Labour Online

Shocking Breaking News

2007-04-14T21:43:00.000+01:00

Becky Rogers (22) and John Phillips (23) of UK have cited 'growing apart' as the reason for the break up of their one year relationship. With this news the FTSE100 is expected to open with significant losses on Monday morning with the shockwaves passing through Europe and eventually hitting US markets. While a young couple breaking up is clearly extra ordinary news the Prime Minister's office has asked the country to remain calm. Tony Blair is thought to have consulted President Bush who was unavailable for comment given pretzel related difficulties. The cabinet's Cobra committee is ready to meet to discuss any further ramifications of this crisis.

Meanwhile all normal people mourn the passing of hope that we still have serious news output in UK.

Freakonomics

2007-04-10T16:16:00.000+01:00

Anyone read Freakonomics? If so what did you think? I like the contrarian attitude of the book - an economist who doesn't know maths! I'm not 100% convinced their arguments are always sound. Having said that it's refreshing to hear/read talented people attempt to break commonly perceived myths from so called experts and commentators.

The book contained some interesting work on poverty and drugs in Chicago. The authors have a blog here. They update the blog almost every day and it has a wide variety of subjects - including comment on UK publications/issues such as the British Medical Journal.

Joan Smith Article, right and wrong

2007-04-02T13:00:00.000+01:00

Normblog has alerted me to the Joan Smith article in today's Independent. Joan's article puts forward two quite different arguments.

1 - The blogoshere has a tendency towards aggressive boorish behaviour and that this must change.

2 - The explosion of published words via blogs and the Internet devalues all written content.

While I totally agree with point 1 I can't agree with point 2.

Point 1 - I agree this needs to be looked at but I think the Internet is already creating its own solution via social networking. As social networking becomes prevalent on the Internet a person's online persona becomes just as important as their real life image. As the Internet integrates further, OpenID, myBloglog and Google Account being good examples, I'm sure we will see many websites/communities that allow comments/user content requiring a central account that removes anonymity and forces Internet users to be respectful. Ebay's rating system is a good example of regulation.

Point 2 - I disagree that a medium open to all devalues 'premium' content. People can still differentiate between nonsense and top quality content. If we as people could not differentiate the whole entertainment/art industry would be in tatters as the principle could be carried over to most other content industries such as music, television, film and sport.

All the above have seen a huge increase in supply over the previous few years. Does 'channel 435 - you do it TV' really devalue The Sopranos? Or a home made movie/rant on youtube effect a film such as Downfall? In sport does the fact that Isle of Man division 3 football can be seen on sports for insomniacs really sway anyone from wanting to watch Barca v Liverpool in the Champions League? Of course it doesn't, content is still king and given the right market channel will always rise to the surface.

Labour Party Deputy Leadership Website Comparison

2007-04-01T16:17:00.000+01:00

Here's a quick overview of Alan Johnson's and John Cruddas' deputy party leadership websites. I'll be adding to these soon. I need to find a way of improving the presentation of the data which I'll also be working on.

The full link can be found here

Barack Obama's website: initial review

2007-03-26T10:25:00.000+01:00

Over the next few months I'll be reviewing a number of individual political websites.

First up the pin up boy of the US Democrats: Barack Obama http://www.barackobama.com/

Barack has placed a great deal of effort into providing an interactive website, aimed especially at providing information for voters and recruiting/organising tools for his campaign workers.

Author Generated Content:
As to be expected plenty of information on through Blogs and news. Barack also provides links to popular web2.0 tools such as facebook and youtube which he's also provided content for.

Obligatory Web2.0 with a twist:
Barack TV, most sites I would be willing to bet will rely on embedding youtube or google video. Barack however has gone one step further and embedded his own video player into his site.

Member Generated Content:
Probably the most important feature is the 'my.barackobama.com' section. I'm pretty certain this is driven by the civicspace drupal module. In the 'my' section you can organise events, join groups. I'll have a full review of this section soon.

Things Missing:
Seems to be a lack of mashups. I don't see any google maps or RSS feeds, gadgets or anything of that nature. For example I don't think there is a Google Gadget to include all the latest news on Barack on my personalised home page.

