European Political News

Accessibility and Useability are two features which are necessary for a website in 2008 to be successful, but not sufficient on their own. Bendy Girl asked about the accessibility features of the designs I am looking at for the Wardman Wire: I like the light background too, I always find dark backgrounds difficult on the eye and [...]

I've been hinting for a couple of weeks that I've been thinking about designing a new "front end" for the Wardman Wire. Over the next few days I'll be asking for comments and feedback. This first post explains why I think a change is needed, and introduces you to two prototypes I have built for you to comment on.

Today has been a little quiet for blogging - I have been working on this, which turns into a public beta test at 11.00pm. There are a couple of glitches, but comments are welcome. I will be writing an explanation of what is what and how it all fits together during the day tomorrow. Tags: wardman wire, politics [...]

There’s an excellent short interview with a “Blog Producer” from Weblogs Inc. by Darren Rowse over at Problogger. It points up a few of the issues that arise and skills that are needed to take a blog from being the “voice of one person” to being a slightly larger enterprise - with a range of [...]

Further to my previous post about the new front end design for the Wardman Wire, I've tried it with a "light" stylesheet rather than a "dark" one.

Here is a screenshot which also includes a "video" module, showing Tim Ireland's video in support of the Campaign for the Iraqi Interpreters.

Over the weekend I've been playing with a new alternative front end for the blog. It is designed to give a more "newsy" view than the "time-based" view of the traditional blog format, and to help make it easier to keep track of the amount of material that we are now publishing. The idea is that there will be a more "magazine" style page on www.mattwardman.com, and the existing design will stay on www.mattwardman.com/blog/. Here is a screenshot of the prototype

If you are following your own technorati "Authority" score you may have noticed a decline in the last few days.

It's that time - 6 months since the Usmanov imbroglio, and all the links are dropping out of the Technorati scores. I'm down by 50 in 4 days.

The Technorati rankings don't matter a damn, but perhaps it is a reminder - 6 months later - that it is time to pick up the Freedom of Expressions cudgels once again.

The dodgy libel laws are still on the books, and Shillings Lawyers are still to be seen strutting about bullying people into self-censorship on the basis of untested and unproven allegations that material that happens to be disliked by rich clients is defamatory.

I haven't forgotten; neither should any of us.

And I'm looking for more nominees for the Usmanov Schillings Duck-n-Cluck awards.

While I was digging around looking at jug-of-water-gate, I happened to come across a politics page on the Open Directory showing that the Lib Dems have more UK websites - just under 700 - listed there than either Labour (just under 500) or the Conservative (just under 600). The category is UK Parties and Politics. What gives? Click the image for a screenshot Particularly striking is that 350 Liberal Democrat branch websites are listed, compared with 101 “Local” websites for Labour and 118 Conservative Association websites. I can’t be definitive from just these figures - but it looks as if someone in the Lib Dems knows their Internet Onions, and have been doing some superb strategic internet campaigning, punching a couple categories above their organisational weight. I’ll be explaining some more detail on this in my Blog Platform column tomorrow afternoon, and taking a look at why the Open Directory (and even more so Wikipedia) can be so important, and putting forward some thoughts about online campaigning. I will also be doing a more analytical piece over at Poliblog Perspective looking at how the internet presence of the parties has developed in the Open Directory since the year 2000. In a nutshell, some argue that organisations specifically targetting raising their profile are somehow pushing the boundary, whether by deliberately aiming to be listed on many websites, or by designing a website specifically to do well in search engine results; in my view, it is no different to (for example) having a listing in a County or Professional directory - or sending a press release worded to catch the attention of a newspaper or radio programme. More in Blog Platform tomorrow. Tags: lib dem, conservative, labour, open diectory

