democratic society introduction

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The Democratic Society A place for citizens 4.0 An introduction to the Democratic Society

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Page 1: Democratic Society Introduction

The Democratic Society

A place for citizens

4.0

An introduction to the Democratic Society

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http://www.demsoc.org

Part One

Starving in the midst of plenty

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Everyone knows traditional politics is in trouble ...

Page 4: Democratic Society Introduction

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... falling turnouts ...

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... corruption scandals ...

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... disengaged young people ...

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... low trust in politicians ...

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... and general apathy.

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But, away from politics, this is the age of democracy.

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Adverts tell us we can take control ...

... by buying a newspaper

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We can take a stand ...

... by buying a bar of soap

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We can even change the world ...

... by using a computer operating system

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Everywhere, you can have it your way ...

Page 14: Democratic Society Introduction

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... tell people what you think ...

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... even vote people o! TV shows.

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This is the age of mass personalisation

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It’s the triumph of democracy

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So why is politics doing so badly ?

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Part Two

Consumer democracy - even better than the real thing

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Representative democracy is about mass compromise, not mass personalisation

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It is the art of getting a group of people ...

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... with di!erent views ...

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... to come together around a manifesto ...

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... and win over swing voters ...

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... in order to govern for four years.

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There’s no room to have it your way.

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If you’re used to personalisation ...

Vote that guy o! Big Brother Ten seconds

Tell that Times columnist that he’s an idiot One minute

Have my burger without mayonnaise Five minutes

Buy made-to-measure jeans One week

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... politics is always going to disappoint

Vote that guy o! Big Brother Ten seconds

Tell that Times columnist that he’s an idiot One minute

Have my burger without mayonnaise Five minutes

Buy made-to-measure jeans One week

Change a government policy I don’t like

Four years, if you’re lucky

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So, election turnout has fallen ...UK voter turnout at General Elections

1950-1969 average

Source: International IDEA

UK voter turnout at General Elections2000-2009 average

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... here and elsewhere ...

Years of highest and lowest election turnout since 1945 in selected mature democracies*

Source: International IDEA. *Parliamentary elections in all EU member states that have been democracies continuously since 1950, plus US (presidential), Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland & Norway. Countries with compulsory voting excluded. Germany = West Germany before 1990.

50

60

70

80

90

100

1945 1958 1971 1984 1997 2010Highest Lowest

Highest turnouts all before 1980All but 2 lowest turnouts after 1995

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... mostly among the young ...UK voter turnout 2005

Voters aged 65 and over

Source: British Election Survey 2005

UK voter turnout 2005Voters aged under 25

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... and the not-as-young-as-they-once-were.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

19641966

19701974a

1974b1979 1983

19871992

19972001

2005

After 1992, abstention startedincreasing among older age groups too

Source: British Election Survey 2005

18-2435-4465-74

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Party membership is also down

-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

0

France Ital

y UKNorway

Finland

Netherla

ndsAustri

a

Switzerlan

dSweden

DenmarkIrel

and

Belgium

Germany

Change in party membership numbers in 13 European countries, 1980-2000

Source: Mair & Van Biezen, Party Membership in 20 European Democracies in Party Politics v 7 (2001).

%

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Politics is becoming a hobby ...

Image: Trainspotter (Wikimedia Commons)

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... and not a very popular one.

0

1

2

3

4

National T

rustRSPB

GMB union

Tolkein Socie

ty

Conservat

ives

Glastonbury*

Labour

CTC (Cycl

ing)

Lib Dems

Membership of selected UK organisations

Source: News reports 2007-9 and corporate websites. * Glastonbury = 2008 attendance

mem

bers

(milli

ons)

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Meanwhile people turn to minor parties ...

0

5

10

15

20

1989 1994 1999 2004 2009

UKIP Green BNP

Vote share of larger minor parties in European Parliament elections

%

Source: UK O"ce of the European Parliament

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... and campaign groups ...

1999

2004

19971975

1989

2004

1934

1973

2001

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... creating a sort of outsourced politics ...

LOWER TAXES !

£

MORE TRAINS !

£

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... with no need for compromises or trade-o!s

LOWER TAXES !

MORE HOSPITALS !

£

£?

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Part Three

New ! Politics-flavored technocracy*

* contains no actual politics

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As the general public have withdrawn, politics has become a closed and technocratic world

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Politics was always a small world ...

(the ratio of elected politicians to citizens in the UK is the same as the ratio of seats in an executive box to seats in Wembley Stadium)

Elected politicians = MPs, MEPs, Councillors (other than Parish Councillors), and members of devolved institutions

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... but now politicians are more similar ...

