When Dave Briggs asks ‘how close is local?’ on the Local Democracy blog, he asks a very important question about democracy. If democracy is to be the rule of the the people, asking ‘how close is local?’ is asking the perennial question of democracy: which people? Knowing who is governed is as important as knowing that those people govern themselves.

Our democracy is stratified like a company organisational chart. A simplistic drawing would show Government at the top and parish councils at the bottom and a myriad of other organisations with decision-marking powers over any number of areas of our daily lives arranged on the intervening levels. An upper tier has a more inclusive scope than a lower tier and roles and responsibilities are appropriately distributed according to scale and competence.

Well, that’s the textbook anyway.

Dave’s post to LD highlights the problem with that model and the institutions and relations conditioned in practice. Locality is as fluid as other post-modern political problems such as community and identity. Localities dependency is perspective and there are many perspectives.

So how do we get away from institutions, or ’structures’ as Dave said, that are out of perspective with locality, community and identity? Well, as a good post-structuralist and radical democrat I’m not disappointed by exploring that dependency. A broad and rich body of research exists exploring precisely this area of political geography. Indeed, this theme was central to my papers in ‘Hacking the Networked Society’. ‘Who governs in a networked society’ explored precisely this growing disjuncture between institutions and governmental frameworks in our contemporary networked society.

Many boosters talk up the potential of new media in its self to engender new forms of political communications which will have meaning at any / all different tiers of locality. I’d say that is simply twittering round the edges, a confusion of quantitative changes, i.e. more engagement, and qualitative changes, i.e. new / different modes of engagement.

Dave’s general point about linkages still stands however. Stronger and meaningful relationships between ‘the people’ and ‘the people when they govern’ need to replace those tried and tired tiered relationships of our contemporary democratic settlement.

Is “Happy voting!” really the proper way to close an email announcing a Council By-election? Anyway…
A seat has become vacant in the Stonebridge Ward following the death of Councillor Dorman Long. A by-election will be held on Thursday, 13 September 2007 to elect a new representative.

The by-election gives the Lib Dems another opportunity to win a seat - but will they win it? I doubt it. Stonebridge ward is a Labour heartland - you only have to look at the votes cast in the 2006 Local Election to see that… Winning this single seat will not change the overall political balance of Brent Council: The Lib Dems would need to win a few more by-elections or benefit from defections (not for the first time in Brent’s recent political history) in order to be in a position to leave the alliance with the Conservatives and lead a majority administration. This by-election is a litmus paper - are Stonebridge residents pleased with Cllr Paul Lorber’s coalition administration, enough to give the Lib Dem’s another Councillor? Or will we see a new face in the Council from the Labour Party?

The 2007 Electoral Canvass is about to start. Once again we must all update our details on the Electoral Register. Failure to do so can lead to a fine of up to £1,000. Now that is what I call an incentive!

Electoral Canvassing - Your Questions Answered.

Posted after receiving a notification from Brent Council Electoral Services department.

In Brent, we don’t do anything by halves. So today we elect all of our Councillors. Over at Brent East Campaigning there are a few last posts and a really great graph… when I post again we’ll know what we’ve got for the next four years…

4th May. Elections for all seats on Brent Council.