Hansard Society eNewsletter - January 2009
Events
Citizens
and Consumers: which does a democracy need more?
Wednesday 28
January, 6pm, Portcullis House, Westminster
Speakers: Ken
Livingstone, Angela Knight (Chief Executive, British Bankers
Association) and Tony Travers (Director, Greater London Group,
LSE)
Chair: Virginia Gibbons (Head of Communications, Hansard
Society)
This latest Democracy Forum will address, with reference to the
current financial crisis, whether we are passive consumers of globalised forces,
or whether we have an active role to play as citizens in a democracy.
To
attend this event, please sign up here
Liverpool
EU and All That! Teacher Conference
Wednesday 4
February
The Hansard Society runs Teacher Conferences
with the UK Office of the European Parliament to help teachers deliver the
citizenship curriculum innovatively and effectively. The next one is in
Liverpool on Wednesday 4 February. Click here
to read more.
Post-election
engagement
Can
the administration match the campaign?
2008 will surely be
remembered as a landmark year for politics, when ‘change’ and the simple phrase
‘yes we can’ were repeated by Barrack Obama and his supporters to great effect.
The potential of new technology to drive political campaigning, not just
complement traditional avenues for mobilising the electorate, became clear. The
campaign used viral networks, small, dispersed donations, and regular
communications with supporters, via virtually every kind of technology – old and
new – to spread the word.
It is great for politics that people want to
hear from politicians but can this momentum continue indefinitely?
Read
the full article here.
Enhancing
Parliament's Communication with the Public
Hansard
Society briefing to the House of Lords
During its final
pre-Christmas debate, the House of Lords discussed how Parliament might enhance
its communication with the public. This issue was at the core of the Hansard
Society's 2005 Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy (the
Puttnam Commission), which produced the report Members
Only? Parliament in the Public Eye. The Hansard Society produced an updated
briefing paper for interested peers, detailing what progress there has been
since 2005 and what remains to be done.
The recommendations included:
- the establishment of a communications service for Parliament;
- a comprehensive review of the language and terminology used in Parliament to
make it more accessible to the public;
- further improvements to the parliamentary website and to media coverage of
Parliament, particularly through improved access for BBC Parliament.
The Hansard Society, and specifically
Lords
of the Blog, received numerous mentions throughout the debate; Lord Soley
said "thanks to the Hansard Society...not only for their work on the Lords of
the Blog, but for their work in general." Click
here
to download the full briefing.
...Happy
New Year!