Thanks again for all of the feedback on those open data posts recently. Just to recap, I’m helping to organise an open data project for some school pupils within the a London borough in the new year. One of the big tasks is to flush out all of the data that may be available. I’m [...]
Posts under ‘Politics’
Will networked representation reduce the power of political parties?
“The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” George Burns Over the next few weeks, my MP (a newly-elected Tory) will go through the parliamentary lobby in support of a range of bills that he knows little about. Sure. He may have a few reflexive opinions on the [...]
Politicos meeting gamers – a few preliminary thoughts
Through the Political Innovation project, I’m helping to promote a meetup tomorrow evening between people who have experience and interests in gaming, and those of us who are very focussed on political issues. As I’m one of the hosts, I thought it worth dropping a few conversation-starters in the mix. Issues where politicians seem to [...]
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 [...]
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.
“Local authorities already exist with their own democratic mandate”
Professor George Jones panning the government’s new localism agenda: “This move to pass governmental decision-making to a level below local government is ill-thought-out. We do not know what is meant by community associations, how representative they will be, their boundaries, nor their audit, probity and accountability arrangements. Rather than setting up such amorphous entities, the [...]
E-Petitions Site Canned
According to yesterday’s papers, the No10 Petitions website has been canned. I can understand that a lot of the people behind it saw it as a learning experience and it clarified a few things. My problem with the whole project is that this is one area where politicians let themselves down. Civil Servants go on [...]
Electronic Voting
Apologies for the light posting here lately – I’ve been busy with the Political Innovation project. There’s a series of posts I’ve added there on ‘What Politicians need to know about social public information.’ I’ll be reviving this blog shortly. In the meantime, here’s something on electronic voting that I found via O’Conall Street.
Imbyism?
Here’s Rory Sutherland on the Spectator blog: “….here lies the central challenge of the ‘Big Society’. In Britain our spectacular capacity for collective action in opposing things (Nazism, new housing, nightclubs) is matched only by our inability to harness any will or consensus when it comes to doing something new. Worse, our resistance to change [...]
Political Innovation No1: Towards Interactive Government
This is a guest cross-post by Tim Davies – originally posted on the Political Innovation site here: The communication revolution that we’ve undergone in recent years has two big impacts: It changes what’s possible. It makes creating networks between people across organisations easier; it opens new ways for communication between citizens and state; it gives [...]