There are also no forums and I can't see anything interactive (such as polls, feedback) aimed at voters.

In summary:

Still a good start and a good yardstick for future front page reviews. Barack has plenty of Author and Member generated content but no facility for voters to express their opinions.

Off topic: Spot the difference

2007-03-25T00:08:00.000Z

Spot the difference between the tragic and unlawful killings of Matty Hull and Pat Tillman.

Both tragically died in friendly fire incidents in Iraq/Afghanistan.
In both circumstances the US Department of Defence obfuscated and lied to the victim's family.
In both circumstances the DoD initially refused to acknowledge any blame.

Here's a difference: even though the UK coroner deemed the killing of Matty Hull unlawful no action is to be taken against anyone in the US military. After three years the DoD are to hold nine officers (including four generals) responsible for covering up the death of Pat Tillman.

And perhaps the real difference? Pat Tillman before going to Afghanistan was a star American football player in the NFL, because of this his death was headline news in the US.

Sometimes I despair at how the UK government plays such a weak hand with the US government (this comes from someone who is both pro EU and pro US).

The hype begins but when will politics 2.0 deliver?

2007-03-23T10:59:00.000Z

I love gadgets and technology, whether it be iphone's, smart phones, xboxes, ps3s, youtube, twitter, hd-dvd, blu-ray, blogs, rss, atom, whatever, I love reading about and using new technology. I also believe that technology when used correctly can be a positive influence in our lives, including our political lives. But lets not kid ourselves, at the moment new technology such as blogs and wikis have created minimal value to voters political lives.

To analyse the political web lets look at three different categories of content that can be generated by all the people who take an active interest in politics.

Author generated Content -

Websites that provide the political classes with a platform to provide news, views, gossip, videos etc. The Internet has allowed an explosion of such content and leads some to believe this as 'new'. Not sure this is true at all. The only difference between 21st Century web publishing and a 15th Century pamphlet is that more people may potentially get to read it (and I really do stress may).

It's good that the political classes have a free, independent place to air their views but do not overplay the importance of blogs in a political debate.

Member generated Content -

Websites that act as virtual meeting places for like minded individuals. Rather than people meeting in a house or local library people choose to meet up online. The online space provides a much more immediate experience, allowing members to congregate on a 24x7 basis and can of course be used as a mechanism to organise real world meetings/campaigns.

An example of this would be the Obama and Clinton websites that allow supporters to join up and participate in their election campaign. A more simple example would be an online forum where people get together and discuss any topic they so wish.

This type of content is and will play a large part in any political party's campaign strategy as a means of engaging with and growing their 'feet on the street'.

End User generated Content -

Content generated by 'users' or in political terms citizens/voters. Simple processes such as interactive polls and forums to more complicated sites such as those generated by mySociety. Theyworkforyou as an example, other sites include this local council site in Holland which allows citizens to place markers where they feel the local council needs to improve their community (mySociety has produced a similar site at http://www.neighbourhoodfixit.com/).

With End User content voters are able to engage with the political class directly, no focus groups or third parties acting as an interlocutor. The recent examples of online polls on the 10 Downing Street website are a classic example of End User content. Such content can of course be very contentious.

Summary -

The political web is currently full of Author Generated content that tends to generate a great deal of heat. Technology creating real change however will only occur when the political web is a balanced mix of Author, Member and End User generated content. Until then don't believe the hype and check back here for reviews of political websites.

Let the internet help you brainstorm

2007-02-15T16:16:00.000Z

Quite a nice little application that lets you brainstorm ideas either on your own or you can share the session with others.

It only takes a couple of minutes to get going and has a good user interface, I do like the way you can zoom in and out. See the site here

Using Google Groups

2007-02-14T11:04:00.000Z

Google Groups has recently gone through a major upgrade adding lots of functionality, including good privacy options. If any local Labour group wants to form a virtual space where you can discuss, organise, share information and files Google Groups is a really good option.

Google Groups may not be specificly tailored to Policital organisation as say CivicCRM but it sure is easier to use and set up. Also with it being a Google service you don't have to worry about hosting or outages and you can set the group to be entirely private if required.

If any does or is using Google Groups please pass on any experience.

