Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
- These are not the policies you are looking for... George Lucas says there?ll be no more Star Wars after Episode III. What with all the spare time he?ll have, maybe he fancies becoming a Demos intern ? his claim on Newsnight last night that his films are about the dangers of neglecting Democracy seemed a blatant pitch to me. [he said something along the lines of 'my interest is not how nasty people take over democracies but how democracies give themselves over to tyrants']. An elaborate plan to get in contact with us I?ll admit, given that you... continue reading on 18th May 2005 Comments (1)
- Getting the story straight Having done this, it came out in favour of Labour...before decrying virtually everything that they have done over the last 8 years. And yesterday, having apparently got bored of rocking the vote, it asked its readers whether this was the dullest election yet - 'yes or gnome'. Strange goings on at the paper with it's finger on the nation's pulse... continue reading on 27th April 2005
- Lessons of Power Governments eh. Geoff Mulgan, co-author of the aforementioned Wide Open [and Demos founder], has an article in Prospect Magazine that's worth a read. He describes the lessons of his seven years on the inside, concluding that governments can make a real difference. continue reading on 21st April 2005
- They want to be elected MPs eh. You might have noticed that they work for you...well it also turns out that they want to be elected. Pretty simple idea, but i like it.[via the Guardian Election Blog] continue reading on 21st April 2005
- Seriously Small Sometimes you wonder about the future of politics. And then you have your faith restored. Two policies from the Monster Raving Loony Party: - Children to be encouraged to sit closer together in school - to reduce class sizes. - Government to issue a 99p coin - to save on change.Surely both candidates for the Global Ideas Bank... continue reading on 18th April 2005
- On your toes, folks One up for the Open Source movement - the Guardian Online reports that Wikipedia had an obituary written for feminist writer and campaigner Andrea Dworkin before any of the major news outlets had even reported her death yesterday. What with the Guardian also opening a flickr account and inviting submissions, the untapped power of the masses seems to be gaining some recognition. continue reading on 13th April 2005
- The Big Issue Which all makes you wonder whether there really is one. As I sat with a group of professionals from children?s services yesterday, a headteacher from a school in Bournemouth gave a fascinating presentation about how her school had engaged the local community in its work. Parents had been invited to run breakfast clubs, they had built furniture for the playground, several of them are now employed at the school. The school had put on after-school events ranging from Indian Head massages to ICT... continue reading on 12th April 2005
- You read it here first Bit slow on the uptake here, but The Times has an election blog...featuring (amongst others) none other than former Demos guest blogger David Charter. Worth a read. In the spirit of election-period-induced-fairness, the Guardian also has a designated election blog that you can visit here. continue reading on 6th April 2005
- Show me the Money Bored of the polls yet..? Did The Wisdom of Crowds float your boat..? If the answers are 'yes' and 'yes' then politicalbetting.com is worth a look. It aggregates all the spread bets made on the site to come up with a figure for the size of the majority of the winning party. It's all about access to people's private information, James Surowiecki will tell you. The Iowa Electronic Markets were set up to do this kind of thing too, but don't seem very open. Anyone..? continue reading on 6th April 2005
- Collectively individual Collective action seems to be getting interesting nowadays. The Fairtrade movement seems a decent example of a sort of individualized collective action: no-one makes me buy fair trade coffee, but equally if I?m the only person in the world buying it then no-one?s going to take any notice of me. This seems to be slightly different to traditional forms of collective action which have adopted a different starting point: join a group willing to enact collective action and generally go along with... continue reading on 5th April 2005