Alex Parsons
Democracy Programme Lead / Senior Researcher - mySociety/TheyWorkForYou. Also for some reason Postman Pat reviews.
- I can't take the "we're ungovernable! none of the levers work!" chat seriously when given a working "appoint peter mandelson y/n" lever, good choices were not made.
- Controversially I would put The Gruffalo's Child above The Gruffalo in the Donaldson rankings
- Last line here has that Tom Scott video going through my head.
- My read tonight including what I think is an growing belief among the 2024 intake that none of current options for leadership are up to it, and they are starting to look among their own ranks www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
- I'm in the arctic. I'm a candidate to be the prime minister. I'm back in the arctic.
- Starfleet academy this week:
- "written by Kirsten Beyer & Tawny Newsome"
- The show works: blending like five things but has a good handle on its tone. Obviously a heavy lower decks influence this week, but also love that it's clearly getting some of the academic setting scaffolding via Community
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View full threadI had concerns like "why does paul giamatti have beef with a school", but that makes sense fairly quickly.
- So this is another useful 'testing the squares' statement:
- Elected deciders vs public servants is the core "politicians should be doing partisan politics" versus "Parliament is independent and should do scrutiny", with the different things that implies about MPs skills and parliamentary procedures (and the mismatch you get from neither cleanly winning)
- But Open Society is also relevant to this - because in that model MPs are more of a professional mediator class (demographically diverse, but sharing that skillset).
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View full threadAnd the thought I want to develop more: all of these are kind of different reactions to the "ruling the void" thesis - the break in the connection between social cleavages and their (separate) ruling elites means different ideas about what democratic elites are for are fighting in that gap.
- Great Mandelson quote from 2009 on the expenses scandal. If someone had done something wrong, you'd know about it. That you don't, means they didn't! QED www.theguardian.com/politics/200...
- So to promote some 'here's some data we have' - thread yesterday with some examples of how to use @theyworkforyou.com data to look at absences from votes. Run SQL queries directly against our data, from your browser.
- Yeah, that looks like this tinyurl.com/y6397rr7
- Related story from last year (same gift, different MPs) www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
- A few freebies in the gift section, but going to pick on this international gift from Paddy Power to go to World Darts competition www.theyworkforyou.com/interests/ca...
- Ridiculous because "post social media" chatbot creators are even *more* responsible for the contents than social media companies are of their users alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
- It's a much less complicated regulatory argument alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
- Today's "few notes on this register" bought to you via train wifi
- A new House of Commons register of interests has been released and uploaded to TheyWorkForYou theyworkforyou.com/interests
- A few freebies in the gift section, but going to pick on this international gift from Paddy Power to go to World Darts competition www.theyworkforyou.com/interests/ca...
- Not particularly saying this is good or bad - but as a "freebie type" you sometimes get these briefing + free tickets combo www.theyworkforyou.com/interests/ca...
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View full threadIt hasn't avoided bad publicity (in part because of follow-on failures to recuse from related decisions) - and has a political cost in being unable to take a stronger line. bsky.app/profile/alex...