UK MPtv Mashups

2007-02-12T09:32:00.000Z

At the moment UK MPtv currently has a grand total of four web2.0 that have been mashuped:

Google Maps
Google Video
JotForm for the questionaire within the Contact Tab
And Dappit that provides the scrape for the News Tab (which can currently be found in Derek Wyatt's Sittingbourne constituency)

More coming soon hopefully (skype is likely to be the next one up).

Introducing UK MP tv

2007-02-10T16:37:00.000Z

Here's an interactive map of MPs who provide video content to google video. At the moment Labour tend to provide more content to Google Video where the Tories provide content to Youtube. The Liberal Democrats being true to form post to both sites.

At the moment the site only works with Google Video, but no real technical reason why Youtube and others can't be added soon.

UK MP tv here

Any suggestions more than welcome. Also if you know of any other MPs who post to Google Video just let me know and I'll add them to the map.

Find your MP Google Map

2007-02-07T18:48:00.000Z

Not much use admittedly to most people reading this blog but this map is the basis of a fairly feature rich Google Map/Westminster MP mash up.

At the moment the map contains all UK mainland MPs with a little javascript from theyworkforyou.com that allows a user to type a postcode in and find their constituency.

http://westminsterbeta.ukdatacom.com/

The information box currently contains overall and percentage majority.

Coming soon:

Party Marginals, Skype, embedded questionnaires, embedded websites and video.

If anyone knows of a Labour MP with youtube or google video content it can be added into the information box. Also if any councillors would like this functionality let me know.

I'm currently waiting for an Amazon EC2 invite so at the moment the site is currently running on a slow dell desktop so be gentle.

web2.0 in a video

2007-02-07T13:12:00.000Z

I'm sure many of you have seen this video as it's been doing the rounds in the blogosphere. It will certainly divide opinion, I'm sure some people will look on in total bemusement.

Hats off the Kansas University Digital Ethnography department.

Back from Boston

2007-02-07T12:13:00.000Z

I've never been to Boston MA but I've been over there for the last few months and it's without doubt my favourite place to stay in the States.

I'm guessing one of the reasons is that Boston reminds me so much of the UK - but alot cheaper. Also the people (although nice in other parts of the states) are very close politically to our left of centre. I think the state sends around 25 people to congress and I think they are almost all Democrats.

In places like Baltimore and Phoenix I'd say there were more supporters for Bush than detractors where in Boston it's virtually 100% against. In fact I was at an American football game and the crowd booed when George Bush's name was mentioned.

More updates coming, I've been working on a new local website which I'm really excited to show off, as well as a Google map/MP/google video mash up.

Lack of Poppys

2006-11-08T21:58:00.000Z

It's been a busy week for me touring around various London locations. As I was traveling around I started to notice the relative lack of people wearing poppys. After a while I started to become a little obsessed and for the last few days I've been staring at people on the streets, tube and in meetings trying to get a figure. On a rough estimate I think the uptake is around no more than 10%.

Surely this figure should be much higher (like 90%), especially at a time when the media devote time to report on our losses in Iraq and Afghanistan? Does anyone not where a poppy? If so I'd be interested to know why.

Seeing Spots

2006-11-02T13:25:00.000Z

Google recently released a Google Earth Layer highlighting information for all the 2006 US congressional elections. I know our general election is still a few years away but I thought I'd develop a UK map along a similar line.

To download the 0.1 version file just right click here and save as to your desktop. Once on your desktop double click on the file and Google Earth will start.

Once started Google Earth centers on the UK and provides a spot for each UK mainland constituency. I plan to add lots more information into each constituency such as websites, turnout etc etc.

Given this is a very early release you may find that I've manged to wipe your constituency literally from the face of Google Earth or worse your spot may be blue when it should be red. If you do find any of these errors please let me know.

Don't have Google Earth? Don't worry there is also a Google Maps version on its way that requires no client to view the information.

Google Earth and US Congressional Link

On my to do list:
add in Northern Ireland
website links
MP names
Majorities
Possibly integrate members of interest

Environment - big problem

2006-10-29T14:57:00.000Z

Tomorrow another report is released detailing potentially devastating effects global warming could cause in our future. Does our party have a sensible coherent response to global warming?

