Recent Articles

‘Communities in Control’ – the bloggers’ consultation begins!

A big thanks to all of you who volunteered to contribute to our series on the ‘Communities in Control’ white paper – it looks like we’re off and running!

Here’s a run-down of who’s been delegated to do what:
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Responding positively to cynicism and Hazel Blears – volunteers wanted!

There has been a concerted outcry online here, there, and everywhere about Hazel Blears’ attack on the the role of the blogging community since her speech to the Hansard Society earlier this week, but it strikes me that this exposes a massive irony in the dumbed-down manner of current political debate and it begins to take on the appearance of another headline-grabbing politician shooting themselves in the foot. How can she ever expect to foster greater engagement through the practical measures she ostensibly advocates, in her white paper ‘Communities in Control’, when she abuses and insults the contribution made by commenters and commentators in the blogosphere – aren’t we actually among the key groups of people to whom she should have made her appeal?

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Is this the end of the age of cynicism?

Barack Obama has built enormous levels of goodwill in the manner of his emphatic election victory and claimed in the opening stanzas of his victory speech that it represented a triumph of hope over cynicism (“It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”)

In the enthusiasm of the moment, some commentators (among them the BBC’s own Matt Frei) went so far as to claim his victory has overturned a political consensus held for a generation: that negative campaigning is the only way to win – the lunatic assassination plot against Obama can be cited as one extreme example of the nature of reactions that may be inadvertently encouraged by negativity, and this may in fact be the best argument against negativism.

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Can Obama fix the Presidential system?

Now I know that many of you are of the opinion that the influence of certain politicians and public figures are corrosive, but is politics irrideemibly corrupting?

With the increasing likelihood that Barack Obama will win the US Predisential election on November 4th, there is a clear level of expectation that the problems of the world can be fixed – but will they? And if so how? Can we really expect the ground-swell of newly motivated citizen activists to translate into a more inclusive style of politics and better policies, or is this the start of a longer-term shift in the balance of power in which something more fundamental is happening?

The old dictum which states that ‘whoever get the most votes in an election the civil service always wins’ will remain true even if Obama recieves an overwhelming endorsement from the voting public, just as it was true when Blair, Brown and New Labour swept away the Conservatives in 1997. The initial enthusiasm which carried over from the hundred days of immediate reforms after May 1997 melted away as a gradual reassertion of the power of Whitehall began once the newly assembled bureaucrats, technocrats and placemen had got their feet under the table – they hit the ground running, but eventually they ran into a brick wall of their own making.

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