Mark Reckons is bowing out. Who can blame him.

Mark Reckons has decided to finish blogging. Who can blame him.

Blogging especially at Marks level becomes very demanding and can take over your life. The media can call you at any time of night, you can be asked questions about the patry when your not an MP. You get dragged into long twitter discussions. You have to keep your blog up to date with regular comment conduct research which takes time and eats into your private life. This the only way to keep your blog popular. It can become an addiction. So I can't blame him for stopping.

Mark setup Bracknell blog and has helped me out on many many occasions. Mark is also an active member of the local Liberal Democrats and we have been knocking on doors together during his local election campaigns and at other times. I really enjoy Marks passion for his subjects and his vast political knowledge.

I do remember Marks blog gaining populaity very quickly after this post in May 2009Has our electoral system contributed to the MPs expenses scandal? This analysis was linked to and referred to by MP's even on Question Time. Also in May 2009 Andrew Mackay's now famous puplic meeting happened Reaction to Andrew MacKay's meeting in Bracknell last night. During this time Mark shot up from Wikio ranking of 135 in politics to 55 in June and then 17 in August. A level he has maintained up to 13 today.

Mark has also been a big campaigner for electral reform and drugs reform (I am supporting this Motion for drugs impact assessment at Lib Dem Autumn Conference which Mark is supporting.

I for one will really miss Mark as will the Liberal Democrats. Although I still hope to see him soon at the Liberal Democrat conference. I wish Mark well for he is brilliant at whatever he does as his blogging and House of Comments podcasts demonstrate.

Mark Reckons is the whole and only reason why I took up blogging as I was only meant to help out on this blog. So I have him to thank your allowing my voice to be heard.

Mark was as I remember Jennie Rigg tweeting that Mark Reckons was becoming the Liberal Democrat Iain Dale. I think he did in all the best ways.

Helping out with Mark Reckons Live BBC Question Time Chat

I will be hosting Mark Reckons Live BBC Question Time Chat for at least part of the show while Mark travels back from the LBC studios.

Do come and join me.

Podcast debut on House of Comments

On Tuesday I made my House of Comments debut with Walaa Idris Conservative Blogger, Tracey Cheetham Labour Blogger at A View From the Public Gallery, Mark Thompson Lib Dem Blogger at Mark Reckons and Stuart Sharpe of Sharpes Opinion.

I managed to stumble my way through, The subjects of the Queens speech, The removal of the Parliament Square protest, Diane Abbott running for the Labour Leadership and the Times Newspaper pay wall.

Please do go and have a listen at http://houseofcomments.com/

Marks experiences as a first time council election candidate

Mark Thompson who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Owlsmoor has blogged on this experiences of standing as a candidate, Please do have a read My experiences as a first time council election candidate.

I would like to thank Mark for doing so much work trying to win this seat and running the join blogs. I would also like to give my best wishes to all the activists and candidates I meet at the count from all the parties and wish everyone luck in whatever election they are standing in next.

People from all the parties may not all agree on how we can improve the local area or our national problems. However I do feel that at a local level all the activists I meet are passionate and all well meaning. This is just politics. After all there would be no democracy if we all agreed all the time on everything.

By-Election In Owlsmoor Includes Mark Reckons

A Borough Council By-Elections in the Ward of Olwsmoor will be held at the Owlsmoor Community Centre from 7am to 10pm at Yeovil Road on 25th February. This by-election has be called because of the the sad death of Councillor Ray Simonds.

The candidates standing in for the position of Borough Councillor are;

Norman William Bowers - Conservative
Peter Martin Forbes - Green Party
Guy Alexandar Gillbe - Labour Party
Mark James Thompson - Liberal Democrats

And this election also includes Town Councillor;

Wallington Philip - Conservative
Peter Martin Forbes - Green Party
Guy Alexandar Gillbe - Labour Party
Ian James Simmons - UK Independence Party
Mark James Thompson - Liberal Democrats


I find it odd that UKIP are only contesting the town council, did they fill in the wrong form? Why not both seats?

Interestingly both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party did not contest this seat in May 2007 only one UKIP and one Independent stood (in a seat which requires two councillors). To find results for the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party you have to go back to May 2003 when the Liberal Democrats received 2% more votes than the Labour Party and each Conservative received 32% of the vote.

