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Theme : democracy
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stones and glass houses
John Reid on the Today programme criticised those who pay too much attention to 'rogue elements' in the security services. "Their position is not known. They have uncorroborated evidence. They were very small in number."And the sources on which we based the foreign policy of the government?
from : johncraig
4th June 2003
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Questions on the colonial past
The UK government is currently investigating claims that British colonial officials were responsible for a series of atrocities during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s. Click here to read full article.I think this raises a variety of questions not only in regards to the way that former colonial powers deal with their past, but also about historical injustice and whether it can be redressed.
from : juliahuber
14th May 2003
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Five Star Knightrider
This is a brilliant hack and proof, perhaps, that online rating systems aren't all they're cracked up to be. Check out Amazon's review page for David Hasselhoff's 'best of' album which, with 633 reviews (at the time of writing), has to be one of the most popular things to comment on in Amazon history.For those of you familiar with the hairy chested one's leather clad antics, I promise you laughter. But more seriously what does it tell us about aggregated opinion gathering on the net?Click here...
from : paulmiller
28th April 2003
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Attention young people (particularly German ones)
Are you: a pragmatic idealist, self-conscious activist, robust materialist or an inconspicuous fence-sitter? You can find out in paper on German youth in a Swedish magazine called Axess. It argues that a generation of young people growing up in a 'post-stable society' is pragamatic rather than ideological. They yearn for 'reliable social and cultural arrangements, thus accepting a social perspective and function traditionally connected to the older generation'.
from : alistairdavidson
25th April 2003
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government review on spin
This is background on the Review of Government Communications and a link to the way the Guardian reported the spin inquiry. The committee has already indicated that it will discuss the release of the Iraqi weapons 'dossier' and the Jo Moore email.
from : alistairdavidson
24th March 2003
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political communication and war
Interesting looking event organised by | Media Workers Against War | with senior BBC news executive. Quite apart from the international implications of war, the way the government has tried to manage public opinion may be relevant to understanding the development of post-spin political communications. George Pitcher's Demos pamphlet Death of Spin starts to make that case.
from : alistairdavidson
18th March 2003
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Civic Hacking
James Crabtree of the Work Foundation argues that the political potential of the internet doesn't lie in connecting people to conventional politics but in 'civic hacking'. Read on in openDemocracy .
from : paulmiller
7th March 2003
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What is a 'progressive thinker'?
Once upon a time, in one of the most enlightened countries on the globe and in the most enlightened era known to mankind, there lived and worked a journalist. Let us just call her M. This journalist subscribed to certain unshakeable principles. She believed that members of a civilised society had a set of duties towards each other, that selfishness was wrong, that the strong had a particular responsibility to help the weak, that harm to others could and should be avoided and that the lies by...
from : matthewhorne
26th February 2003
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Attempts to encourage women to get a (public) life are failing
A recent brief by the Women and Equality Unit reveals that attempts to recruit women to take up posts on public bodies are failing. Even the Tories, who are opposed to positive discrimination, had a better record of getting women into public office than the current government. Read the full article here.This poses some interesting problems for the government, and especially the Labour Party, given that so many parliamentary seats are now subject to all-women shortlists. Is the drive...
from : alistairdavidson
21st February 2003
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A political look at territory
Maps are politically loaded. Although in the West we often regard international borders as permanent, in some areas they are new and still disputed. The importance of this is shown by the range of border/sovereignty disputes around including Iraq-Kuwait, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Morrocco-Western Sahara and Gibraltar. This old, but good, article in Le Monde Diplomatique highlights some of these concerns. Read it here.
from : alistairdavidson
19th February 2003
