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 the slides for some reason):

Along with @tobyblume, I initiated one that was intended to be on data visualisation and how schools could be more effective partners in this. It was based on the idea posted here the other day.

We kicked off the session identifying what visualisation is intended to achieve – at least in democratic terms (the slides – above – are based on this post that I wrote for my business blog) – and in the end we didn’t get much beyond this issue and it’s implications for local government’s corporate culture, but I think that the observations that came out of it were very useful indeed.

The conclusions the group reached can be seen on the final slide. I’d be interested to know if you think that there are any obvious lessons that we missed?

OK, this is a hasty post – and one that is subject to this caveat.

It’s far too early to trash the Big Society initiative, and as someone who doesn’t support either of the parties behind the incoming government, it’s quite painful to see them picking up so many ideas that are basically great ones – and ones that Labour failed to prioritise in thirteen years of government.

But there was a very unconvincing performance from Nat Wei, (founder of Teach First and who is to lead the Big Society project) on the Today Programme earlier that suggested that there wasn’t any heart behind the idea from the new government.

I mean, really, listen to it – if this is their champion, I’m a little worried for them. I’ve never heard a Today presenter soft-pedal on so many of the spongy presumptions about ‘Community Right to Buy’ and the idea that some kind of spontaneous voluntary coalition will step in to shorten police response times. On the detail, here’s Kevin Harris. As Kevin’s post title puts it: ‘Small state, big society’ is obviously the right idea: so do it properly.

Kevin has forgotten more than most people involved in the Big Society project have learned on the key questions raised by the project.

“I find this paper weak on one level because it’s reasonable to expect Cabinet Office documents to show some sense of authority. They could start by having a statement of origin and a date of publication. This looks like an internal memo intended to motivate the back office staff.”

I would suggest that this isn’t administrative incoherence – it’s a symptom of something of a political vacuum.

The Big Society and The New Politics are ideas that I would suggest are inextricably linked. And while Kevin and I may be sceptical about the configuration of the new government to do any more than use Big Society as an opportunistic conversation-filler, The New Politics (to use a term inextricably linked with the last government) appears to be endogenous.

There are a bunch of political top-lines that are currently absent. None of them chime perfectly with the traditional profile of the Conservatives (though I suspect that the Lib-Dems are flexible enough to pick them up), but we are in the kind of space at the moment where politicians have the scope to adopt ideas that are both plainly good and ideologically unacceptable. We see proposals for a Youth Citizen Service, but how about an expectation of a public service ethos from people who work in the public sector?

This presents a dilemma for the Conservatives: Should the Tory ID continue to be given free reign? The one that aspires to dispose of most of the public sector and the one that won’t allow it to function properly for fear of legitimising its existence? Can The New Politics have reservations about the budget maximising habits of the public sector while now fully accepting its legitimacy with an expectation that it can become part of the solution?

Nowhere is this more evident than in local post offices. An institution that plainly isn’t going to be replaced by private enterprise, but one that successive governments of both stripes have exposed to cherry-picking from their rivals on dubious micro-economic versions of state aid grounds. This, by the way, is an institution that could be a cornerstone of The Big Society if it’s decline could be arrested.

Other questions: I find the emphasis on ‘social enterprise’ to be very unconvincing. It’s a hangover from ‘The Third Way’ and reeks of that opportunism. A need to pretend that there is a private sector way of doing things that no-one can extract any profit from suited New Labour’s need to distance itself from early proposals to nationalise corner-shops. The Tories don’t need to prove their pro-capitalist credentials. Today, they may be well served by doing the opposite.

As a term, social enterprise is becoming discredited and it’s a shame to see the new government hitching its wagon to it, instead of addressing the real reasons behind the decline in the local enterprises that genuinely could adapt to pro-social activities. Not just post-offices, but every kind of local retailer – among other kinds of business.

It’s simply not credible to talk about the need for a revival in pro-social local enterprise unless you can address the stranglehold that monopolistic retailers have on the local High Street (usually drawing the trade away from it).

I’ve also yet to see anything in many of these proposals – particularly those around education – that doesn’t look like a shill for some kind of process that amplifies the opportunities for the sharp-elbowed middle-class to appropriate a greater – hypothecated – share of the higher rates of income tax that they have to pay. Note, I emphasise income tax as opposed to ‘tax’, bearing in mind the huge flat burden that VAT places (and will, perhaps, increasingly place) on low earners.

