs don’t read them enough)

14. And various Commons and Lords committees have also provided outstanding reports. Both @CommonsEUexit and @LordsEUCom should be followed.

15. With parliamentary reports, the detailed oral and written evidence is also posted and always worth looking at, not just the reports.

16. The fourth best source for reliable Brexit information are various thinktanks: @CER_EU @Bruegel_org @instituteforgov are must-follows.

17. And fifth and last, comes the UK government, which is woeful on providing reliable Brexit information. But for completeness, @DExEUgov.

18. For commentary rather than than information, I am sure you all have your preferred sources. But this thread not about commentary.

/ends

For those of you who are new to working for a Member of Parliament, or who are continuing to work for your newly re-elected Member, you might like to know that Chris Sear, Head of Customer Services for the Customer Team, is very happy to discuss any issues you might have.

Chris can be contacted by email at searcm@parliament.uk.

You might also like to know that two events for Members’ staff are planned and more will be set up shortly. There is an event in Westminster – in the Attlee Suite in portcullis House – on 7 July and in Scotland (location to be confirmed) on 11 July. The programmes are varied and will cover a number of different services that will help you with your work, and are a great opportunity to meet House staff and each other. If you are interested in attending these please let the Customer Team  know. We will post full details on w4mp as soon as we have them.

We’ve had a note from Andy Mabbett about MPs and Wikidata:

The days after a general election are a good time to remind MPs and their staff that Wikipedia has a biography of every MP. I’ve written before about how MPs can work with Wikipedia  and its sister projects, to ensure that those articles are complete and up-to-date.  Several items of data about MPs, such as their website, Twitter name and Facebook profile, and whether Wikipedia has an openly-licensed image of them, are stored in one of those sister projects, a central database called Wikidata, so that they can be accessed not only by Wikipedias in many languages, but by anyone wanting them, as linked, open data, for reuse in other websites or apps.

Wikipedia volunteers are currently busy ensuring that the recent election results are accurately reflected – noting former MPs, updating data about those who continue, and, of course adding new ones. Nonetheless, it would be great if  staff could assist this process to check the details held about their members is complete.

Accordingly these two Wikidata pages show:

data about new MPs

data about all MPs in the new parliament. (where that is shown in
their entry)

And we’d be very grateful for your effort in ensuring it is accurate.

The fine people at Democracy Club are building a Twitter list of new Members of Parliament, which you may find worth taking note of.

twitter.com/democlub/lists…

It’s worth noting that Portcullis House search and screening will be closed from Monday 8 May until Tuesday 6 June, inclusive. 

Between 8.00am-6.00pm passholders can still access the estate via this entrance and passholders and visitors will be able to exit in the usual way.

The nearest alternative visitor access points are 1 Parliament Street and Cromwell Green Entrance.

Further information

For more information please contact the Serjeant at Arms Office (SAAaccessteam@parliament.uk) or on x0145.