“Scots Tory Boy” (who is only two of those - I think - and I’m not telling you which) has been a few months away from blog reading. As a follow-on from last week’s Free For All Friday question from Mike Rouse, he has kindly contributed an article about finding the rhythm again. A walk in the wilderness Last year I was without a computer and internet access for six months so when I was back online it was great to start catching up with favourite blogs, see which ones were still going/gone and find new ones to ponder on. A return on the wild side They’ve all had six months of continuity. By which I mean (I feel a Rumsfeld coming on: ‘There is ongoing continuity which you live, there is continuity by the victors, and there is continuity that has not yet been written and of which we know nought’) that most blogs have running themes and, whilst posts may be tagged, three or more different topics can justifiably be under the same tags. A La Recherche du posts Perdu Then you try to catch up with six months of posts. No chance, short of taking another six months to do it. And sometimes the well can become poisoned Some posts are riveting, others not - but for me it is the overall feel of the blog that keeps me there or loses me, e.g. one particular blogger whose output I supported unconditionally, wrote a post which struck me as outright bigotry (ed: hope it wasn’t me about Bonnie Prince Alex). I have been back twice but I now have such a biased view of him that despite his otherwise common-sensical views I find him difficult to take seriously because I have no idea where or when he will revert to type. But what is his type - therein is the problem - we can think about anything I post before I publish but in vino veritas I may publish and regret a post. Was the dodgy one posted “having drink taken” or is he usually tipsy and a bigot when sober? In a moment of wishful thinking did the blogger say where exactly they wish their beliefs will lead. Either way, this guy lost me at that point - and he is trying to start a serious political party. (more…)

Last week Mr Eugenides (known affectionately on this site as “Hamish the Greek” - he is one person who can safely be treated with political incorrectness without running the risk of a tantrum) was the second most popular political blogger in Scotland (after Richard Leyton). This week he has blown Leyton into the weeds. Here are the stats from Blogtopsites for Mr E. You can ignore the spike on the left - that is an artefact of the start of the graph. The traffic is going mad this week. I wonder if it the pictures of six girls in bikinis or tight tops, the two of Alistair Darling behind bars, and the four I Can Has Cheezburger knockoffs featuring Tony Blair that have anything to do with it. Hopefully, it was the demolition of Gary Pugh idea to DNA test children. Shame on you, Mr E - probably. Tags: mr eugenides, tabloid blogging, alistair darling

I’ve added a couple of extra features to the blog today - a tag cloud covering 1200 articles, and a feed of recent articles at the bottom of the “single article” page. Wardman Wire Tag Cloud The first is that I have turned on the tag cloud page in Beta Form: About 90% of our posts (i.e., nearly all of mine and some of the other writers’) were tagged when written, and I have turned the feature on this morning. The number after the tag is the number of times that tag has been used. Tags included here have occurred at least 4 times in the past year. There is clearly some noise-removal to do, but I hope that in the meantime this page provides an alternate way to navigate our posts. Comments will be welcome. Recently Posted Articles I have also introduced a “recently posted list” going below single posts and pages (example - scroll to the bottom), as a way of (I hope) persuading those dedicated people who read all the way to the bottom of the comments to read another article. This works by pasting an RSS feed below the post by calling a plugin called “Feedlist“. This was a slightly more complex job than I had intended, and in the end I created a custom feed through Yahoo Pipes (which was necessary to truncate the post excerpt to a reasonable length). I still need to trim the excerpt it to “end of word”. This is still in Beta too - comments are welcome. Tags: yahoo pipes, tag cloud, wardman wire tag cloud, recent articles, wordpress plugin, feedlist wordpress plugin

