It really is time for us Councillors to stop being so self-important about the reporting of our meetings

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Just a reminder to all the Conservatives who seem to think photographs, filming, twitter and other modern media things should be expunged from Council meetings. Here is what Eric Pickles had to say on the matter:

"Fifty years ago, Margaret Thatcher changed the law to make councils open their meetings to the press and public. This principle of openness needs to be updated for the 21st Century. More and more local news comes from bloggers or citizen journalists telling us what is happening at their local council. 

"Many councils are internet-savvy and stream meetings online, but some don't seem to have caught up with the times and are refusing to let bloggers or hyper-local news sites in."

He added: "Opening the door to new media costs nothing and will help improve public scrutiny." 

We really can't have situations where people get arrested for filming a council meeting, where twitter is banned from meetings and where - as happened in Bradford - a press photographer is thrown out.

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Bradford Council's budget...plus a thought about tweeting!

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The deed is done - the Council has set a budget. For most folk the most important thing about it remains the answer to the question: "so how much is my Council Tax going up by?" I know, I know - the real story is about the cuts - either spiteful and targeted at vulnerable people or forced onto innocent and efficient Councils by the evil monster Pickles. But when - in about an hour - I arrive at the Club ready to win the quiz, I know it will be the Council Tax question that gets asked.

Don't get me wrong here, the 'cuts' are important - especially important if you're the poor soul who has lost a job or no longer get a particular service. But in the round taking £56m out of a £1.2bn budget isn't going to make the wheels fall off the wagon - especially if, as in Bradford's case, the Council anticipated the scale of reductions. Nevertheless the decision today included decisions to cut services - closing small libraries, removing off-highway rural bin collection and dramatically reducing the budgets for maintaining highways, parks and local facilities. These decisions - for all the talk of equity and equality from the Council's leadership - disproportionate affect people living in rural parts of the district.

So when I'm asked why I voted against the budget it isn't because I could write a better one (although I could) but because the Labour Party chose to target cuts directly and deliberately at the people I represent.

And I shall be telling those people about that decision.

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Partly related to this is a comment from that rarity - someone in the public gallery during a council meeting - who asked why I was 'playing with my phone'. In truth I was tweeting - commenting on what was being said by members during the budget debate. To do this I have to listen to what's being said!

And it means that a load of people who might not be able to or want to come to the actual meeting are able to get a flavour - albeit coloured by my bias - of what's happening. Perhaps a few hundred people knew something - certainly more than would be the case in past years - about our budget deliberations.

I don't consider that to be disrespectful but to be an enhancement - its extending our engagement and people's involvement in the processes of democracy. I was able to give response and comment on things people were concerned about - care for the elderly, children's services and support for the arts - as decisions about those very things were being discussed.

So no, I wasn't playing with my phone. I was enhancing democracy - something more Councillors should do!

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Social media, politics and the capacity of our gobs!

Yesterday saw the last in our CllrSocMed tour of Yorkshire (and that oddity of a place “The Humber”) during which we’ve talked to – and with – around 80 councillors from different political parties about that strange old beast, “social media”. From my perspective it has been an education and, I hope, those councillors who came along got some value from my inanities, prejudices and bad jokes.

It seemed right to reflect on the whole “social media” thing – on its ups and downs, on the way in which it has caught a few politicians out and how it just might be pretty useful. One thing though that is abundantly clear is that the political party panjandrums neither ‘get’ nor like social media (or indeed the idea of a ‘blogosphere’). All they see are problems – councillors, MPs, candidates opening their gobs and inserting size 10 hobnails, gangs of opponents bombarding the world with attacking comments and, above all, something that can’t be controlled, can’t be put into a tidy communications grid.

Unfortunately the genie is out of the bottle, has a headache and isn’t about to be bossed around by former journalists and lobbyists employed by the big political parties. And here’s why:

• There are 500 million people worldwide using Facebook, 175 million on Twitter and hundreds of thousands blogging. Add in MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and other places and spaces and you have a mob environment that cannot be directed or controlled by the politicians – other than by stopping or blocking.
• The game has changed – we’re right back to response, interaction and engagement and away from message management, targeting and mass communications. Success will come from understanding what makes people respond positively rather than from repetition and saturation.
• Whether something or someone is ‘liked’ has become important – as significant as message content. And being liked comes from exchange and interaction not from polish and presentation alone. While being tall and having good hair still matters, it is joined by being witty, responding to those around and not being an obsessive or a bore.
• Politics is boring – for plenty of people it has always been boring – and most folk don’t like it. While the charmed circle of Westminster controlled debate this didn’t matter but now boredom has triumphed. The bloke outside Number Ten can be – and is – ignored as we seek our information and pleasure elsewhere.

