It’s a lengthy endorsement by the BBC’s Bill Thompson for a very good blogger, and it’s thoroughly deserved:

Mr Davies brings Weber, Hayek, Weinberger, Arendt and even Habermas to bear on the question of whether decentralising information through online services like data.gov.uk can offer us good government.

He concludes that while it may provide transparency and even accountability it can never sustain the legitimacy that a democratic state provides.

He offers a dense, complex argument, written for an audience familiar with the thinkers he refers to.

Davies’ writing is not for everyone, but it should be essential reading for anyone who wants to develop a sound understanding of the implications for society and political structures of the technological change that we seem to have accepted as inevitable.

It is the sort of thinking that we desperately need if we’re to understand the technological future being offered to us by politicians of all major parties – and in all developed countries – as they are seduced by Google, Microsoft and Facebook into thinking that search, social networks and software can help us to solve the world’s many problems.