Local Democracy Notepad

Niall Connolly appears to regard himself as an expert on democracy.

Wonder if he’ll stand for election?

Prezza. The unacceptable face of politics?(Click for pic credit)

It seems that Madonna isn’t the only one who is taking an interest in attractive young men. The voters seem to be following suit as well with all of the political headlines being made by younger men.

efectos xenica

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is brutal way that the Lib-Dems ditched Menzies Campbell last year, but the not-bad-looking forty-something does seem to be one of the leitmotifs of modern politics

Ming’s replacement, Nick Clegg certainly seems to be aware of the issue, according to his Tory rival Ed Vaizey:

“Nick’s a lovely guy but he’s terribly vain. For the entire trip he harped on about how he was number one in a Sky poll of ‘Most Fanciable MPs’ and that I was only number nine. We shared an igloo and the intimate, bonding evening chat was based on how good-looking he is. I was referred to only by my fanciability ranking of number nine,” Vaizey says.”

Apparently, Bill Clinton was the original butt of the jibe about politics being ‘showbusiness for ugly people.’ Here’s a ‘tale-of-the-tape’ comparison between US presidential candidates in recent years and there certainly seems to point to the conclusion that it’s very hard to win a Presidential race if you are bald (good quote: “Ford wasn’t elected. And Dick Cheney wasn’t technically president.”) Read the rest of this entry »

Tell councillors what RSS means, willya?

Apologies for the light posting here lately – even bloggers go on holiday, y’know?

I’ve not collected my thoughts for any original posts yet, though the ‘Duty to Promote Democracy’ and the obligation to offer petitions will be on the statute book shortly providing plenty of new material in the coming weeks.

For now, Dave Briggs has an interesting guest post up – ‘Ten Top Internet Tips for Councillors‘ – written by Mark Pack.

I’d argue that there is a real cultural problem around the way that local authorities manage their relationship with councillors. Councils could offer leadership to their councillors – saying that they believe that they have a duty to encourage councillors to be more effective people. In my experience, this approach is the exception rather than the norm, with too much handwringing about providing ‘political’ support to councillors.

In the absence of such support, if I were offering a short course to councillors, I’d start with those lovely Commoncraft videos. As Mark Pack says in that post on Dave’s blog, feed readers are very useful productivity tools.

But my hottest tip to councillors would be to challenge the attitude that local authorities adopt towards councillor development. One argument that I found to be briefly successful ran like this:

q: But surely, if we use council resources to help councillors become more effective communicators using the internet, we’d be giving the incumbent an advantage, damaging democracy, and breaking all sorts of local government codes of conduct?

a: Do you really think that you are providing every one of your councillors an advantage by giving them greater exposure to the voters? Would greater exposure to voters result in more councillors retaining their seats at election time? Or less?

I’d argue that this invisibility of individual councillors actually contributes to the way that political parties dominate local politics at the expense of strong individual representatives.

Promoting a use of social media at a local authority-wide level could be a good laugh – something that councillors would enjoy. I wonder if Commoncraft could come up with a video that would show councils how to do that?

Last week, the Guardian carried a feature on ‘The Coolest Mayor in America‘ – John Fetterman of Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Fetterman’s success raises a few slightly trivial aesthetic questions about what it takes to be a successful politician. It also raises bigger, more profound ones as well.

Fetterman doesn’t look like the traditional buttoned up political clone. He looks like he’d fit blend in to the audience of a Slayer gig or a Biker Bar more than a sausage-on-a-stick reception at the civic centre. Even David Cameron has allowed himself to be photographed occassionally without a tie, but somehow I think that even this would be step too far for an ex-member of The Bullingdon Club…. Read the rest of this entry »

Neil Williams has a good post up about the need to break some institutions into a more interactive world slowly. The Hansard Society’s Andy Williamson had a similar post up here a while ago:

Innovation fails when the people with the ideas aren’t matched by the ones with the skills and power to make those ideas happen. End-to-end innovation – and, therefore, eDemocracy – takes in the whole of the organisation.

