Encouragement from the BBC

Bill Thompson in his BBC column today gives us an overview of the political scene online as Gordon Brown waits to take over as Prime Minister, with some welcome encouragement for bloggers:

Recognising, perhaps, that Brown will be far closer to Blair in his policies than many of his followers would wish, the debate has moved up a level to address the processes, structures and operations of our flawed democracy.
And in a reflection of the changed times in which we live, much of the discussion is taking place online instead of in the traditional smoke-filled rooms or on the editorial pages of our finer newspapers.
Anthony Barnett, who founded Charter 88 nearly twenty years ago and has consistently argued for a written constitution, has seized on hints that the incoming PM may be receptive to a new constitutional settlement and launched OurKingdom to explore 'the destiny of Britain'.

Then this, which will give me some blogging motivation for a while:

Serious thinkers such as David Wilcox use their blogs to badger our representatives to think more carefully about the opportunities for collaboration, participation and transparency that network-based tools can generate.

And a sidebar link too! I await more visitors eagerly. Over at OurKingdom Jon Bright picks up the story:

What could the internet do for democracy?
A lot, in theory. Thompson muses on the possibilities of direct democracy - people getting more control over the policy making process, for example, by allowing large petitions to form the basis of ‘people’s bills’. Social networking sites like Facebook are providing simple ways of bringing together large groups of people with shared concerns. And, paradoxically, this truly global network could make a truly local politics again possible, providing influential forums for local issues as well as ways to engage your MP.
Thompson notes that George Osborne was onto open source politics for the Tories before Gordon Brown called for a new dialogue and he notes that OurKingdom is (thanks, Bill) helping to make the web part of the debate over the promised new settlement. He recognises that the internet is not (yet) universally available and no ‘IT solution’ is infallible. But his call is for the internet to be recognised as part of the landscape politics operates in, to “make it a core part of the political process just as the telephone and television are”. It’s not long, in my opinion, before it becomes even more fundamental than that.

I like the way that Bill underlines this point:

In 1994 I helped my then MP, Anne Campbell, to build her website and set up an email system for constituency correspondence. At the time it was a sensible use of her time and effort because Cambridge was one of the most-wired cities in the UK if not the world, but just having an email address did not mean that she stopped reading letters or taking phone calls.
But we can surely now begin to think about the way we organise society and the ways in which political power is exercised on the assumption that the network is here and can be used. Not by everyone, not all the time, but to a sufficient degree to make it a core part of the political process just as the telephone and television are.

For politicians (and the rest of us) it is no longer a case of creating a website, blog or whatever and expecting people to come to us. The network is the place. You have to go where people are.
Now, I wonder if Bill would like to host my "how MPs can spend their £10,000 communication allowance game". Don't want to seem tooo serious.

Technorati Tags: e-democracy, politics

Comments

[Andrew Brown]

I'm not sure that being in the network is enough either. You have to offer more than a Facebook account to breach the devide between politicians and the electorate.

The growth of more direct involvment in the decisions that have traditionally been the preserve of politicians may work for those already engaged in the issues - and that's definately worthwhile in itself - but I suspect that there's still the problem of those who don't see politics touching their lives at all.

I think that politicians and our parties have to find a broader reconnection with wider society. I think that Gordon Brown is starting to articulate where that re-imagination might take us:

Brown believes the days of political parties as "small organisations of people who are accused of talking to themselves" are over. In future, constituency parties will become local hubs, building links with other networks and groups, and using new technology to reach out way beyond their usual supporters.

But its there getting there that'll be quite an interesting struggle.