The Cabinet Office today published the list of hospitality accepted by Departmental Board Directors. It is dull, dull, dull. Just like it should be. I expect the same soporific effect when MPs finally publish their expenses in full.
Nick Palmer MP wrote last week to his mailing list: "Just a quick note to say that the email addresses of MPs who Greenepace think might sympathise with them over Heathrow are being swamped with thousands of identical emails that they've asked supporters to send. The effect of this is Read more…
A week ago I joined a couple of Facebook groups and invited all my UK friends to join me. I used www.writetothem.com to send a email to my MP and I blogged about it here. 8,000 people have since joined the main group and yesterday the plans to change the Read more…
When the Govt announced the third runway at Heathrow last week Justin Kerr-Stevens suggested that they had something to hide. I doubt the announcement was made as a diversion, but someone decided that it was a good time to announce that Harriet Harman as Leader of the House (under lobbying Read more…
"Above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you." Barack Obama acknowledges why he won the election. He gave his campaign to his supporters and they gave him his victory.
Chloe joined us last year to be our admin support for I’m a Councillor. At the end of the contract she left us to work for The Bible Society. One day, as happens occasionally, the conversation in the office turned to religion and atheism. Chloe remarked that she never met Read more…
The Ministry of Justice* Innovations Fund (that brought you CivicSurf or Cllr 2.0 as it was) is back. It’s bigger than ever with £150,000 to be spent developing new ideas. Go to www.buidlingdemocracy.co.uk for the details. There is a difference this year. Instead of only being able to submit applications Read more…
A while back I posted about a Consultation Consultation. BERR yesterday published their new guidelines for Central Government consultations to come into force in November 2008. The new Code of Practice on Consultation can be downloaded from the BERR site. "This Code is based on the results of a review Read more…
According to the LGA’s FirstOnline site: Councils would have a new duty to promote democracy, under government plans announced this week. Communities secretary Hazel Blears said she wanted every council to run lively campaigns to explain the voting system and encourage first time voters. I’m glad that democracy is going Read more…
[political disengagement] is a symptom of a deep-seated feeling that everything in the world is basically safe and that life will more or less carry on as usual whatever party is in power. Baroness Murphy has sparked some debate over at the very excellent Lords of the Blog. Read the Read more…