0

20

40

60

80

1987 1992 1997 2001 2005

Professional & White CollarBusinessManual

Employment background of MPs

Source: House of Commons Library

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... and have similar lifestyles.

• $2,750 rug from New York

• £8,000 Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 40” television

• £600 carpet from Harrods

• £3,000 Bosch and Miele kitchen appliances

• £2,749 tree pruning• £2,433 housekeeper

wages• £341 Aga servicing• £1,471 swimming pool

maintenance• £2,340 replacement

windows

Gerald Kaufman’sexpenses claims

James Arbuthnot’s expenses claims

Source: Daily Telegraph

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Can you tell who’s from which party ?

• Born Blackburn, 1890• Left school aged 11• Assistant in weaver’s

shed• Later career as a

brewer• Served as local

councillor• Education minister

• Born London, 1904• Educated at

Winchester & Oxford• Worked in the City• Director of a railway

under Franco• Art collector• Education minister

A B

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Not too di"cult for post-war politicians

• Born Blackburn, 1890• Left school aged 11• Assistant in weaver’s

shed• Later career as a

brewer• Served as local

councillor• Education minister

• Born London, 1904• Educated at

Winchester & Oxford• Worked in the City• Director of a railway

under Franco• Art collector• Education minister

George Tomlinson (Lab) David Eccles (Cons)

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How about now?

• Born Edinburgh, 1967• Public school• Oxford University• Journalist• Think tank• Entered Parliament

2005• Education brief

• Born Norwich, 1967• Public school• Oxford University• Journalist• Think tank• Entered Parliament

2005• Education brief

A B

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Much more di"cult

Michael Gove (Cons) Ed Balls (Lab)

• Born Norwich, 1967• Public school• Oxford University• Journalist• Think tank• Entered Parliament

2005• Education brief

• Born Edinburgh, 1967• Public school• Oxford University• Journalist• Think tank• Entered Parliament

2005• Education brief

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Politics has become a life-long career

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1987 1992 1997 2001 2005

PoliticsManual labour

Career backgrounds of MPs

Num

ber o

f MPs

Source: House of Commons Library

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The battleground is narrower ...

Source: Labour poster from 1930s (Spartacus); Conservative campaign logo (Conservative Party website); BBC News article; Margaret Thatcher (BBC)

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... and the battles harder to understand.

Source: “Reconstruction” Conservative policy statement on the economy, page 8

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Consultation has replaced decision ...

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... and it’s not the same thing at all

109136

1,784

139

397173

AcademicsBusinessGovernmentIndividualLobby groupOther

Source: Department for Energy and Climate Change. Academics includes consultants.

Participants in consultation on future of UK Nuclear Power

Even when the UK Government consulted on a very controversial issue - the future of nuclear power - there were only 1,784 responses from the public - and more than a third of consultation responses were from professionals, technicians or lobby groups

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Part Four

A few moments with our heads in our hands

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So we have ...

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People who want to engage ...

No23%

Yes77%

German voters asked “should there be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?”

German poll: Open Europe 2009. EU poll: Eurobarometer 1997 (EU = 1997 member states) Photos: World Naked Bike Ride Brighton (Nick Sayers), Tea Party Day protest, Orlando (Instapundit), “Downtown for all” campaign lobbying Seattle City Council, 2006 (Real Change)

No30%

Yes70%

EU voters asked “do you approve of the Swiss government model, with greater use

of referendums?”

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... but don’t trust the system

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Parliament Civil service

83%86%

17%14%

Would trust Would not trust

Trust: Henley Centre report, quoted in Strategy Unit 2002 Risk report; Never Trust A Politician image, Nuno Machado Lopes; Trust in professions: MORI/BMA/Parliamentary Monitor 2003

Journalists

Politicians generally

Ministers

Business leaders

Trade union officials

Civil servants

Pollsters

Man in the street

Police

TV News

Scientists

Priests

Judges

Academics

Teachers

Doctors

-75 -50 -25 0 25 50 75 100

Net %ge saying a member of that profession/group “would tell the truth”

DON’T TRUST DO TRUST

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And a system that wants to be open ...

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... but can’t change itself enough.

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Tricky.

