First Nigel roundly berates the left blogohemisphere for our lack of a coherent critique of the current financial crisis (gulp), but then his colleagues Adam and Janet very kindly go and plug up the gap a bit themselves, at least enough to keep me safe for opinions at dinner parties for a little while (now all I need is an invite…)
“…is to face them down.”
A very good speech that, solid social democratic territory. Straight through. No grovelling, even where he admitted mistakes. “I’m not going to change to something I’m not”.
A coherent vision around ‘fairness’ and a ‘new settlement for new times’. Clear new policies that illustrate the fairness vision and that should be popular - computers for kids, free prescriptions for cancer patients, nursery places from 2. An illustration of the huge challenges of the current environment, and how the ‘new settlement’ leads naturally to action to regulate financial markets and on climate change. A roundup of the good work of the rest of the cabinet. Straight through a solid defence of continued investment in public services and praise for public servants (though conveniently not a sausage on their pay deal). (more…)
Waiting for Gordon to come on the telly. Interesting choice of music to settle the crowd in the conference hall, courtesy of Manchester legends James. Cracking tune obviously and has us humming nostalgically, but I’m sure the diarists are going over it already: (more…)
I was one of those very disappointed by Gordon Brown’s sudden withdrawal of the Home Computing Initiative (a salary sacrifice tax incentive on internet kit and connections) in 2006. The scheme was a great example of a partnership between government, industry and unions to tackle a problem that rightly concerned them all - IT skills, or the lack of them for many workers. Union learning projects in particular (who have a good history of training thousands in basic IT literacy) picked up on it very keenly and thousands of offline families used it to get connected for the first time. (more…)
Jason over at the newly rejuvenated Communicate or Die has been coming up with some great posts of late - recommended reading even for us on the wrong side of the pond. I liked his distinction today between rough democracy and formal democracy, in trying to explain why unions are hesitant about going ‘open source’ in their involvement of members.
He thinks unions firmly enshrined democratic processes (formal democracy) can sometimes be in danger of making a fundamentally good thing so firmly enshrined that it wears itself into a rut.
Jason sees an older tradition of informal (rough) democracy in America, of ongoing full and frank discussion on an informal basis, which he feels has been sidelined over time in unions and in politics in general: (more…)
LabourStart’s photo group on flickr is a great resource for unions and activists looking to illustrate internationally focused communications work. It’s a group of more than 3,000 mostly Creative Commons licensed photographs of unions at work (mostly marching to and fro with flags to be honest, but that gets better pics than branch meetings I guess). Check it out at flickr.com/groups/union
To promote the group and union activity online in general, they’ve hit upon a great idea of a photo contest, awarding flickr account goodies to the winning photos. If you want to enter a pic, you don’t have long left to do so. Go visit flickr.com/groups/labourphotos now and upload your best shot - good luck!
No - not a reference to the way our current ‘extended lunchbreak of discontent’ levels of strike action are being touted in our cliché-befuddled national press, but I’m making a rare trip out West to see James Graham’s new play ‘Sons of York‘, a family drama illustrating the period of profound national change at the close of the 70’s, through the metaphor of three generations living through the industrial action of 1978/9. (more…)
Iain Dale made a flying visit to Congress today - He doesn’t seem to have been impressed enough to hang around with us. Iain may lack Richard Balfe’s staying power (he’s been lurking in the corridors outside the hall for days now) but it looks like did shift a few copies of his Total Politics Guide to Blogging (as ever a lovely list-fest for blogging trainspotters, with the ‘top’ 200 political blogs listed).
So given the Dale shaped hole in Congress this afternoon, may I present the TIGMOO.co.uk Guide to Blogging - a slender cash-in volume for us union bloggers - with its own little list.
You can download a copy here - you know you want to.
At Congress 2008 in Brighton, which is turning out as interesting as ever - spending a week in the company of pretty much every element of the UK labour movement.
I spoke at a fringe today on online organising, along with Eric Lee and APT’s Paul Smith. For the 99.995% of trade unionists who didn’t make it along, here’s part of what I had to say - my 4 predictions on how unions (or at any rate unionists) will be using Web 2.0 in the next couple of years: (more…)
Politics and new-media goodie-bag blog Dadblog is sadly shutting up shop, but luckily only to move a few doors down the road to “I’ve Said Too Much“, where lloydshep opens up again with an interesting take on how the internet both helps and hinders campaigning. (more…)
