A REALLY constructive online event on the subject of Citizen Democracy has left me feeling both inspired and daunted by the scale of the task.
Organised by our local LibDems (I am not a member), it consisted of a talk by the very impressive Dr Ian Kearns, co-author of Citizens’ Britain, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Basically it was about how to transfer as much power as possible from elected elites to communities.
It involved educating people about how councils and the machinery of government work, and how they can participate and make their voices heard.
We live in a state that doesn’t know what to do with people when they want to be more than just ‘subjects’ or ‘consumers’, he said. We’re not set up to cope with hundreds of thousands of people wanting to get involved.
Perhaps we need a Citizens’ Assembly, like the one that finally managed to achieve abortion law reform in Ireland.
Or something along the lines of Taiwan, which recruited computer hackers to help spread information about where people could get Covid masks, by creating a ‘mask map’, and enlisted ordinary people to help challenge misinformation about the pandemic online.
Or Better Reykjavik, an open online forum used by the Icelandic capital’s authorities to discuss ideas about projects and policy.
We SOS admins have been saying among ourselves that maybe what an independent non party political city council could become, or could set up as an extra, is a kind of citizens’ assembly, where everybody’s voice could be heard.
It’s happening elsewhere in the county. Check out Open Westbury’s website. We are not alone in feeling disenchanted. We need to reconfigure local government so that it represents us all, and not just one majority party.
Organised by our local LibDems (I am not a member), it consisted of a talk by the very impressive Dr Ian Kearns, co-author of Citizens’ Britain, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Basically it was about how to transfer as much power as possible from elected elites to communities.
It involved educating people about how councils and the machinery of government work, and how they can participate and make their voices heard.
We live in a state that doesn’t know what to do with people when they want to be more than just ‘subjects’ or ‘consumers’, he said. We’re not set up to cope with hundreds of thousands of people wanting to get involved.
Perhaps we need a Citizens’ Assembly, like the one that finally managed to achieve abortion law reform in Ireland.
Or something along the lines of Taiwan, which recruited computer hackers to help spread information about where people could get Covid masks, by creating a ‘mask map’, and enlisted ordinary people to help challenge misinformation about the pandemic online.
Or Better Reykjavik, an open online forum used by the Icelandic capital’s authorities to discuss ideas about projects and policy.
We SOS admins have been saying among ourselves that maybe what an independent non party political city council could become, or could set up as an extra, is a kind of citizens’ assembly, where everybody’s voice could be heard.
It’s happening elsewhere in the county. Check out Open Westbury’s website. We are not alone in feeling disenchanted. We need to reconfigure local government so that it represents us all, and not just one majority party.
The trouble is, that political party is the Tories. They've destroyed local govt around Salisbury, from asset stripping, bit listening to the electorate as they know best, along with their open and public split on the city council. Why are people afraid to call this out? Not all cllrs are like them and put a lot of time in for their community.
ReplyDelete