Voting at 16 - 3 comments

Omar has an excellent article in defence of the Government's Manifesto plan to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds.

Tom Harris MP, who hosted a discussion on the subject last month, offers up a lack of enthusiasm among 16-18-year-olds as reason not to extend the franchise, predicting that few would actually use the new right. This kind of argument can't carry much weight with the Government if their plan for free theatre tickets for the under-26s is anything to go by. I doubt young people queued up to demand this policy either, but the Government feel it to be a good thing, even though very few will (be able to) take advantage of the opportunity, and others might abuse it.

Laban replies to Tom's article:

They're putting the cart before the horse. Instead of asking - 'what's the meaning of the age of political responsibility ? is it the same as adulthood ? does adulthood imply independence ?' they're asking 'how can we engage the young in politics' and 'how can we increase our vote ?’ [...]

Responsibility, in general, is accepting either the credit or the blame for choices you had the power to make, and which you were expected to make wisely - and voters exercise these choices at elections. You don't need a home, a job, or to own any property to vote. You can be someone who does their level best to get out of paying tax. You could be a fervent political activist; someone who leaves anonymous blog comments; a reader of The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, or the Express; or one who hypocritically argues against both tax rises and public spending cuts, or one who lambasts politicians for their human or political failures without lifting a finger to improve their own communities. And yet if you leave aside members of the House of Lords, imprisoned offenders, residents of mental hospitals, and those who do not ordinarily reside here, age is the sole significant impediment to voting. Political responsibility? It'd be nice to see some. The mainstream media certainly doesn't feel obliged to promote it.

Irresponsible political views, not to mention dangerous and ill-informed ones, are a fact of British political life that idealists have to come to terms with. Those who hold them didn't have to campaign for the right to vote, yet no politician talks of narrowing the franchise, as past generations have bequeathed them the right to be heard and represented. Extending the franchise would allow more people who are subject to the Government to play a part in shaping it, and if that increases the number of people who want to play a responsible part in doing so, so much the better. The wider question of citizenship and behaving ethically within this realm should also be looked at, but expecting 16-18-year-olds to adhere to higher standards than those older hardly seems fair.

One response might be to say that non-'adults', for whom parents are legally responsible, cannot be construed as having voluntarily accepted (in general) the rules of our society, unlike those adults whose presence here constitutes implicit consent. Accepting that might disenfranchise the severely disabled or terminally ill, though if that condition arose during adulthood, misfortune alone should not be considered a withdrawal of consent. Attending citizenship classes, with some kind of ceremony to accept/bestow that status, would be a solution for non-adults, which they could volunteer for as soon as they feel able to do so - and can be judged to have done so. What more should society demand of them?

Bin Laden speaks - no comments

Perhaps Osama's softening in his old age:

"It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interest of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations".

"I invite you to embrace [X]," the speaker says.

If you substitute X, you've got a pretty standard argument used by dictators and their acolytes throughout the past century, and which can be seen all too regularly from the kind of people who hang out at Comment Is Free (thanks to PooterGeek for this observation). A belief that freedom is a sham, used to perpetuate or disguise the power of shadowy forces, is the perfect start on one's journey to authoritarianism.

Defending Wikipedia - 3 comments

If I were Oliver Kamm, I'd worry about being typecast: the latest tirade against Wikipedia (I think his "The most constructive course is to stand on the sidelines and jeer at its pretensions" gives me the green-light to use this word), and 'citizen journalism' in general (on which I posted here), is quite unreasonably overblown. Update: You don't need to tell me about the perils of having to live on the proceeds of writing, but seeking to undermine the credibility of such a rich and varied resource on the basis of a few cases of abuse seems unwarranted.

A dozen years into the Internet search-engine revolution, during which people have cobbled together articles and opinions from a wide range of sources of differing credibilities, why now should we castigate an online service that (a) organises this information, (b) is bound by codes of good practice, and (c) seeks to prevent abuse - bearing in mind that the "WikiScanner" tool provides cautious readers with an additional tool (beyond the many Wikipedia already supply) to identify possibly manipulation?