Results for both years are as follows;

May 2007
David James Worrall
- Conservative 754 37% Elected
Raymond Simonds - Conservative 716 35% Elected
David William Vousden - Independent 347 17% Not elected
George William Barrand - UK Independence 245 12% Not elected

May 2003
David James Worrall - Conservative 582 32% Elected
Richard Hugh Thomas - Conservative 580 32% Elected
David Mohammed - Liberal Democrat 348 19% Not elected
Brian David Wilson - Labour 309 17% Not elected

Of added interest in this local election is that top Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson (see Mark Reckons) is standing in this election. So expect some extra insight and blogs from Mark on running for a borough Council election. It will also be worth seeing if a national blogger effects a local election. This is not the first time a top political blogger has been a candidate in Bracknell, Iain Dale came 3rd in the Conservative PPC Primary, which was won by Phillip Lee.

So all that remains to be said is good luck too all the candidates. I also think its a good and brave thing to put yourself up for election, to represent the local people on the council and indeed to be involved in local democracy.

Question Time Live Chat is Back

Question Time is being covered as ever by Mark Reckons here in a live chat. I will be there as Dazmando.

Today we both went to the Reading David Cameron Direct event in Reading and I expect we will also be ‘Chatting’ about this as well.

I plan to blog on this later in response to Mark Reckons forth coming blog on the David Cameron Direct event.

Do please click on the link above and join in or just read our posts while watching.

Does The Tory Party Have Its Own Green House Effect

I think the recent Climate Gate email debacle and the prominence of columnist in a number of papers who have written about their climate change scepticism as well as the growing belief that 'this is a left wing' conspiracy about control and taxation could be building problems for the Tory party. This problem I believe could become as big for them as say the EU issue.

As I read a while ago Mark Reckons blog 'Are Tory bloggers out of step with membership on the environment?' I think this scepticism is shown up in the bloggers and indeed top Tory blogger Iain Dale while not claiming to be a sceptic has posted a number of articles 'Trust Us' Say Climate Change Scientists and Is the Climate Change Consensus Fracturing? And Indy Tries to Split Tories Over Climate Change as he believes the debate is not over. It certainly does not appear to be.

Also some Tories(Oliver Letwin and Iain Duncan Smith, sit on the advisory body) appear to be supporting the dossier issued by the European Foundation which can be viewed on the Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian blog here which gives 100 reasons why climate change is not man made. This was raised today by Jackie Smith and was not answered by William Hague (I have to add that this was a low jab at the Tories and after all its supposed to be Prime Ministers Questions).

On BBC Five Live today David Cameron said, "The way I would argue with the climate change sceptics is say look. If someone said to you that there is a 75 percent chance of your house burning down, even though 25 percent is quite a big number wouldn’t you take out some insurance, wouldn’t you take steps to try and stop it from happening? So even if your sceptical, even if you don’t think there a 100 percent certainty, isn’t it right to take some steps to protect against what could be calamitous for our planet for our children and as its moving quite fast for us as well”. So it’s very clear where David Cameron is on this subject.

I’m not discussing the merits of climate change here. I just wondered if these discussions have caused more Conservative members to become more sceptical. If so then given the Tory Party leadership are firmly behind they’re being man made climate change. Does this mean that this issue could also become a dividing line with in the Party?

Just by way of a note I noticed this 50 reasons why global warming isn't natural on the Short Sharp Science (New Scientist Blog), thanks to a Tweet from AdrianWindisch of the Green Party.

My idea for POWER2010

Mark Reckons has tagged me in a meme after he in turn was tagged by Guy Aitchison from OpenDemocracy has tagged Mark in a meme asking for his big idea for POWER2010 (which Mark has blogged about).

As taken from the OpenDemocracy blog I think explains the purpose of this post best

‘Power2010's call for the public's idea for how we change politics has generated a fantastic response. In truth, when we started I expected around 500 ideas - 1000 at best. But just over a month in and we've already received over 2000, ranging from more traditional reformers' demands like fixed term parliaments and votes at 16, to the more unexpected and imaginative like a House of Lords made up of charitable representatives.

