Politics

The minor issue of scaling up by 267 million percent

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 11 August 2010 - 1:39pm

Julian McCrae at the Institute for Government PWC citizens' jury in Coventry recently. His take on the key points:

"Firstly, people can accept the case for difficult decisions when they are engaged in a meaningful discussion about the options.

Your Freedom should be supporting users more

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 20 July 2010 - 2:27pm

The Tumblr site YourFreedumb might be devoted to picking stupid or offensive content out of the Your Freedom consultation, but that doesn't mean they can't write a perceptive critique of why it hasn't taken off in the way I hoped it might.

Bishops in da House: Lord help us

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 5 July 2010 - 12:22pm

Here's a bad argument about the reform of the House of Lords: "Does the 'Big Society' include bishops in the Lords?".

I don't want to be mean to Paul Woolley, director of Theos, whose argument it is, but it is pretty much identical to every other argument against full democratic reform of the Lords. It runs "democracy isn't just about electoral mandates, it's about [people I agree with] having a say over legislation".

Your Freedom: Government asks well, but can it answer well?

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 1 July 2010 - 10:29am

The Government today launched Your Freedom, a discussion site where people can make suggestions on civil liberties issues and legislation they want to see repealed. good site, but can Government live up to its rhetoric and answer as well as it asks?

Messages change, opinion polls change

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 27 June 2010 - 8:09pm

Little thing I noticed today. In the Sunday Telegraph, 52% of people questioned in an ICM poll thought the recent budget cuts were necessary (although of course detail on what they will be is not yet clear). Compare that with the 75% of people before the election, as often mentioned by Ben Page, who thought that the deficit could be reduced by efficiency savings alone.

Introducing TalkIssues

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 6 April 2010 - 3:24pm

After a few weeks of being too busy to blog, I'm very pleased to be able to introduce our new project, TalkIssues, which we're undertaking with Kevin Anderson, Suw Charman-Anderson and the FutureGov team.

TalkIssues is a blog, twitter tag, and all those modern social media things, designed to get people talking and thinking about the real issues behind the election, rather than the personalities and the horse race.

The bad manners of dissolving Parliament

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 25 February 2010 - 9:29am

Assuming the General Election in the UK is on 6 May, the election will be called on 12 April. The constitutional and ceremonial practice of calling an election involves the Great Seal of the Realm, royal proclamations and lots of other historical flummery. The political calculation, since the dissolution date is in the hands of the Prime Minister, is sharper.

Radical thoughts on planning from Cameron

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 22 February 2010 - 1:27pm

David Cameron's ideas for reform of the planning system are the most radical piece of localism I've seen proposed in this election campaign so far.

Cameron envisages a switch from a local-authority-led system of plans against which new developments are judged, to a more permissive community-based system. Communities would come together in a participatory process to define a new community plan. Local authorities would then stitch those together into Local Plans, but would lose the right to make individual judgements on any planning application within the scope of the Local Plan.

Mutualism and the public service lottery

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 16 February 2010 - 8:41pm

Sam McLean at the RSA Participation Project has a thoughtful post on the back of the Conservatives' "small platoons" announcement and a critical article by the Guardian's Alison Benjamin.

Not backwards to the Greeks, forward with the Greeks

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 11 February 2010 - 1:15pm

Tomorrow, I'll have time - I hope - to write something longer about the democratic implications of the Greek bailout, and any conditions that are imposed on Greece in consequence of its financial position and Euro membership.

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