At the moment I think all parties are struggling with the sheer enormity of the challenge, however given that we are entering a period of change in the party here are a number of issues I'd like to see us address with regards to climate change.

Argue conclusively that climate change is occurring and will cause large scale economic, social and environmental damage. Public debate seems to continually reiterate that climate change is occurring but there still seems no definitive publicly quoted resource yet that I cansee the public trusting. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace spokesmen/women don't count - the public will not believe them to be impartial on this subject.
Have a fully thought through, reasoned and long term energy policy. We seem to swing from nuclear to gas to wind within a matter of days. Can we expect anyone to trust our decisions if we have no sensible articulate energy policy to defend.
Decide if energy taxes should be revenue neutral. If they are not neutral have a good argument why not. Simply saying "fairness" doesn't work, as normal people interpret this as tax increases.
Any policy must have a European and global element. Without conclusive European and global support why should UK citizens do anything about a global issue?
Can we tax the creators of climate change accurately enough? For that matter make sure we produce documentary scientific evidence highlighting who and what are the main producers of climate change.
Decide if government intervention will adversely affect UK living standards. If so, make sure we have the arguments to ensure the public understand why and what the ramifications will be. Will we all have to work 3 extra days a year or take a 10% pay cut?
Prepare scenarios for the public to highlight what is likely to happen without action - again I think this will have to come from a neutral body - perhaps a public commission.
Give guidance on how companies, households, organisations and individuals can live as close to carbon neutral as possible.

I'm sure there are many other points to raise but we have a responsibility as a party to raise the current level of public debate about climate change.

If we can lead the debate we will also differentiate ourselves from the other main parties, because fundamentally a solution on climate change will be based on social democracy. Market or liberal philosophy's simply can not cope with climate change.

Market philosphy believes all things level themselves out in the long run, in the long run the earth will be fried rather than level. While liberal philosphy tends to hope that individual action can resolve issues, where on climate change the earth actually needs the most coordinated approach from national and international bodies/government we've ever seen.

The public will not accept nor vote for measures that simply look like increasing the tax revenue for government nor will they vote for a party with a broccoli as a logo and a carbon neutral trip to the north pole.

They will vote for and support a thorough and comprehensive program of change that will reduce the impact of climate change and help save our planet. The question is: can our party step up to the challenge?

IT letting the NHS down?

2006-10-27T22:09:00.000+01:00

It's often said that to comment on something you must experience it. Last night and this morning I gained first hand experience of NHS Direct, mobile Paramedics, the Ambulance service and finally Stafford A&E.

Let me thank every one in the respective services. I had a very nasty stomach virus that amongst other things made me feint at various moments throughout yesterday and early this morning.

The care I received was excellent and by 6.00am I was patched up and sent home and I'm just coming round now.

Even in between the feinting the geek in me couldn't help notice that IT doesn't help the people in the NHS. Care policies are implemented consistently throughout the multiple agencies but information sharing clearly isn't.

All agencies asked the exact same questions and recored the answers, clearly highlighting there was no sharing of information. It would be more efficient that once the information is entered into NHS Direct the data gathered flow down to the other agencies.

I'm sure a computer system could be implemented that tracks the patient from start to finish, providing consistent information throughout the case. But could you imagine the NHS trying to implement such a beast?

The numbers already involved in certain key NHS projects are ridiculous and largely a waste of money. My experience of public sector computer projects is deeply frustrating. Departments are over reliant on private sector system integrators and consultancy houses to deliver computer projects .

The major difficulty I see is in the pay and recruitment policies of the government. They seem unable to pay direct employees market rates for their skills. To supplement the public sector skill shortage this creates they rely on the private sector to provide temporary staff at probably double the daily rate of a permenant direct government employee.

And once a private sector firm become embedded into a department's IT service they are almost impossible to remove. Until the government starts paying sensible money for direct staff it will continue to have computer projects that fail.

Google Custom Search

2006-10-25T13:48:00.000+01:00

Google have just fired off a huge salvo in the vertical search market by allowing people and webmasters to create their own custom search engines.

To give an example it would take five minutes to build a custom Labour bloggers search engine. Simply enter the websites on blogger4labour into the Google customer engine and away you go.

