I was awake soon after 5:30 yesterday morning. As I got to my computer, the EU referendum results weren’t confirmed, but it was looking certain that the country had voted (narrowly, but decisively) to leave the European Union. My thoughts during the day are nicely summed up by my tweets and retweets. My initial reaction… Continue reading Brexit
Tag: politics
Ten Years?
It’s been some considerable time since I wrote anything about Nadine Dorries. I still keep an eye on what she’s up to, but most of the time it’s just the same old nonsense and it’s not worth writing about. But I was interested to read her recent blog post explaining why she had given up… Continue reading Ten Years?
TwittElection at OpenTech
Last Saturday was OpenTech. It was as great as it always is and I’ll write more about what I saw later. But I gave a talk about TwittElection in the afternoon and I thought it might be useful to publish my slides here along with a brief summary of what I said. TwittElection from Dave… Continue reading TwittElection at OpenTech
TwittElection
I was convinced that the general election in 2010 was going to be the “Twitter election”. I built a web site (now sadly lost somewhere in cyberspace) that monitored what PPCs were saying on Twitter in my local constituency. But, all in all, it wasn’t very impressive. I gave a talk about how disappointing it… Continue reading TwittElection
Jungle Money
There’s been a lot of talk recently about what Nadine Dorries was paid for her appearances on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and why she hasn’t declared that fee yet. By following the trail laid down by Unity in this excellent blog post and listening carefully to what Dorries says in this… Continue reading Jungle Money
The Political Web
I made a thing. On Sunday I mentioned how OpenTech always makes me feel a bit embarrassed that I’m not doing more useful stuff – particularly in the kinds of areas that OpenTech speakers care about. Usually, real life takes over before I get a chance to do anything about it and I forget about… Continue reading The Political Web
OpenTech 2013
Yesterday was the (almost) annual OpenTech conference. For various reasons, the conference didn’t happen last year, so it was good to see it back this year. OpenTech is the conference where I most wish I could clone myself. There are three streams of talks and in pretty much every slot there are talks I’d like… Continue reading OpenTech 2013
Equal Marriage
Over the last few days there has been a fair amount of heat and light coming out of the Tory party, generated by the discussion about equal marriage (or, as the tabloids like to describe it, “gay marriage”). We’ve know for ages that David Cameron is in favour of it and that a lot of… Continue reading Equal Marriage
MPs’ Web Sites
When I set up Planet Westminster in 2006 I thought it would be a relatively simple project to maintain. Over the years, more and more MPs would start blogs. Every couple of months I’d add the new ones and everything would be great. It hasn’t worked out like that at all. MPs’ web sites have… Continue reading MPs’ Web Sites
Talking About Drugs
There are many things that make me angry in British politics, but I don’t think any of them make me angrier than the way that most British politicians refuse to have an intelligent conversation about drugs. Here’s a case in point. The Commons home affairs select committee are holding an inquiry into drugs policy. Yesterday,… Continue reading Talking About Drugs