I spent Saturday at Local Government Camp in Birmingham – there’ll be at least one post along here shortly based on things I learned there. But this one is here to host the slides I used at the start of the conversation (sorry – Slideshare is being a complete pain today and I can’t embed [...]
Posts under ‘Democratic thought’
Towards a local authority-wide schools data-hack project
It’s a regular theme of this blog that transparency and open data – while undoubtedly being good things – can often create situations in which democracy is diminished rather than enhanced. The other day, for example, I posted my misgivings about guerilla webcasting of council meetings. (Shorter version: can result in selective reporting, poorer press [...]
Council meetings – blogging and web-casting
The news that a blogger who filmed a meeting of a local council in Carmarthenshire was arrested for “breaching the peace” raises an interesting question that could have a slightly unfashionable answer. My friend, David Allen Green, writing in the New Statesman has a supplied a detailed trawl of the legal evidence along with some [...]
Democracy and optimal policymaking – a few signposts
This is a bit of a rehearsal of the ‘what is a good government – and is it democratic? question. It’s also more of a set of bookmarks than a proper post, but I hope someone finds it useful. I think we would all like to find ourselves in a situation where the public – [...]
Why ‘Microparticipation’ is so important
My friend Mick Phythian picked up a very useful motto/warning for anyone promoting e-government projects a while ago. To government, your time is worth £Zero – and this is why e-government fails. This explains why a very sharp idea that Dave Briggs has been working on recently – promoting the notion of ‘Microparticipation’ with a [...]
UK Campaign for a Stronger Democracy?
I’ve been catching up on the podcasts from Radio 4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ – always a pleasure – and I noticed that the last two programmes both had a life’s like this reportage piece from France talking about apartment living and the sort-of communal spirit that it engenders and one on the more whimsical [...]
AV: Yes, No or Meh? What does the debate look like
I don’t know about you, but I find the outcome of the AV referendum less interesting than the fact that we’re being asked about voting systems at all. Like everyone else, I’ve got my own prejudices here – I particularly dislike the fact that it’s a question that is subject to a referendum in the [...]
The next ballot in San Francisco could prove to be a bit of a close shave…
… so to speak. According to the Huffington Post, California’s direct democracy fetish is stepping into new areas including the practice of infant circumcision for religious purposes. It brings up a number of interesting issues. On the one hand, it raises questions for libertarians – often the most vocal advocates of more direct democracy. The Huffington [...]
Why referendums should be banned
Apologies again for the light posting. I’ve written an extensive round-up of the main arguments (that I can think of) against referendums. The full post is over on Slugger O’Toole and a slightly edited (shorter) version is on Liberal Conspiracy. Both were published yesterday.
Business people into politics = corruption. Politicians into business = clean?
There was an interesting review of a study around politically connected firms on the BBC’s Thinking Allowed programme recently asking how far different countries find their governance effected by the relationships politicians have with previous (or current!) employers. The early coalition-casualty, David Laws – for example – is a former Vice President of JP Morgan [...]
