New style of government or new style of gimmick

As the ever-interesting (and I do mean that) Dizzy informs readers last week, the Conservatives are clear winners in engagement online. Whether this is old versus new, so there is more interest in the Conservatives because Labour have been around, and in government, for a long time, is a question? It could be that the engagement tools are the right ones, or that people want to engage more with the Conservatives, perhaps as they are seen as the next government, this is not an analysis of the audience unfortunately beyond simple indicators of engagement.

But the party seems to have a new strategy, one that will allow greater public participation in government. They want someone to design a platform, and will offer £1 million, that will create an online public sphere. If you are wondering about the idea of the public sphere, this should be autonomous (possibly in this case), inclusive (definitely), political (as before - and clearly) and rational. A space where people are able to find solutions to common social problems. Such ideas are surrounded by much hype and are attached to many ideals of democracy. There are two ways of looking at the notion of creating public spheres, it can be hailed as a means for getting people empowered and in touch with government, as in the case of this article by Tim Bonnemann, but there are dangers.

It is easy to source a crowd online, after all this was achieved to create the UK's Christmas number one single, or at least to block Simon Cowell. But what sort of crowd will be sourced? You can find a crowd that will decide that hanging is the best deterrent for serious crime, would that be good policy though? Would this allow minority opinions to be voiced? Or just those of extremists? Would it break the spiral of silence or create a new silence, of the majority perhaps? Most worrying would it abrogate the responsibility of a government over decision making, or indeed would a government be tied to the crowd by the terms and conditions of participation. Of course these negative outcomes can be avoided, to an extent, but they need to be considered. Initiatives that bring the governed and government closer together are all worthy of support and encouragement, the danger is though that these initiatives can be ill-considered gimmicks rather than real proposals for public participation in the democratic process. It may take more than £1 million to not only build the interface but also to ensure all the checks and balances are in place; that or we may find a place for consultation and participation that becomes unusable as anything but to embarrass the government that thought it up and paid for it.

Engagement?

Labour, if albeit quietly apart from when Derek Draper was learning to tell the difference between his RSS and his elbow and getting it wrong, seemed to have really stepped up their online strategy. There is now a 'Believe in Labour' Facebook group but also something that has the appearance of a party wiki. Labourspace seems to post policy ideas and for others to comment on them. Included on the site are videos, rather more professionally made than the average citizen is capable of, but appearing to show people making suggestions. Visitors can also sign up and create their own profile page which shows their posts, what campaigns their support and oppose etc. It also offers a range of ways for visitors and site members to share information and recruit others, so very Web 2.0. The conversation on England (below) shows a core argument, a range of contributions and contributors recruiting others.

Interestingly it appears to have been around for a while, posts go back to the beginning of this year, little could be found that is negative based on a scan of issues, it is very much about the big issues and not the nitty-gritty of policy or party politics but there are a range of small social issues discussed. It seems to be designed for members but is now being made more public via Facebook, surprising really that it was not made more of but perhaps that is the strategy. Have been reading a PhD recently, for the purposes of examination, that talks about relationship marketing and the internal market. What this site's function seems to be is a tool for bringing existing supporters closer to the party and government and perhaps then mobilise them as advocates and activists. The process could be that having signed up and contributed, if some effect is seen based on a contribution then this empowers the individual, gives them a feeling of efficacy, but also recognises who provides them this opportunity; they can tell others etc. Without signing up it is impossible to tell how many are signed up, how active the site is in reality or whether there is any links between activity and political action at the highest level (if anyone wants to share info that would be great) but it is an interesting tool that could be powerful if it has direct initial reach and can be disseminated to a critical mass through word of mouth.

Are bloggers hindering democracy?

It would be a hard argument to justify, but that is the argument made within the bi-monthly meeting of the New Castle County Council in Delaware, US. It is reported that Democrat member David Tackett proposed to make audio recordings of all council meetings available on the council's Web page in the spirit of being "open, accessible and accountable" to constituents. But this was voted down on the basis that, as fellow Democrat George Smiley argued "bloggers and other observers who don't routinely attend meetings would anonymously use the audio clips to criticize council members". He continued to say "The Internet is the greatest thing in the world to find information, but every day someone's reputation is destroyed using it." So it is an interesting question isn't it. Are those who claim to be exercising their democratic right to express their opinions actually hindering information being made public because they might use it to attack council members? Given the activities of Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes perhaps an argument can be made either way on how pernicious the effects are and to what extent the material used is always in context and used to reinforce a point it actually offers evidence of. It is an interesting question though!

