Pete Moorey

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 next election (election gurus Rallings and Thrasher reckoned a majority of 126 on the basis on last Thursdays results) the most recent PoliticsHome poll of its 100 political insiders was suggesting a much slimmer Conservative majority. And previous PoliticsHome polls have been pointing to a minority Government of either a Labour or Conservative persuasion.

The Hansard Society pulled together a great book recently (No Overall Control ) on the political issues thrown up by a hung Parliament, but just as there is scant analysis about what a Conservative government would really mean for civil society, a similar analysis is lacking about how we would set about influencing a minority or coalition Government.

Of course, things may now have shifted significantly towards the Conservatives – just as it did for Labour after the 1995 local elections – but as Peter Kellner warns us “the more that is done in advance, the better”.

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 power – will be looking at the Boris mayoralty for signs of what a Cameron government might look like.

The Mayor’s appointment of Ray Lewis perhaps gives us a hint about the overall Conservative approach. Lewis won a Guardian charity award in 2007 for his work with the Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy, which encourages black boys to be leaders through after-school and weekend academic coaching, mentoring and a citizenship programme.

The charity has been majorly touted by Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice and includes prominent Conservatives, Stephen Norris and Francis Maude, on its board. But Lewis stresses the non-partisan nature of its work and the support of local Labour MPs.

The Guardian says Lewis will be working for the Mayor as his deputy for young people with a brief to end the “tragic trend” of “kids killing other kids”.

Will Cameron be looking for similar charity leaders to be taking up briefs or acting as key advisors once elected? I wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps we should be looking at some of the other charity figures that have been advising the Conservatives in opposition to see who we may be trying to influence and work with if the Conservatives march into office …

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 happen or what the boss wants. The payoff for the most accurate players is typically a modest prize, cash or an iPod.”
Lohr goes on: “The idea is that the collected knowledge of many people, each with a different perspective, will almost surely be more accurate than an individual or small group or even experts. The concept has been championed by academic economists and was popularized by James Surowiecki’s 2004 book The Wisdom of Crowds .”
Meanwhile, a prediction market has been set up called Bet2give which is acting as a way to donate money to charity. More in the FT .
And finally, coming back to those outsiders that I mentioned above, Jeff Jarvis wrote a piece in Monday’s Media Guardian about the way that companies are using online forums to give their customers a say in their future direction.
Dell’s IdeaStorm.com and Starbucks’ MyStarbucksIdea alow people to vote between different suggestions put forward by customers.
Would be interesting to see whether any charities are doing similar things …

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 to speed with the multitude of newsfeeds, etcetera that seem to be increasingly influencing our work – especially in the political blogosphere, which I try to monitor.
Today sees the launch of another site –Politics Home – undoubtedly meant as a useful tool for those of us working in politics acting as an aggregator of political news and comment and edited by the impressive group of Nick Assinder , Andrew Rawnsley , Tim Montgomerie and Martin Bright .
Politics Home includes a daily poll of 100 political insiders and much more … all of which is very useful, but I’m running out of space for another newsfeed on my Netvibes and there are only so many hours in the day to keep up with this stuff … yes, the bloggers are stressed, but those of us who insist on being on the receiving end can feel the strain as well.

“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” .... but might they go further? Especially with George Osborne taking a greater interest in this area and discussing such issues with Robert Colville earlier this week .
He also talked about seeking a “huge widening of the source of good ideas” in public services involving, of course, voluntary organisations. He labelled the Government’s current approach as playing safe “with the big organisations” rather than taking risks to “achieve real innovation” with smaller groups. Something the sector will be very familiar of hearing through Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Policy Group reports …

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 …
The FT pointedly says: “Mr Watson did not give examples of how the fundamentals of government policy might be changed through use of the web.”
Meanwhile the Centre for Policy Studies and Daily Telegraph held an event last night on the topic with Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne , asking: “Is it simply a reference tool or do we turn it in to a powerful force in the hands of the citizen?”
With the Conservatives (both in terms of their party and the wider centre-right movement) making all the running in this area, interesting to see Watson (who claims to be the first blogging MP) trying to play catch up on the Government side.
Finally, its worth having a quick read of this blog by Elizabeth Truss (Conservative candidate and Deputy Director of Reform ) having a further thought about the challenges web 2.0 is presenting to political parties …

