The recent outcome of a Swiss referendum in which a majority have voted in favour of a minaret ban has helped to highlight a few important issue around the question of direct democracy. Dan Hannan says that – while direct democracy is a great idea, this particular result is regrettable. Make of that what you [...]
Posts under ‘Direct democracy’
The myth of easy engagement: Evans’ Law?
Just a quick response to Tim Davies’ verygood post about ‘The Myth of Easy Engagement’. There is one argument that supports his general position that, I think, he misses. I’m sure that sooner or later, some will come up with a frivolous law (like ‘Godwin’s Law‘ or ‘Muphry’s Law‘) but if they don’t, let me [...]
Town Hall Meetings
A sketch of anti-healthcare reform protests in the US – from Rolling Stone magazine: “The threat of violence was thinly veiled: One agitator held aloft a tombstone with the name Doggett. Screaming, “Just say no!” the mob chased Doggett through the parking lot to an aide’s car — roaring with approval as he fled the [...]
Sustainable Communities Act 2007: business as usual or unusual government?
So it seems that a government advertising campaign is to target climate change sceptics. Certainly, policymakers appear to be hitting problems in bringing the public along with measures to address this issue, and it’s not very likely that ‘business as usual’ within the democratic process will deliver sustainable development. So there are great hopes pinned [...]
A few links to be going on with
Just a few interesting things I’ve seen over the past few days that impact further on this councils v local newspapers issue. The first is that – when councils decide to factor in ad-revenue into their communications budgets, it adds a significant amount of uncertainty – because ad revenue can go down as well as [...]
“Too much democracy”?
Douglas Carswell MP and Daniel Hannan MEP, along with a few others, may wish to have a glance at Tim Garton-Ash’s latest – this time answering the queston ‘why has California got itself into such a mess: “…its prisons are overflowing; the energy-guzzling way it meets its water needs takes a staggering 19% of the [...]
Football phone-ins v consultation exercises
Matthew Taylor has a good post up about the architecture of morality, and it’s all the better for the fact that he’s chosen an important issue (football) to illustrate his point. Personally, I spend six days a week tut-tutting about the way that popular political discourse is convened and managed. Panel shows on TV and [...]
Against participatory democracy
Brian Barder’s excellent – and comprehensive – opposition to ‘participatory democracy’ has been up and commented-up for long enough to be worth a second visit if you’ve seen it already. My only problem with it is that posts such as this probably have an obligation to advocate consultation – in it’s most creative and energetic [...]
Campaigns
Here’s LD’s co-blogger Anthony writing (or rather, quoting) from his main blog on the growing ‘pressure group industry’: “The flourishing of associations is the denial of mediation. Taken to its logical conclusion, the slogan of the movement is: for each individual their own association, and by that very fact, no association at all.” It’s often [...]
Reality scores from the rebound
Direct democracy experiment MyFootballClub was featured in recent online movie Us Now. You’ll remember the MyFC website took over Ebbsfleet United (the former Gravesend and Northfleet) and promised its members all the experience of running a real football club, team selections, transfer listing players, and the rest. According to a piece on the When Saturday [...]