The experiment has finished and what Ann describes as the "shrug" of the electorate has shown itself in full force.

Because people don't see a big difference between the major parties, she says, and because of the perception that the public cannot change anything significantly, the overriding feeling throughout the experiment has been similar to the apathy seen widely about MPs and politics in general.

"It's the one thing that politicians cannot counter," says Ann. What she means is that there is no opposing view to apathy and no way to engage these people. They are neither for nor against anything and so cannot be drawn on any given issue.

Outside election time, it can appear difficult to change things directly and quickly in a representative democracy. Ann herself says that "people don't get involved because they think politicians have made up their mind [on a certain issue]."

Douglas Carswell (see previous post) says the reason that people did not really participate is because there was nothing for the public to change.

Perhaps then, the shrug could come from a lack of desire to engage under the terms politics currently operates under, the idea of "business as usual" and the way information about MPs is available to voters. With the time constraints on modern life, fewer people have the time to engage with politics in its traditional forms.

"Public meetings are not what they were," says Ann, referring to the relatively low turnout at the public meeting organised last week.

But public debates have already begun the move from County Halls and coffee mornings to social media, from constituency offices to the blogosphere. Questions are asked and answered online at all times of the day.

Is it a true test of technology to write 285 words in her three weeks as a blogger? Is it really a fair experiment if she only tweeted 13 times?

"[Ann Widdecombe] didn't really get Twitter, did she? I guess you can't force these things: either people are into [web 2.0] or not," said Nadine Hengen on Twitter.

Becky Walker, also on Twitter, was not so forgiving and simply tweeted: "Wow, epic fail."

Social media is a conversation. Without something to argue about and without something even to shrug their shoulders at, constituents and the wider population could not disagree and engage with Ann.

There was no online discussion because there was so very little to discuss or debate. The thousands of visits to the site ended with negligible interaction.

But, if people were genuinely interested, all Ann's views on policy issues are public and, if desired, available on sites such as They Work For You and she is more than happy to make her constituents aware of any decision she is making before she votes on it.

Eventually, politicians are likely to move their policy discussions online because surgeries and public meetings feel so old-fashioned. No-one will sit on plush chairs, sip wine and nibble on snacks in a few years time. Very few people do now.

This is evident with the announcement about televised leaders' debates. "Britain is catching up with the rest of the world," says Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University.

But perhaps the real epiphany will come when the majority of Westminster realises that the real debate is already going on online without them.

What we have found in our own experiment is that people seem to only engage on what they really care about - what really affects them and those around them.

What might have helped, as Douglas Carswell suggests, is if people were given the opportunity to engage on their own terms, in their own time.

Perhaps then at least people would be given a real choice as to whether they give a shrug or not.

Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Harwich and Clacton, does not mince his words. The programme team sat with him in Parliament Square as he talked about why, in his view, "there's something deeply rotten with our political system".

The problem is, he believes, because of the amount of safe seats in the House of Commons - only 10% changed party allegiance at the last election - politicians have been more than happy to hand over power to unelected quangos, diminishing any power that MPs had to influence things.

Because of this, Carswell is a big advocate of direct democracy. The idea of making politicians more accountable, which "some politicians are not going to like", is something that Carswell believes is inevitable.

Taking the initiative away from Whitehall and giving it to the people is something that he believes will change politics both fundamentally and for the better.

While this might sound like an MP calling for the death of MPs, he says that it "is not to do away with Parliament, it's to actually make Parliament more relevant and do its job better".

He admits his ideas were seen as "outrageous" by most MPs, but following the expenses scandal he believes that there is a place in politics for the move towards choice.

"Where you give people real choice and the ability to affect real outcomes, far from apathy - you get mass participation," he says.

The last decade - away from politics - has been defined by these choices. People carry around 10,000 songs in their pocket, have access to hundreds of television channels and pick and choose from a seemingly endless number of news sources.

When it comes to picking a political party, the three main parties account for over 90% of those MPs elected. Each of these MPs agrees - at least in principle - to the ideas of their party and will vote accordingly.

This "like it or lump it system of democracy", as Carswell calls it, goes against the "niche choices" that modern Britain is used to making.

To demonstrate this, he has written the Great Repeal Bill with the input of anyone wanting to get involved. It is, in its own words, "intended to abolish many restrictive laws and regulations believed to hamper individual freedoms".

Yet, he says, under the current rules it would be very difficult to get this bill through into law.

So what's the point?

"Sooner or later, as the appetite for direct democracy grows, there will come a time when these ideas are put forward.

"It's our democracy, we should be able to have a say in what [MPs] talk about."

