Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

Coleman connects on Citizenship

That arch-sceptic of bloggers, Professor Stephen Coleman, has succumbed to the lure of blogging (for a week at least) as a guest blogger on Connecting Bristol.

He's just returned from an intellectually challenging conference in Amsterdam to pose some points about the changing nature of citizenship:

1. The rules of the political game are changing and smart politicians are making themselves more visible, seem more able to be influenced and be more human.

2. It ain't working yet for politicians so they are confused.

3. Citizens are confused too.

Professor Coleman wants to challenge us and is looking for a response in the comments section.  Problem is he is stating (very eloquently) the obvious and doesn't provide too much to disagree with.

Is it a bad thing that the rules of the game are changing?  No.

Is is surprising that politicians are sharpening they persona as opposed to their policies?  Not really as political research becomes more sophisticated and able to identify the desires of the key swing voters.  The policies are the same so make the politicians different - slightly at least.

Is it surprising that politicians and citizens are confused?  Not really, it is new and complex.

So what are the important questions to ask?  Well we have a week to pose those in the comments section.

The Audit of Political Engagement 5

The Audit of Political Engagement series is the Hansard Society’s annual political check-up of the nation’s health. It includes original poll data from surveys conducted by Ipsos MORI, which allow yearly comparisons to be made about the British public’s attitude to politics and their level of engagement with the political system. The fifth Audit includes a special section on constitutional issues that questions the public’s knowledge about how our constitutional arrangements operate, which areas they are satisfied with and which they think are ripe for reform.

Some bedtime reading for the weekend.

No 10 Twitters and Flickrs into life

Having recently dipped my toe into the TwitterWorld (or whatever it is called) my attention (h/t Simon Dickson) was drawn to the new Twitttering from no.10 who then today drew my attention to their new Flickr account.

Personally I'm not sure about Twitter.  I think it is because it is so new that established norms for using it haven't developed.  Some people use it instead of IM, others for press releases, and some for getting information out and in v quickly.  Some are witty, some are dry.  However it is undeniably very 2008 and so it's good to see Downing Street start to use it even if it is only for publicising their RSS feeds for now.  I'm sure it will develop.

Also they have finally started to use Flickr, but I'm not sure why.  It's not as though they have a problem with photo hosting and since they have posted the pictures with all rights reserved they're not exactly doing the sharing bit.  Surely posting under a creative commons licence that allowed ordinary folk to use the pictures would have been better?

Citizen Empowerment Symposium - Final Evaluation

The talented folks from Norfolk who ran the X-factor session at the symposium have now posted their evaluation on YouTube.  Well done guys.  You've joined a small group who have actually posted something about their attendance at the symposia.  A group that sadly doesn't include its sponsor the DCLG or ICELE.  The event's own web-site doesn't ask for feedback.

For an event primarily about using the internet the organisers are scarily poor at doing so.  With only a quiet Facebook group it is not surprising that the top Google Search for Empowerment Symposium is this blog rather than the event site.

Your Personal President(ial Candidate)

The Obama08 campaign have always made a big deal out of the fact that they raise all their funds from ordinary citizens whereas Clinton and McCain have taken millions of dollars from lobbyists and political action committees.

The latest sales promotion that the Obama campaign are using is the chance to have dinner with the candidate himself.  And a nice dinner too by the looks of it.

Also very powerfully they are using personal stories from those who have already dined with him:

"It was an awesome experience -- Barack spent hours talking to us, and at the dinner table he was just like any other guy. It really felt like somebody invited friends over for dinner and good conversation.

My dad is a paralyzed vet, and his health care costs are huge, so I talked to the Senator about how he planned to provide for our veterans. He gave a thoughtful, detailed answer, and I could tell that taking care of our veterans was a big concern to him.

But we didn't just talk about politics. He talked about his children, and his wife, and how much he misses his family when he's on the road. And those of us with children shared stories about our families, too. He was a funny guy, and there was a good amount of joking around. All in all, it was a great conversation.

Ever since the dinner, I've remained active in the campaign. I was the precinct captain for my neighborhood here in Fernley, Nevada, and we won our caucus. I also went to the county convention, and we won there too.

I'm grateful to have been a part of this, because I know that beyond winning an election, we're also changing the way politics works in this country."

[via email]

Sadly this wouldn't be possible in the UK.  Unless the rules have changed from my Sales Promotion days on a game of chance like this promotion you need to state that no purchase is necessary.  That might suppress donations!

Free Our Bills

MySociety, of TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow fame have started the Free Our Bills campaign to get Parliament to provide upcoming bills online in a structured data format so that anyone can publish, compare, comment or do whatever they like on them easily and quickly.

So far MySociety's attempts to persuade Parliamentary officials to this fairly (£10,000) easy task have been rebuffed.  No-one seems to know exactly why but I suspect the officials are struggling to see the benefit to them and their bosses of opening Bills to more scrutiny.  Not many people like to open themselves to general, public criticism.  Much nicer to sit at the desk crafting away basking in your glory.  However the benefit of freeing the bills would be greater scrutiny and better law-making.

Many have already commented on the campaign.

I've a question and a comment for those blocking the campaign.  When you decided to work at Parliament was your aim to make legislation better or worse?  I suspect that before you joined you thought you could get the laws better written.  There are others like you who haven't joined but feel we have something to add.

