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Feast of St Clare
10 Aug
Tomorrow, August 11th, is the feast of St Clare.
St Clare was one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition. Following her death, the order was renamed in her honour as the Order of Saint Clare, commonly referred to today as the Poor Clares.
Late in life, when she was too sick to attend Mass, the Holy Spirit projected a vision of the service onto the wall of her cell.
She is now the patron saint of television. And in her honour I shall spend the day watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave.
Virtual reality
25 Jul
David Harrington, a member of Stockton-on-Tees borough council, has written a piece for the Guardian’s local government network on how councillors can use Skype to reach out to residents.
I started using Skype as part of my job as a councillor by accident. In 2011, a resident had been trying to meet with me at my ward surgery for several weeks but a family illness, flooding and road closures prevented this. At the third attempt I was asked: “Do you Skype?” Our meeting went ahead that evening over Skype from our respective homes.
The key to using technology such as this as a councillor is very simple. Social media, and other new communication devices, offer additional opportunities for you to connect, create networks and build relationships.
As well as detailing Councillor Harrington’s experience, the article includes some good tips for getting started with Skype surgeries. I tweeted the link, suggesting this would be a worthwhile read for our local councillors and those aspiring to join them next May.
Keith Baldock (@keefish) replied to my tweet, saying
how to sit at home in your favourite chair in your underpants pretending to care more like. Proper forum face to face.
Also basic assumptions being made about connectivity and personal abilities. I believe this would exclude many… need to ensure all have the choice
Well, I beg to differ. I wasn’t suggesting – and neither I think was Cllr Harrington – that Skype is a 100% replacement for traditional face-to-face surgeries, but it’s good to offer alternatives to people who unable or unwilling to attend in person – for whatever reason. Certainly we should be working to ensure as many people as possible have access to the Internet and both the skills and confidence to use it; but it would be a shame if the ‘digital divide’ became an excuse to never try anything new.
Mike Law (@lawmike) was far more positive about the idea in principle, but sceptical about the prospects for local councillors taking it up:
this is a great idea, but I doubt there’s any realistic chance that any #Newham cllr would risk such exposure.
Again, I’m not sure sure. Perhaps I’m naive, but I think there’s going to be a new group of younger people elected next year who are far more comfortable with technology and far more willing to engage beyond their small circle of party comrades. I accept there is an issue with Sir Robin’s desire for complete control, but this is about casework – stuff councillors are meant to do to help their constituents and prove they’re in touch with local people (told you I was naive).
As consumers we expect to be able to deal with businesses through a multiplicity of channels to suit our needs and preferences. It would be perverse if as citizens we were stuck with dealing with our elected representatives in just one way.
Not so smart on a phone
22 Jul
What Newham’s website looks like on my iPhone
According to the Office for National Statistics:
- Access to the Internet using a mobile phone more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, from 24% to 51%.
- In 2012, 32% of adults accessed the Internet using a mobile phone every day. [my emphasis added]
There really is no excuse for not having a proper mobile version of your website.
And yes Newham council, I am looking at you.
Open democracy
19 Jul
Copyright: Image by jsawkins on Flickr. Some rights reserved
On July 15th Newham council voted to amend its constitution to allow the public to film and record proceedings at future meetings. The decision was inspired by Eric Pickles, the secretary of state for local government, basically telling councils that if they didn’t let this happen he’d change the law to force them.
The Newham Recorder invited our mayor and Lutfur Rahman, his Tower Hamlets counterpart, to ‘debate’ the matter. Mike Law has blogged about this and I’d recommend reading his post and the comments on it, as well as the Recorder piece.
What follows is the comment I added to Mike’s blog, which points at what I think is Sir Robin’s staggering hypocrisy on this issue:
Sir Robin, with Eric Pickles’ gun pressed to his head, says
what does it do to build public trust in politics more widely when a clique seeks to shut the public out from decisions made on their behalf?… In the 21st century it is not enough for democracy to simply happen. It has to be seen to happen.
Despite appearances, the age of satire is not yet dead.
As Birdman [one of the commenters on Mike’s blog] correctly observes,
decisions are largely taken in Labour Group meetings, after the Labour Councillors have been told which way to vote, and no genuine debate is ever seen or heard by the public attending meetings… what is there to film?
Monday’s council meeting, at which this “historic decision” was taken, lasted just 14 minutes. And that included a set-piece speech by councillor Ellie Robinson on ‘Newham’s Wonderful Women’.
May’s annual general meeting took a massive 39 minutes; February’s was 31 minutes. The ‘extraordinary’ meeting in January occupied councillors for a mere 10 minutes. I could go on, but you get the drift.
If Sir Robin were truly serious about open and transparent decision-making Labour group meetings would be the ones that took 10 minutes and the real debates would happen in council, where the public could see and hear them.
We all know that won’t happen though.
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