Friday morning was probably not the best time to present after a conference "networking evening". The first session I saw involved Paul Hilder from AVAAZ.org, Sara Ashton from Amnesty, Thomas Noirfalisse from Oxfam and Juan Gonzalez-Mellizo from the European Commission. All fine speakers with interesting things to say. AVAAZ was Read more
I went to barcamp and the online noise about it was deafening. I went to the Social Media CoP Big Day out and the blogging about it was swift and detailed. I went the 2006 International e-Participation & Local Democracy Symposium and the blogging was in depth, immediate, and analytical. Read more
You spend £1,000s on developing an advertising strategy, £100,000 on creating some TV ads, £1,000,000’s on advertising slots and some students from Poynton High create an homage on Facebook to "one of the greatest drama teacher’s" ever. For FREE. You can’t buy this type of marketing and that is why Read more
Over on the UKIE-dem mailing list and at Designing for a Civil Society, there has been discussion about the BBC relatively new plans to launch an Ultra-Local network of community sites and the closure of the BBC Action Network. Mick Phythian, a Local Government ICT manager from Yorkshire wrote: Working Read more
School children in Wiltshire are to help older people in the county become more familiar with new technology. Shock horror. Some positive youth coverage in the media. Quick Plug: Tom Gaskin of NorfolkBlurb is leading a session at the Empowerment Symposium on "Young people and eParticipation: X-Factor excitement meets bureaucratic Read more
Someone told the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham that YouTube is a good way to engage with people. Nobody told them not to use it as a way of distributing spin. This video just invites criticism because of the way it is so obviously spin with the fake newspapers. Read more
Last night I was chatting with a friend about how straight-talking the Aussies are compared to the English. His example was that if he’s wearing a bad jumper out there they’ll tell him that he looks like a gnome. Then this morning I see the Kick a Migrant site produced Read more
Banksy has been held as a shining example of local eDemocracy for a couple of years now. Until now it was the petition that had gathered the most signatories on a council ePetition site. As of this morning a petition to get Bristol City Council to reject a plan to Read more
"Once again, the citizens have disappeared."
Michael Ancram, MP, Devizes.
Yesterday the House of Commons held the first debate about the Local
Government changes – the approval of unitary status for a number of
councils around the country. The first debate was about Wiltshire, our
home county.
From reading the debate it would seem that the Government has based its decision to form a unitary Wiltshire County Council based on the ease of working of a variety of bodies and organisations and ignored strong evidence that the citizens of Wiltshire opposed the change. I’ve highlighted some of the salient parts from the TheyWorkForYou rendition of Hansard.
John Healey, Minister of State (Local Government)
So the citizens didn’t disappear but the government choose to ignore them in favour of the views of other stakeholders as described by the County Council who had proprosed unitary status.
Simon Hughes, MP, North Suffolk and Bermondsey
John Healey, Minister of State (Local Government)
But the government didn’t check what they said was true.
"the district auditor stated in response:
a press release issued by the county council—
"represents a misinterpretation of the MORI findings. "
Andrew Murrison, MP, Westbury
Even though the District Auditor felt that the county had been mis-representing findings.
I don’t want to get into the debate about whether Wiltshire should abandon the two-tier system or not,
Ben Wallace MP is the first MP to publish details of his expenses. Right down to the £1 parking charge. It is really dull stuff, but really important. People are naturally cynical in this country, so if an MP declines to publish their expenses then the assumption is that they Read more