If you have a large number of websites on a particular subject take a look, the application can be embedded into your own website. Watch out over the next few weeks and months for lots of different custom search engines to be produced. This market could be huge and Google are attempting to keep ahead of the game with this release.

I just wonder what companies such as Kayak, Trulia and Kosmix do now? They've made some serious investment and now average Joe Bloggs can pretty much replicate their applications in a couple of hours or days.

Everyday it seems Google become ever more intent on being the dominant technology company of the 21st Century.

US only: Google Earth and Political Information

2006-10-24T17:23:00.000+01:00

Google has released a new layer to Google Earth providing information about the upcoming US mid terms. See the 2006 US Election Guide in the layers tab. Information such as available seats and funding are available as well as links to register to vote.

Similar information for the UK could be provided on a Google Map except maybe for the ward boundaries.

The US postal service are forced to provide all geographic boundaries and postal codes to the public, in the UK the Post Office are under no such obligation and don't seem keen at all to provide the data.

I think they will release the data sets, however they charge significant license fees for individuals and organisations to obtain the information.

Maps and Local Councils

2006-10-24T10:41:00.000+01:00

Here is the first map showing the current political configuration of Cannock Chase local council.

I think the markers make it nice and simple to see the overall picture of Cannock Chase, way too much yellow and blue but maybe that will change next year! In particular it highlights the local clusters within a council.

Why for instance are the Liberals so strong in Rugeley? I don't know to be honest, but this type of application quickly and easily highlights where Labour have to concentrate their efforts.

More importantly, it gives the people of Cannock Chase a quick and easy guide to their local council. The markers are clickable and the info boxes provide a fair bit of information.

This is only a beta site at the moment so the pictures need to be resized and I'd like to get postal search and maybe electoral boundaries in the map. These are on the to do list.

http://www.allaboutcannock.co.uk/index.php?category=Councillor

Get your class into the Washington Post

2006-10-19T12:10:00.000+01:00

Global Schoolnet have just announced a school project to get kids thinking about global warming. In partnership with Google they are asking classes to provide ideas on how best to tackle global warming and share their ideas with the rest of the world.

The 50 best will get into a full page advert in the Washington Post.

Bit of a shameless plug for Google's new docs and spreadsheet application but all the same, a nice idea. http://www.google.com/educators/globalwarming.html

Google Reader and Mail Integrated

2006-10-19T11:31:00.000+01:00

A google employee has developed a greasemonkey script integrating both Gmail and Google Reader. I've just downloaded it and it works a treat.

See the zdnet blog that broke the story for a step by step guide. See blog here

Only downside at the moment is that greasemonkey itself does not work with firefox 2.0.x and given that the official Firefox release has just been confirmed thats a bit of a shame.

TVR jobs and factory to go

2006-10-18T18:41:00.000+01:00

Its a very sad day for British car making, Blackpool and more importantly the 250 workers who are to lose their jobs given that TVR has confirmed they are closing the Bispham plant.

The factory was around 500 metres from my former high school. While TVR may have had poor build quality its design and marketing created a real niche product.

I don't know the details but the company's UK death knell seemed to have been served when it was bought out by a Russian tycoon for £25 million around 11 months ago. The announcement today confirmed the closure of the UK factory and a move to Italy, France or Russia (I suspect Russia will win that one!).

This was a struggling firm that required new premises and modern manufacturing techniques, which it looks like its going to get, but not in this country. How we can have let the company fall into the hands of a Russian tycoon beats me.

A failure of north west business and government has occurred somewhere down the line.

Local newspaper report

Go Go Ninja Dinosaur!

2006-10-17T21:08:00.000+01:00

Hats off to Save the Children who have backed up the launch of their Rewrite the Future campaign with the release of a compilation 13 track CD with artists such as The Kooks and Franz Ferdinand.

The CD is aimed at children (and was bought for a child), but there are some really good songs for adults on the CD too.

Go Go Ninja Dinosaur is catchy but I'm an Astronaut is currently top of my list. My 9 month old son prefers track 10 - The Monkeys Are Breaking Out The Zoo.

