Category: Democracy

Earlier this week I attended a Council of Europe conference on participation and electronic democracy. It was a very interesting event, attended by people from most Western European countries (no Central or Eastern Europe, although Estonia was mentioned as an example of good practice at the national level). The EU, EP and OECD were also represented, all of whom had their own worthy statement of ambitions, and occasionally promises of money.

Thoughts from the conference, in no particular order, after the jump.

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From March. Link.

Wonkette reports a Pew Research survey on the political awareness of consumers of different sorts of media.

Chris Lightfoot, MySociety’s first developer and all-round e-polymath, has died unexpectedly. He was 29. R.I.P.

Exhibit A: the comments on an Observer article claiming that climate change exists. All in agreement with the Channel 4 lunacy about climate change being a big hoax, plus personal invective at the author and RANDOM capitalisations to SHOW that there is GREAT CONSPIRACY afoot. Thank you, representative sample.

Exhibit B: A poll on the website of the Sussex Express, whose question is “Do you think the Council tax has gone up too much?”. Amazingly 88% of people think it has.

If you ever doubted the case for reform of the House of Lords, take a look at this PDF which bubbled up onto the frontpage of Parliament.uk today.

The document is the notice of an election – yes, an election – for a Tory member of the House of Lords. It’s to replace one of the hereditaries who died the other day, and the most extraordinary thing is that the electorate is 47 other hereditary peers.

No, wait, the most extraordinary thing is that the people eligible to stand for election are only other Tory hereditary peers.

No, no. Surely the most extraordinary thing is that the election result will be decided on by proportional representation.

Must be great to be a hereditary peer – you get to stand in a restricted pool, to be selected by a restricted electorate, using a more representative system than that for the Commons.

Remember that survey I mentioned on the Democratic Society’s website? You know, the one that would help us map how different political opinions relate to each other? Well, we’re up to 2,990 responses – and you could be the 3,000th respondent. Not that you’d win anything. Or even know. But … you know … would be kinda cool.

Anyway, here’s that link again.

Downing Street is running an new online petitions page. Here is a selection of open petitions.

Martin Kettle in a Guardian article unpicks some new Eurobarometer surveys that suggest that the British trust less than anyone else in Europe. The EU, politicians, the media, corporations – they are all apprarently a bunch of lying scumbags.

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s FAQ asks “is Cuba democratic?” Realising that the simple answer might be a little discouraging to their supporters in western democracies, they then take 1,187 words to say “no”.