Iain Dale reports that a Group Blog has started from the House of Lords, which seems to be Clive Soley expanding his existing project sideways - admirable. This is from Clive Soley, Lord of I’ve forgotten where: In 2003 I started a blog as an MP. I regarded it as a success and it certainly attracted some interesting debates. It was important for me because it enabled me to talk direct to people without first finding a media outlet. I saw it as a meeting room without walls. There are problems for an elected representative however. The more successful your blog is the more time consuming " and time matters for MPs! You also have to decide whether to answer all the points or just those from constituents or just let the blog run itself with occasional inputs from the MP Over the last 12 months I have let my blog http://clivesoleymp.typepad.com/ drift into gentle decline with only occasional posts. But down in the Westminster forest something was stirring. I had talked to the Hansard Society and to the House of Lords Library and Information department. The result? A new Lordsoftheblog http://www.lordsoftheblog.net/ has emerged blinking into the daylight! The Hansard Society has been a good midwife! Nine Lords are participating and I think that number will grow. The idea is, in effect, a group blog. We all make (hopefully!) two posts a week and no doubt each Peer will decided how and when to respond to comments. I hope it will give people a greater insight into the working of the House of Lords and enable Peers to inform people of their views and their actions, their votes and their policy aims. MPs and Peers need to find new ways of engaging with the public. A blog is not the complete answer to the feeling of alienation from the political system that many feel today but it is part of the answer. In the 1950 trade unions and the church played a bigger role in informing people about their political rights and duties. That has gone and the conventional media has been unable to replace it. There is no shortage of opinion today " almost everyone with access to the internet can have their shout but Peers and MP are legislators and what they think and do is more than opinion " it is also news. So we now have one more way of telling people what we are doing and why. Hopefully it will also give the public a chance to talk to us more directly even if we cant promise to answer all their comments or to do everything they would like us to do. My thoughts The welcome: I wish it well. Like Paul Burgin, I hope it helps make the workings of Parliament better known. And the niggles: Like nearly everybody else they have put it on an international dot Net domain, (http://www.lordsoftheblog.net/) which guarantees that it will be harder to find for people searching on Google UK. Welcome to the political blogging ghetto, M’Luds. In their case, the House of Lords profile may help. A serious one. Why do establishment blogrolls all consist of the same “Great and the Good” boilerplate. Has no one any imagination or willingness to spend some time looking for interesting hidden blogs (no, I don’t necessarily mean this one - I mean interesting real life blogs). You have some leverage to help demolish the walls of the political blogging playpen - please use it to link to blogs that don’t get enough attention. Why not a rotating schedule of those not in the Iain Dale 500?) I like the Terms and Conditions clause 5: “Dont submit comments which are substantially material from another website, publication, news feed or blog.” Someone will have some fun with that.For a start, the T&Cs themselves appear to be substantially material from the Food Standards Agency, WorkJam, DirectGov or the Department for Communities and Local Government Webchats (among others), and I claim my ?5. OK, two of those are Hansard Society Websites -but even so! I wonder whether corporate consultants (as opposed to micro-consultants who are far better value when not being discriminated against by the tax system) charged a 4 figure sum to write those T&Cs originally. Wrapping-Up Anyway, I’ll be following Lords of the Blog to see how it goes. Tags: lords of the blog, nine lords a leaping, clive soley, Lord Soley, Lord Norton, Lord Tyler, Lord Lipsey, Lord Dholakia, Baroness D’Souza, Lord Teverson, Baroness Young of Hornsey, Baroness Murphy

This morning there was a short interview on Start the Week with Clay Shirky (where do they get these names?) - author of a new book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations - about how the possibilities of building alliances quickly makes protest easier. Here’s the conversation (which is about 10 minutes): Download audio file (20080317-bbc-radio-4-start-the-week-andrew-marr-clay-shirky-here-comes-everybody.mp3) And here’s a quote from the conversation with respect to blogging: Political bloggers are characterised as: “Single young men with a libertarian outlook”. Clay Shirky replies: “That’s not the problem - it is more of a sense of having the permission to speak in public.” That is an interesting distinction; and I think I agree with him. As I’m coming into contact with a wider range political bloggers, more and more of them seem to be distinctly older than “young”. “Libertarian” is probably right, though. There are more details of the book here. Clay Shirky has started writing a blog with updates here. [Update 2pm. Looks like we need to apply these techniques. Having read this by Mr Eugenides today, and this in the Guardian: Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert. Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five. ‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’ This is not Italy in the early 1920s, it is Great Britain in 2007. This proposal is morally and ethically repugnant, and Mr Pugh’s position is untenable. If they must detect unacceptable tendencies in Primary School, then why not try sniffing under the armpit rather than pfaffing about with DNA databases - probably far more reliable, and just as respectful of the rights of the individual. Our Chief Constables are severely screwed-up in their thinking and their ethics, and we have a cancer growing in the police service. How do we root out these totalitarian tendencies?] Tags: political blog, here comes everybody, clay shirky, organising without organisations, flashmob

I’ve solved this problem. Let us make them follow the precedent of the Ministerial Code of Practice (pdf) introduced by the Blair-Brown government. And the ultimate authority for deciding whether the blogger broke the code should - following this Ministerial precedent - be the blogger themselves. And for any breach, an apology should suffice as remedy. Sorted. That’ll keep our Civil Service Ethical and Sleaze Free. Tags: gordon brown, tony blair, civil serf, ministerial code of ethics, guidelines for ministers, sleaze Previous in series