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Let’s start by looking at some good ideas that won’t work

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Reviving the party system

+ =

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Tinkering with the electoral system

50

60

70

80

90

100

1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008

Electoral turnout, New Zealand

Proportional representationintroduced from 1996 election

Source: New Zealand Electoral Commission

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Fixed-term Parliaments

60

70

80

90

100

110

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

USA UK

UK Parliamentary & US Congressional midterm electionsElectoral turnout in seven most recent cycles, indexed (first election in 1980s = 100)

Source: International IDEA

fixed terms

variable terms

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More consultations

Just

one o

f 92 c

onsu

ltatio

n doc

umen

ts iss

ued

by th

e W

elsh A

ssem

bly G

over

nmen

t in

the fi

rst si

x mon

ths o

f 200

9

Image: Welsh Assembly Government. Statistic: Welsh Conservative Party website

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Redistributing power within the political class

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Listening more to campaign groups

LOWER TAXES !

EVEN LOWER TAXES !

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Before I talk about our proposal, let’s have ...

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Part Five

A brief historical interlude

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Once upon a time, there was a great hope for democracy, called

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The Internet

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In the 90s, it was a new democratic arena ...

Electric Minds virtual community front page, 1996 (retrieved from rheingold.com)

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... a space beyond government ...

GOVERNMENTS of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

[...] Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

John Perry Barlow (pictured), Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996

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... where a new Athens would arise.

Hold still ! I can’tread facebook if you

jiggle it

Photo: Marble at Getty Villa, Santa Monica (Simon Bisson/Flickr)

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I think we all know it hasn’t quite worked out like that.

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The internet encourages views to cluster ...

Map of political blogosphere during the 2008 US Presidential Election, Harvard Internet & Democracy blog

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... privileges extreme positions ...

Other20%

Pro-BNP/Pro-UKIP80%

Mainstream parties77%

UKIP + BNP23%

BBC Have Your Say, day after Euro elections, 200930 most recommended comments to question

“Is Britain entering a new political age?”

Actual votes for BNP & UKIP vs mainstream parties, June 2009

Source: Democratic Society analysis; BBC

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... and drowns out facts with ranting.

As I sit here, looking out of my window at a beautiful 81 degrees, I wonder if I should put on my bikini and sarong and do a bit of sunbathing! Of course, I have "massaged" the figure, in cardiff it is barely 14 degrees and, when you add the wind-chill factor, ITS DAMN COLD AND I STILL HAVE THE HEATING ON. In MAY!!! We can ALL massage the figures to suit, milliband, this,make no mistake, is just ANOTHER SCAM TO TAKE EVEN MORE OF OUR HARD EARNED MONEY!!!

It would be interesting to see just who has heavy investments in the 'Green' Industries. Government Ministers?; MPs?; Anyone care to place a bet?

Global warming fears are just that, fears; like everyone with a cold thinks they have the pig flu. In the great scale of things even a million years is just a blink and the green crowd think they can foretell the future by sticking their heads out of the window! The government promote the fear to raises tax. The nut-cutlet and sandal brigade do it because it is the latest fashion.

So let's get this straight. We don't emit a trace element quantity of essential, life-giving gas and we BENEFIT by £1 Trillion? There's not even any flippin warming that can be shown to be out of the ordinary, and for ten years there's been flat or cooling temperatures. CO2 driven warming my hat. This is obscene, ideologically driven fraud. Insanity, nothing less.

More stupidity from this discredited administration. What other country has so wilfully 'hamstrung' its industry and introduced legislation which will cost the general populace so much?

Global warming is just a con to milk taxes from the ordinary person.

Just why are governments clinging to the hoax that CO2 forces 'Global Warming' ? It is scientific fact that the earth is in a cooling phase and has been for the past 9 years. More CO2 - the gas of life - can only be beneficial to our biosphere and human environment and well-being.

If Labour ministers say there is a huge risk from so-called global warming, then it is clear that the whole thing is rubbish. Those of us who are "climate change denyers" are labelled by the enviro-hippies as on a par with holocaust denyiers, but their whole premise is based on poor science. None of the original computer models have been even CLOSE to what we are experiencing now.

One way to fill the tax gap ZaNu liebour have created. Green taxes are the new window tax. Why not just stop packing this small island with immigrants, that would reduce our carbon footprint better than more tax.

Comments on Daily Mail article “recommended” by more than 50 users, 5 May 2009.

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It is prone to verbal diarrhoea ...

US Constitution

Animal Farm

Typical novel

Pride & Prejudice

One day on Comment is Free

030,000

60,00090,000

120,000

150,000

One day on Comment is Free = Estimated words posted on CiF on 9 May 2008. Calculated by averaging comment lengths on 20 randomly selected threads then multiplying average comment length by total comment count

More than 9 hours of reading at average reading speed

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... and lacks common political space.Top ten political blogs, by Technorati authority

?

