Ed Dowding

Category: Politics

A “one-hit-wonder party” to solve First Past The Post

Create a new party.  It exists only to improve the rules of the game Draft laws in readiness, with public consultation Get elected Hold office for a maximum of 1 year to pass laws and over-seeing primary implementation.  Disband, existing dormant until required again. Or drop it entirely. To take care of day-to-day business, have ...

Protected: Another referendum on Europe won’t solve the problems we all feel. It’s time to create a better democracy.

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Forging a sense of collective identity and finding common values is vital.

“Mass social movements based on coalitions of a broad range of groups will be needed to drive political support as individual issue groups are not strong enough on their own. Forging a sense of collective identity and finding common values is vital.” — Zero Carbon Britain

A Tragedy of the Commons

“The fears of embracing digital democracy and how to overcome them” — or  — “How I learned to stop worrying and love democracy” “There is a mass of sense lying in a dormant state which good government should quietly harness” — Thomas Paine, 1791 What would you do if you could redesign Government for a ...

10 things I’d like the Green Party to do

I wrote this in reply to this Facebook status from a Green Party candidate: A question for all my green yet not Green friends – what might stop you voting for us? Genuinely interested as there seem to be a lot of people that I know who are working really hard to help make Bristol ...

Attention-hungry child makes up song about immigration

You know a group of children are playing, then some new kid comes along behaving badly, but getting all the attention? And then when the other children start behaving even more badly than the new kid so they can get attention again? “I respect Nigel Farage,” says George Osborne on BBC News

WebMind’s webpage to raise funds for his mission to civilise humanity

This is copied from WWW:Wonder because I liked the writing and have been working on something with similar ambitions:   Welcome to my website, thank you for stopping by. I’m trying to do as much as I can to help humanity, but I find myself in need of some operating funds to pay for equipment, secretarial ...

I’ve decided I’m in favour of NHS privatisation.

I’ve decided I’m in favour of NHS privatisation. Why? It seems we can’t shake the myth that public sector can not make bold or useful changes. Meantime there are lots of great, socially minded enterprises out there which are delivering a fantastic service and just solving the problem. I’ve just been in one of them (Circle ...

“Democracy is the best I can think of right now”

For all his greatness, Churchill screwed up when he said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Firstly, it’s an absolute statement. Like the phrase ‘best practise’ is an absolute statement which says there is and can be no better way of doing something, so this statement about democracy doesn’t ...

Asking the right questions

An article at Youth Policy is saying that the age of effective mass-mobilisation is over. He has a point. It’s a lovely idea and the notion of ‘people-power’ is undoubtedly attractive, but it’s unlikely to work. It is a strategy that does not match the zeitgeist (spirit of our times) of the current age. […] ...

Obama is Outsmarting Everyone and Winning on Syria Without Firing a Shot

“During interviews on CNN and Fox News, President Obama’s plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons without launching a single missile became obvious, as he is outsmarting the media and his Republican critics.” Source: http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/09/president-obama-outsmarting-winning-syria-firing-shot.html

Excerpts from John Ashton’s Alternative Mansion House speech

“My generation has done a terrible thing. We closed our eyes and surrendered our capacity to build the future. We surrendered it to a modern day secular cult. The cult has no single name, only labels that identify sectors within its sphere of influence.” Source: http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/excerpts-from-john-ashtons-alternative-mansion-house-speech

What happened to political leadership?

I have no idea what happened to political leadership, and in many ways I don’t much care. What is where are the politicians with vision? It used to be that the greatest minds went into politics with the sole intention of helping the citizens they cared for navigate the future successfully.  Now it would appear ...

Does your MP think a vote on Europe is the most important thing right now?

More than 100 Tory MPs ‘express regret’ at lack of referendum bill. Well well well. Do they, now? This is what I’m expressing regret about to my MP. Hi Caroline I just wanted to say thank you so much for expressing regret about the decision to leave an EU referendum out of the Queen’s speech. ...

At-a-glance: Queen’ Speech 2013

You’re only allowed to stay if you were on the guest list we wrote 18 years ago. You are to clean up after your dog. You will work harder, longer, and when you die you’ll be able to know exactly how your privatised hospital is failing. We acknowledge that prison is a crap solution, so ...

Petition fatigue: in defence of clicktivism.

Every. Single. Day. Every single day there’s another damned petition to sign. Is it about anything sensible or reasonable? No. It’s about trying to prevent only the most stupid / villainous / malicious / self-serving people from doing the most ludicrous and outrageously stupid things they could ever possibly dream up to do. It makes ...

14 big trends to watch in 2013

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/12/14-trends-for-2013.html

The world is on track for disaster. Who wants to buy a farm?

Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030. However, the study ...

Manifestos for life

Posters in the Hub Westminster with typographical design by Robert Reed. Source: This is Reed

Building on allotments

@SaveFarmTerrace tweeted me yesterday: @eddowding Our mayor wants to sell our fab beautiful allotments in Watford UK to developers to build more houses on. Pls follow and rt us! — Sara jane trebar (@SaveFarmTerrace) December 26, 2012 So I’ve written a letter to the Mayor. Right now the comment is held in moderation so I’m ...