There are some changes that still need to happen – political parties need to be less obsessed with whether something someone once said was “offensive”. The next generation – a generation brought up with Facebook and Twitter – will not be either interested or impressed with the singling out of an unfortunate tweet or slightly off Facebook photo. The current approach of trying to remove all media risk not only doesn’t work but is crass and ridiculous. It is ironic that our kids have grown up in this respect – can accept and forgive the odd social faux pas – whereas us older folk remain “offended” and “appalled”. There is surely a good case for political party bosses to grow a sense of humour and to learn what the words, “I’m sorry” mean. The public – the folk on Facebook and Twitter – get this, it’s about time our lords and masters did too.

In the mean time I’ll leave you with Simon’s “How not to do Twitter” for politicians:

• Attack the man not the ball. That’s right go for the jugular folks, forget about honest debate and go for your opponent on the basis of where he was born, the colour of his hair, the car he drives or what he said ten years ago when he wasn’t a Councillor. The audience will love all that, they’ll think you a really nice, pleasant person who they’d love as their Councillor or MP!
• Tell risky jokes – you know the ones about wishing Maggie were dead or Mandelson’s dog. You’ll get a laugh – lots of people will send your jolly witticism round the airwaves which will be great. Except you’re not Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle are you? They can do it because they’re comedians – you’re not are you!
• Swear a lot. Well everyone does, don’t they? The twitterfeed is full of cussing, of ‘c’ words and ‘f’ words competing for space. If you swear a little it shows you’re normal but look at the fuss when Cameron said “twat”! You don’t need to swear to get your point across and, if you do it right, other folk will do all your swearing for you anyway.
• Call people names. Somebody tweets about housing and you respond with a pithy comment capped off with “you idiot”. Now that will work won’t it, you’ve put the other side firmly in their place. A bit like Barnsley’s chief executive calling Eric Pickles a ‘clown’ – not exactly the best idea really!

Now before you all go crawling through my tweets, let me say that I’ve done all these things – sometimes in the heat of the moment, sometimes with malice aforethought. This changes nothing and I don’t set myself up as exemplary or even especially expert – the advice is what it is, gleaned from having sent 30,000 tweets a handful of which, in the glory of hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have sent.

Whatever you do, don’t ignore social media – it is too important for that. But understand that when you, as a politician, are using social media you are ‘on parade’ not in the pub with your mates. It’s a forgiving parade but, as someone once said, don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t want your mum to see!


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Do social media campaigns fit the centralised, controlling, presidential party campaign strategies?

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The Institute of Direct Marketing (a fine body of men and women) have commented on the emerging social media campaigns at the election. The gist of the observation is firstly:

“Marketing Week reports social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter will be primarily used to attack the opposition in the run up to the May 6th polling day.”

And secondly – by way of warning:

“Ivan Ristic, director and co-founder at Diffusion, recently warned that political parties need to be careful in their use of social media during the campaign as there is much less "command and control" of the platform compared to political spin seen in previous eras.”

Which presents an interesting dilemma for the parties given the extent to which they have been trying to direct campaigning centrally. The traditional media demand a centralised campaign as local paper and broadcast media (outside London) has very little impact and the approach adopted by the parties suits this demand. But emerging alternative media – including social media, the world of blogging and specialist publishing – does not fit into this neat paradigm.

The election may – as Iain Dale has observed – have become more “presidential” in nature but alternative media are beginning to shred that cosy, London-centric model. Indeed, twitter, facebook and the blogs are more akin to the old-fashioned street corner soapbox hustings that to the sleek, besuited, controlled media message of the Mandelson-Campbell era in campaigning.

The fall out will be interesting to watch.

++BREAKING NEWS: Goblins, fairies and pixies deny hacking MPs twitter account ++

In a dramatic twist to the story of David Wright’s mysterious hacker, the little people have denied being responsible for altering the MP’s tweet by adding the term “scum sucking.” The goblins have also denied stealing his lap top, interfering with his phone or any other actions designed to blacken the MP’s good name.

“I understand that various commenters including leading bloggers have suggested that only fairies, goblins or pixies could have made the alteration to David Wright’s twitter account,” said a spokesgoblin for King Oberon of the Fairies; “this may be true but we can assure you all that none of the king’s subjects were involved in amending the tweet or tweets of Mr David Wright MP.”

“For The Gentry to have interfered in human affairs in this way;” continued the spokesgoblin; “would have been a serious breach of the Treaty signed between Queen Mab and Queen Bess. Whatever you may say about elfkind, we keep to our interplaner agreements.”

With the obvious answer of supernatural intervention ruled out, this raises again the possibility that Mr Wright did in fact post a tweet including the term “scum-sucking”.

Fairy expert, Dr Elisa F. Godmother told The View from Cullingworth:

“This is a very serious accusation. Humans are wont to blame fairies for inexplicable events – “who did it then, the pixies” is an oft heard cry, mostly from parents faced with small children and broken crockery. But when these false allegations against fairykind affect Government, we can expect it to be raised by King Oberon’s representatives at the highest levels.”

“To me this seems a classic example of blaming the fairies for something for which the culprit is all too obvious. And anyway, fairies don’t use twitter.”

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