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It’s not all bad, though. The Internet has been great for ...

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Transparency ...

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... information sharing ...

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... international links ...

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... political campaigning ...

Image source: Teehan + Lax

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... and access to a range of news and comment.

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So, the question we ask is ...

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Can we take the accessibility, information and passion of the Net and combine them with the common spaces, shared rules and need for compromise of the political world ?

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Part Six

Yes, we can (try) !

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Our starting point:

Politicians, academics and campaign groups can’t reform democracy on their own.

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To change politics, we have to make a demand of everyone:

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Decide to be a citizen !

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The Democratic Society is there to support that decision. It aims to build:

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A network of local organisations ...

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... dedicated to citizenship ...

Source: Wellcome images

Information Discussion Voting

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... not partisan posturing.

As I sit here, looking out of my window at a beautiful 81 degrees, I wonder if I should put on my bikini and sarong and do a bit of sunbathing! Of course, I have "massaged" the figure, in cardiff it is barely 14 degrees and, when you add the wind-chill factor, ITS DAMN COLD AND I STILL HAVE THE HEATING ON. In MAY!!! We can ALL massage the figures to suit, milliband, this,make no mistake, is just ANOTHER SCAM TO TAKE EVEN MORE OF OUR HARD EARNED MONEY!!!

Global warming fears are just that, fears; like everyone with a cold thinks they have the pig flu. In the great scale of things even a million years is just a blink and the green crowd think they can foretell the future by sticking their heads out of the window! The government promote the fear to raises tax. The nut-cutlet and sandal brigade do it because it is the latest fashion.

One way to fill the tax gap ZaNu liebour have created. Green taxes are the new window tax. Why not just stop packing this small island with immigrants, that would reduce our carbon footprint better than more tax.

More stupidity from this discredited administration. What other country has so wilfully 'hamstrung' its industry and introduced legislation which will cost the general populace so much?

If Labour ministers say there is a huge risk from so-called global warming, then it is clear that the whole thing is rubbish. Those of us who are "climate change denyers" are labelled by the enviro-hippies as on a par with holocaust denyiers, but their whole premise is based on poor science. None of the original computer models have been even CLOSE to what we are experiencing now.

So let's get this straight. We don't emit a trace element quantity of essential, life-giving gas and we BENEFIT by £1 Trillion? There's not even any flippin warming that can be shown to be out of the ordinary, and for ten years there's been flat or cooling temperatures. CO2 driven warming my hat. This is obscene, ideologically driven fraud. Insanity, nothing less.

It would be interesting to see just who has heavy investments in the 'Green' Industries. Government Ministers?; MPs?; Anyone care to place a bet?

Just why are governments clinging to the hoax that CO2 forces 'Global Warming' ? It is scientific fact that the earth is in a cooling phase and has been for the past 9 years. More CO2 - the gas of life - can only be beneficial to our biosphere and human environment and well-being.

Global warming is just a con to milk taxes from the ordinary person.

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Online and o#ine support each other...

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... involving members in national debates.

Image: Hospital from Dempeus; Soldier, Wikimedia commons

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It is run on democratic lines ...

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... locally and centrally.

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It concentrates on easy participation ...

accessible for someone who only has ten minutes

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... and allows the best arguments to rise ...

Marked as “essential reading” by the debate leader

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... so people can pick them up quickly.

View all • View only “essential reading”

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There is a regular schedule for votes ...

Image: Pocket calendar by Joe Lanman/Flickr

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... so media and politicians can pick them up ...

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... then the issue is closed for a while.

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Membership is open to all ...

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... but isn’t a free-for-all.

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Data is open ...

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... and easy to access on di!erent devices.

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It gives members chances to lead ...

Images: Planning consultation meeting, Saipan, Marianas Islands

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... and to gain political skills.

Images: Irish Ambassador making a speech at an event in London (Journalists’ Charity)

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Members too shy or too busy to debate ...

Image: Wellcome images

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... can explore issues ...

Image: Wellcome images

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... and participate in votes remotely.

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We will have to start small ...

Image: Wikimedia commons

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... but will have scalability built in ...

Image: Legoland’s Schloß Neuschwanstein source: Wikimedia Commons.

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... and a goal of being the most popular ...

Image by kind permission of Andy Keetch, taken by @garagestudios

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... most authoritative, most trusted ...

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... place for citizens.

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Presentation by Anthony Zacharzewskifor the Democratic Society, April 2010

[email protected] | @anthonyzach

Version 2