Philip John

Tag: democracy

  • Why I voted in a safe seat

    A little while ago I posited the argument that not voting is a proxy vote for the winner. Now I’m going to suggest that it’s worth voting even in a safe seat where you’re voting against the incumbent. In Lichfield I’ve voted for Rob Pass, the Green Party candidate. He won’t get anywhere close to…

  • Dispelling the myth of “unelected and invisible” police authorities

    Amongst the media coverage of the PCC elections, both in 2012 and last week’s by-election in the West Midlands the Government has again trumpeted it’s “unelected and invisible police authorities” line in defence of the indefensible reform. Police Authorities First, some facts. Police authorities in England and Wales were; Comprised of seventeen members 9 were elected…

  • No mandate: PCCs need to go

    One of my biggest gripes about UK Parliamentary elections is that successive Governments claim they have a “mandate” to introduce their ideological reforms (whatever the flavour) as if every single vote in their favour is a full and unconditional endorsement of their entire manifesto. That is, of course, an absurd assertion but the ruling party invariably rolls out…

  • UK may have no say on EU top job, frontrunner warns

    Re: UK may have no say on EU top job, frontrunner warns European Commission President hopeful Jean-Claude Juncker suggests British people aren’t getting a vote on who becomes President but ignores one fundamental problem: the British people never get a vote and neither do the rest of Europe’s citizens. Ridiculously, this is the first time that the Commission…

  • 4 years and 2 months later… TheyWorkForYou plugin gets an update

    4 years and 2 months later… TheyWorkForYou plugin gets an update

    Shocking it’s been so long really, but I’ve finally revived my TheyWorkForYou WordPress plugin. When I first released it, all the plugin did was supply a TheyWorkForYou widget. Nothing’s changed! That’s for good reason though… At the time, the latest version of WordPress was 2.8.6 and we’re now on 3.8.1 so a lot has changed!…

  • Estonia publishes its e-voting source code on GitHub

    Good on Estonia for leading on this, and let’s hope others follow suit soon too. This is certainly one reason why the principal of ID cards isn’t a bad idea. Read Estonia publishes its e-voting source code on GitHub

  • Updates to WriteToThem WordPress Widget

    Updates to WriteToThem WordPress Widget

    I’ve given my WriteToThem WordPress plugin a well overdue refresh this evening. You can download the latest version from the WordPress.org plugin repository now. Here’s what’s changed; Re-write: For those technically minded it now uses the WP_Widget class as it should do, which makes it much tidier. Translations: I’ve also added support for translations so, if you…

  • Filming council meetings – my progress in Lichfield

    So, after Chris Taggart was asked to leave a meeting of Windsor & Maidenhead for trying to video it, while SE1 managed to get permission to record Southwark Council meetings I decided to see what I could do in Lichfield. Here’s what I did. I sent an e-mail through Lichfield District Council’s generic contact form.…

  • WriteToThem.com WordPress plugin

    As if the TheyWorkForYou.com plugin wasn’t enough I’ve also created a plugin for WriteToThem.com as well! The plugin adds a new widget which your blog readers can use to get in touch with their politicians from councillors to MEPs. There’s a demo video and instructions on how to set up over on the Talk About…