Smeargate - the last word on it from me!

The consensus on the ongoing Smeargate debacle is that politics has lost out, its reputation further tarnished by this fresh evidence that politics is a dirty game. One voice that stands against this is Conservative MP Douglas Carswell who writes on his blog quite rightly that "Politics in Britain is fundamentally broken. The Internet is merely helping to expose the bogusness of what we currently have to put up with" - in other words this is really little that is new. However he makes the further assertion that: "The web will break the predominance of corporate party machines, the corporate media and corporatism - each of which helps currently sustain the SW1 class. Politics will have to become "open source" and more democratic"

I found this a really interesting argument, and one that would be a very positive development, but I worry if this really will be the case. My problem is that I doubt that currently the right people are influential in the blogosphere to hold SW1 to account. My take, disagree if you like and I am sure some will, is that Smeargate is a symptom of something that is endemic in modern politics, that campaigns are as likely to be fought on negative grounds and what often predominates is the personal attack. And perhaps Smeargate provides evidence that rather than being a feature of party machines it is actually spilling over into the blogosphere. Smeargate is the latest instalment of a battle between two egos. This was not a revelation exposed by a blogger wishing to scrutinise the actions of those in politics. It appears to be more the case that the underlying desire was that of Paul Staines to did dirt about Derek Draper, to undermine Labour's rather brash and artificial attempt to have a grassroots online presence and to score party political points.

The blogosphere seems to currently reflect the pattern of the mainstream media. What predominates is bias, with even the BBC being accused of favouring parties and ideologies (usually those in government). Bloggers have no regulation and so, rightly, we can say what we like, that is the idea after all. But if it is biased opinion following party political lines, whether this can encourage democracy in anyway is a very big question. What seems very rare is good, objective political blogging that is not out to score points or cheerlead for one party or another (not a call to read my blog by the way but an observation of what is available). The problem is that much also purports to be independent, both from parties and politically. Thus I share the despondency and am much more pessimistic than Douglas Carswell I'm afraid. Evidence suggests that petty squabbling and point scoring does not encourage engagement in politics, if this is to spill over into the blogosphere then it will keep it as a forum for the few and not the many. Just my humble opinion!

The Future of Politics - the report is out

The report is an interesting read, I have posted a longer comment about this to the Total Politics blog but the main thrust is that all layers of politics (local and national) need to harness new technologies to engage the voters. My issue with the report is that the suggestion that there be a new electronically facilitated direct form of democracy suggests a complete overhaul of the system. It will not save parties but make them obsolete, while this is considered by the authors and sidestepped the fact that government and the role of the opposition would equally have questionable usefulness is not considered. Thus the bold claims may give ideas to MPs on why they should be more of a maverick to get a personal vote, but the conclusions that result from open participation may make many within politics recoil in horror. Hence, in my opinion, the report appears to move towards a conclusion that is rather pie in the sky; if it is intended to start a conversation about new technology that is a worthy ideal but the implications may scare the politicians more than inspire them.

An illusion of interactivity

It is argued that much of the supposed interactivity offered by political parties is illusory. We see opportunities to participate, invitations to send emails etc, we see the outcome of participation but what we seldom see is actual participation taking place or get the chance to do so. So while we can send an email we may never get a response or we hear of consultation but are unsure who actually took part. If you are cynical it can be assumed that there is a language of listening and participation but this is purely window dressing for a business as usual elitist political system.

I raise this in response to a curious live chat event advertised for 1.30pm today with Yvette Cooper Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I received an email invitation (below) which shows it was actually sent out at 1.35 so I was going to miss the start whatever happened.

I actually followed the link at 1.50 but was surprised to find that it had finished already. 'Yvette', as we assume it was she, told us there were hundreds of questions in, she answered seven which read very much as frequently asked questions on many public service/customer service pamphlets and web pages and then logged off. The dialogue may disappear soon but I give a flavour of it:

Steve Carlington, says: My bank has recently been unwilling to give me the credit I have always received to run my business. The government needs to do something to change this or else I will have no breathing room and things will become really tight and my business will suffer.

Yvette Cooper, says: Hello Steve. I'm sorry you are having such difficulties with your bank. I don't know your particular circumnstances, but we are worried about small businesses gettting hit by the global credit crunch. Mistakes in the international banking system and the fact that banks are still restricting credit are now having an effect on ordinary businesses not just in this country but all over the world. We have set conditions for those banks that are getting help from the government's new recapitalisation scheme, and they have agreed to increase availability of lending to small businesses as a result. Today Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson are also meeting with senior executives of other banks to urge all of them to do more to support businesses at a difficult time. i think its important that if government is stepping in to support the banks, then banks should do their bit to support the rest of the economy too. We are also looking at other ways to support businesses who are having difficulty getting credit to help them through the tougher times.

