Posted on April 6, 2009 by Paul Evans
Here’s a radio programme about participatory budgeting in the UK. I’m not sure where it went out first (Tiago Peixoto pointed me towards it via Facebook).
It’s quite short and worth listening to just for the note of joy in a council officer’s voice when she says that people were asking for council tax [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy, Participatory budgeting | Tagged: Podcast, Radio programme | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 10, 2009 by Paul Evans
This blog is here to explore the concept of a more inclusive means of forming policy at a local level. So let me offer you two examples of the kind of people that we need to include in such processes.
Our first case in point - let’s call her Mrs Meldrew (though it’s not really a [...]
Filed under: Consultations, Conversational localities, Political parties | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 25, 2009 by Anthony Zacharzewski
Part three of a series of articles looking at the Conservative local government green paper, Shift Control.
This time, chapter two. This chapter is about localism, and promises that a Conservative Government would:
give local residents the power to determine the balance between the level of council tax and the level of services
delivered;
drastically reduce the centrally imposed [...]
Filed under: Conservatives, Conversational localities, Councillors, Direct democracy, Elections, Political parties, Public administration | No Comments »
Posted on February 13, 2009 by Paul Evans
Before
This is a good way of explaining it, isn’t it?
Filed under: Consultations, Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy | No Comments »
Posted on February 10, 2009 by Paul Evans
One of my favourite political bloggers, Shuggy, has a short post up here about opinion and it’s validity (or lack of). My own favourite variation on this is the view that ‘opinions are like a*seholes - everyone has one, but no-one really wants to hear them.’ (an aphorism that I can’t recall the source of [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Conversational localities, Distributed moral wisdom, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | No Comments »
Posted on February 6, 2009 by Paul Evans
Here’s Wandsworth’s Councillor James Cousins on the value of interactivity for councillors:
“What is surprising is not just how many local people were tweeting, but how many were eager to engage and use Twitter to communicate with their councillor. While I often sit in a draughty library with no-one attending my surgery it is quite the [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Conversational localities, Councillors, Web 2.0 and democracy | No Comments »
Posted on February 2, 2009 by Anthony Zacharzewski
Ingrid Koehler wants to know what the Key questions about local government and social media are.
Her list is:
What are the greatest areas of potential benefit in councils using social media?
How can councils support local communities and individuals in becoming digitally enabled and empowered?
How can local and hyper-local social networks increase community cohesion and empowerment.
How can [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Councillors | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 2, 2009 by Paul Evans
Three articles have caught my eye over the weekend:
Wikipedia and the law: The libel laws haven’t yet caught up with the existence of Wikipedia. This is a problem - and it offers a huge advantage to those with the means to use lawyers to intimidate. The article itself is short and to-the-point, but Padraig Reidy [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Democratic renewal, The media, Web 2.0 and democracy | Tagged: Libel, Power of Information Taskforce, Social media, Wikipedia | No Comments »
Posted on January 23, 2009 by Paul Evans
Neighbourhoods blogger, Kevin Harris has just introduced me to Hugh of Harringay Online. The most superficially interesting thing about his site is the spelling of Harringay. The actual local authority area is Haringey, and within the area - for reasons that are lost in the mists of time - is a differently named neighbourhood within [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy, Web 2.0 and democracy | Tagged: Haringey, Harringay | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 19, 2009 by Paul Evans
In a very good edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Analysis’ programme towards the end of last year, the columnist David Aaronovich recounted a programme that he produced in the 1980s featuring the Archbishop of York, John Hapgood.
The Archbishop, as far as I can see, had the kind of views that would appeal to a Guardian [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Consultations, Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy, Distributed moral wisdom, Pressure groups | Tagged: Certainty, Distributed moral wisdom, Eavesdroppable, Groupthink, Irony, Neutrality, Podcast, Wisdom of Crowds | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 14, 2009 by Paul Evans
This US post is calling for the data that agencies use to be as available as their conclusions.
“Mindy Finn noted that politicians (typically leery of too much openness) can benefit from transparency in a self-protective “flood the zone” way — since people are coming to expect information about public figures to be available online, someone [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy, Public administration, Transparency | No Comments »
Posted on January 13, 2009 by Paul Evans
Here’s Suze, musing on the question of how far blogging is having a positive impact on journalism. Suze concludes that it’s too early to tell, but she says a lot of interesting things on the way.
For me, here’s the big question: Does the emergence of a decentralised space with fewer barriers to entry (ahem: Web [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Conversational localities, Deliberative democracy, Democratic renewal, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | 5 Comments »
Posted on January 8, 2009 by Paul Evans
Firstly, this is a lovely idea about how design can be used to improve the quality of communication at a local level. Here’s the original site, and here’s an image to whet your whistle:
And secondly, totally unrelated, here’s a list of the petitions that have gone before the EU petittions committee.
Just for the avoidance of [...]
Filed under: Conversational localities, Design, Petitions | No Comments »
