Here’s former New Statesman & Society editor Stuart Weir (now with Democratic Audit) on the dangers that arise as a result of the BNP being allowed a toehold in local politics. “Wilks-Heeg analyses electoral data research findings from Burnley to argue convincingly that the BNP’s breakthrough constitutes a stark warning about the “advanced state of [...]
Posts from ‘November, 2008’
Is the decline in local journalism damaging local democracy?
Here’s quite an old link I stumbled across while googling something else. It doesn’t do to only link to very new posts, does it? “I don’t believe the intention is to destabilise democracy but that is the effect in many communities where the coverage of local politics has been downgraded by a loss of experienced [...]
Do voters choose their representatives wisely?
Here’s a really good post that superimposes the work of Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill onto the John Sergeant / Strictly Come Dancing débâcle. Chris asks: Do we necessarily pick the best people as elected representatives? Is this a bad thing? Chris concludes that it shouldn’t be a bad thing, but that our [...]
MPs websites – politics on the rates?
As there are a couple of good posts in the mainstream political blogosphere touching upon the qualities that are needed to promote an effective representative democracy, today is a good day to start a blog on the subject. This post will focus on the most topical: Both Puffbox and Spartakan are chewing over the fact [...]
