Politics News
Big Society in a small room
The first Big Society Network event
Last night I was at the first Big Society Network open night. There were over 100 people crammed into a small room at CLG, from organisations such as shared intelligence, envision, networked neighbourhoods; other charities, neighbourhood associations, local government, community regeneration organisations … I could go on.
There was a real buzz in the room – everyone was enthusiastic about the term Big Society and what it could mean. The event broke up into...
Implications of the budget
First, apologies for the dry title: it feels like the puns have been taken a little too far, for example in the constant references to ‘axes’ across the front pages of all the major newspapers today.
These give a pretty clear sense of the overall tone of the budget. But how does that affect voluntary and community organisations, and more important, how can we anticipate and plan for the changes that may come as a result in the way we work, who we help, and who funds us?
Some major...
Power to the People? The Big Society agenda
Turns out Citizen Smith was way ahead of his time, and would probably be horrified by this adoption of his favourite slogan, however, the new government’s civil society agenda, the ‘Big Society’, expands existing initiatives to improve society by empowering local communities. But what does this really mean to the people of Britain and to the VCS in particular?
The Government guidelines outline a number of proposals: an expansion of existing government strategies such as support for social...
Lessons from Labour
Some time back, I wrote about the lessons from the fall-out from One Alfred Place’s change of strategy, which was seen by some members as a voiding of the terms under which they joined the Club. We may now be seeing similar patterns at play in political party membership.
Maybe it’s something about the British loving an underdog, but Labour Party membership dramatically increased – with daily recruitment levels up 1000% (though from what must have been very low numbers based on a back of the...
Political legitimacy and membership
There's a good suggestion made on the Power 2010 campaign. It argues that:
No political Party should be registered with the Electoral Commission unless it has a democratic constitution which can be changed by a majority of its members on the basis of one member one vote.
This suggests an interesting idea - that part of the blame for the undemocratic nature of parliament and people's feelings of a lack of accountability stems from the fact that the membership of these parties themselves is...
It's all about equality...
Equality seems to be hot on everyone’s lips at the moment. With a general election in the not too distance future, and a new Equalities bill on the brink of publication, the major parties are all trying to show to Britain how they would tackle equalities issues, and how they are the people to take this issue forward. A new series of pamphlets by Demos tackles this very issue, illustrating policy plans for each of the parties on equality issues in Britain. An interesting insight into each...
Wellbeing: a new paradigm or just a fad?
As someone with a long interest in language and how it is used, I am often fascinated by how changes of terminology take place. Suddenly people are using a new term, sometimes to refer to a new concept or approach, but sometimes the new term simply replaces an old one. Well-being is not a new term or even a new concept, but it is certainly being used much more these days, and in different ways too.
I am a great believer in the idea of ‘confluence theory’, the notion that significant changes...
Future of wellbeing: what does this mean for you and your organisation?
From debates on wellbeing as a political goal, to positive psychology 'wellbeing' is being used more and more. But what does this term mean? And more importantly, perhaps, what does it mean to civil society organisations?
Many charities have wellbeing at the heart of what they do, even if they don't realise it. The sector can play a vital role in this directing this issue to shape society into a good society.
Join us on 23 February for the Future of Wellbeing seminar (PM4) at NCVO's annual...
I am what I read?
For a while, my news mainly came from the RSS feeds I chose to come into my netvibes account. This was a form of personalising the news I received grouped into things more likely to interest me (so tabs for politics, culture, the third sector, technology etc) – still in the main from news providers and journals, but divided up by topic not source. Then I started to use my network on delicious to find my way to articles that friends and colleagues had bookmarked as being of interest. ...
Ready for change? Highlights from the Conservative Party conference
After Labour’s conference (see here for my thoughts), last week was the Conservatives’ turn. As the party steams ahead in the polls, all eyes were on them in the hope that the conference would provide us with a better idea of some of the things they would do if their poll ratings translate into success at the ballot box. One of the main criticisms levelled at them has been their lack of concrete policies. Though realistically this is probably to be expected of a party not in government that...
