Democratic Integrity: Meet the Leaders with Unlock Democracy

[@michaelsinclair2510]

A good discussion - thank you !

[@radixbigtent]

Chat history: 18:05:26 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmitted question from George Sean Does it not make absolute sense to stop MPs having second jobs to improve our democracy? 18:05:55 From Rebecca Warren : What (if anything) is the significance of the PR vote this week? 18:05:59 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmitted question from Jennifer Bassett: How to make young people understand that democracy is the least bad form of government, and that only by engaging with the often flawed democratic processes will they prevent a slide into more authoritarian forms of government? 18:06:24 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Tom Bell What do the panel think of the descriptors, "post-trust" and "post-trust" era, and do they feel there is room for "post-honesty" in the narrative? 18:06:58 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Cally Harrison: It has never been easy to influence government - but we have to fend off various corporate lobbyists - what do we do as NGOs, activists, charities, CICs etc. 18:07:25 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Owen Morgan: Is there a risk that proposals for a proportionally representative electoral system, would result in a dangerous level of representation for extremist or fringe parties? 18:07:54 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmit from Alicia Hull When our representative democracy has failed us so badly, isn't it the duty of citizens to develop an economy and participatory system of government which fits the unstable conditions we now have? Isn't this job too big a for party politics? Isn't it time for a national government of unity to act ason a war fitting? 18:08:21 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmit from John Newham: Given the size of the government’s majority in the House of Commons how can electoral reform be best promoted? 18:08:33 From Rebecca Warren : Reacted to "Presubmit from John ..." with 👍 18:08:45 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from John Cummings: Marching through the streets of London as a protest is singularly inefficient and ineffective. What sorts of consultation procedures could we build in to ensure that campaign voices are actually heard and responded to by government? 18:09:08 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Marisha Ray What outcomes have you achieved in this field in the last month, the last six months and the last ten years to improve the racial justice delivered by democracy? Given the rising tide of racial injustice and your own rate of tackling it when will racial injustice result in the UK no longer being a democracy? (It's for all of them) 18:09:28 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Martin Rayner: You talk about parliament keeping government democratic. How do you make parliament for democratic and answerable to the people of this country? 18:09:54 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmit from Mary Southcott How can we change our political culture from winner takes all, adversarial, binary, and who or what would benefit? 18:10:17 From Georgiana Pike : Presubmit from Tony Troughton-Smith Doesn't the topic as framed beg the question "is it possible to protect something that doesn't exist?" It's a bit like discussing protecting the Tasmanian tiger or the wooly mammoth! It appears to me that democratic integrity is something that we would like to defend, if only it existed, but I doubt it really ever has. We must define it and install it before it can be defended. 18:10:40 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Pat Armstrong Democracy is under threat from extremists of all shapes and sizes all over the world - it is rather like the 1930s in that respect. How can we defend democracy and avoid a possible repeat of the horrors of the 1940s? (In my view we need to make the majority of people's votes count and have Proportional Representation, our current FPP system is only making people feel unrepresented and angry - our Parliaments seem to be won by a minority of voters in reality - it is so worrying. It is even more worrying as ask any party out of power and they make encouraging remarks about Proportional Representation - but get them in power and they seem to have amnesia. Awful - and is desperately worrying for the future as the more discontented people there are around, the more they listen to extremists). 18:11:05 From Vicky Seddon : Yw 18:11:18 From Georgiana Pike : Pre-submit from Pauline Fox-Reid Please include disabled people and develop a fairer community. Equality, diversity and inclusion. A open learning culture with coproduction. Not no customer service, no staff, no manager, broken tech/AI. No NHS appointments for years is unsafe. No mental health early help, no social care. Police fail, social services fail. Emergency services overwhelmed like hospital A&E. No GP action, no diagnosis, no referrals, digital exclusion. Preventable deaths. The law needs updating and government needs to stop overcharging the public. Statutory services are not supplied yet paid for. Benefits inadequate. Neet increasing. Homeless, armed forces and veterans ignored. Gender equality. Education badly needs education. No sen, no safeguarding, no action, no EHCP from birth, no accessibility, too many barriers. No common sense. Health first policies and compulsory national training to stop the post code lottery. No excuse for chronic neglect even 18:11:21 From Georgiana Pike : Cont…before covid and economic crisis. Stop crime, fraud, cover up, no compensation and protect UK citizens. Safe housing, transport, infrastructure, essential services to live in peace. Green spaces and protect environment by stopping pollution. 18:11:50 From Vicky Seddon : But why organiser stopped it? 18:12:44 From Vicky Pryce : is it fair for politicians- Starmer did it himself today- to blame civil servants as Gove and J Rees-Mogg and Maude have done before? if you make the trust deficiency to also cover civil servants then surely we are lost.. 18:13:06 From Sarah Vaughan : Is there a link to the White paper? 18:17:02 From Michael Shaw : To what extent is the lack of trust, dishonesty, disengagement etc. better or worse in the UK when compared to similar democracies? 18:17:04 From Tricia Scott : I agree. I just don’t think Starmer gets it 18:18:18 From Jamie Athill : Does the panel think that our political parties are equal in their iniquity? 18:22:46 From Tricia Scott : They may be better chaos, but they’re rubbish communicators and perceptions matter 18:25:53 From Sarah Vaughan : Suggestions for dealing with donations from Richard Murphy: www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/12/02/will-labour-rise-to-the-challenge-from-musk/ 118:28:44 From Marisha Ray : Populism is driven by our exclusion of the people 18:29:18 From Adrian Phillips : why is none of this a priority for our politicians? retail politics (and immigration) is the only thing they will talk about. Does this lack of interest reflect, or shape public concern? 18:30:03 From Tricia Scott : Plenty of tech bros would like a monarchy type system in the US. I don’t know if that includes musk but it wouldn’t surprise me. Look up Curtis Yarvin

