Voluntary sector ‘ultras’ gear up for post election campaigning

I’m interested to see that the National Coalition for Independent Action is taking on its first member of staff (details below). Just another voluntary sector post? Not really, because Coalition members have been campaigning for some years against the Government contract and funding culture which, they believe, has drawn many nonprofit organisations into a close and unhealthy relationship with the State, where their independence is compromised by tight targets and monitoring.

All rather relevant in the context of Conservative proposals for The Big Society, with its “radical revolt against the statist approach of the Big Government that always knows best”. Hmmm, any similarity of concern? Here’s NCIA, who acknowledge they are sometimes known as the “hypercritical ultras of the voluntary sector“: (read more...)

Making the best of the Big Society debate

After some “whatever happened to the Big Society” comments last week, I think we’ll hear more this week from David Cameron because the Conservatives need some serious “time for a change” narrative to reclaim ground from Lib Dem advances, following Nick Clegg’s Leaders’ Debate performance. It has started with a Big Society versus Big Government speech today, where Cameron says he is going to “redouble the positive” in the election campaign.

“The old top-down, big-government approach has failed in Britain”, he said, adding that even if you still believe in it there isn’t any government money left to try it with: “Gordon spent it all, it’s all gone”.”So we need something different, and that is where our big idea comes in. The idea of building the Big Society, the idea of saying: if you want change, then we have all got to pull together, work together, come together, recognise we’re all in this together, and that’s how you get change.”

(read more...)

Activists approve Tory Big Society, taxpayers object. Must be interesting

David Cameron seems to have successfully pulled off the first part of his launch of the Big Society – focussed on neighbourhood-based voluntary action – by getting broad approval from a Guardian commentator as well as the Telegraph, a seasoned community development specialist, and even in (read more...)

Clay Shirky: online crowds aren’t always wise

Clay Shirky, leading commentator on internet technologies and author of Here Comes Everybody, last night backed away from his earlier enthusiasm for the online wisdom of crowds in democratic decision-making. He suggested that Government use of social media should focus more on “small groups of smart (read more...)

Should politicans blog? Would Machiavelli?

Paul Evans at Local Democracy thinks it may not be such a good idea for all politicians to get into blogging. Some are made for it, some should do it under another name suggests Paul. “Machiavelli didn’t publish his work during his lifetime (he dedicated
it privately) – not because he didn’t want the message to be read, but
because he didn’t want challenging ideas associated with himself.”

Could blogging bosses ‘08 become social artists ‘09?

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA,  is writing about new progressivism in a series of blog posts this week. I particularly like the suggestion that he makes for greater focus on political ends instead of means, and a shift in the nature of debate. I believe that the 27,000-strong membership of the RSA could be an excellent testbed for the social artistry needed to achieve this. (read more...)

Join Stephen Coleman on a Bristol blog

Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Citizenship, is brilliant on the sounds bites for any video blogger (as well as main stream media) as you can see here when he talks about TV voting scandals, and here at an e-democracy conference in Bristol.

However, Stephen doesn’t blog himself, so it is a delight to find him available for discussion back in Bristol – virtually at least – guesting at Connecting Bristol.

I’m grateful to Shane McCracken for pointing this out, and neatly summarising the issues Stephen is highlighting about the changing nature of politics and citizenship: (read more...)