A key part of this of course is having an open and intelligent debate on the kind of democracy we want - the very thing the political class is so keen to deny us. You can check out some of the different ideas on the Power2010 blog where a lively discussion is taking place. The deadline for submitting ideas is November 30th and before then I'm keen to sound out some fellow bloggers to hear their ideas and see if we can't provoke some good online debate and deliberation.’

My Submitted idea's are;

1. Electronic portable devices with remote log-ins. Would it not be more efficient if MP’s can vote away from the main chamber and also attend some debates remotely. As it is, the chamber is not big enough to hold all the MP’s, therefore being able to attend remotely if only to hear the debate would be a great help for both MP’s time and use of chamber space. This device would still record the voting details for the record and this would be loaded to say the public whip website instantly to the MP’s record on votes. Plenty of devises can do this like Palms or Blackberries.

2. MP’s should have a pre-appointed office staff and therefore don’t need to claim expenses for an office. Also they should be allowed to employ their partners as we want to keep families to stay together and being an MP does require that your away from the family home more than most jobs.

3. I would be happy for the number of MP’s to be reduced if a fairer system of voting was introduced. I would opt for Single Transferable Vote but this should be debated and reviewed.

4. Reduce the power of the Whips. I believe major reform is required in this area. MP’s need a degree of independence. For example the accommodation whip is just not right, taking revenge or rewarding people by deciding on what room a MP can use just seems to hold them back from an MP’s important business. A reform here will allow meaningful debate in parliament without fear of the chief Whips.


There are many wholesale changes needed but the idea is to just give a few of my ideas.

I now tag the following 5 bloggers to put forward and submit their ideas:

Alvin Finch Bracknell Councillor and blogger

Oranjepan of Readings list and not yet out of the woods

Adrian Windisch of Green Reading

Constantly Furious

And Jennie Rigg aka SB who is a proud Lib Dem Blogger.

Live chat on Question Time Join Me

Normally I don't promote Mark Reckons Question Time live chat apart from last week when I was guest hosting as Mark was away.

However this one is the big one, the hyped one and the one with the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin. This story has been all over the news the for a while now thanks to Peter Hain's claim that BBC could face legal action if it lets Nick Griffin appears on Question Time. For what its worth I think the leader of the BNP should be on Question Time as he is democratically elected.

I expect a lot of booing and hissing and will the BBC beable to keep out the Unite Against Fascism protestors. Its going to be interesting, so please do join me at Mark Reckons Live chat tonight from 10.30pm http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/10/bbc-question-time-live-chat-22nd.html

BBC debate http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8319596.stm

Bracknell Primary Is Throwing up Some Questions

1. Why was Councillor Paul Bettison, leader of Bracknell Forest Borough Council has been excluded from the shortlist for the Primary? Or any other local councillor see here.

2. Was this an open Primary or an all ticketed caucus, you had to register and despite being told that it was not a ticketed event you was provided with a ticket?

3. Why were there no local candidates in the Primary (ok Phillip Lee is almost local)?

4. How many members of the attendees were not local conservatives? It’s quite hard for anyone to take up a Saturday afternoon for any event. The hall was not full and I do not have any numbers of attendees. I did see alot of conservative tickets (they were blue others were white).

5. Why was this not done as a postal vote? Was this just down to cost?

6 .Why was there confusion with using the ballet boxes? I never got to use them in the end. All tickets had to be handed to a Steward. I believe that nothing underhand was happening after all there is no reason for this plus I could see the count from the door. It’s just the ballet box could have been used and numbered tickets provided, for extra insurance.

7. Why were we not able to simply number the candidates and put them in order on our first voting slip? Would have been faster plus the first slip was printed in this format.

8. Why did the 3 women go out in the first few rounds? Iain Dale explains in this post that only 1 woman has won the last 7 open primaries.

9. Did Conservative HQ change the list of candidates?

10. Instructions were posted on the Tuesday before the event on the Saturday which included a question slip. Conservative members also had these details but their tickets were blue and not white. However attendees also had a question slip included in this pack which you had to get back to the Bracknell office by the Friday. How much time does this give you especially given the current postal problems?

Most Attendies I know did not get their tickets until the Thursday. Did the Conservative members get their information and question form sooner and therefore could they get their questions in on time? I didn’t even receive my documents for the event. I therefore couldn't ask my question and was unaware that I had to get it in before the day of the event.

