Iain Dale has a roustabout interview with Ken Livingstone. Here’s a snippet: “…although there will be mistakes, a real, massive devolution would start bringing good people back into local government, but there’s got to be financial change as well. 97 per cent of all tax collected in Britain is collected by Gordon Brown. When I [...]
Posts under ‘Being a politician’
Live-in Councillors?
I’ve just discovered the Local Government Officer’s blog. It’s a really good blog that does (as a visitor remarks) what blogs do best – anonymous low-horizon perspective commenting from an insider. The latest post asks the question: Is it better for Councillors to live in the area that they represent? Or, more accurately, how much [...]
Opinion v Knowledge
One of my favourite political bloggers, Shuggy, has a short post up here about opinion and it’s validity (or lack of). My own favourite variation on this is the view that ‘opinions are like a*seholes – everyone has one, but no-one really wants to hear them.’ (an aphorism that I can’t recall the source of [...]
Better than sitting in a draughty library, providing a surgery that no-one attends…
Here’s Wandsworth’s Councillor James Cousins on the value of interactivity for councillors: “What is surprising is not just how many local people were tweeting, but how many were eager to engage and use Twitter to communicate with their councillor. While I often sit in a draughty library with no-one attending my surgery it is quite [...]
Even Obama gets locked down
My friend Will has e-mailed this from the Washington Post to me – It may cheer Steph up a little to know that he’s not fighting a purely British problem…. “Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering [...]
Social media, civic engagement, and the need for political leadership
There’s a terrific post here, authored by Dave Briggs – brimming with positivity and enthusiasm as ever. It’s a really good round up, and a good introduction to what is possible for users that already have their heads in the right place. I’d add a number of observations to it that I hope make sense. [...]
Should politicians blog?
Shorter version: If you’re a politician, it may be a good idea to get into blogging. But do it under a pen-name! It’s safer that way, and it will make you better at your job. This is an old-ish question nowadays. And as the big question around social media at the moment is ‘should everyone [...]
What central government thinks about local councillors
It’s Friday. Time for a bit of a laugh. This ‘Yes Minister’ clip provides a rough outline: And on the wider perception of councillors, here’s Vic & Bob’s take: Joking aside, if there is one thing that desperately needs rebranding, it’s the very idea of the Local Councillor.
The lust for certainty – a sin?
In a very good edition of BBC Radio 4′s ‘Analysis’ programme towards the end of last year, the columnist David Aaronovich recounted a programme that he produced in the 1980s featuring the Archbishop of York, John Hapgood. The Archbishop, as far as I can see, had the kind of views that would appeal to a [...]