My question, and it is a question, is this real interactivity, does Steve Carlington really exist and is he really a member of the public? Or is this smoke and mirrors interactivity, an illusion created using the sleight of hand enabled by the internet?

Online Democracy?

It is often argued that the Internet facilitates greater democracy, it allows the public to input ot news stories (comments posted to BBC Online for example) as well as start or contribute to existing debates through blogs etc. However there is a flip side to this. It also allows groups to gather data on specific questions that can then be used to promote an idea. The British National Party, for some unknown reason though a couple of insider investigations leading to arrests may give a clue, do not like the BBC. They have a poll on their front page asking about the licence fee, a contentious issue, but any rigor in the poll is destroyed by the two highly loaded questions (see 3, 4 and 5) the latter being purely sarcastic one assumes. While it is unlikely these results will have any impact it gives the notion of online democracy a bad name when the research is a push poll rather than something designed to gather information of any use.

What's in a name

The Conservatives invite votes on the name for their new blog, the choices are pared down from thousands of suggestions to:
The Blue Room
Conflab
The Blue Blog
Speakers' Corner
Out of the Blue

Voting ends Wednesday at midday. Why go to this trouble, if nothing else it gives a sense of co-ownership and offers the perception that the party does not have the objective of controlling the blog. It has been argued that parties return to a default position of control when designing online content, this gives an impression they will not. However that will be proven by the content itself, however at this stage it gets people involved and that is something every party needs.

E-political marketing

This combines the old technique of lobbying of MPs by citizens with a practice more commonly used in the US, which is mobilising the public using the Internet. Canvas Your MP is a Liberal Democrat led campaign, the challenge for them now is making an impact. In the US lobbying strategists have developed complex equations for both moving the votes of senators and gathering participants and supporters. For them it is about click-thrus, they will pay to embed a link on popular sites, recognise that no more than 10% click, that of that 10% only 1% sign up and so from that work out how many banners are needed on which sites to get the right amount of visitors clicking. Not sure what the distribution method for this campaign will be, currently it is viral and passed from friend to friend via FriendFeed, Facebook and over email, but is this sufficient to get to enough MPs across the country, and get anywhere near a significant number of constituents contacting their MPs? Is the informal recommendation via the online community the best strategy, or does the strategy need ratcheting up a notch.

E-democracy?

Steve Schifferes writes on the BBC News website that the Internet has been pivotal for the Obama campaign. His case is that Obama capitalised on the fact that "The internet favours the outsider", his early use at the outset of his campaign allowed him to exploit the potential of "ability to quickly mobilise supporters and money online". Obama basically hit the ground running, Clinton was far slower in developing an effective Internet campaign. But it is not just about awareness and donations: "His use of social networking sites has helped Mr Obama to mobilise young people, a group which has traditionally been uninterested in politics". But a key point that Schifferes identifies is not about Obama's strategy. He claims that "Mr Obama's decision to run was influenced by the fact that a page created on MySpace by supporters not connected to any official campaign quickly signed up 160,000 supporters". In other words Obama became the figurehead of a campaign to change the traditional politics before he officially threw his hat into the ring and, following that, the independently developed Youtube videos such as 'Obama Girl' and 'Yes we can' by Will-I-am, were key to demonstrating the level of support he enjoyed beyond the usual candidate produced endorsements.

The point here is, whether anyone thinks Obama would make a good President or not, that he not only developed a grassroots campaign online but joined and existing campaign. So it is not just a case of strategy, there is a degree of synergy between his style of campaign and the communication and media tool use of those who support him. Perhaps this is the e-democracy some have spoken of for years, political choices being expressed online and building a momentum that could have a direct effect on the governing of a nation.

The digital politician?

Gordon Brown, in launching an online 'Question Time' via Youtube, argues it is time the public had a chance to ask him questions. He invites anyone to submit videos and promises to respond.

