“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 [...]
Posts under ‘Representation’
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 [...]
Butterfly-minded representation
Since I looked at the calculations from We Love Local Government on Councillors’ iPads the other day, I’ve had a few conversations with people working in democratic services at various local authorities. It seems that the big worry is less that Councillor’s iPads will cost/save money or have any productivity/accountability gains, than that Councillors will [...]
Should local Councillors be given iPads?
It’s a good question that tells us a lot about some of the bigger issues in local government. The London Borough of Havering are doing it, and the argument for this is that it will cut printing costs. The good people at one of my favourite blogs We Love Local Government have done some sums: “…over [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Crowdsourcing policy? Politicians do this better than apps
The new team at HMG have created the Your Freedom site – a tool that is designed to crowdsource policy proposals – specifically requests to repeal unnecessary legislation, regulation or restrictions upon personal liberties. It follows hot on the heels of the Treasury’s ‘Spending Challenge‘ – a site designed to ask people who work in [...]
Lists and lessons
Mark Pack has a very good post up on Lib-Dem Voice – advice for budding politicians: ‘30 things every would-be politician should do this summer‘ (he was inspired by a similar post for aspiring journalists elsewhere). Thirty is a big number – too big for me. But I’ve got a few observations that I’ve been [...]
The reification of the 2010 election result
So what mandate does the new government have? K-punk (in a wider, very good post) quotes Melanie Phillips saying that “no-one voted for a hung parliament.” Before the election, there was a persistent rumbling around Gordon Brown’s legitimacy as PM (he didn’t win a general election) that seems strangely lacking around David Cameron – arguably [...]
