Democracy

If you ever doubted the case for reform of the House of Lords, take a look at this PDF which bubbled up onto the frontpage of Parliament.uk today. The document is the notice of an election – yes, an election – for a Tory member of the House of Lords. It’

Remember that survey I mentioned on the Democratic Society’s website? You know, the one that would help us map how different political opinions relate to each other? Well, we’re up to 2,990 responses – and you could be the 3,000th respondent. Not that you’d win anything.

Downing Street is running an new online petitions page. Here is a selection of open petitions.

Martin Kettle in a Guardian article unpicks some new Eurobarometer surveys that suggest that the British trust less than anyone else in Europe. The EU, politicians, the media, corporations – they are all apprarently a bunch of lying scumbags.

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s FAQ asks “is Cuba democratic?” Realising that the simple answer might be a little discouraging to their supporters in western democracies, they then take 1,187 words to say “no”.

Helen Cammack joins the call to the Democratic Society’s question calibration test. We are almost at 3,000 answers: let’s drive that data on down! Take the test.

Congratulations to Andrew Hardie of the Democratic Society, who has been given an grant by UnLtd to progress his work on a participation and engagement web application.

I’m working with a few others on a new non-profit to re-engage people with politics. As our first bit of work, we are trying to work up a set of axes to use in describing users’ political profiles. To create a map of opinions and axes, I’ve set

An piece in this week’s New Republic, not available for free online, talks about the large Russian community around Brighton Beach, in New York state. There’s a fierce battle going on between two Russian- speakers for the Democratic nomination (and hence the seat in November). The Russian community,