While a little bit like a video answer-machine message, he looks a lot more open in his manner than his usual appearances, talking to the camera in a very sincere way. The rules of engagement are interesting, firstly it is clear what he does not want "Videos should not contain any references to political parties or commercial endorsement, be aggressive or offensive" and one imagines any that do not conform here will not see the light of day. However, there is a further inference of wanting a different type on engagement: "Be original, use your creativity and your imagination. Make your video a success. Think outside the box!" This perhaps hints he wants to follow a different agenda to that of the media, and in his video this may well mean those big issues he talks of: "globalisation, climate change, housing, jobs and public services", issues which are of concern to the predominantly young Youtube user but that national politicians are often accused of ignoring. Will he get interesting and creative questions? Will he in turn provide interesting and creative answers? Or is this purely an exercise to prove he is not an "analogue politician in a digital age"? Clearly he recognises that the Internet is a key political battleground and one which Cameron has had to himself for a long time; can he make an impact here?

Tracking the super-delegates

As we have heard, the outcome of the race to Democrat candidate in the US presidential election is down to the delegates who are sent from each of the states and then the superdelegates who can, when the contest is close, be swayed by the candidates and their campaigns, the voting across the states or other interests. Some have already declared, some are undecided but have voiced leanings but until the nothing is definite. The only hints are what the superdelegates say, privately or publicly directly or in the media. To aid understanding and observation of the process, an online wiki has been created to monitor these hints. The Superdelegate Transparency Project has created a wobble list, currently there is little 'wobbling' going on but if any citizen hears a hint that a declared or leaning candidate does hint a shift in their allegiance they can report it and, quite clearly, it would be difficult to shift for the wrong reasons as any hint of shift may have to be justified.

The important thing is the fact that it is the citizen that is asked to contribute to this wiki and report hints of shifts by the superdelegates. This empowers the electorate to scrutinise the superdelegates and go online to both monitor and report on their behaviour. Backroom deals are made more difficult and it is the citizens at whatever level that can monitor activity. The problem maybe that anyone could maliciously post and undermine a superdelegate or even a candidate; whether this will happen is an interesting one to watch particularly as the campaign heats up, pressure becomes more intense and thus superdelegates are called on to declare.

A new commons?

Following a session on the potential and pitfalls of an online political communication strategy, and in particular encouraging participatory interaction, on of my group forwarded an interesting Facebook message from Mike Rouse. The whole thing is reproduced below, but the idea is a WebCommons, a virtual space where citizens and politicians can interact from which feeds will be transmitted around the subscribing online community. The question is whether this is about connecting politics and the public or about promoting the Conservatives given Mike Rouse's allegiances (which he is quite open about): I note reference to Donorgate and Discgate (but think that can be excused). 18 Doughty Street, a project Rouse has worked on, has a definite air of partiallity at times, will the WebCommons? A question that's all. But it looks interesting, not quite sure why CVs are needed but see the email and sign up if interested. Clearly there is an attempt to get a momentum behing it (see the Youtube vid).

Early Slurge

From WebCommons

Hello WebCommoners!

I thought you might appreciate a little more information about what we are going to do. If you're too busy right now - either poking people or playing Scrabulus - please do come back when you're feeling fighting fit and ready to digest the below...You're going to be a part of something very special - a revolution in how people access information about their elected members throughout the UK.

But, more than just information we're about establishing a two-way process between the elected and the electors, but we're not going to call it "a conversation". Part of the problem with other sites is that they tap into useful information and news, but then have to add their own twist to it, spoon feed it to you, or make you jump through party poltiical hoops to get at it. Then, they wrap it all up in a "conversation" and pretend that they're sewing democracy a new suit.

But, do elected members really have time to sit down and have a two-way "conversation" with somebody over the internet that probably isn't in their constituency? No, they've got better things to be doing with their time, and rightly so. So, what we're going to do is give them a platform that they'll like because it's going to increase their profiles without them having to trawl through masses of comments and data.

For the most part it'll gather the data automagically. For you, the dear old WebCommoner, it's going to provide you with more information and access to your elected member than you could shake a stick at. You'll be able to hear directly from them with our blogging platform and blog aggregator, which will update every five minutes of the day - Imagine the old teleprinter they use on the telly for the football results - It'll be like that. Short. Snappy and too the point. Like a newswire for politics, but open to everybody.

What's more, you'll be able to see all the rising political issues as they develop. Remember "Donorgate" and "Discgate"? For the first time, you will be able to track these issues from the first time they rear their ugly heads until their conclusion - whatever it may be. Well, we hope that none of them result in the collapse of British democracy as that would kinda make us all redundant.