The internet and the use of online voting are often cited as the big solution to all problems with democracy, or so Stephen Fry believes.

He told the BBC's Digital Revolution programme that new technology will change things forever.

It used to be the ballot box was the way people expressed themselves... But I think that is the next challenge for democracy is to use the fact that [the internet] surely is the way that we can harness the will of the people.

On the same programme, internet technology expert Clay Shirky offered a different opinion:

If by democracy... you mean the contending of political ideas - in such a way that an outcome is reached and it balances the rights of the minority with the rights of the majority - the web is not democratic at all.

Because, the kind of democratic structures you need are things like 'everybody gets to vote but each person only gets one vote' [and on the internet] we can't even tell who anybody is.

We have spent some time with Ann and a group of people without easy access to the internet. They wouldn't really participate with a vote happening online.

So far from the internet being the voice of the people, the internet is offering a voice to a specific section of society.

To polarise this view further, one just has to look towards those using Twitter.

Prospect magazine and polling organisation YouGov recently tried to uncover the political make up of the British Twitter community.

This poll says those using Twitter are younger and significantly more liberal than an average member of the population.

If all homes can get broadband by 2012 - as set out in the Digital Britain report - then it seems obvious that the gap between the representation of different sectors online will grow smaller.

But Lord Carter, author of the report, admitted to the Daily Telegraph that there would be 25-30% of the country where "there will be no economic case for building a next generation fixed network".

So, until everyone in the country has easy access to the internet, is it really fair to assume that democracy can flourish in a digital age where the playing field is far from even?

The system in place in Switzerland - where the public are invited to vote in referenda on a variety of issues - she says, is a "very funny business".

Her argument is that MPs are elected to make decisions and if that power is taken out of their hands then there is little point in having politicians.

If the public strongly disagree with her on any given issue, "they have a remedy in the ballot box".

This makes the weekend's story about Switzerland banning Muslim minarets all the more relevant to our little experiment.

France's finance minister Bernard Kouchner says the decision should be reversed but with around 55% voter turnout - 57% of which was in favour - the decision has been taken out of the Swiss government's hands.

Ann believes that she is there to exercise judgement - after seeking expert advice if necessary - and account for it.

The dilemma for the Swiss government to decide is whether, once they ask them, the voter is always right.

The dilemma for us is to find out if the constituents of Maidstone would like the right to be asked.

While the local media turned out, the room was still at least 90% empty.

But this was Ann's decision and Ann's announcement

It wasn't a case of the public not turning up - they were never invited to the meeting - but the row after row of blue chairs comes as a stark reminder of the challenge facing us.

Is it really possible to fill this sort of space with newly politically-engaged constituents? Are masses of people really just waiting for their chance to attend public meetings?

That's what we're going to find out on Monday 14 December when the public will be invited to pitch their ideas for change to Ann at a special meeting in Maidstone.

Back to the present. The media coverage was good. BBC Radio Kent did a very nice interview, BBC South East did a report and Kent Online produced a piece but the reaction has not, so far, been overwhelming.

Over 24 hours since the experiment started and not a single comment on Ann's blog.

There's a lot of work still to be done.

It gives us a chance to test out some of the ideas behind direct democracy - the posh term for the vastly overused quote "power to the people" - and to uncover what motivates the public's interest (or not) in politics.

It is for a programme to be aired on BBC Two early in 2010.

First, we go to the constituency of Maidstone and the Weald, Kent - home to our first MP, the Conservative Ann Widdecombe - to spend three weeks allowing her constituents, and public as a whole, an unusually high level of access to their representative.
We've given Ann a website, a Twitter account, a blog and the ability to record a video diary.

While what she does with them is entirely up to her, we have stressed the importance of trying these tools out for at least as long as the experiment runs.

We have also opened up voting on her website, both on local and national issues. We have even promised access to Ann from any constituent who gets enough signatures on their petition.

You can keep up-to-date with the experiment here on the blog, on our Twitter, Flickr and on Delicious.

We intend to make the experiment as open and as transparent as possible while it is happening. So, on our blog, rushes of the programme will be uploaded as well.

In the New Year, Richard Caborn - Labour MP for Sheffield Central - will undergo a similar process.

One important thing to stress is that it is an experiment in how the public and politicians can re-connect - it's not about party political campaigning and the politicians involved have agreed to it on those terms.

The press conference was at 9.30am. It was certainly an interesting affair. Much more to follow....

They will each use a separate, special People's Politician website - which will include a message board, a blog and voting options for constituents on a range of issues along with the opportunity to put forward local and national petitions, the most popular of which will go forward for consideration by the MP.