11. Why do the conservatives use alternative vote* for voting selection at a primary but are not in favour of any change from First Past The Post at national elections? See Here.

12. Now there is this video on Mark Reckons blog which is posted by Dan Haycocks, who is campaigning for our current MP Andrew MacKay to pay back the money he appears to have over claimed or step down if he is not willing to do so.

This may all just be because this event is new and there were alot of CV's (near 200) sent into the Bracknell Conservatives. Some would have to go though the interview process. Maybe alot of the above is just down to learning pains but that is alot of questions.

If anyone has any answers please post the question number and the answer in the comments below.

*I have changed this line to alternative vote from proportional representation as it has been point out to me that this voting system can be “even less proportional”.

Does the Bracknell Primary Show the Conservatives as Inconsistent on Electoral reform?

There is an interesting take on the Bracknell Primary posted on Left Foot Forward by Mark Thompson on the link below.

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2009/10/bracknell-shows-conservatives-are-inconsistent-on/

It’s about how the electoral system at the primary, strongly resembled the Alternative Vote type of proportional representation. I guess the local party believed that this was a fair system when there are a limited number of voters even though the conservatives support first past the post for general elections.

Everything you may want to know about Proportional Representation Voting systems can be found here at the Electoral Reform Society

BBC Question Time Live Chat - 15th October 2009 At Mark Reakons

Between Telling and attending the Hanworth By-Election count I will be running/hosting Mark Reckons BBC live Question Time chat from 10.30pm here while he is away in New York.

The panel will includes;

Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson

Conservative shadow immigration minister Damian Green

Lib Dem shadow transport secretary Norman Baker

UKIP leader Nigel Farage,

Journalist and broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell.


Come and Join me here

http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/10/bbc-question-time-live-chat-15th.html

Blog v Newspapers Debate from a Newbie‏

There is an ongoing debate between the columnist/papers and bloggers on the benefits of blogging over newspaper columns (with regards to political blogging), Mark Reckons attended a debate on this very subject (detail here). As a newbie to blogging I find this intellectual debate somewhat self facing as the wider public properly doesn’t give a stuff.

I only recently discovered blogs when Mark Thompson editor of Mark Reckons joined our LibDem local party here in Bracknell. I now write for the Bracknell blog and I am very much learning how to do this as I go along. I recently realised that what you really need is contacts so you can break meaningful stories, which I am trying to build. It’s important to research your argument as you may find that you’re wrong and research brings meaning and enlightenment to your blog and makes your articles far more credible.

I have learnt a lot about writing which is very beneficial as im dyslectic (that word is just too hard). I have also learnt how important it is to know what you are writing/talking about. Researching for understanding, which has really helped me articulate myself better in general.

With regards to the debate there is a good argument on both side of the fence. Columnist are respected professionals who have a background in their subjects and the newspapers they work for have the power of investigative journalism and resource they can bring to bear on a story plus they get paid (although Boris thought that its chicken feed).

Bloggers vary much more from people in the know to people who are just very opinionated. Also some blogs are trying to offer a service and can be comment, news, a diary or a political mouth piece. Although blogs are generally politically aligned the bloggers do tend to refer to each other more than columnist do and do this across party lines. Bloggers are also happy to have a go at their own side. This must be a good thing.

What I like about blogs over columns is that you can comment on a story and the blogger will read and comment back. Comments can sometimes be as informative as the blog itself depending on the level of debate. It allows anyone to have a right to reply. This allows a conversation to develop which can develop the story further.

Blogs of course really come into there own when something is happening in the area of the blogger as was the case with Bracknell Blog when Andrew Mackay resigned or the excellent blogging by the Norfolk Blogger when the Norwich North by-election was in full swing. Blogs are just different I can’t see them taking over from newspapers or 24hour news but they can provide an insight into what is happening on the ground.

There should be room for both, the best blogs (those with good debate and enlightenment to the workings of politics in my view) there are bad blogs too but there readership will disappear. Columnists can blog too of course and their columns are often online and can be commented on. The problem for newspapers is that they need to find another way of making money, as money is required for some investigations as well as time.

I don't know what will actually happen in the future. I do want newspapers to survive with quality maintained but don't knock the blogs they are vibrant and interesting and here to stay. My suggestion to the columnists is if you can’t beat them then join them and blog too.