I’ve just discovered the Local Government Officer’s blog. It’s a really good blog that does (as a visitor remarks) what blogs do best - anonymous low-horizon perspective commenting from an insider.
The latest post asks the question:
Is it better for Councillors to live in the area that they represent?
Or, more accurately, how much better is it [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Councillors, What makes a good representative? | 4 Comments »
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 »
Shorter version: If you’re a politician, it may be a good idea to get into blogging. But do it under a pen-name! It’s safer that way, and it will make you better at your job.
This is an old-ish question nowadays. And as the big question around social media at the moment is ’should everyone Twitter‘, [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Blogging, Chatham House Rule, Machiavelli | 1 Comment »
Last week, I posted here on how local councillors are actively discouraged from interacting with the public by the configuration of their office PCs. As I said at the time, this may not be the intention, but it is the outcome.
Here, Steph Gray offers a tool that every councillor should run as a diagnostic.
Filed under: Obstacles for democrats to overcome, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | No Comments »
If you were to draw a Venn Diagram showing attitudes to the use of ICT tools for interactivity, putting Interactive Evangelists in one circle and local authority ICT managers in the other, I strongly suspect that you would end up with something that looks like a number.
This number:
8
When I get time, I’d like to pull [...]
Filed under: Democratic renewal, Obstacles for democrats to overcome, Public administration, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | 1 Comment »
A while back, I noticed a nice short post from Aussie blogger The Mild Colonial Boy quoting De Tocqueville:
“It may easily be foreseen that almost all the able and ambitious members of a democratic community will labor unceasingly to extend the powers of government, because they all hope at some time or other to wield [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Centralisation, Obstacles for democrats to overcome, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Attracting talent | 3 Comments »
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 »
There’s something of a tactical voting campaign going on to ensure that Melanie Phillips doesn’t win a UK blog award. It’s hardly a life-or-death issue and I’m sure that Melanie’s people are doing the same thing, so good luck to them.
The same award scheme is in place in the US, and only one of the [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | 9 Comments »
If ever a review were overdue, it’s the one that Hazel Blears has just announced (though it was heavily trailed in the ‘Communities in Control’ White Paper) into the rules that determine what publicity councils can and can’t do.
I’ve visited approximately 100 local authorities in the UK, trying to persuade councils to help councillors take [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Democratic renewal, Obstacles for democrats to overcome, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Publicity rules | No Comments »
I’ve promised to help a few Councillors from Welwyn and Hatfield Borough Council start their own blogs. I already manage a project that is intended to get as many of them as possible to manage a small personal website.
Anyway, here are the five aspiring bloggers. All have made a start, but you will see that [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Blogging, Councillors | 2 Comments »
Being a politician is a good deal harder than most of us realise. Recent posts here about cognitive polyphasia remind me that being a politician involves squaring a number of unsquareable circles. Here’s the RSA’s Matthew Taylor on cognitive dissonance and the rose coloured mirror. People - the voters (trans: you and I) don’t recognise [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Obstacles for democrats to overcome, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: cognitive dissonance | No Comments »
The very smart MySociety project developed Fix My Street a while back. Now you can post pictures to it by iPhone.
There is no reason why councillors can’t be encouraged to be active users of this - and to ensure that everything that they post to it can be fed onto their personal web-pages. This would [...]
Filed under: Being a politician, Councillors, Web 2.0 and democracy, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Community councillors | No Comments »
Here’s qmonkey asking a good Q and tentatively offering an answer:
“I want the best and smartest people for the job! Then have their appointment vetted by my elected representatives… who don’t need to be gifted at anything else, other than successfully representing the views of their constituents.”
Filed under: What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Representative democracy | No Comments »
Democracy is the worst form of government except all the other forms that have been tried from time to time - Winston Churchill
Funny aphorisms have a habit of making a case better than any footnoted essay, and Churchill’s view remains the most quoted argument I’ve seen in the defence of liberal democracy. But what is [...]
Filed under: Centralisation, Distributed moral wisdom, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Representative democracy | 4 Comments »
Here’s a really good post that superimposes the work of Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill onto the John Sergeant / Strictly Come Dancing débâcle.
Chris asks:
Do we necessarily pick the best people as elected representatives?
Is this a bad thing?
Chris concludes that it shouldn’t be a bad thing, but that our current managerialist democratic institutions [...]
Filed under: The media, What makes a good representative? | Tagged: Elections, Representative democracy | 1 Comment »
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