Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

MPs and the Freedom of Information Act - Part II

David MacLean's damaging Private Member's Bill was due to debated again this morning, but somehow yesterday it was dropped off the agenda and postponed until May 18th.

It isn't clear why it has been dropped.  The Deputy Speaker said only the Sponsor of a bill can withdraw it.  I'm guessing (because www.parliament.uk certainly isn't helpful) that it means David MacLean has realised it was a bad idea and asked for it to be deferred (perhaps so he can withdraw it at a later date) or someone else made him realise it was a bad idea.

All told it is good news for now but I'll set a reminder to check it out on May 17th.

UPDATE:   Martin Rosenbaum author of the BBC's Open Secrets blog thinks MacLean withdrew from today presumably because he feels he can get more support on May 18th.

LifeSwap promotion

Daniel Cox, one of the Councillors who took part in the original Norfolk LifeSwap event was recently elected as Leader of Norfolk County Council at the age of 36.  According to our sources this makes him the youngest Leader of a County Council in the UK.

Congratulations to him.

MPs and the Freedom of Information Act

Parliament (at least the 25 MPs those that are there on a Friday - only 25 are visible on Parliament TV) is currently debating the Private Members Bill brought by David MacLean (Con).

The bill looks to amend the Freedom of Information Act to allow MPs to exclude themselves from its provisions.

It would be a major step backwards if this Bill passes and it is a shame how smoothly it currently is passing through the House of Commons.

UPDATE 14:00: We're down to 7 MPs as the deadline for the filibustering draws near.  30 mins to go.

All change at Teesdale?

Not all councils suffer the same problems.  Up and down the country the political parties are battling with each other over the candidates they are fielding. But in Teesdale (pop. 24,457) they have a different problem. Out of 32 seats up for election only 7 are being contested.  Even then it isn't the main parties who are fighting.  The Teesdale Independents are the party in power.

Don't despair over the state of democracy though.  Firstly the trend is on the up.  Last time around only 2 seats were contested and apparently Teesdale really is so nice that that there is no political fighting to be done.  Sounds great.  What's more, candidates still have until tomorrow to get their nominations in.

School students making the news

I saw an old friend at the weekend and got very excited when I heard about her new job. I'd like to draw everyone's attention to this absolutely brilliant project by the BBC. It's called School Report, and Year 8 students (12/13 year olds) got the chance to make their own news and 'broadcast' it via the internet. Stories included interviews with Blair, Cameron and other political leaders, a boy who successfully campaigned for subsidised bus fares, and the threatened deportation of a young asylum seeker in Glasgow.

In a way, it's like I'm a Councillor about the media, instead of local government. Of course, the media is an important part of an effective democracy. School Report is all about empowering young people, showing then that they can set the agenda and giving them a voice.

School Report's national News Day was on March 22nd, but the project is ongoing - new schools can register and students can add content all year round. I heartily recommend getting involved to any English or Citizenship teachers reading this. They've got loads of lesson plans and stuff to make it easy for you.

Cost of care

I recently produced some spreadsheets for an elderly relative to see how long they could afford a care home before having to sell the house they have lived in for 30 years.  I was horrified by how quickly the money goes.  Care is not cheap.

A good client from one of the Local Authorities we work with has been taking time off recently to look after his wife who needs some hospice care.  It really is not cheap, but very much needed.  I've just donated to the Jo-Rassic Challenge.  Maybe you could too. http://www.justgiving.com/jorassicchallenge

The Great Turtle Race

The Great Turtle Race is a fabulous site highlighting conservation efforts with Leatherback Turtles in the Pacific. 

I love the way that what could be a dry boring site about marine animals is turned into an exciting race (well, hopefully it will be exciting by Day 14). 

The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust ran something similar (although not quite a race) where you could track the location of Brent Geese as they migrated to and from Canada and Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.  IIRC it hit the headlines because one of the geese ended up in a local hunter's freezer near Baffin Island.

(Hat-tip to Bob Piper)

Elections 2007, a few sites

As we all know, there are a slew of elections this May: Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, all Local Authorities in Scotland and some in England. As the internet continues to take over the world, there's more and more of an e-democracy angle with each election. Here's one or two sites that I've come across.

I think Scotland's particularly interesting because they will be using STV in local elections for the first time. I'm definitely a big fan of alternative voting systems, but the iniquities of first-past-the-post are a long rant which we should save for another blog post. Some people have been complaining that STV is difficult to understand, but really, how difficult can it be to put things in order of preference? As easy as 1-2-3, you'd think...

However, the Electoral Reform Society have launched Democrazy to explain to young people in Scotland how the system works. The explanation is the flash intro thing - once you get to the site it's all about a competition - £3,000 for the best political song, which I reckon is pretty good going. Nice idea, but I don't know if it'll seem a bit naff to the target audience.

You'll find that when people are talking about e-democracy the first thing they mention is nearly always young people, it's all 'engaging the disaffected digital generation' type stuff. What people often forget is it's practical usefulness for many disabled people. We were doing an independent evaluation for the DCLG last year of e-consultation packages and one of the users I spoke to said that e-consultation hadn't increased the number of young people taking part (her theory was that subject matter was key here) but it had massively boosted the number of disabled people taking part - a group who'd been distinctly under-represented previously. So it's nice to see Capability Scotland's Vote 2007 website, providing information and encouraging disabled people to vote. Although I'm surprised they didn't explain the possibility of postal voting more prominently (deadline to apply 18th April, for all our postal voting viewers!) and I'm amazed that they got that URL. Wasn't there some kind of e-democracy feeding frenzy for it?

Scottish election info in general is available at Holyrood 2007, providing information about candidates, the elections and events; to people who like big words, but don't mind half the buttons not working, from the looks of things. I know far less about the Welsh Assembly elections, but this site would seem to provide good all-round coverage. And also, I'm delighted to realise that Blaenau Gwent, one of our most active areas in last year's I'm a Councillor event, is a key battleground in the upcoming elections. Blaenau Gwent's young people were sparky, funny, determined to have their say and felt very marginalised. It'll be nice if all of a sudden national politicians have to court them.

SpinDifferent

Sam Smith of Disruptive Proactivity, mySociety and other projects has launched a new site this week that provides a comparison of what the UN, the WhiteHouse and No. 10 say on any particular subject.  A fine example of how official information is being chopped up and re-presented in ways that people want rather than how the people originating that information might have wanted.  As has been said about eDemocracy before:  Govt can't choose whether it will happen or not, it can only choose whether to join in or not.

Money and Politics: Illuminating the connection (in CA at least)

MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics. We shine a light on campaign contributions and show their related legislative outcomes, which leads to a more informed public and election reform.

This site uses a rich (please excuse the pun) database of campaign contributions and voting records in the California legislature to illustrate links between voting records of representatives and the campaign contributions they received.  It is very well presented and is fascinating.

Secondly they use provide a screengrab movie to take you through the features of the site in a simple and very effective way. No moody posed shots, no flying screens, and no rotating cubes.  Just simple highlighted screenshots.  I've linked to the version with captions.  I recommend you turn the sound down.  They did skimp on the voiceover artist.