And if that wasn't enough, and oh how we like to spoil you, we're going to develop a daily podcasting service that will be available on the site at an amazing 6am every morning. We'll call it WebCommons Today or something like that and it'll basically tell you what's been happening the day before and forecast the day ahead. It's a bit like the Shipping Forecast for politics. BBC Radio 4 hold on to your hat!

Finally, and this has to be the icing on the cake, we're going to provide an indepth performance tracker in the site, which is going to let you see how the public at large perceive the performance of an elected member. Bit like a stock price for politicians... How much is your MP worth?

The site is not going to work unless we make some pretty hefty relationships with commentators and elected members. We're not just restricting it to Commons Members either. If you're an elected member in any public body in the UK you can bet you'll be on WebCommons. We should have called it WebElectedMembers, but that hasn't really got the same ring to it, has it?

Thanks for tuning in to this rather looooooooong update. Hopefully, you're still concious enough to make the decision as to how involved you'd like to get. If you're really keen, just drop Mike Rouse your CV on mike.rouse@messagespace.co.uk and let him know what interests you about politics and what you're up for.

Thanks a gozillion!

WebCommons"Bringing order to chaos"

PS: Share the Page with a friend!

Consulting Conservatives

An email went around yesterday from David Cameron, this announced the launch of Stand Up, Speak Up "an online platform for everyone in the country to get involved in shaping the next Conservative manifesto... Politics is about giving a lead, and we have set out a clear direction for our country: more green, more local, more family-friendly - less arrogant about what politicians can do on their own, and more optimistic about what we can achieve if we all work together. That's why it matters so much to me that we ask for your views in helping to shape our election manifesto.... [BUT!!!] As I made clear at the start of this process, those recommendations do not automatically become Conservative policy. There will be some proposals we do not agree with. In some areas, hard choices will have to be made between competing priorities. And of course, we will only commit to policies that Britain can afford."

The site intro focuses on the 'Fixing Our Broken Society' agenda and includes a negative broadcast detailing the failures of Blair and Brown; whether or not that is a good thing is open to debate. But the site then draws the visitor to view policy documents, just follow the 'Join the Policy Debate' link, well download PDFs anyway - the offering is either the 5 minute, 15 minute or hour version. Perhaps to be more interactive on substance key ideas should be on the page itself but the information is there listing the problems policy wonks have identified.

The next stage is to vote or debate. Voting is a pretty simplistic affair, you can say which is most important and from a list of six three can be selected - so personal debt, educational failure [not loaded at all], family breakdown, voluntary sector, economic dependency or addiction. Well it is a list certainly. But the debate is the more interesting section. Each of the categories has a debating area with a list of topics, some generating a lot of comment. For example the section on tax credits for married couples gained 70 comments in two days (15th & 16th July). Response from the Conservatives is promised. Site Editor, Stephen Crabb MP, using the title 'Social Justice Champion', promises: "I’ll be watching the voting, reading your comments and giving my feedback on a regular basis". As an extra, contributors can sign up for the chance to win one of five places to debate policy with David Cameron himself, though signing up is by taking part in all the stages of the read, vote, debate process - so selected due to their views perhaps.

But what is the function of this. Well it certainly appears to offer any visitor who wishes to register the chance to contribute to policy development. The caveat in the Cameron email is honest and sensible, though how all the comments will be aggregated is less than clear. The fear if there is a direct link to policy though is the notion of tyranny exacted by the minority who choose to take part, and the party must be aware of this so to what extent can they use the comments. Alternatively is this simply an exercise in gathering supportive comments that they can they quote back to demonstrate there is public support for a policy. Hard to say, but that makes far more sense than trying to use these comments for design purposes.

If this is the purpose, it is all about creating social acceptance around their policy proposals. A politician saying that we should encourage marriage, that schools are failing or whatever may well be mistrusted. The public saying it can make people who have no personal knowledge more likely to agree. A politician publicly launching a consultation exercise, allowing it to run, then quoting from contributions to reinforce ideas already in their PDFs, is suggesting that there is some sense of co-production taking place [shared ownership of ideas] but really it is a process of leading people to think a certain way through the careful detailing of the recommendations presented in their report and how they were reached.

Clearly if a policy is universally criticised it will probably disappear from the manifesto but on the whole it appears that just like Labour's Big Conversation, unless visitors have detailed experience or knowledge, comments will largely be simple gut reactions driven by ideological reactions to the proposals. It may offer a sense of what the nation thinks but it is questionable as to whether any real debate will take place and hard to see how it could inform policy design. But it equally may not matter, appearance may be sufficient!

