That’s what the Manchester Evening News are proposing to do. They’re using CoverItLive. Here’s their coverage of Trafford Council meeting on the 2nd December. Now I’ve used CoverItLive a few times and its settings (if I recall correctly) can and usually do pick up anyone’s tweets. How long before Councillors cop on to this? And [...]
Posts from ‘December, 2009’
Illustrating data (again)
It’s Christmas. That means that you have to indulge bloggers in their little obsessions. Mine is an interest in the way that data can be presented in a way that changes our perception of an issue and clarifies a problem. This one, for instance from Good Magazine: You can zoom around and explore it here. [...]
Choosing who to talk to
Sandwell Councillor, Bob Piper, has a good post here about his recent trip to Bruges, raising questions about graffiti. It seems there may be a case for a high level of short-term investment to make the problem go away? “One aspect of the City that distinguished it from so many places I have visited in [...]
Are we a lynch-mob who won’t vote for a bunch of ‘hangers’?
Don Paskini has a post up here that I’d like to be able to agree with. I’m very comfortable with his logic but remain to be convinced about the details of his arguments. He’s picking up on the popularity of banker-bashing and placing it beside the short-term popularity that politicians believe that they get by [...]
Change from the bottom up?
One of this blog’s new contributors, Halina Ward, is currently in Copenhagen at the Climate Change Conference. The main reason she is there is to write a post for us (ahem). One thing she has passed on to me is a scepticism about the problems surrounding ‘bottom up’ solutions to the problem of carbon emissions. [...]
Going to extremes. ‘Whataboutery’: polarisation v ‘the hive mind’
I’ve been reading Cass Sunstein’s ‘Going to Extremes‘ lately – it’s worth a look. Sunstein’s conclusion – that when we are filtered into like-minded groups that we reinforce each other’s prejudices and tend to reach more extreme conclusions than we would if we were on our own – is not a particularly startling one in [...]
Visualising population shifts
I’d like to show you this video for two reasons. Firstly, it’s an interesting talk that I found very instructive. It is worth watching it right to the end. Secondly, it shows how a creative use of illustrative tools can help to improve policymaking. If all evidence given to elected representatives was of this quality, [...]
Climate change and the lobbyists
I meant to pick this up a few days ago – I’ve been too busy to blog as diligently as I’d like to. In the Times, Greenpeace’s Joss Garman says: “Imagine if, instead of 60 years ago, the Labour Party was trying to create a National Health Service today. The right-wing campaign to scupper the formation of [...]
Minarets, trade offs and direct democracy
The recent outcome of a Swiss referendum in which a majority have voted in favour of a minaret ban has helped to highlight a few important issue around the question of direct democracy. Dan Hannan says that – while direct democracy is a great idea, this particular result is regrettable. Make of that what you [...]
A few words on governance
Local government governance guru Peter Keith-Lucas has an article in this week’s Local Government Lawyer assessing the current state of governance in local councils. It’s a good read – expert but not too technical. Keith-Lucas has plagues to put on the houses of both parties: the Labour party for watering down the proper role of [...]
