And so it begins...
The People's Politician launched this morning. Put simply, it's an experiment to work out why around 17 million people registered to vote at the last general election did not do so.
It gives us a chance to test out some of the ideas behind direct democracy - the posh term for the vastly overused quote "power to the people" - and to uncover what motivates the public's interest (or not) in politics.
It is for a programme to be aired on BBC Two early in 2010.
First, we go to the constituency of Maidstone and the Weald, Kent - home to our first MP, the Conservative Ann Widdecombe - to spend three weeks allowing her constituents, and public as a whole, an unusually high level of access to their representative.
We've given Ann a website, a Twitter account, a blog and the ability to record a video diary.
While what she does with them is entirely up to her, we have stressed the importance of trying these tools out for at least as long as the experiment runs.
We have also opened up voting on her website, both on local and national issues. We have even promised access to Ann from any constituent who gets enough signatures on their petition.
You can keep up-to-date with the experiment here on the blog, on our Twitter, Flickr and on Delicious.
We intend to make the experiment as open and as transparent as possible while it is happening. So, on our blog, rushes of the programme will be uploaded as well.
In the New Year, Richard Caborn - Labour MP for Sheffield Central - will undergo a similar process.
One important thing to stress is that it is an experiment in how the public and politicians can re-connect - it's not about party political campaigning and the politicians involved have agreed to it on those terms.
The press conference was at 9.30am. It was certainly an interesting affair. Much more to follow....
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
Comments
Liking the idea :) Would you be able to include and work with the TheyWorkForYou website people too?
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Perhaps someone could investigate a vital democratic issue that gets reported frequently, but never gets commented on in a joined up way.
We have moved from a democracy, it is dictatorship.
Political parties were set up to have members who took the decisions on MPs, officers and policy. We now have a series of stories about the right of the members to choose candidates being removed, by various pretexts. Similarly, the right to discuss members ideas for policy has been removed from party conferences - now just PR exercises.
The total effect is that small cliques of politicians have taken over the democratic process, and decide for themselves who stands, and what policies they have. What effective participation does this give people? It's an extremely dangerous turn of events.
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I have a particular interest in this experiment, not least since Ann Widdecombe is my MP. And there in lays the problem: She has undoubtedly done much good for Maidstone and has even raised an issue to the respective member in Parliament on my behalf. But she (and Helen Grant, her successor) stands as a Tory, and for me to have voted for her meant I effectively signed up to, and agreed with 100% of Conservative policy for the entire term of the following Parliament.
If we are all honest, unless you are leader of the Party you are unlikely to agree with - let alone be able to control - everything the party does (the Blair-Brown fall out in previous Parliaments has been all too well documented). Indeed, as with the introduction of the so-called 'Poll Tax' or the decision to go to war in Iraq, for example, you may have found yourself set dead against policy of the party for whom you voted at the election prior to those events.
My predicament may be not too dissimilar with millions of the electorate in that if I am honest I like and dislike pieces of policy from all parties. I think Labour have done well with the NHS, education and public services in general. I think the Tories are more to my way of thinking with Crime Prevention and Immigration. The Lib Dems, with Vince Cable, to my mind have by far the fairest proposals for tax and electoral reforms. So if I go with one party, I get maybe 40% - 50% of their policies I don't want because they come in an all-or-nothing package. Some choice!
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Ann Widdecombe stated on BBC radio this afternoon that she was not in favour of holding referendums for making political decisions. She explained that she stands for election based on her parties manifesto and then uses her best judgement when voting in parliament. Although I agree with this in general it has a couple of serious problems. Firstly, as mentioned in the comments by Marc Jarvis, it is highly unlikely that I will agree 100% with any one parties manifesto and that there will be some elements of all parties manifestos that I agree with. Therefore my vote is only an indication of my overall view. Secondly, we have a parliamentary democracy based on a Whip system, which effectively takes away individual MPs right to vote according to either their or their constituents views or beliefs. The Whip system effectively puts political power in the hands of the executive rather than parliament and is, in my view, undemocratic. Although I don't want a referendum system, I do expect my MP to take full account of constituent's views and vote accordingly, after all MPs are in parliament to represent us, not themselves.
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