Category: Political

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Why discrimination loses my vote in the general election.

This week, David Cameron announced that he is prepared to impose all-women shortlists for the next general election. The Labour Party has already used all-women shortlists and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he would consider introducing them if the number of women MPs in his party didn’t ‘improve’ at the next general election. The…

October 21, 2009
A short note for Mr Stott before he comes to see us all…

There’s plenty of discussion going on in Government about putting data out and what to put out and how to put it out and all that nonsense. Especially in local government. It sounds like there’s concern that releasing data isn’t good enough and that government has a responsibility to put that data into a format…

October 1, 2009
Government need to get relaxed about IT procurement

At yesterday’s inaugural Lichfield Social Media Café the conversation turned to local government e-petitions. Will Perrin pointed out that local gov have issues using an open-source system like the Number 10 petitions system because of restrictive IT contracts. The U.S. is again making progress in this area, by launching Apps.gov (hat-tip to Dave Briggs) which…

September 16, 2009
How MPs can use Twitter to their advantage

I’m pleased to say that my local government is pretty good at this whole internet thing. The Lichfield District Council web site should definitely be looked up to by other councils and they’re also on Twitter along with the tourism folks. But as recent talk has shown, some MPs don’t quite get social media and aren’t quite…

March 27, 2009
Government asks for 2Mbps, Virgin offers 200Mbps

First, let’s forget those who don’t want broadband for a second and consider only those who have and use broadband services. I’ll keep this short. How can the UK Government possibly think that asking for 2Mbps in it’s preliminary Digital Britain report is anywhere near acceptable? Virgin, theoretically, can achieve 200Mbps with their fibre (aka…

March 24, 2009
I don’t want broadband, leave me alone!

There is a lot of buzz at the moment about broadband in Britain, mainly thanks to the Digital Britain report. I’m a firm believer in technology as a driver of innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation so I definitely see that as a good thing. That said, I have a feeling it might be mis-directed. See,…

March 20, 2009
Make Parliamentary Scrutiny More Accessible

The Free Our Bills campaign from mySociety is today encouraging supporters to ask their MPs to sign Early Day Motion (EDM) 2141. The campaign aims to get Parliament to publish bills in a much better way which will allow software developers to come up with new and innovative ways to present bills to the public…

November 4, 2008
Who Should You Vote For?

I’m British and as such have no say in the US presidential election. However, it’s an election that affects the entire world. To that end I decided to do something I did for our last general election: use a computer to decide my vote. Well, maybe not decide, but give an idea of who I’m…

November 4, 2008
It’s The Economy, Stupid!

Barely a day goes by where we don’t hear about climate change. But what nobody is really talking about is the economic impact. That’s why, for the second time, I’ve joined forces with Francis Irving to get people, business and Government motivated on climate change for the economy. It’s called Serious Change and I invite you to join us.

October 29, 2008