Democracy

Big Society needs Big Democracy

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 19 July 2010 - 9:48am

What's wrong with the following sentence?

"The Government held a Big Society reception at 10 Downing Street last week, with a list of invited dignitaries."

Of course, you spotted it. The Big Society is meant to be a flourishing of something beyond the traditional forms of government, a system which empowers the unempowered, and yet an early event is a meeting of the already-empowered over canapes in the nation's symbol of executive authority.

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.

STV constituency proposals

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 10 February 2010 - 11:11am

I'll write more about the proportional representation referendum shortly, but the Liberal Democrats are likely to propose an amendment asking for the consideration of Single Transferable Vote as well as Alternative Vote (in other words, a proper proportional representation system, as well as a pseudo-proportional one).

UKGovCamp as the future

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 25 January 2010 - 10:58pm

I spent Saturday at UKGovCamp. I'm not going to recite the content or the sessions here, as all that can be found on the Wikispaces wiki that organiser Dave Briggs and others have put together to capture the content.

People power, wielded by pols

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 7 January 2010 - 10:00am
So, Iceland's president has thrown a controversial international financial deal to a referendum. Looking at this alongside the Lisbon Treaty kerfuffle in the UK, can we now approach a definition of "referendum" as:
a political device used by politicians of one party to unpick international agreements made by politicians of another party, in circumstances where they believe the popular mood of the moment is on their side.

Democracy denied in Switzerland

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 30 November 2009 - 9:36pm
The news from Switzerland is bad, not just for the overwhelmingly moderate Swiss Muslim population, but also for democratic reformers in general. Anyone arguing against democratic reform can now say - "let the people have their say, and you'll get racism and discrimination, like in Switzerland". What's worse, a minority in British politics see such populist racism and discrimination as positive reasons for more participatory democracy.

Council or community?

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 16 November 2009 - 12:25pm
In an excellent overview (Digital engagement governance – a dichotomy between hyperlocal or partnership managed), Michele Ide-Smith sets out the pros and cons of handling community engagement projects through councils and partnerships, or through more organic local community media approaches:
Council / partnership managed approach Pro’s:
  • A level of moderation and facilitation control
  • Less reliance on volunteers, who are often transitory and hard to coordinate
  • Focus on specific iss

Brighton's openish primary

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 11 November 2009 - 3:00pm
According to the local paper, the promised open primary in marginal Brighton Pavilion will require voters to turn up in person. Presumably put off by the high cost of the postal ballot used in Totnes, the Tories have hired a room in a seafront hotel, where (if you book in advance) residents of Pavilion constituency can turn up and choose between six potential candidates. Cost reasons aside, I'm a bit surprised that the Tories are turning down the free publicity they would get

David Heathcote-Semele

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 28 October 2009 - 4:24pm
This morning's Today programme pitted David Heathcote-Amory against the Economist's Brussels correspondent, Charlemagne (David Rennie) in a discussion about the appointment of the President of the EU Council. It was an uneven match-up. Heathcote-Amory complained about the Lisbon Treaty, complained about the undemocratic EU and how awful it all was, and came across as backward-looking, querulous and reactionary.

E-spending

Submitted by Anthony Zacharzewski on 28 October 2009 - 11:03am
Liz Azyan picks up on some questions about e-petitions that were asked at the Local Democracy Blog by Paul a couple of months back. She doesn't mention the fascinating word cloud that accompanies her article, called "E-petition verbs". The biggest words are, on a quick skim, "prevent, save, reimburse, make, oppose, charge and introduce". With my local government head on, all of those words, except charge, are "spend" words.
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