The way Yes To Fairer Votes makes the case for AV didn’t strike me as correct when I first read their website. I am all in favour of simple, compelling arguments, but when over-simplification results in statements that are only
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Institutionalising a bargain that’s not credible
Today’s Guardian has an article entitled “Public to choose policies as coalition gets the X Factor“, stating ministers will ensure that the most popular petition on the government website Direct.gov.uk will be drafted as a bill. Sigh. There is not
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Twitter: the new new mainstream
A Very Public Sociologist has completed a second annual survey of the number of Twitter followers of people who also write political blogs in the UK. I finished up 34th on this list last year, now I’m down to 61st.
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Generation Europe: Nick Clegg, Lousewies van der Laan and Michiel van Hulten in 2001
April 2, 2001. Less than a decade ago, but the European Union looked rather different, and the careers of 3 politicians looked rather different. Enlargement to central and eastern Europe was in process at that time, and the Euro would
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Pavements, snow and the Big Society
Snowy pavements are not the same as pavements with broken paving stones – both of them can cause you to trip and fall, but the former happens all at once when it snows heavily, while the latter happens gradually over
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The Honeyball, erm, Buzz iPhone app
There’s always an advantage to being the first to use some new technology. Or at least there should be, if it’s done well. While the rest of the world has been thinking up good iPhone (and other mobile) apps for
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A roundup of the #EUCO – Berlusconi Twitterwall story
The screenshot above shows the oldest results from search.twitter.com for “EUCO Berlusconi”, and explains how the Twitterwall story started (I’ve previously posted about here and here). Just to set the record straight this is exactly what happened. First, I realised
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The need for a credible bargain – what the EU should learn from today’s #EUCO Twitter wall experience
There’s a legendary story for those of us that look at political activity on the web that concerns change.gov, Obama’s platform to allow the public to put forward their political ideas that went live the day after he was inaugurated.
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Let’s get #EUCO trending
There are two live Twitter walls at today’s European Council in Brussels, as shown above in this Twitpic from @EUCouncilPress. All you have to do is put #EUCO in your tweets. A few of my contributions so far: http://twitter.com/jonworth/status/15420563455475712 http://twitter.com/jonworth/status/15415975771897856
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Blogging: the new mainstream
There have been a couple of watershed moments in UK online politics in the last few weeks, notably the reaction to the Wikileaks cables and the decision of a number of well known British political bloggers to stop blogging, importantly Iain
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I’m like a fish out of water at Lift Off Towards Open Government
I applied to attend a large tech and politics conference happening today in Brussels entitled Lift Off Towards Open Government, organised by the Belgian Presidency of the Council with support from the European Commission. I applied to attend as a
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A PR campaign to reduce recycling – only in Brussels
Exactly what waste can be easily recycled in municipal recycling schemes? It’s a question that perplexes even the most committed recyclers. Plastics are usually the most complicated, as only certain types of plastic (normally plastic drinks bottles) can be recycled,
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