Moving on the debate

Blair's speech of 12th June where he launched an attack on the now famous 'Feral Beasts of the Media' was the launch pad a for a consultation process. The debate mapper is described by the creators as a part of the government's e-democracy project designed "to develop a web-based means for people to collaboratively identify and display all of the arguments pertinent to any political debate clearly and fairly, so that all of the participants in the debate have the chance to see the debate as a whole and to understand how the positions they hold exist within that debate": hence the debate map (pictured). The debate on the content of the 12th June speech is to close in five days and is for a panel of invited experts. It is unclear if this initiative is the start of a consultation process to match that of the Conservatives which George Osborne argued will be founded on open access to information, social networking [via MySpace etc], and an open-source bottom-up deliberative approach. Is this a passing fad where enthusiasm is being thrown at all things 'e', or the start of a revolution in the way politics and political communication is done?

The transformation of politics?

Jonathan Freedland wrote an interesting piece in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago that I just found. It concerns the effect that Internet may have, long term, on politics. His starting point is advice to politicians offered in a speech by Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, who argued that there were huge potential pitfalls but also clear benefits. The pitfalls are most interesting and may seem obvious anyway. All things ever put on the Internet may come back to haunt someone who later aspires to be elected, so beware any would-be PMs who currently admit to an active and colourful social life via their Facebook or MySpace profiles. More seriously Freedland quotes Schmidt as noting: "The politician of the Internet age has to admit all errors in full and early: they'll only emerge anyway. Factual slips are forbidden, too. Bloggers will find you out and, if they don't, Google hopes its own algorithms will soon be sophisticated enough to detect "falsehoods"." The benefits are the scale of potential audience at a politician's fingertips. But Freedland's later points are of more interest.

He comments that "I can't quite believe that the Internet will transform the mechanics of politics but leave politics itself untouched" suggesting that governments will be increasingly bypassed as active networks form and such a development "risks shattering what was once a collective mass into a thousand shards, not a society at all but a bunch of niches". What collective mass is this. I wondered reading the piece if this collective mass was actually shattered by television and the privation of life as families retreated first to their lounge and now to separate rooms to watch soaps, reality TV or maybe a little bit of news, but fail to ever contribute to the public sphere. Surely the Internet and rise of social networks reverses this trend and creates more social beings.

Five years ago the McCanns may be trying to appear on the media to maintain pressure on the authorities to continue the search for their daughter. Now there are so many social groups around supporting the McCanns, offering prayers as well as actions, that the issue has a life of its own. Equally the discussion of political issues across the boundaries of nations can circumvent governments but shows support for a range of issues. Student groups backing an end to Third World Poverty can make more people globally take notice than a few petitions. More importantly, while everyone does follow the causes they support, this is not a case of two people and a dog subscribing to a blog on "caravanning in Finland" as Freedland suggests, but what is becoming a critical mass of individuals who subscribe to a range of causes and share their interests through widgets and advertising group membership.

So the transformation of politics may be one that is not party, government or state centred, instead it could be personal through a range of self-defined communities that are in a state of constant flux as issues wax and wane. But the Internet facilitates interaction between individuals with shared interests and allows debate on political ideas and issues, and on a much broader level than any other medium. Freedland's commenters seem of mixed opinions and cautious, but they are interacting with him and each other, not quite the parties of one Freedland fears will be created. While there are the big players who operate the software and websites, the posting and access of content largely remains democratic and hard to regulate. That may be a problem for those with a state-centric view of democracy, and who prefer to regulate the flow of information, but for those who want to build wide communities around issues it is a form of power and could bring politics back to the people and away from the elites who make news.

Have a good weekend!!!

Real democracy?

Based probably on the success of the petitions that anyone is able to post on the 10 Downing Street website, and the support given to the petition opposing road pricing, David Cameron has suggested that a Conservative government would roll out the scheme to allow citizens to comment on policy proposals. His rationale is:

"I would like to see a system whereby, if enough people sign an online petition in favour of a particular motion, then a debate is held in Parliament, followed by a vote - so that the public know what their elected representatives actually think about the issues that matter to them."

The plan has the backign of Ken Clarke and is designed to reinvigorate the relationship between peopel and their political representatives, as well as the power of parliament as a legislative body.

While the details need consideration, given the fact that the public are harnessing the power of the internet to express their views already, and currently petitions gain significant support this has to be a logical step forward in re-engaging the public in the dmocratic process.

By the way for those who agree that pubs should not all be forced to switch from glass to plastic, independent of whether they actually have fights on the premises, sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/plasticglass