Instead, the new politics can involve large numbers of active citizens in describing problems rather than prescribing solutions. This works well with the post-bureaucratic age schtick that the Tories were pedalling at the start of the year – breaking the monopoly on policymaking and research. It’s a position that could unite most of the country (beyond a few Whitehall fiefdoms).

I’d argue that the failings of New Labour have been sharply foregrounded by the opportunities for the Tories and – latterly – the Lib Dems – to make headway in this area.

The public service ethos is something I had a string of posts about myself a while ago, and it’s an idea that sadly has no appeal at the top of New Labour. Similarly, there is the need for a political coalition to support small business against monopolistic rivals. Both were not ideas that were only applicable to Labour – I just liked to think that Labour was the party that was most likely to adopt ideas such as these. History has shown that the Conservatives have often been quite good at picking up the easy catches that Labour has dropped, and in coalition with the Lib-Dems, perhaps this opportunity is greater now than ever before?

Perhaps this could be what The New Politics could ultimately be about? If so, it’s a great opportunity.

Mashable is pointing to a games designer called Jane McGonigal who is making the case that the increasingly complex video games may be developing the kind of skills that can be applied to real world problems:

“McGonigal asks what would happen if we were able to tap into the emotional resonance and powerful feedback loops we find within games and apply them to solving real-world problems. Since we routinely save worlds inside of games, might there be a way to “learn the habits of heroes” and do more to incentivize world-changing in our offline real lives?”

For me, it raises a few interesting questions about how far the circumstances in which the people we elect to make our policies differ from this adventurous games environment – and the different penalties for failure.

I’ve just had this article published by The Telegraph. Sometimes, it’s only when you read yourself elsewhere that you see that you buried your more important point under less significant ones.

“Since the 2005 election, we have raced past the tipping point. Facebook has 23 million British users. About half of the eligible voters are social networkers, sharing and seeking recommendations among peers rather than trusting broadcast messages. The real contest is not the three-way blogs/newspapers/politicians fight, but how effectively each can cast its bait into the social networking sites, and who will have the greatest effect.”

So the creation of good viral objects may make a big difference? Apropos of that, yesterday, the people behind MyDavidCameron added a new string to their bows: MyToryTombstone.

Whatever else it does in terms of damaging the Tories (I’m sure the Tories have plans of their own on this front), this comment really sums up how difficult it will be for parties to get their narrative out this year.

Professor Lawrence Pratchett

I went to an interesting seminar last week at the CLG (yes – unusual!) where Prof. Lawrence Pratchett and Dr Catherine Durose from De Montfort University talked about a recent systematic review they have carried out of a number of different empowerment tools. You can find the full report on the CLG site and its excellent to see someone looking at stuff that has already happened rather than running around trying to start something new the whole time.

The research picks up 6 tools but the 3 of these I am interested in specifically are:

• Participatory budgeting
• Petitions
• eParticipation

I think in the research and discussion it was clear that the first two of these are far more tangible and as such can more clearly be evaluated.

eParticipation was not defined well enough for my liking and seemed to talk too much about eForums which is such a small part of the potential. Where things did get interesting however was in talking about the link between empowerment and co-design – which is a connection I see very strongly.

Co-design seems to be a necessary part of empowerment but this brings a few problems that need addressing:

• Does Local Goverment really want to share power?
• Do the citizens really want to be shared with?
• What’s the role of the representative?
• Is it sustainable?

The seminar also made it clear to me how inadequate a tool based approach to empowerment is – you need a clear idea of what you want to create and a strategic vision for achieving this that goes beyond the tactical. This worries me because we are not even starting to have the debate around this with decision makers even though those of us thinking about these issues knows its essential. However much we prefer to do this by stealth we need to lobby and educate on a far wider basis if we are going to make these changes happen and I am not sure who is doing this or how it will happen – answers on the proverbial postcard please!!!

A few years ago, I looked at the whole notion of the Silver Surfer as part of a project for Age Concern. At the time, it was a useful concept for an organisation such as that to get into the public domain.

Moving it on, Kathryn Corrick asks a few questions here – well worth a visit to watch the presentation.