A refreshing admission by Simon Dickson: OK, Im an idiot. The lengthy and fair-minded piece I wrote this morning about a speech by Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne at the RSA was a year late. Osborne made some interesting points about the need to recast the political settlement for the digital age. And now today, theres an email doing the rounds (see Nick Booths piece) pointing out similarities between this 2007 speech and the one made by Tom Watson on Monday. Amusingly, it condemns the Watson speech as a mashup. But hold on. Surely its entirely in keeping with the whole ethos of open source, to take good ideas and build on them? Didnt you say mass collaboration was a good thing? Kudos up one notch for the Puffbox Man. He makes some good points about Open Source Politics. I made a few similar points in my reaction to Mr Gordon’s 2007 Budget Speech, using splogs as a metaphor: I suppose that all political speeches should in fact be called SPLEECHES since they all follow at least some of the principles behind Spam Blogs, i.e.: 1. Get content from somewhere else. 2. Use it for your own benefit. 3. Do not attribute the source. 4. With the overall objective of promoting your own organisation. That would be 4 out of 4 then for 90% of policy speeches I have ever heard ! Tags: budget speech, splog, simon dixon, puffbox, open source politics

Summary This week Will Patterson writes his first column for the Wardman Wire about events at the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. This is a new one for both of us - a regular article on a Derbyshire-based blog about Scottish Politics, so comments are very welcome indeed about the “Holyrood Herald” weekly report. This time: The Lib Dems and the SNP go speed-dating. The Edinburgh property market may ease after MPs Accommodation Allowances are reviewed. The Labour/LibDem-controlled Stirling administration - the only Council in Scotland to cut it’s level of local taxation - is rewarded with a vote of no confidence. Wendy Alexander’s Deep-Throat turns out to be Jackie Baillie, who gets roasted in return. And the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has a pow-wow after last year’s punch-up. Burying the Claymore Could this be the start of a beautiful relationship? After months of Scottish LibDem Leader Nicol Stephen refusing to speak to SNP First Minister Alex Salmond, the two have started to talk. After about a year of the Lab-LibDem Coalition being in effect continued into opposition, Stephen appears to have turned his guns around, criticising Labour and making nice with the SNP. What’s prompted the change? Why, it could only be local taxation. The SNP managed to get 31 of Scotland’s 32 Councils to freeze their Council Tax rates. The 32nd Council - Stirling - actually cut it, though the Labour-LibDem administration there has been rewarded with a no-confidence vote, which they lost on Wednesday night. Council Tax vs Local Incomes Tax Anyway, the SNP and LibDems agree that the Council Tax is a bad thing, and they both agree that a Local Income Tax (LIT) should replace it. So with the SNP moving to implement a major part of their 2007 manifesto, it was only natural that the two parties would bury the hatchet and start talking. Problem is, they’ve stopped talking: the SNP want to set the LIT at 3% nationally, and the LibDems say that if it’s set nationally, it’s not a LOCAL income tax, and they want the rate to be set by Councillors. But they started talking at all, so progress has been made, and no legislation has actually been proposed yet: the Scottish Government is still consulting on the matter, so Finance Secretary John Swinney and LibDem Finance Spokesman Tavish Scott have four months to come up with something. Yet if firm proposals do come to Holyrood, and the LibDems do support them, the vote will be tight, and there will be pressure on the Greens - who don’t support an LIT but aren’t too fond of the status quo either - to declare their hand, as the outcome could be in their hands. Meanwhile, back at Holyrood Meanwhile, Holyrood is allegedly the home of ‘new politics’, where MSPs don’t just simply ape Westminster practices. Which is why there have been three major expenses scandals since 1999, and why MSPs have panicked and agreed to a review of allowances. Well, the review board have reported back, and if they have their way, membership of the Scottish Parliament will not be an easy way into property speculation, but MSPs will be able to hire more staff. Or at least, some will, and different parties will take different positions on the review depending on whether the bulk of their MSPs were elected in Constituencies or on the Regional Lists. In a way, it shows that Holyrood is different from Westminster, where in the aftermath of Derek Conway’s appointment practices, the parties fell over each other to look like they were the best at cleaning up their act and opening up their records. MSPs, on the other hand, will probably support whatever makes life harder for the other side. Brothers, Sisters and Comrades - Apparently And why need they bother, when Labour Leader Wendy Alexander has enough problems with her frontbenchers? Shadow Health Secretary Margaret has been caught briefing against her leader, and she wasn’t overly subtle about it, which makes her look both treacherous and rubbish at the same time. She’s probably in line for an ugly punishment, but Convenership of the Equal Opportunties Committee is not in Wendy Alexander’s gift - a Tory is destined to exile in that end Scottish Parliamentary Siberia - and the LibDems have been lumbered with Convenership of the Subordinate Legislation Committee. So Curran will, I suspect, get sent to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, where she’ll find herself dealing with the Parliament’s procurement and expenses rules that have got people so wound up. If it does come true, it will be a cruel and unusual punishment, but it may be too tempting for Wendy Alexander to resist. But what does Wendy Alexander do about Labour Councillor Pat Watters, President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, who has been getting on rather better with the SNP Government than Councillors did with Labour Ministers before the election? Maybe she should set the Leader of North Lanarkshire Council, Jim McCabe, on him. Or she could see if he’ll step aside in favour of Corrie McChord, one of COSLA’s Vice-Presidents, and Leader of the aforementioned deposed administration in Stirling. He probably won’t be all that enamoured with the SNP - who suggested getting rid of him - right now. (more…)

