2. What will be covered here
• A brief overview of UK political structures
• Types of political innovation that have taken
place in recent years
• Broad themes for future democratic
innovation
• A discussion of issues that arise from this
– Innovation -v- good democratic practice
– Political culture
3. UK Political Structures - overview
Parliament - Westminster
• 650 MPs
– 306 Conservative
– 57 Lib-Dem
– 258 Labour
– Smaller nationalist & regional parties (Scotland,
Wales, Northern Ireland)
• First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system
with Single Member Constituencies
• Very few small party/independent MPs
• Strong Cabinet government – centralised
• Un-elected House of Lords (it has been
‘about to be reformed’ since 1997) – Most
‘hereditary’ peers now gone.
• Only incremental reform since 1688 (The
Glorious Revolution)
4. Characteristics of UK Democracy
• Highly centralised, but significant recent
changes (Devolution, electoral reform)
• Political Parties – very strong (slow decline of
the two-party system)
• MPs relatively weak, though Parliamentary
Select Committees have gathered powers
• No written constitution. Non-proportional
representation. Un-elected second chamber
(The House of Lords)
• Ad-hoc arrangements – referendums, enquiries
etc – ‘very British’
• Parliament – conscious of low public esteem –
defensive. ‘Feral’ political culture
• Newspapers – very low levels of trust
• Evolved – uneven and inconsistent structures
• More anti-EU than most
5. Regional & Local Government
Nations & Regions Local Government
• Scottish Parliament (1999), • England, Wales & Scotland –
Nationalists in government mostly weak regional government
• Welsh Assembly (1999) currently • Mixture of County, Unitary,
Labour dominated Districts. Part time paid
• Northern Ireland Assembly (1998 councillors
with long suspensions) ‘Power- • Some Elected Mayors
sharing’ settlement (sectarian • French ratio of voters to elected
divide) officials is 120:1.
• London Assembly (2000) + • UK ratio is approx 2,600:1.
London Mayor
7. Political Innovations – 1993-
present - themes
• Moving existing political structures online
– Councillors & MPs websites, official bodies sites etc
– Using the web to make processes more efficient
• Transparency in governance
• e-Participation
• Political organising and campaigning
• Changes in UK political culture
8. Elected representative innovations
• 1978: Parliamentary broadcasting (Radio – TV in 1985)
• Freedom of Information Act 2000 (growing impact)
• ‘Hacktivism’ (more on this later)
• MPs expenses scandal – some crowdsourced investigation
• MPs forced to publish expenses online (2009-10). More transparency
• Some ambitious MPs – blogging, websites etc
• Parliamentary Petitions - 2011 (a very British arrangement). E-mail
campaigns (38 Degrees) – MPs hate this!
• Previous government attempted to impose ‘e-democracy’ measures on
local government without much success
• Little appetite for online activity among local councillors
• Mostly done-to rather than done-by
9. MPs online
Tom Watson MP Sir Stuart Bell MP
• Interactive individual – • No surgeries for 14 years
blogger, tweeter, gamer, • 100 unanswered phone
innovation enthusiast calls in 3 months
• Crowdsourced research • No constituency office or
• New-media literate politics social media presence
10. TheyWorkForYou.com
• Not created by Parliament
• Built by MySociety.org
• ‘hacktivism’
• Scraping Hansard – the official Parliamentary journal
11. Decentralisation: The problem
“It may easily be foreseen that almost all the able and
ambitious members of a democratic community will
labour unceasingly to extend the powers of
government, because they all hope at some time or
other to wield those powers themselves. It would be
a waste of time to attempt to prove to them that
extreme centralisation may be injurious to the state,
since they are centralising it for their own benefit.”
Alexis De Tocqueville
12. Tony Blair on the
‘Freedom of Information Act 2000’
(To himself):
"You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible
nincompoop. There is really no description of
stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is
adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it."
13. The Transparency Agenda
• Comes from the left and the right
• Linked to wider ‘open data’ movement
• Democratic problem: Only organisations with resources or
convening power (newspapers?) can take advantage of
transparency
• Counter-argument: Crowdsourcing (sometimes),
‘gamification’ and ‘the cognitive surplus’ (Clay Shirky)
• ‘Cloaked agendas’
• Used to de-toxify The Conservative Party (‘The Nasty Party’).
Transparency is a useful ‘opposition’ tool
14. Transparency – a political tool?
The political left targets The political right targets
• Commercial media – Murdoch press • MPs and MEPs (rivals to markets)
• Business lobbies (BBA, TPA etc) • The BBC
• Bad employers – workplace rights • Profligate civil servants (“The Post
• Bankers & financiers Bureaucratic Age”)
• Consumer rip-offs • Quangos that over-regulate
• The Far Right (BNP, EDL etc) • ‘Political Correctness’
• Conservative politics (party, MPs) • NGOs (“The Big Society”)
• ‘Tax-dodgers’ • The Labour Party
• Rationalism • Trades Unions
– Homeopaths, Chiropractors, • ‘Benefit cheats’
– ‘libel’ censors • Climate change advocates
– ‘climate change deniers’
• The EU in general
25. Autonomy & Astroturfing
• No high-profile leadership (often anonymous)
• Anti-deferential. Not ‘respectable’.
• Deniable – no formal links to political parties
• Right: Ideological tool, lobbying & organising (often using
established Conservative campaigners)
• Left response: Autonomist. Direct action. Flexible and
adaptable. Not usually friendly to Labour
37. Online political communities
(a sample)
• Guido Fawkes Blog: Right-
libertarian, feral
• Harry’s Place: ‘Revisionist’
left – pro-Israeli, anti-
’Islamofascist’
• Slugger O’Toole – Northern
Ireland – serious,
conversational site in a
conflict zone
38. Characteristics of UK eParticipation
• More developed thinking around youth participation
• Projects often reflect ‘cloaked agendas’
• Petitions often led by pressure groups & media owners
• Political class frequently wrong-footed – democratic implications of
innovation not thought-through
• Hacktivist-led projects have worked very well
• Participatory Budgeting – genuine interest, politically neutral, expect some
progress
• Paradox: UK culture of deference (lack of) can create problems. Often
cynical. Sometimes, the ‘unelected’ can briefly enjoy more trust than
politicians.
39. Political Innovation: Opportunities
• Open data: Crowdsource analysis –
participation that sidesteps professional
pressure groups
• Co-design & collaborative authoring
• Gaming and ‘the cognitive surplus’
• Using analytics to gather intelligence
