As if anyone needed more evidence that I spend time thinking about odd things and then blogging about them, here’s yet more evidence: this is a post about the science of the ‘Jabulani’ balls used at the World Cup in South Africa. More precisely I raise the question: is all […]
There are two ways to use Twitter as a politician. The first (the right way) is to build a discussion, a conversation with people, to reply to normal Twitter users as well as other politicians and journalists. Politicians that understand this include @jeaninehennis @edballsmp and @corybooker. The second way (the […]
I’ve known for a while that I needed to move away from Brussels. I even tried to crowdsource some answers about where to move. But now my mind is made up – London it will be, from sometime later this year. I don’t know quite when yet, and I equally […]
I’m in the United States for just the second time in my life and I’ve had some time to reflect a little on my impressions of the place. Last week I was at Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) in New York, and I’m currently writing in Washington DC. I’m here simply […]
I’ve been at Personal Democracy Forum in New York and I’ve started to get thinking about which US political organisation tools could be effectively used for politics in Europe. Here are a few ideas… Groundcrew – a system of rapid mobile organising via SMS, iPhone apps, and Google Maps. Could […]
No-one visiting a politician’s website realistically expects the site to be entirely written by the actual individual. But how should a site be written and designed on a candidate’s behalf? Importantly, what person should be used in the text?
Scandal! The new Stratford International station might well not have any international trains stopping there. Among others the Mayor of Newham and investors building a shopping centre at Stratford are up in arms, as reported by the Evening Standard. Actually it’s no scandal. It’s just sensible. And I say this […]
This blog has been a little quiet recently, but it’s not because I’ve stopped writing. Post-election UK politics is more interesting than at any point for the last few years and I’ve been entering the debates by writing elsewhere – in the main because this blog has a very EU-focused […]
“Online campaigning may be crucial to the winner’s success, as suggested by Harriet Harman’s 2007 deputy leadership win, a disparate electorate and the myriad opportunities now afforded by social media Just last week I wrote a piece for Progress entitled ‘Was 2010 the internet election?’ – essentially looking at the […]
At attempt to return to the past always gets the Brits drooling. Let’s get back to times when Britain ruled the waves! This was essentially the sentiment behind Boris Johnson’s promise to get a new Routemaster bus onto London’s roads by 2011 2012, replacing the bendy buses he made such […]
“A little more than half a page of the Coalition Programme for Government deals with Britain’s relations with the European Union and, like much of the rest of the coalition deal, the EU policy combines soothing words and a mixture of Conservative and Lib Dem policy commitments. Brussels, for a […]
“Was 2010 the internet election? It was the first, but the internet alone didn’t win the election, and politicians need to avoid the pitfall of broadcasting without listening Last week a couple of hundred people involved in internet politics met to discuss the impact of the internet on the UK […]
