Here’s New Start‘s Clare Goff on the demise of the community empowerment bill (via Julian Dobson): ‘Maybe now is the time for fresh ideas to revive the collective voice and rebuild politics from the grassroots up.’ Absolutely right. Quick thoughts on the democratic turmoil, starting with three angles on those expenses: Some people (including one [...]
Posts under ‘Democratic renewal’
Reductio ad absurdum
Continuing Brendan O’Neill’s theme about the reduction of politics to the question of how efficiently politicians can tick the ‘democracy’ box, Simon Jenkins picks up on the calls for fewer MPs and councillors: “The difference is that most democracies have many tiers of representation on which voters can vent their rage. The Germans run almost [...]
Steady state on citizenship stats
The England Citizenship Survey for April – December 2008 was published the other day by CLG (pdf, Excel data). Overall, despite the onset of the financial crisis, attitudes to and participation in politics don’t seem to have changed much. A few headlines: Only one fifth of people (22%) feel that they can influence decisions taken [...]
Reinventing democracy
At the start of May, there’s a forum on the future of democracy taking place in Grenoble. Sounds like a fascinating event, although on the academic rather than practical end of the conference spectrum. Pierre Rosanvallon, Professor at the College de France, has written an explanatory article for (of course) Le Monde, which is well [...]
Innovating on the cheap for better democracy
When it comes to technology start-ups there’s a nine out of ten chance that the idea will fail. Far from being considered a problem it’s recognised that doing something different is a risky strategy. But it is also one that can lead to enormous rewards if you get it right. True failure only happens when [...]
EU citizens trust local government
The European Union’s Committee of the Regions has published a new Eurobarometer survey looking at the impact of local and regional government in the EU. The survey shows that local government is the most trusted tier of government in the EU (50% trust), with the EU itself second (47%) and national governments some way behind [...]
How local government and the public sector disincentivise social innovation
The reason that there is such a wide-ranging debate about what democracy is, and how it is likely to change in the coming years, is in no small part, down to the fact that technology is making new things possible. The technical infrastructure available to us is changing, and creative minds are being applied to [...]
Caroline Spelman fails a localism test
Given all the talk of localism in recent months, it is pretty disappointing to see Caroline Spelman, the Conservative shadow Local Government minister, making the following statement (via the BBC) on Council Tax rises: At a time when millions of workers are facing pay freezes or unemployment this year, it adds insult to injury to [...]
Shift Delete
Local decision-making should be less constrained by central government, and also more accountable to local people. We will encourage democratic innovations in local government, including pilots of the idea of elected mayors with executive powers in cities. David Cameron’s green paper Shift Control, published yesterday? No, the 1997 Labour manifesto, and if you want a [...]
Conservative 'localism' approach announced
It is very hard to take the UK Conservative Party’s claim to be a localist party seriously today. Many of these steps will seriously weaken the powers and status of local elected representatives without providing any empowerment of ordinary citizens by way of compensation. All of the following issues are features can be portrayed as [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
