Welcome, Daily Viewers, to January 15th – and a public engagement special.

A year ago today US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing into New York’s Hudson River. Eyewitness Janis Krums took this famous photo of the plane (right) and immediately shared it with the internet via Twitter, thus proving the website could be used for so much more than telling the world what you had for breakfast. (The only twitpic photo that’s come close since then was of a fox on the London Underground, but I live in hope and carry a camera…)

And as Mark reminds us, today’s a very good day for having your say on MPs’ expenses.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• A vote for ‘None of the above’ is a vote for pusillanimity

Adam Bell at Decline of the Logos: from fence-sitting to barricading the streets.

• Enquiries and the state of Brown’s trousers – a historical note

MKNE political information looks at public protest, 1812-style.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Engaging Stories

Here’s one way to reconnect voters
Andreas Whittam-Smith on Power2010‘s deliberative poll, which opens to the public today:

As is the mark of all great ideas, the answer is surprisingly simple. Bring together a representative sample of the electorate. Opinion polls use only around 1,000 people, so the necessary number is bound to be small and indeed can be safely in the low hundreds. Then, as happened this weekend in London, let recognised experts brief the participants thoroughly. When that is done, take a poll. It will show you what the electorate would really think if it had time to do its homework. [Independent]

Twitter ‘spy’ in Parliament pokes fun at MPs

The anonymous blogger has unnerved some MPs by reporting on their daily meetings and meals around the Palace of Westminster.

A group of Commons insiders – believed to be parliamentary researchers – have been using the internet to keep tabs on members’ activities.

Humorous reports of MPs’ day-to-day behaviour and appearance are then distributed via Twitter, the micro-blogging website.

The anonymous author of the reports uses the name “Parliament Spy”.

A description of the site posted online says the spy is “keeping an eye on all people political in the House of Commons” and offering “a political Heat magazine if you will.”

The spy’s dispatches have a gently mocking tone, but the routine reporting of mundane events has alarmed some MPs, who worry that they cannot go about their daily business at Westminster without being spied on. [Telegraph]

The Twitter account has now been taken down (by whom?) but not before it could divulge that Tom Brake MP has a caramel-coloured scarf and that Eric Pickles eschewed tomatoes for breakfast. Revolutionary stuff.

Public engagement Bonus

The UK Parliament Education Service has brought out a game to give young people a taste of life as an MP: MP For a Week.

My definition of “young people” is generous enough to accommodate all Daily Viewers, so watch the video below or on Youtube here, then play the game at the UK Parliament website.