/* My bits are protected, are yours?*/ poons: Why democracy starts with an 'e'
poons
Support the Open Rights Group unsubscribe from human rights abuse in the war on terror
George W. Bush is coming to the UK... and we'll be waiting for him.
21 February, 2005
  Why democracy starts with an 'e'
'There has been a huge revolution in the world outside Westminster in the ways that people communicate with each other,' said Victoria Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Hansard Society, which campaigns for a more inclusive democracy.
'Although Westminster has changed a lot,' she said, 'when compared to the change in the wider world, it really has not changed much.'
Westminster is only just catching up with communication changes
Equally, she said central and local government had before now put almost all their of efforts into getting services online.
Now, she said, they need to think more realistically about the web can help broaden debate and bring in fresh voices, insight and expertise.
'The technology shouldn't be used for direct democracy,' warned Ms Gibbons, 'that's not the way a parliamentary democracy works.'


I take issue with this last statement, and to some degree it flies in the face of the Hansard Society's own report on blogging, which hails the political blog as what it quite rightly is, a very useful way of both elected individuals and candidates keeping in touch with their constituents, and in the case of sites such as Backing Blair and the other similar vote direction sites ramping up to GE2005, a possibility to inflict a bloody nose on a seemingly uncaring standing Government.

If it allows me and others like me to group together behind a common belief and have that belief studied, debated and maybe dis-agreed with (perish the thought), then a movement towards a degree of direct democracy can only be a good thing.

The other part of the BBC article that quite frankly beggars belief is this comment regarding Simon Burns, Conservative MP for Chelmsford West :

Since FaxYourMP began totting up response times in April 2002 only 118 faxes have been sent to him via the service - about 3.5 per month. By contrast Mr Burns signs about 20-25 letters or responses every week day.

"I just look at it as another way for them to correspond with me," he said.

He currently does not accept e-mail messages because of all the extra work involved in dealing with them.


What extra work?

More articles on Direct Democracy can be found here.

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
Tom Stoppard
 
Comments: Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

getting a bit more serious

Contact me

Archives
June 2004 / July 2004 / August 2004 / September 2004 / October 2004 / November 2004 / December 2004 / January 2005 / February 2005 / March 2005 / April 2005 / May 2005 / June 2005 / July 2005 / August 2005 / September 2005 / October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / February 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / May 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 / November 2007 / December 2007 / January 2008 / February 2008 / March 2008 / April 2008 / May 2008 / June 2008 / July 2008 / August 2008 / September 2008 / October 2008 / November 2008 / December 2008 / January 2009 / February 2009 / April 2009 / May 2009 /


Blogroll

Powered by Blogger

Other Sites

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 England & Wales License.