If you visit http://m.mattwardman.com/ there is a version of the Wardman Wire formatted for mobile phone use. I’d be interested in your comments on whether it works on different devices - and how well. To create this version, I have used a service called Mowser that simply reprocesses your RSS feed. Tags: mobile feed, wardman wire mobile, mowser

Tom Watson has picked up on my proposed Guidelines for Civil Servants: Matt Wardman has a different take on the issue. Hes saying theres no need for any guidelines. For Matt, the civil service code will suffice. Id be interested to know if current blogging civil servants think that code provides the clarity you need to blog sensibly without fear that youre doing something wrong. I’m arguing for a strongly minimalist approach: 99.9% of Civil Servants are sensible and professional people of integrity. Civil Serf is an exception in not behaving professionally. Exception control for the 0.1% in this case should be by disciplinary action of the 0.1% under the Civil Service Code, not by creating guidelines for the 99.9%. Blogging guidelines are only an unnecessary result of a need to be seen to take dynamic action. A multiplication of guidelines like rabbits will only serve to generate more boundary quarrels, and waste more time in argument about whether the letter of the guidelines has been breached or not. And then there will have to be a review of the guidelines to identify the weak points. And a policy commission to evaluate the results. And then there will be even more guidelines. And they will have to be put under version control, and distributed to all the Intranets etc etc etc sod it go to 5 and continue in circles. In summary - Ockhams Razor just shredded the guidelines. Or the need for them. Just follow the Civil Service Code. And there is a further debate going on in the comments. Involving blogging Civil Servants themselves is an excellent - nay essential - idea. (more…) Previous in series

Over at Tom Watson’s blog, there’s an article and a good conversation going on in the comments - concerning what guidance should be developed for Civil Servant bloggers. Tom suggests something short and sharp in 12 points: 1. Write as yourself 2. Own your own content 3. Be nice 4. Keep secrets 5. No anonymous comments 6. Remember the civil service code 7. Got a problem? Talk to your boss 8. Stop it if we say so 9. Be the authority in your specialist field " provide worthwhile information 10. Think about consequences 11. Media interest? Tell your boss 12. Correct your own mistakes Various commenters add things (which I’m numbering mainly sequentially, and of which I’m only quoting a portion): Shane 13. Be accurate - dont tell porkies. 14. Treat comments as part of your blog. Make sure they adhere to the guidelines s much as possible. (more…) Previous in series

I think I will start a category for mistakes by journalists to highlight some of the errors we have in the national press. That way, when the next drive by blog denouncer comes past waffling about bloggers and pyjamas there will be evidence to hand. Tags: political blogging