Wikipedia makes no more claims to authority than any 'dead-tree' encyclopaedia (in fact, less, surely). Anyone who seeks to attach authority by writing on the basis of one resource is on shaky ground, whether that be the Wikipedia or otherwise, and is just as likely to be put straight by someone who can convince an audience that they are more informed.

One substantial difference is that Wikipedia drastically reduces research times - no more fruitless afternoons spent in University libraries - can be updated far more readily than printed resources, and 'back copies' are available for free to those who wish to see how the article has developed. Why should I invest £35 in a technical manual, within whose pages the first few casual readers might have spotted errors that its non-expert editor has missed? Before the Internet, considerable effort would have been required to confirm such errors, and to establish, on the basis of the balance of alternative opinion, what might have been intended. By denying the importance of 'consensus' in the early stages of research, Kamm would greatly increase the cost of identifying such errors.

I'll continue to consult the Wikipedia because all my experience tells me that the ill-will of hackers and devious organisations is no match for the professional pride of experts, enthusiasts, and thoughtful people of good faith. If I didn't think that, god knows what other drivel I might accept at face value.

Africa's time-wasters - no comments

Dan at Hii Dunia rates some of Africa's worst leaders...

Power Bloggers II: a response - 7 comments

Fellow B4L-er Mike Ion has posted enthusiastically at Comment Is Free on the subject of political blogging, citing the extent of these bloggers' influence, and suggesting Labour's upcoming deputy leadership campaign indicates that Labour politicians are beginning to use blogging to engage ('meaningfully', no less) with potential supporters. You might be surprised to find that my assessments differ almost completely with Mike's. That's not pessimism on my part, I'm just optimistic about what can be achieved, and realistic about the value of what there is now.

I must say that if I was tasked with defending and promoting blogging, I wouldn't introduce well-known right-wing gossip blogs (with which you're already familiar) so soon into the conversation, not even to indicate the level of 'influence' bloggers have, nor would I substitute online media pundits for off-line ones by introducing ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie as a a "respected and influential commentator". Still, if blogging influence is to be measured by being given the opportunity to appear on Sky News at 2 am and read blogland title-tattle to a fuddled news anchorman in order to pretend one has important information the dead trees don't, then I'm happy to plough my lonely furrow - or rather, we are.

Debate is all well and good, but what this article doesn't address is (slightly going back to my "2020 Vision" points): how are arguments actually won online? How do you change minds? How can you bring the power of your argument to bear on a policy-maker? How does a politician actually assimilate 'feedback' in the real world, when talk is cheap, and voters can be strategic rather than honest? Blogging, as it stands, doesn't represent the slightest step towards a more participatory democracy: whatever progress has been made towards a more 'reasoned debate', the absence of any direct responsibility between on-line politician and blog-reading voter, and the limitations of the current blogging model - where politicians post and then respond to reader comments in the hope/belief that they are a guide to public opinion - just frustrate policy-making. Moreover the noise and anger of the most vocal political bloggers has fostered - so often - a poisonous atmosphere that prevents co-operation between people with different political views. This seems to be prevalent even among politicians as close to the electorate as local councillors - particularly so, from my experience, especially when Liberal Democrats are involved.

There have been some happy consequences of the upsurge in Labour-oriented blogging caused by the deputy leadership campaign. Activists from all sections of the party have clearly felt there is an opportunity to get their message across (at least, those with a matching candidate). It has also encouraged on-line community-building, with large Labour groups now developing on FaceBook. Best of all, activists are brought closer into the online Labour fold, as can be seen at Bloggers4Labour.

Nonetheless each glitzy deputy leadership themed blog site that appears represents tens of hours of some young designer's time that can't be transferred either to the wider movement, or to the delivery of policies. There's little evidence from around the sites of any great attempt to involve people online more substantially than the same old "post and comment" model, and I'm not at all convinced that the candidates, if polled, would honestly admit they knew what blogging was really about. Take away the RSS feeds and too often one is still looking at a "poster" site, packed with photographs, extracts from speeches delivered elsewhere, endorsements from "the great and the good", and destined to disappear or gather dust if the candidate fails to win through.