Here’s Jonathan Fryer, a Lib-Dem blogger on the way that Twitter can change conversational dynamics and add something new to politics:

I’ve been finding it hugely useful in recent weeks and have noted how one can enter into dialogue with politicians of other parties as well as with journalists and bloggers of all persuasions, who are quite happy to ‘follow’ one on Twitter, but who might not wish to ask or accept to be one’s Facebook ‘friend’, in case that were seen to be some kind of endorsement. And the same is true in the other direction! Moreover, the 140-character limit, while being constraining, is actually a very useful discipline…

Over the next few weeks, this site will carry a number of posts outlining some of the themes that will come up in the Political Innovation Camp (PICamp) strand of NESTA’s Reboot Britain event, taking place on the 6th July 2009 in central London.

I’m hoping that the event will cover a wide range of themes, ranging from 

• how we can take Tim Davies ’50 hurdles’ idea and look at ways that public organisations of all kinds can be encouraged to address them
• what will policymaking look like in the future?
• how ‘hyperlocal’ communities work – how local government can interface with them and whether they are always a good thing in the first place
• defending inactive citizens from the activists
• reinstating the claim of local government to be the main agent in solving local problems

Nothing is final yet, and all of these (and more) will be fleshed out in the coming weeks over on the PICamp site.

In the meantime, make sure you don’t miss out. Tickets are here.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have moved to take away the whip – and effectively deselect – MPs that have offended public morality with their expense claims.

But is this really enough? Are we simply to be satisfied that a few examples are made of the most egregious cases of an abuse of parliamentary expenses and leave it at that?

Or is there a wider crisis the the quality of representation that needs addressing?

I think that this provides us with a fantastic opportunity to renew the entire political class in the UK. It is time for us to think about how we can reinvigorate widespread participation in political parties – old and new. For this reason, I’d like to propose that we – the voters – offer the political parties a new deal. It runs like this:

“We will double the membership of the local party that we support – but only if they will let us re-select our candidate.”

I’ve outlined how I think this can work on a new website – www.reselect.org and I would urge you to do anything you can to promote this initiative.

We have to do our bit. By offering to double the size of constituency parties, we can present political parties with a renew-or-die offer. We are also presenting them with the lifeblood of real members – a far better source of sustenance than the wealthy donors that all of the parties have come to rely upon.

The advantages of this approach are numerous. Firstly, this crisis has – to date – been treated almost as a crisis of consumption. They – the providers – have let us – the customers – down. We have demanded a refund and an apology and once that’s out of the way, we may leave it at that.

I’d argue that a more energetic and active political culture would never have allowed this situation to arise in the first place.

Secondly, there’s the question of ‘Planet Westminster.’ For me, the most striking (and eye-opening) aspect of this has been the attitude to living standards and what is acceptable in public life. The Labour Party has seen the growth of a gilded selectorate – Ministers and MPs who have a face that fits – ones that have jumped effortlessly from University, via a Think Tank or Special Adviser role into a safe seat, and ending up in the ministerial limo.

This is a political culture that has almost no roots in local politics at all. These people usually didn’t live anywhere near the constituency that they represented and had no real experience in local politics, dealing with ordinary people about bread-and-butter issues.

This is a crisis for party politics – and one that it is not certain to survive undamaged. Personally, I’m firmly of the view that the UK is among the world’s least tainted political cultures at a point in history at which there has never been such a low level of corruption. Those who wish to see alternatives to party politics woke up this morning to news of the alternative offered by Esther Rantzen. A reminder that we should be careful what we wish for?

It’s time to entirely renew the culture of all of our political parties. It’s time for us to demand that they take the one-off step of asking their MPs to stand for reselection in front of a larger -and more demanding – membership.

This crisis has been cheered on by The Taxpayers Alliance and others who openly detest parliamentary democracy.

Interestingly, the mover of the ‘no-confidence’ motion in the Speaker was the pro-Direct Democracy Tory Douglas Carswell.

(This article has been cross posted at the Liberal Conspiracy site and on Common Endeavour)

 A while ago, I highlighted a visualisation that helped to explain a policy issue. The upside was that it was plainly something that enhanced to quality of public conversation because it was a beautiful design. The downside was that it was in Spanish – largely a closed book to me.

Here’s a new one – a viral visual from this site – that offers a sense of proportion about water. 

Helping people to visualise problems – so much more valuable than encouraging people to give you their opinions, don’t you think?