Check out the myspace page and you can also visit
www.savethechildren.org.uk/rewritethefuture to sign their petition.

Telegraph Calling

2006-10-17T11:25:00.000+01:00

You can always tell a cold call due to the couple of seconds delay after you've answered the call. Most call centers use predictive dialers which are particularly nasty pieces of software for the caller and callee.

This morning the Daily Telegraph gave me a cold call, inviting me to partake in a spectacular offer that would save me money or something and change my life for ever.

My reply:
Me:"There is no way I would ever subscribe to the Daily Telegraph given its political stance"
Cold Caller:"Sure you don't want to see what the other side are saying"
Me:"Absolutely not thanks"

Call ended.

How did the telegraph get my number as I'm on TPS? I think I must have given it to them when my Dad asked me to sign up to his works online Fantasy Football League.

Drupal and CivicSpace

2006-10-16T22:46:00.000+01:00

Over the last few days I've installed both Drupal and CivicSpace.

Drupal is an opensource social networking platform, providing forums, blogs, messaging and a whole heap of extra content. Because its an open source project there are many applications that can be added on top of the standard package.

CivicSpace is a based on Drupal software but with a specific leaning towards political organisations. I think CivicSpace was developed by the Howard Dean campaign team and is used in several local Democratic Party organisations, such as:

http://www.napervilledemocrats.org/

I'll be trying to work my way around the software over the next few days and see what interesting applications I can come up with.

Does anyone know of any UK Party currently using the software, if so please let me know?

Google Maps and UK politics

2006-10-15T00:09:00.001+01:00

I'm a big fan of Google Maps (gm), it's a nice looking, easy to use map system. What sets it apart however is the open nature of the software. Google have allowed developers to create all kinds of applications using maps as a building block.

Such application mash ups have a real use in politics. I'll show some examples of how gm's are currently being used and can be use in the future. I'll show third party sites that are mainly from the US but I also have a few of my own. Including:

1 - maps showing your local councillor
2 - maps that not only show your councillor but also allow you to click to call them (initially via Skype)
3 - finally maps can be used for party matters and electioneering, so I'll produce an interactive map that allows Labour Party members to plot local events onto a map.

The above is very literally the tip of a large iceberg and I'd be interested if you find any other examples of maps being used in politics or the wider community, please let me know.

Playing with Blogger Beta

2006-10-13T23:05:00.000+01:00

Beginning with blog is the first time of really using Blogger's new features. First impression is that I like them, over the coming weeks I'll be playing a bit more adding new elements to the blog.

Update: it seems the page elements may be a little buggy. I tried to enter an about me section, but Blogger refuses to enter the element (ok it may simply have good taste), so i've had to adapt a simple text box.

Experimenting with Web2.0 and UK politics

2006-10-13T17:31:00.000+01:00

Experimenting with Web2.0 and UK politics.

Lets have some fun with the new technologies and see which ones may help the political process. I guess there will be a couple of very broad subjects to look at over the coming few months.

1 - How can new technology help Labour engage with the public.

2 - How Labour can use technology to improve our electioneering.

The rise of on line social networking is a positive thing. By definition social networking brings people together. Political parties are well aware of these developments. Blogs have been used for several years, online videos are becoming fashionable in the political process and Ming the Merciless held a skypecast a few days ago.

New forms of communication should co-exist with traditional media and political process. I've seen arguments from technology skeptics who say that politicians using technology is exclusive rather than inclusive.

I don't share this view, sure currently only a relatively small part of the population read blogs and have access to broadband but using these new technologies does not mean that politicians should stop communicating via traditional means. They should use every channel available to them.

My gramps is a traditional voter, he reads two national daily papers, he reads the local newspaper, watches the six o clock and local news, he gossips with his neighbours and he'll read election literature that comes through the door. As result he has a good understanding of what is going on around him in the local area.

I'm not a traditional voter, I do not regularly read daily newspapers (I especially stay away from local papers). I don't watch national or local news. Ok I do gossip with the neighbours. But for media consumption I would much prefer to use my RSS reader and skypecaster to understand whats going on around my area and at the moment the content simply isn't their.

So over the course of this blog lets have a play with what we can do and help possibly help Labour engage with a growing number of people.