The blogger Civil Serf first mentioned (to my knowledge) by Dizzy a couple of weeks ago is - according to Ellee Seymour - to be covered on Newsnight this evening. I got this via Twitter: More than 800 hits today thanks to civil servant post, the story is on newsnight tonight, michael crick has tried to find her. (That’s one thing it’s for, Mr Devil.) If you’ve been incommunicado for the last 36 hours, Ellee said yesterday: A civil servant who wrote an unflinching blog where she described her working life, the incompetences and inadequacies she regularly encountered, could now be in very hot water for publishing her views. The Civil Serf blog now seems to have been removed after it was highlighted in todays Sunday Times, with the headline: “Hunt is on for demon blogger of Whitehall,” while the Sunday Telegraph reported: “Blogger lifts lid on Whitehall failings”. Her blog is easy enough to find, and the Times even has a link to it. But the site shows an error message saying the page does not exist. Its obviously been pulled. Ellee’s article includes some quotes. It is snarky and - in my view - must surely be too close to the bone not to be a breach of contract. I stand by the comments I made on Ellee’s post on Sunday (edited slightly): I gave her six months when I first saw it. I think that civil servants cannot write critical blogs without being in violation of their contract (conduct bringing employer info disrepute etc.). If they do so, they must be bulletproof in their anonymity. Pulled on a Sunday implies that she may have pulled it herself. It is a dangerous game to play - especially in the political niche. Its always a tricky one - if you plan to avoid work in your writing they could still say no if you ask. I have to decide whether to blog about clients, and it somethgin I have thought quite carefully about, and I still dont know if I got the balance right. (Note: my policy is not to blog about current employers, and never to break a contract or confidentiality agreement - criminal activity notwithstanding). At this point it looks as though Civil Serf pulled her own blog, so she may get away with it. Tags: civil serf, anonymous blogging, dooced, blog about employer

I’ve been working with Jon Bright who edits the OurKingdom blog for a couple of months on a policy project that we are calling “The Stump” or “On The Stump“. It is a rotating policy debate that moves around each week like the Britblog Roundup. There’ll be a team of up to about 10 people involved as “hosts”, but we would like that team itself to rotate in it’s membership over time. (This was first posted at the weekend to make sure that it reaches weekday readers - my apologies if you have read it twice.) How it works On Sunday “host for the week” Blogger A publishes an article about any issue or aspect of policy that they are interested in on their own blog, and a short summary on stump.org.uk. During the week (perhaps before Thursday night) anybody who wants to posts a response on their own blog and links back to the original post by blogger A (using a Trackback or Comment). On the next Saturday the next host Blogger B publishes a summary and of the responses, and perhaps some analysis of their own, including linking back to all those who responded. On Sunday (i.e., the next day) Blogger B becomes the host and publishes their own article about a question they are interested in, and the cycle starts again. This process prevents anyone having to do too much work continually - the way this is organised will mean that team members will have to put in quite a bit of thought and time roughly once every two months. Why is it organised like this? We are trying to help do our bit in several areas: Encourage wide policy debate on a range of questions at the same time. Encourage debate between different political viewpoints. Provide a way for bloggers to build wider contacts. Provide a mechanism where new bloggers can get involved in debate quickly. Encourage more interaction between different blog-niches (since policy and politics are not reserved for politico-geeks). How will the team work We are thinking about a team of around 10 people as hosts. But this area needs to be pragmatic. Our first thought is that team members will join for a period, be involved in the rotation for a time then leave to allow space for somebody else - that will give more people a chance to give input and build contacts. 6-12 months seems to be a reasonable minimum time to be involved as a host, since that is roughly the time needed to build a decent basic profile for a blog. The plan is to do the first team mainly by invitation to get a wide spread of bloggers and views - but if anybody is really keen there may be a couple of slots. If it works well, I’ll be happy to be the first team member to drop out - say after 3 or 4 cycles. Wrapping-Up We’re about ready to start, but we are still debating a few details, and some things are bound to change as we get going. So any comments or questions are welcome. You can find the blog at stump.org.uk, and the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/stump. Watch these addresses for developments. Please make any comments or ask any questions on the Wardman Wire copy of this post. Tags: stump, on the stump. stumped, ourkingdom, policymeme, blog festival, policy festival

