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I'm a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth; this blog mainly covers that, sometimes general politics and policy and occasionally anything else that takes my fancy.
Category Archives: Blogging
How not to run a council meeting
I worry that local government and transparency interest me so much. There are better things for a man of my age to be interested in, surely. But this example of how not to do it from Wales and now on YouTube intrigued me. (Which I found via Richard Wilson’s blog) To give a short version:
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Tagged democracy, Eric Pickles, openness, recording, transparency
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Rebooting
Ten years ago today I was soundly beaten at the ballot box. I might have suffered a crushing defeat in the 2001 election, but I was brimming with confidence. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the campaign, I’d held second place despite a fierce campaign from the Liberal Democrats and had a bright future, this was when there
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Tagged Lost in Space, Reboot, Weiner
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Blogging the town hall
Last night was the council tax setting meeting. If the council has anything like a set-piece debate in its calendar it must surely be the council tax setting. It’s as close as we get to a Queen’s speech or a budget. For the record we froze council tax again – though this year it seems
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Also posted in Politics
Tagged Blogging, Eric Pickles, openness, press, transparency
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Announcing MiniHer
I’m really really proud to be able to announce that my wife and I had our second child yesterday, a girl, to be known on this blog and twitter as MiniHer! Born at 17:01 at 8lb 6oz (tiny compared to her older brother MiniMe). Mother and child are well and father is as pleased as
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Losing my inner geek
I don’t post personal topics that often. But today I can’t help myself. While it seems the rest of the world are getting their new iPhones I, sadly, am not. This is largely HSBC’s fault, as they flagged my attempt to purchase one as fraud and I didn’t manage to get them to reverse their
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The power of information
I love freedom of information. Not so much the right for individuals to demand information from public authorities, important though that is (even though, in the council’s case, seems to be mainly used by people trying to get out of parking tickets and recruitment consultants building their contacts list). Instead I love seeing what happens
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Tagged data, information, publication
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Misery loves company (and commuting)
I’m not sure if it’s fatherhood or personality or opportunity but I generally think that life is pretty good. I may not have everything, but what I do have fills me with happiness. Whether it was the huge amusement MiniMe found in the game we were playing with his cars yesterday, or being able to
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Developing council policy
I indulged my inner geek last weekend, going along to the second half of the UK GovWeb barcamp (essentially an informal conference about technology in the government sector). I always feel a little bit like the token sceptic at these things, perhaps because I am one of the few politicians who goes and find my
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What do you want from this blog?
I’ve been in reflective mood about this blog recently. Perhaps because it’s New Year, perhaps because it hit one year old last month. Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking about it’s future. I set it up as an experiment, and for the first three months was surprised at its success and the size of its
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Tagged engagement
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Weekly wrap-up, 2009 – 2010 RIP
My last post started life as this week’s weekly wrap-up, but then killed it off. The point of the posts, which I’ve been doing since last May, was to be some sort of ‘report’. I’d started them at the suggestion of a commenter on the blog. But I just don’t think they were adding anything.
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