The comment is also simple.  It will happen.  People will take the text of bills and republish them.  They might get it a little wrong. They might have an agenda. You might get some biased publishing of bills.  Wouldn't it be better if you let an official version online so that more accuracy and measured discussion of bills can take place?

What on earth do they mean by democracy then?

The government seems to be having problems with the human embryology and fertilisation bill. It appears they were intending to apply the whip, but Catholics, in particular, are objecting and calling for a free vote.

One quote in this article really caught my attention,

Denis MacShane, a former Europe minister, said too much was at stake to allow a free vote. "I respect the Catholic and other religions, just as I respect CND and Liberty, but if every difficult issue with ethical implications is a matter for free votes, then democracy, parliament and the purpose of government becomes meaningless."

Free votes render democracy meaningless? Oh, have we decided that the party system is necessarily the most democratic system possible? I must have missed that meeting...

I've been trying to make sense of it, and assume he means that voters have voted mainly on the basis of party, and not on the basis of their MP's religion, or ethical position on human embryos. He may be right on that. But I doubt most people voted on the basis of the party's position on human embryo research either. So what is democratic about a whip on the issue?

This is an issue which involves emotions and principles as well as facts. Personally, I broadly support this kind of research, but I can understand why some people have a problem with it - not simply on religious grounds. It raises all sort of questions about how we define 'human being' and what that means. I think that society as a whole should have a say in decisions like this. It's not enough to blithely agree to whatever scientists recommend. (That's why I think science engagement and dialogue is so important and why we're developing 'I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!')

Neither is it good enough for it to be decided by the happenstance of the ethical or religious beliefs of MPs. Especially as MPs are so unrepresentative. Out of 646 MPs, 520 are male. They have never been and will never be pregnant. Isn't it possible that women might feel differently about the use of human embryos in research? And aren't those views valid?

I think this highlight a real shortcoming of our system of democracy. The electorate have not been given an opportunity to express a view on the issue and the people supposed to represent us are not representative in key ways. We can't have referenda on every issue like this, and anyway, that might lead to somewhat unconsidered results, but I think this would be an ideal issue for a Citizens' Jury.

Lords of the blog - V Natural

I've been following the Lord (Clive) Soley instigated group blog for a few days now and despite the awful design, name, and technical set-up it is working well at the moment.  In my opinion it is because the blogging Lords are writing in a very natural language.

Of the nine participating peers only two were previously MPs and perhaps this helps contrast them against my particular perception of the House of Lords.  And, since one of their stated aims is to change the image of the Upper House, they are succeeding.

Congratulations, Lords, keep going, but please do ask someone to do some work on the design and techie side - you'd have thought a title for the RSS feed would be right up your street.  Boom boom.

Guide to Social Media for Organisations

Colin McKay, a Canadian Government communicator and blogger and social media pioneer extraordinaire, has written The Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organisations.  It is not a technical guide.  More a cultural, managerial guide to avoid the roadblocks set by IT and legal departments.  Colin has blogged about it himself.

At 23 pages it is a quick and enjoyable read.

[cross posted from cllr2pointzero.wordpress.com]

5 Principles of a Constitution

One of the highlights of the empowerment symposium in February was going for dinner and sitting between Phil Booth, from NO2ID and Carolyn Lukensmeyer from AmericaSpeaks.  Amongst other things we talked about the previous symposium in Budapest and I went on as usual about how inspiring a speaker had been.  He was a law teacher from Marseilles called Etienne Chouard and he had been a major part in the "Non" vote in France when the European Constitution was put to a referendum in 2005.  He produced an analysis of the constitution as it had been and explained why he thought it should be rejected in plain and simple terms.  He also set out his five principles of constitutional law and states why the European Constitution of 2005 failed those principles. 

1. A Constitution should be readable to allow a popular vote: this text is impossible to read.
2. A Constitution does not enforce one policy or another: this text is biased.
3. A Constitution is revisable: this text is sealed by a requirement of double unanimity.
4. A Constitution protects from tyranny by separating powers and controlling them: this text does not organize a true control of powers, nor does it provide for real separation of powers.
5. A Constitution is not something granted by those in power, it is drawn up by the People itself, precisely to protect itself from the arbitrary use of power, through a Constituent Assembly, independent, elected for that purpose only and afterwards revoked : this text enforces European institutions that have been established over the last fifty years by the men in power, who have been, therefore, judge and party.

I was reminded of the first whilst watching BBC's Question Time last week.  As you'd expect the Lisbon Treaty (which some say is the same as the constitution rejected by France) was being discussed on Question Time as it had been in the House of Commons the day before.  Marcus Brigstocke (a comedian - often the non-politicians make most sense on the panel) stated that he was against a referendum because the treaty was too complex for ordinary people to understand.

Had Etienne been on the panel I'm sure he'd have told Marcus that was the reason why the treaty should be rejected.  His first principle is that constitutions should be able to be read by the populous.  Wouldn't it have been more democratic if the writers of the European Constitution had taken Etienne's five principles and rewritten the constitution in a form that cold have been voted upon instead of concocting a treaty that ordinary people could not vote upon because it is unintelligible.

I expect that if we got principle number five sorted, that the constitution is written by the people rather than those in power, then the first four would be much easier to achieve.

As talk of a Bill of Rights for the UK continues perhaps Etienne's principles should be remembered.

(Photo: cc Thorne Enterprises)