I’ve been working with Jon Bright who edits the OurKingdom blog for a couple of months on a policy project that we are calling “The Stump” or “On The Stump“. It is a rotating policy debate that moves around each week like the Britblog Roundup. There’ll be a team of up to about 10 people involved as “hosts”, but we would like that team itself to rotate in it’s membership over time. How it works On Sunday “host for the week” Blogger A publishes an article about any issue or aspect of policy that they are interested in on their own blog, and a short summary on stump.org.uk. During the week (perhaps before Thursday night) anybody who wants to posts a response on their own blog and links back to the original post by blogger A (using a Trackback or Comment). On the next Saturday the next host Blogger B publishes a summary and of the responses, and perhaps some analysis of their own, including linking back to all those who responded. On Sunday (i.e., the next day) Blogger B becomes the host and publishes their own article about a question they are interested in, and the cycle starts again. This process prevents anyone having to do too much work continually - the way this is organised will mean that team members will have to put in quite a bit of thought and time roughly once every two months. Why is it organised like this? We are trying to help do our bit in several areas: Encourage wide policy debate on a range of questions at the same time. Encourage debate between different political viewpoints. Provide a way for bloggers to build wider contacts. Provide a mechanism where new bloggers can get involved in debate quickly. Encourage more interaction between different blog-niches (since policy and politics are not reserved for politico-geeks). How will the team work We are thinking about a team of around 10 people as hosts. But this area needs to be pragmatic. Our first thought is that team members will join for a period, be involved in the rotation for a time then leave to allow space for somebody else - that will give more people a chance to give input and build contacts. 6-12 months seems to be a reasonable minimum time to be involved as a host, since that is roughly the time needed to build a decent basic profile for a blog. The plan is to do the first team mainly by invitation to get a wide spread of bloggers and views - but if anybody is really keen there may be a couple of slots. If it works well, I’ll be happy to be the first team member to drop out - say after 3 or 4 cycles. Wrapping-Up We’re about ready to start, but we are still debating a few details, and some things are bound to change as we get going. So any comments or questions are welcome. You can find the blog at stump.org.uk, and the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/stump. Watch these addresses for developments. Please make any comments or ask any questions on the Wardman Wire copy of this post. Tags: stump, on the stump. stumped, ourkingdom, policymeme, blog festival, policy festival

Does anyone have a list of websites of current MPs in a spreadsheet, OPML file, or other easily-digestible form? I’m trying to find the list for a (non-paying!) colleague who already has all the Labour ones, so I’m mainly after the others. Tags: websites of mps, mp websites

Via Guido: Guido just received this via email. The perfect end to a perfect week for Clegg. Well it is late on a Friday night… However, there is a quip worthy of the Tavern in the comments: He is now known as Nick C - because he hasn’t got a legg left to stand on…. I say no more, since I only have one source on this and that is Mr Fawkes… Wrapping up Just in case you’re wondering: it’s from Hitch Hiker. I somehow think most Lib Dems would know that already (for the record - that’s a compliment). Vogon poetry is widely accepted as the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, but the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. The absolute worst poetry was written by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex. Luckily it was destroyed when the earth was. Tags: guido fawkes, nick clegg  

I’m thinking about what type of posts would be best on the Wardman Wire on Fridays Since we now have a (fairly) regular posting schedule for the rest of the week, I’m tempted to look for a way of making Fridays less organised, and perhaps give an opportunity for a range of guests to post. The chaos will come out somewhere, so it might as well be somewhere expected… I have come up with some suggestions, but would welcome any comments you might have. Choose a topic and invite impromptu Guest articles for Friday on the preceding Monday. As 1, but ask people to respond on their own blogs, and then link to them all with excerpts. To this feels a bit too much like either the Britblog Review or the new “On the Stump” project I have been working on with Jon Bright (more on this soon, perhaps over the weekend or on Monday). Invite submissions on any political topic, and run up to half a dozen articles each week. Find a Friday columnist - perhaps on a “non UK Politics” theme (foreign policy? a “Letter from Peking”?) Go for something that is completely divorced from politics. A mixture of all of these.# … is in the comments below. I hope. I’d welcome suggestions and comments, if you would like to add any below. Tags: freeform friday, friday on the wardman wire