I’d argue that this is a political issue. Or, more to the point, it’s something that requires a political leadership. That can’t happen, however, until we address one of the key problems in promoting innovation in the UK: That the relationship between the permanent bureaucracy and the elected one is not one that promotes innovation of this kind. Read the rest of this entry »

Chewing over Parliamentary reforms, here’s Jenni Russell from the Guardian last week:

“One experienced Commons civil servant is blisteringly critical of the way in which most MPs have accepted the culture in which they now operate. While some committees and chairs are excellent, many MPs can’t be bothered. “They’re just not interested in the core tasks of parliament, scrutinising legislation or working in committee. It’s too much hard work – they’d rather be social workers for constituents. …… They don’t spend three hours in the House of Commons library reading bills or papers themselves; they wait for Greenpeace or Liberty or a lobby group to tell them what to think. That whole culture of thinking, challenging, debating – that’s what’s been discouraged. Because, for them personally, what’s the point?”"

There are a number of conclusions one can draw from this, some of which could be justifiably homicidal. Other trades have a set of professional ethics that would, for instance, preclude them from relying upon lobbyists for information, or coming up with a transparent means by which they conduct their research. Read the rest of this entry »

Benchmarking: Missing the point

Here’s Joanne Jacobs on the Australian ‘Government 2.0 Taskforce’ making a fairly universal point:

Even where a public fund is used to identify new tools, the majority of these will either slip into obscurity after launch or will be greatly applauded for a while but not widely adopted or contributed to, by the policy makers themselves, or those who are not already active participants in public engagement.  So the great ‘achievements’ of technology taskforces are celebrated in one thick and largely unread public report, and the new initiatives sparkle at their sauvignon-blanc launches, but thereafter are populated only by the usual suspects.

Instead of insisting in a specific set of standards, I rather wish government officials would make a habit of putting a spotlight on a new initiative every day. It might be tiring, but it would make more interesting reading than the avalanche of speeches, reports and criteria that usually pour out of these groups, and it would certainly make public engagement more attractive.

When I worked for politicians some years ago, I recall the dread that some of them had when they had to go and tour educational projects designed to get young people involved in the music industry. I’ll never forget the rictus grin of one well-known ex-minister being filmed listening to some banging choons at a FE College. Read the rest of this entry »

e-bay: a peer-to-peer reputation management system

Conall McDevitt has an interesting post up about CEO reputations:

“Communicating frequently with their employees. Certainly with their customers too, but not to forget their employees. At a time of uncertainty employees are hungry for information. CEOs need to take responsibility. Apologize if they are wrong. If they don’t know the answer, say they don’t know. We are just starting to see CEOs really being the face of the company.”

The CEOs of the Big 3 Auto Companies get a mention: Read the rest of this entry »

Further to the post about the way that we have high expectations about the civic virtues of politicians, here’s Will Davies comparing the way that we portray ourselves on social media platforms like Facebook as cultural beings, and – by contrast – the way that politicians have to present themselves:

“Gordon Brown’s central problem is that he conveys endless moralism, duty and calling, while failing entirely to communicate who he is. The civic deficit, on the other hand, is that people aspire to optimal identities, tastes and fashions, but only rarely gauge themselves in terms of ‘the good life’. The politician measures worth in ethical terms while the citizen does so in aesthetic terms.”

The role-model for future politicians?

A short follow-up to yesterday’s post on politicians who are ….. er …. politicians.

Conor Ryan – a senior New Labour veteran says: “MPs Wanted: No human beings need apply.”

“What we are now likely to get as a result of the relentless assault of the last month are humourless self-righteous sorts who are, of course, incapable of making the slightest mistake. In such circumstances, the only person who would want to be an MP is someone with no hinterland or human frailties, or an egomaniac extremist who plays to the populist mood.

If people don’t think much of our current MPs, just wait until they see what comes next.”

Discussing her decision to stand down, a ‘source close to’ Home Secretary Jacqui Smith commented:

“…the row had put pressure on her children and her parents and while she regretted wrongly submitting a claim for the adult movie, she felt “vindicated” in her overall approach to claims, now those of other MPs had been published.”

(Thanks to @CllrTim and @kcorrick for the Ned Flanders idea – is there a better example of a fictional dumb humourless prig?)