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 fundamentally flawed”.
Responsibility Deals are not designed to get industry and civil society “input” or “consent” into planned government activity, but about creating a framework for constructive activity from all sides – with a bias against government activity.
“government, business and civil society would jointly define the issue needing attention; agree which party is best placed to do what; and move forward with defined responsibilities and agreed goals and targets.”
Responsibility Deals would be driven at Secretary of State level, to encourage and incentivise participation from business and other parts of society …
“While participation would not be mandatory, it would reflect poorly on any party – corporate or otherwise – that did not participate when invited to do so.”
“each Deal would have an annual review process, to include transparent reporting and assessment by … independent experts ... Companies would be encouraged to report on their participation … NGO and government participants may decide to report in a similar way.”
Does this idea have legs? With the Conservatives 13% to 16% ahead in the polls, its certainly worth taking it seriously … it all links into discussions that the Conservatives are having around ‘the role of the state in the post-bureaucratic age’

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 cycle of elections every 4 years. 2001 and 2005’s election dates seemed pretty much guaranteed – and this made the process of influencing party manifestos and rethinking our own campaign priorities easier.
We had a clear idea of when we needed to be speaking to key players in the different parties to shape their thinking or advise them against wilder policy ideas.
I think its fair to say that the present political situation is much harder to influence …

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 radar??

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 website, but some of it is worth repeating.
Reading the pamphlet, my main thought was – are charities that different from political parties? It seems that we could be as easily accused of not tapping into web 2.0’s potential and failing to take up some of Colvilles’ challenges:
1. Communication style:
Colville writes “Winning attention online means being the most informed, or amusing – or simply vitriolic.”
Whilst he recognises that this can lead the blogosphere to being exclusive and partisan and not fostering genuine debate – he also suggests it fosters openness and communication that can be abusive, but is also “lively, witty, engaged and human”.
Meanwhile, it seems to me, that many of us (politicians and vol orgs alike) continue to communicate with what Colville desribes as “pomposity and PR speak” which “will lead readers to click elsewhere”.
2. Send and receive mode:
Colville cites ConservativeHome’s Tim Monthgomerie as saying that UK political parties are in “send mode” – using the web to distriubute their point of view.
They now need to “receive mode” – asking viewers and supporters what they think and to shape their policy.
Colville says: “Receive mode” has another consequence – “the party (or voluntary organisation?) is no longer the be-all and end-all, but merely the centre of a movement – a network of activists. It does not matter whether voters view your site or see your content elsewhere.”
An interesting thought, since parties like Labour essentially started as movements (involving trade unions, chapels, self-help groups and coops) – rather than firm institutions.
Having become obsessed with institutional form – do we now need to move back to fluid form – where our parties (or organisations) are much more like networks and movements?
Indeed, Colville suggests that adopting “receive mode” may be more about survival than simply an opportunity.
And Tim Montgomerie suggests that distinctions between parties, campaign groups, blogs and newspapers will blur into invisability over the coming years.
3. Policy making
This is an area where there seems to be a good deal of transferability between political parties and vol orgs …
Colville argues that there are 2 main impacts: (i) due to searchability your past policy positions are always there and cannot be disowned and (ii) policy positions filled with misleading verbiage and hair-splitting nuance are “uniquely ill-suited to the internet, which privileges verbal flair and/or straight talking”.

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 debates have been about organisational form – how to achieve better legal recognition, fiscal recognition, a place at the table”. It seems to me that the issues that we now have to wrestle with are more about the impact that issues like environmental sustainability, new technology, restrictions on civil liberties and the widening gap between rich and poor have on our organisations – just as 3s4 and Geoff’s Carnegie Inquiry has outlined

I was also interested that Peter Oborne believed that civil society was at the heart of most of the big political issues currently facing our society. And he issued a call to all delegates to help him find out more about our sector and the challenges facing it.

Seems to me that there are opportunities for us to explore some of these questions in more depth with opinion formers across the political spectrum …