Denny

Thanks for writing about my campaign. If anyone wants to get in touch with me I'm really happy to talk more...

Campaign website: http://getavote.org
Demo voting website: http://hackneysouth.org.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/getavote
Facebook: http://facebook.com/getavote

Email: denny@getavote.org
Mobile: 078 1515 0811

Cheers,
Denny

Richard

Good post, I've written about some of the same issues at length over on my blog - http://bit.ly/9EQO7v

I think the main issue is that representative democracy would be structurally unable to cope with a strongly engaged public... yet as the internet lowers barriers to participation, that looks more and more like a possibility.

Maybe the ultimate solution to this is not 'direct democracy', but more a form of 'direct government' which builds on the idea of a personalised state to allow the public to make more sophisticated choices about the services which are available to them.

If making choices about state services can be made as easy as going to the supermarket, then maybe it will become almost as appealing as watching tv or going down the pub.

Denny

Or at least as appealing as going grocery shopping... something mildly tedious that we do anyway, because it has a useful outcome. :)

Richard

Perhaps we can extend the metaphor into the age of TescoDirect and Ocado and agree that making choices about public services should be as easy as it is to buy your groceries online :)

Thishani Nadesan

Thanks for your comments.

The idea of buying your public services like groceries seems appealing, but do you think everyone would want to do this? More may be converted in the future if the status quo changed, but I wonder whether such an extreme version would be popular? And what the impact on public services as a whole would be? Difficult stuff - but it challenges the idea of the way we do things now in the context of better technology, which is always good.

I think that the concept of having greater opportunity for participation by the public in the formation of policy and public services is a great idea, but I worry about the broader impact it might have. For example, in the same way that some socio-economic groups are less likely to vote, those with the time and inclination to engage with their MP on issues might voice their opinion at the expense of a time poor majority - this indicates that there should be a continued and increased onus on MPs to effectively communicate with all their constituents, and begs the question of how this could happen better in the future, perhaps with the aid of digital communication.

Further, I'd imagine that younger people would be more likely than the older population to participate in online direct democracy (I read a funny article about how young people are totally at one with frequent voting due to the X Factor mentality of picking up a phone or texting every week) and despite my general support of all things increasing the formal political engagement of the young (see Demos pamphlet 'The New Frontier: Votes at 16" for more on this) this creates a generation gap. Perhaps the disproportionate impact of a certain age group already exists, in a different form, in our habitual election system, but this does not mean it should be perpetuated.

Instead we need to find a way for new forms of communication to better and strengthen our current democratic communication structures, minimising bias against the participation of any group and ensuring that constituents are equally and effectively represented. Some form of direct digital democracy may indeed be the way to do this, and the Digital Economy Bill debate online showed its potential.

Richard

RE the question about whether everyone would like to access public services like they do their grocery shopping... I'm not sure how important this is. For example, if it means there is no more participation than there is at present (some of the internet voting pilots that have been conducted in local elections seem to point this way), it is still more convenient for those who take part, and therefore gives them more time to do more useful things (a decent enough aim in itself). And if the aim is to have more 'consumer choice' to drive up standards, you may not need *everyone* to be exercising their rights to choose, just enough people to mean there are sufficient rewards (funding or otherwise) for those service providers which are successful - then everyone benefits from the competition even if they don't make use of their freedoms.

But yes, all change in this area definitely has to be incremental rather than revolutionary - there wouldn't be any other way to do it. The mess the government has made over the introduction of internet voting is an example of how things can easily turn out (hope to be posting about this on my blog on election day).

There is also plenty of work to be done on digital inclusion - Martha Lane Fox has been put in charge of that stuff. And examples from Brazil show how mobile units, etc, can expand knowledge and access into areas without the infrastructure or skills.

You make an interesting point about disparities in participation across different age groups under the existing system too - am sure David Willetts would agree!

But I'm unclear to what extent equality of participation is obtainable or desirable.

I guess if young people don't vote now, we tend to say they are apathetic or disillusioned (ie it is their choice), while if older groups don't participate so much online we say they are excluded (ie it is not their choice). Perhaps this is fair, or perhaps its not. Maybe one group prefers one system for interaction and another group prefers something different. I guess the answer is to have a range of channels for opinions to be expressed through - whether that's writing a letter to your MP or sending an email.

Thishani Nadesan

I addressed equality opportunity to participate in my post: in my opinion this is vitally desirable and we should strive to obtain it. As such, anything which makes it significantly harder for one group to participate needs to be very carefully addressed and carried out.

I can see that the benefit from the Hackney South case is that members of the public could engage in the issues that they particularly care about during the course of a parliamentary term, and this is a positive step forward as these views will directly translate to action in Parliament. However, precisely because this proposed digital communication and voting would directly impact an MPs action, it seems that those who find it complicated or unattractive to engage online could risk having their views ignored by their MP. Essentially - I just want to be sure that the stampede towards progress doesn't leave anyone behind!

Martha Lane Fox is awesome – and if she had her way, then my participation concerns would be allayed! http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f43dc012-f999-11de-8085-00144feab49a.html

Regarding the public service/grocery shopping issue: my concern is about the effect of such an individualistic system on the population and resources as a whole. The narrowing of the distance between the people and government has a lot of potential, but to maximise this we need to make it work for everyone.