Pete Moorey
Pete says...
Pete hasn't given a description of themselves yet.Peter Kellner writes an interesting piece for Progress about possible political scenarios if the next General Election results in a hung Parliament.
As Kellner says, it is worth thinking ahead and whilst he is not predicting that there will be a hung Parliament next time – it could happen. “We should have our political insurance ready, much as we insure against our car crashing or our home burning down.”
<>Whilst the local election results last week were pointing to a big Conservative win at the ...As Boris Johnson settles in to his first week as London mayor, there’s plenty of speculation about what his victory will mean for the big political battle over the next 2 years leading to the likely General Election in 2010.
As Polly Toynbee suggests today , Labour will be hoping that the new Mayor will blunder, whilst the Conservatives will be hoping that Boris does not destroy Cameron’s reputation.
<>Meanwhile, those of us concerned with the process of influencing Government – whoever is in...A random post on a few different things that I’ve read in the last week about how organisations are opening up their working practices.
First up, a New York Times piece on the use of prediction markets.
<>Steve Lohr writes that American companies are using this web tool to harness the knowledge of staff (and potentially outsiders) by encouraging them to make anonymous bets online using virtual currency. Lohr writes: “They bet on what they think will actually happen, not what they hope will...Yesterday’s New York Times claimed that blogging is bad for your health with a number of prominent US bloggers having heart attacks in recent months due to the stress of maintaining their online presence.
“Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet” says the NYT.
<>I hardly blog at all, but certainly feel the stress of trying to keep up ...“We don’t ask where does the voluntary sector fit in? But rather where doesn’t the voluntary sector fit in?”
This is a quote from David Cameron’s speech yesterday to the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts on innovation and its role in public policy ….
In it, Cameron continues to make links between his post-bureaucratic age agenda and the opportunities presented by web 2.0 …
<>So he talked about open source methods to overcome “the massive problems in government IT programmes” ...Another day another article (or three) in the mainstream media about how politicians are or aren’t harnessing the power of the web.
Today’s FT has a piece on the blogging Minister, Tom Watson, who briefed them on a new Whitehall taskforce chaired by ex-Lib Dem MP, Richard Allan , which is looking at how government can use the internet to make “our own decisions quicker and better”. Watson points to the success of citizen initiatives like Netmums and wonders why Directgov isn’t as successful …
<>T...This is the buzz word in a new report from the Conservatives called ‘A light but effective touch’ which looks at corporate social responsibility and generally how business can play a key role in tackling some of societies major issues … here’s a quick summary of how its proposed to work:
<>The basic premise is “Existing models of government consultation on such issues (obesity, problem drinking, climate change, and reducing and recycling waste) with business and civil society groups are...Interesting stuff, Megan. Did you see the article in today’s Guardian about the Chartered Management Institute’s study on the future of work?
An important current issue for the sector, as we think about our strategies to influence the political process, is when will the next General Election be?
In recent weeks a consensus seemed to be emerging that the PM was settling on a spring 2009 election (see here and here). Now the Guardian’s Martin Kettle is arguing that yesterday’s Budget makes a 2010 election more likely.
<>Why does this matter? Well before Brown’s accession and the election that never was, we were in quite a comfortable...I mentioned yesterday the Conservatives new campaign and their drive to get people to sign up to be their Friend on a variety of social networks …
There’s more in a David Cameron article from yesterday’s Times explaining more …. and linking the idea of the Radioheard experiment, which Karl has written about so well here
<>I guess with webCameron et al, it was no surprise that the Conservatives have beaten Lab & Lib Dems to this way of thinking …or are the parties doing similar things under the...The Conservatives have launched an interesting new campaign today which people can sign up to support across Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, etc …
The thing that interests me is (as Tim Montgomerie comments on) is the encouragement to become a friend rather than member of the Conservatives.
This picks up on my point from yesterday about the increasing fluidity of institutions …
The Telegraph’s Robert Colville has recently written a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies on web 2.0 and politics.
You can get a flavour of his argument in a comment piece he wrote for the Telegraph and on ConservativeHome , but his main point is that political parties in the UK have been slow to recognise the potential of the web in interacting with members, supporters or the wider electorate.
<>Most of the content of the pamphlet would not be new to those of you participating on this...Good blog Megan, I thought the panel’s comments on being at the beginning of a new period in politics were particularly interesting in the light of NCVO’s recent strap line change.
The fact that we are now talking about voluntary and community organisations at the heart of civil society may lead us into new political terrain.
Geoff Mulgan hinted at this in his Hinton Lecture which followed the Political Conference
<>In his speech he talked about the fact that “for a generation the dominant...