What this creates is a ghostly impersonality, when what would surely appeal more to voters is a feeling that a politician 'inhabits' the site, is watching and listening, is ready to respond honestly and frankly to questions and comments, and that the voice that responds really is that of the named politician, not that of a young acolyte. I don't want to discourage politicians from blogging, but when Mike refers it as being a "simple, efficient and effective means of engaging with [...] supporters", I think that misses the point of, and the seriousness of, the challenge - as well as being short of substantive evidence. The fact that supporters no longer need to fear email newsletters is a small prize indeed.

Blogging is a fine and worthy thing if you have a story to tell, want to explore ideas, resolve issues, crush bad arguments, and create links with other human-beings, but "politician blogging" is still in the Dark Ages. As is the 'new technology' that Mike cites (hand-coded HTML and messed-up templates in 2007?). Perhaps only when the 'web' of the future is unrecognisable, keyboards pensioned-off, and Blogger.com long-forgotten, will ordinary people be able to fully engage in an online democracy. I don't know (to use another predictable historical reference) what the "Great Leap Forward" is going to be, or how we're really going to make this democratic vision work and re-engage a disillusioned electorate, but (a) there has to be that leap, (b) YouTube clips sure as hell isn't it, (c) whatever it is, Nick Robinson will be telling us about "the mood amongst backbenchers" instead, while (d) Bloggers4Labour is as keen - on your behalf - as anyone to make it happen. We can almost touch it.

Aside: I notice Iain Dale has picked up on Mike's post. Read the comments, if you like your generalisations about "writers on the left since Orwell" broad and sweeping. And stupid. There are some nice touches from the left, though.

Update: Some sites I could have mentioned favourably: the serious-minded Ministerial blogs (David Miliband; the DWP's Pensions Reform, and Welfare Reform blogs), and My Society. Over to you, now.

2020 Vision - 2 comments

I once published a bleating post that, rather than stating explicitly what my concern was, ended up sheepishly calling for "a debate" on said issue, thus avoiding having to express my own view, dodging criticism from one side or the other, and consequently failing to frame or inform the debate in any way.

Just like this, in other words. OK, that's harsh - some people do nothing else, and who can honestly say they haven't pulled this trick once in a while? If anyone had indeed taken up my call on those terms, they'd have found it a pretty unfulfilling experience. For one thing, how can anything be resolved if every view is valuable, as good as any other, there are no wrong answers, and no prospect of the hypothesis (supposedly) under discussion being applied in the real world?

This only worries people who aren't interested in answers, or in truth.

Anyway, back to 2020 Vision, launched today, and backed by Charles Clarke, Alan Milburn, and several Labour MPs and Lords. I'd certainly class it as well-meaning (but helpful?), and there are some good sections in the various launch statements, but here are some of my issues with it:

It's yet another web-site, professionally executed, upon which a fair amount of money will have been spent, but developed in secret, and launched upon the world without any clear idea of its place, its role, its competitors, and so on.

We have blogs (in the UK) by the million, we have sites produced by professional think-tankers, plus endless talks and pamphlets. Can we really expect another site seeking "progressive answers" to find a niche, rather than distracting energy and attention from others? Like Progress, for example, or Compass (aka the Programme for a New Swedish Century - only kidding, guys).

Haven't we reached the limits of the comments-box model of democracy?

You only need to see a small selection of the comments at 2020 - or indeed any high-profile political discussion site - to realise that:

• The motives of commenters are probably evenly distributed from helpful and positive at one extreme, to downright mischievous at the other, with a good range of pedants and grandstanders throughout. Some sifting has to be done.
• People are wrong, illogical, incoherent, and inconsistent about so much. Comment boxes aren't good environments for arguing to a conclusion, minds are closed, and it's embarrassing to have it shown that you're wrong.

Ultimately commenters bear no responsibility for the policies they advocate, and those they shoot down. Talk is cheap and easy, and without solving this problem, these web-sites and the noisy debates they produce seem to me to be a complete dead-end for democracy. I don't think it matters whether a million people leave comments, and Tony Blair is at the other end, scribbling ideas down on a pad as they seep through - without involving people directly in the making and application of policies that affect them, in a decentralised way, the problem of alienation between politician/provider and citizen will remain, and people will continue to be moderately disgruntled about their lives and expectations. This sort of politics has to die.

Perhaps economics has the answers we're looking for?

Update (March 1st). A large collection of articles on the same theme.