[@radixbigtent]

Chat history continued: 18:30:18 From Andrew Houseley : Hmm. Lethargy behind malevolent intent. The paternalism (albeit highly distrustful of the British people and determined to keep power away from us) of the old British establishment has been usruped by bad actors. Yes they are/were clapped out. 18:31:38 From Tricia Scott : Social media. People being brainwashed by disinformation 18:33:43 From Owen Morgan : Citizen's Assemblies are a good idea as a precursor to regional devolution in England. 18:34:03 From Kerry Setterfield : Reacted to "Citizen's Assemblies..." with 👍 18:34:55 From Sarah Vaughan : Reacted to "Citizen's Assemblies..." with 👍 18:35:07 From Jamie Athill : I prefer FPTP. It is not difficult to find out about one’s candidates in a general or local election and one can form a comparative judgement on them. Who picks the candidates in PR? 18:35:10 From Bob Gillespie : Surely Citizens Assemblies whose membership would be chosen by sortition must play a key part in democratic decision-making? 18:39:28 From Jamie Athill : I live in Norfolk: I understand that the proposal is to merge our county and district councils into unitary councils, not disband the districts and just leave us with the county council. 18:40:15 From Sarah Vaughan : See Sam Freedman’s paper: www.labourtogether.uk/all-reports/public-service-reform-and-devolution and his booke Failed Stated is excellent 18:40:16 From Graeme Watts : Replying to "I live in Norfolk: I..." Yes I agree I live in Suffolk. 18:40:59 From Tricia Scott : This is a great meeting! Do they happen regularly? 18:43:15 From Georgiana Pike : For anyone new to Radix Big Tent, these Meet the Leaders events happen once a month, sometimes more often 18:43:36 From Tricia Scott : Reacted to "For anyone new to Ra…" with 👍 18:44:47 From Bob Gillespie : Isn't it time to consider ending the system whereby all of those participating in decisions affecting our lives must be elected, must be members of a political party and must be endorsed by a political party? If "democracy" means "people power", and if communication is now far easier in the age of electronic messaging, surely we need far more involvement of us, the people! 18:44:53 From Vicky Pryce : People also feel that local democracy doesn't work either as local councils do 'consultations' and then often just ignore the results. And there appears to be a growing belief in government at present that maybe we devolve decisions to too low a local level, with people making decisions that are often not based on evidence( or local feeling) and where unintended consequences are ignored 18:45:50 From Rebecca Warren : What is a "big" majority? 18:45:53 From Anni Johnson : Replying to "For anyone new to Ra..." www.radixuk.org.uk for updates or twitter @radix_uk bluesky @radixuk.bsky.social 18:48:12 From Jamie Athill : Over the years, I’ve found councillors quite receptive, but one has to be realistic: you need to drum up a groundswell of support; the issue has to be achievable; you need to pitch it at their capabilities (not always great) etc. Also, of course, they don’t have much support or time - by definition, being a councillor is often not their main job. 18:48:56 From Graeme Watts : Reacted to "Over the years, I’ve..." with 👍 18:50:06 From Sophie Cheadle : Follow our next events: radixuk.org/events/ 18:50:27 From Tricia Scott : HOW to get the message out to the public is a huge challenge. GB News tv channel is bigger than sky news now, and that excludes social media. Right wing media is ascendant and huge financial backers. My worry is the Starmer is starting to pander to that 18:51:54 From Kerry Setterfield : Reacted to "HOW to get the messa..." with 👍 18:57:55 From Sarah Vaughan : Danny Sriskandarajah has written a book Power to the People: www.hive.co.uk/Product/Danny-Sriskandarajah/Power-to-the-People--Use-your-voice-change-the-world/29917721 18:58:27 From Tricia Scott : Dial up educating kids in schools about critical thinking and how to recognise disinformation- we need to be thinking ahead 18:58:42 From Kerry Setterfield : Reacted to "Dial up educating ki..." with 👍 18:58:53 From Sarah Vaughan : Replying to "Dial up educating ki..." 👍 19:01:29 From Tricia Scott : This needs to capture crypto 19:01:56 From Marisha Ray : Reacted to "This needs to captur..." with 👍🏾 19:02:27 From Marisha Ray : @Tricia Scott the Crypto conventional currency transition is important 19:02:39 From Vicky Pryce : great event! thank you!! 19:02:51 From Vicky Seddon : Thank you! 19:02:57 From Graeme Watts : Reacted to "Thank you!" with 👍 19:02:59 From Tricia Scott : Thank you so much. I’m so grateful to have discovered this 19:03:03 From Rebecca Warren : Thank you! 19:03:09 From Jo Steele : Thank you all for a very informative and wide ranging discussion. I look forward to seeing the white paper 19:03:18 From Kerry Setterfield : Thank you 19:03:20 From Marisha Ray : Thank you! Very good to see your events list too 19:04:14 From Tricia Scott : Reacted to "@Tricia Scott the Cr…" with 👍 19:04:39 From Sophie Cheadle : Thank you!