This morning Jacqui Smith has announced changed proposals for ID cards, attempting to sugar the pill: The government has set out changes to its planned identity scheme - including allowing people to use passports or driving licences as ID cards. Most people will not now have to give their fingerprints when getting a passport until 2011/12 - three years later than had previously been planned. And plans to force passport applicants to get an ID card have been dropped. The exception will be airport and other workers in security-sensitive jobs who will need an ID card from 2009. They will be compulsory for certain groups, and will then it will gradually become more and more difficult to live your life without one. This is compulsion by stealth, as if we were all frogs in pans of water gradually being heated up to the boil, and it is both dishonest and despicable. The best analogy I can think of is the PIN Numbers for your cash cards, where it has become more and more difficult to exist without a PIN number, never mind a cash card itself - unless you are willing to lose significant access to services. This is the segment from Today this morning reporting this process. Download audio file (20080306-radio4-today-id-card-introduction-process.mp3) They are trying to put out a line that they think public acceptance now matters. Bollocks. From the BBC The proposal had been that from January 2010 everyone getting, or renewing, a passport would have to get an identity card in addition to a passport. And ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair had said that a major plank of Labour’s next election manifesto would be a bill to make it compulsory for everyone, irrespective of whether they get a passport or not, to get an ID card. But now apparently: But those timetables have slipped and Ms Smith says most people will not have to get an identity card and could use their biometric passport instead to prove who they are. “While there are big advantages to making ID cards as widespread as possible, we need to be clear there is public acceptance,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We need to be clear that the technology is there and, of course, Parliament would have the final decision as to whether or not, and when, entry on the identity register became compulsory.” So there you have it boys and girls: you won’t have an ID Card, you will have an ID card attached to your passport instead and have to use that. Big deal. They should come straight out and say that they are planning to build and maintain the most detailed database of any country in Europe that has existed since the Stasi were closed down in East Germany. Jacqui Smith - and this administration - need their political careers aborting for this. Not only has the Blair/Brown administration shown themselves to be utterly incapable of running a system of this complexity (never mind that even contemplating building one is inimical to the values of our society), they have also shown themselves to be utterly indifferent to our rights and freedoms. They are not planning consultation and debate; in the classis Alistair Campbell/Tony Blair style they are planning to use manipulation and misrepresentation as a way of sidelining and diverting their opponents until it is too late to stop their proposals. Over the next couple of days I will be writing to my MP and various party leaders for formal statements of their positions on this, and posting the answers here. Tags: jacqui smith, id cards, identity cards, dna database

Over at Poliblog Perspective I’ve put up a demonstration of the process that I go through when editing an article. Using Sadie Smith’s new Westminster Watch report, I have posted “before” and “after” examples. I have done the pair of articles as a tutorial demonstration for new people joining the blog, it may be of wider interest. Guidelines There are only a few guidelines I give to people writing for the blog, and I try to keep editing as light as possible: Nothing actionable (i.e., dont get me sued). Write as if for an intelligent tabloid publication or at the level of the Economist. Unless there is a good reason not to do so, use regular Subheads such that they convey the sense and flow of your argument or article. A good test is to delete the text, and see if the headings and subheadnings still give the gist of the article. Tags: wardman wire editing process, subheads, headingsm style guide, editorial guidelines

I’ve created a banner, and individual sidebar buttons for the regular columnists on the Wardman Wire. So if you are a Garbo Groupie, Keen on Keen, find the Thunderdragon hot, or want to draw your readers’ attention to the Britblog Podcast - then you can use one just for these niches within the site. You can find all the buttons, and links to the code snippets on the buttons and banners page. There’s also a link in the “Quick Links” below the header. These are the eight designs so far, which include the column name and the day of publication. These are 180×80 pixels. I don’t normally encourage direct linking, because it loads my server down - but in this case I’d recommend it in case we move columns around over time and have to update the buttons. There are about another 8 buttons to go for writers who have come on board more recently. Tags: banners, buttons, sidebar buttons, promotion, wardman wire promotion

I have increased the number of articles on the RSS Feed to 20 from the present 12. Why not subscribe if you don’t want to miss anything? For anoraks and techies, this is so that I can put a longer list of “Recent Postings” in the sidebar to make articles 2-3 days old easier to find; the “Recent Articles” widget takes the list from the RSS feed. Tags: rs feed, wardman wire, recent articles, recent postings