I think this is absolutely crucial – to the extent that it’s slightly horrifying that it’s not law already.

Personally, I’m a little more radical – and would look to taking steps at strengthening anti-trust law to the extent that the bigger corporations are actually broken up… but that’s a more complex issue that simple transparency about levels of access afforded to moneyed interests – as opposed to the rest of us say, who will (it appears) now have to retire 5 years later than expected to deal with this bank bail-out fiasco, because they’d become “too big to fail”.

Beyond (and before) that, I also think it’s fairly crucial to be coming from the perspective that Government is OUR way of organising ourselves. It doesn’t belong to any entity that we may think of being as “them”. It belongs to us, hook, line and fucking sinker.

http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/tamasin-cave-mainmenu-107/5291-if-the-publics-lost-its-voice-then-who-is-government-listening-to

“just had a thought that it may be better to keep this site just to those manifesto categories in terms of debating them and updating them. Maybe we could still use the old lobby group blogger site just for peripheral chit chat?”

Disagree. We need to keep it all here. I think it is important that the group keeps a focused front.

“I don’t think government is the problem, I think corporate power is”

I’d say that it was a symbiotic relationship myself at the moment. However, I can see a time coming when the resources of the biggest corporations (and the power and influence that brings) will outstrip many governments. This is probably already true of many governments of the developing world. Evidence of corporate influence is obvious in many of the decisions of government too. William Gibson introduced me to the word ‘zaibatsu’ which originally referred to a conglomerate of Japanese corporations that, between the wars, managed to gain control of a significant portion of the country’s economy as well as wielding influence on both the military and government. If that isn’t a role model for current corporate behavior, then I’m just a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

just picked up on the ‘international’ aspect, we can ditch the ‘british’ bit from the ‘democracy v2.0 post’. I also just noted that is the term the jury team use also. I don’t suppose there is any reason why we can not use it also unless we can think of something better of course !

I am also a big fan of devolving power to the local level, people feel as disempowerd dealing with their local council as they do the palace of westminster. They have become mini autocracies in themselves. Way too big.

Parish councils work much better generally simply because they are small enough and themsleves affected directly by the decisions they make.

I e-mailed an idea for a logo to GT (seems to have disapeared at the moment). I am keen to make sure the site is ready before we start to publisise it, it probably sounds crass but i do think an easily identifieable logo is an important part of that.

I will try to post an opening gambit for the manifesto categories shortly.

I just had a thought that it may be better to keep this site just to those manifesto categories in terms of debating them and updating them. Maybe we could still use the old lobby group blogger site just for peripheral chit chat?

just an idea

What do you think?

jericoa

I’m also very much in favour of “seeing what works in other countries”… and if there are no comparisons to be made, doing experiments on a small scale on our own. I think this is a massive reason for devolving power to a local level – not having things dictated from on-high will allow greater experimentation at a local level.

Overall we should be focused on building systems with resilience in mind – because even the things that we can predict, are hitting states of unpredictability within the next 10-20 years.

Many politicians will lose thier jobs over this and it will have an influence on voting patterns for the elections.

It also represents an opportunity, the politicians are temporarily exposed to the masses for what they are. There is likely to be an appetite for questioning the whole system in the comming months.

Maybe it is time to go back to the origibnal purpose of the site. I will (as a starting point) begin the process of putting together an alternative manifesto under different categories for debate to come up with a non partisan consesnsus by the use of this site.

I am sure i will be able to re-ignite some interest via the blogs but we have to set up a suitable debating framework first.

I think we need an easily identifiable simple logo to identify ourselves ( can someone have ago at that I am rubbish at tech skills)

I though of maybe simply LG within a circle (to represent lobby group org) possibly with the words ‘courage, integrity, creativity’ running around the edge which would then be used as the default image on the site.

We will also need some manifesto headings under seperate postings to debate then update based on the balance of debate.

e.g.

THE CONSTITUTION

How many Mp’s and local councillors should we have?

Do we want a president as well as the queen maintained as the ceremonial figurehead and commonwealth leader i.e as she is now in effect…?

How to reform the house of lords.

Another heading could be

THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Restoration of the seperation between retail and investment banking ( the root cause of the crises).

Legal maximum interest rate (to protect the vulnerable)

etc etc

EMPLOYMENT

Accept that long term unemployment is ineviatable in a modern technological society where 100 people can produce enough food on a farm to feed 10,000. look to alternative lo tech ways to provide a meaning to their lives beyond endless training courses.

EDUCATION

Focus on teaching people how to think independantly again, not to learn and regurgitate facts.

ENERGY.

Massive investment to become self sufficient in energy needs, force an honest debate with eco groups who want renewable power but dont want a severn barrage ( because of the ecological impact) and use all kinds of EU legislation to slow up the process.

PRIVACY

No id cards

roll back of CCTV generally

THE LEGAL SYSTEM

has become far too complex and is comprised of a parallell language that the people it is meant to serve do not understand, therfore it is no longer fit for purpose.

etc etc etc etc

That is just off the top of my head.

Lets go to it.

Jericoa

There’s this eternal dynamic in politics between the needs of the general public and the interests of established power… and what has happened to Labour in the last decade or so is that it has gone from being about “looking after the needs of the public before the interests of established power” to “looking after the interests of established power, and “marketing” the results to the public”.

And it’s a pattern that’s mirrored to a greater or lesser extent throughout the English-speaking world.

Any new system we dream up has to be focussed on the fact that we now have a new baronial class. I don’t think government is the problem, I think corporate power is. Show me a fuckup happening in the world and 9 times out of 10, I’ll show you someone getting rich out of it… and that being part of the reason it happened in the first place.

It’s more complicated than this of course – society generally is in a massively transitionary period on about 5 axis at once, and our governments simply can’t keep up in their current forms.

The other thing that I think is important is that any new system needs to be “designed”. It will evolve by itself to an extent anyway, but we need checks and balances. If we went straight from representative democracy to some sort of referendum-on-everything system, then you might as well just hand the keys to Rupert Murdoch et al.

But anyway, the fundamental core of democracy is how to manage power.

And that’s why I think this expenses thing is trivial.