OK, so I’ve got a geeky fascination with the way local politics and decision making happens, and especially the way organisations use the web to communicate on quite local issues. If you have a look at the way political parties are working in Edinburgh, it’s pretty clear that some ‘get it’ more than others. It seems clear to me that in an age where increasing numbers of folk don’t know who lives in their tenement stair, but spend more time on-line than watching TV – there’s a real opportunity for local politics to happen on-line, rather than in committee meetings or street protests.

Whilst, the recent protests over the SNP/Lib Dem school closures clearly show that physical protest is vital – you can bet for sure that parents organised through emails and on the web. Here’s an example of a schools closures protest site. When you turn to see which political parties are making the most of this, I have to say it looks like Edinburgh Labour are the most organised on this front. An increasing number of their local councilors are on-line and they obviously understand the medium – as it says on Cllr Andrew Burns blog – ‘very brief comments as often as possible’. Something this blog can only aspire too. It’s interesting too that the Labour group seem quite at ease wih linking both to their elected colleagues ‘official blogs’ as well as other Labour leaning blogs which aren’t run by elected folk. Importantly, it would seem that people are given a free hand – individual people’s personalities, and political interests come through pretty well. This is refreshing, in that the local elecotorate is being spoon fed a transparently uniform party line.

If only the other local political parties were as organised as Labour. The SNP have a dedicated bunch of on-line supporters – but none that really seem to focus on Edinburgh issues. There is of course sites like North to Leith but these sites have a far broader perspective.

Similarly, the Greens really only have one local party page. It’s a shame, as a well run blog could really amplify the impact of their local councillors in the city. It’s also surprising given that a local Green blog ties in nicely to the ‘radical localisation’ that Greens are in favour of. The current site is horrible to navigate, impersonal in tone, and looks cheap and nasty. Given how easy it is to put together a decent looking site – the Greens need to sort it out – and I say this as a Green voter!

Given the poor profile of local SNP and Green politicians on-line it makes me wonder if this is anything to do with political experience. Could it be that the hardened politicians like Cllr Aitken and so on are more comfortable putting their innermost thoughts into the public domain – because they’ve been on the soap box for so long, and developed a correscpondingly thick skin? Going on-line as a politician isn’t always easy – the spat between Edinburgh sucks and Cllr Aitkens blog shows how nasty things can be…

Right time to get off the train now – so no time to look at the tories or the Lib Dems but who cares about them anyway?

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I didn’t vote for the SNP, but some of the things they’ve done are hard to argue against – free prescriptions for everyone for example.

However, the game they’re playing with the local authorities in order to push their agenda is an interesting one – and it seems like a high stakes one at that. Perhaps to clear the decks prior to the proposed ‘bonfire of the quangos’ the SNP have removed the conditions covering lots of the funding that the Scottish Executive gives the Local Authorities. In theory, this means that Local government has much more freedom to direct where money goes, and it also means that the SNP can do away with the pen pushers at the executive who checked that the local authorities were spending the ring fenced money correctly.

However, Ewan Aitken in his blog, points out that the SNP will only make money available to local authorities to freeze council tax if the councils agree to a concordat now, even though the SNP have not told local authorities how much they will receive in total yet, so this is a big  ask. What local authority, especially one not controlled by the SNP, would shackle itself to a no rise in council tax pledge, only to discover that the block grant from the Scottish government falls short? I wouldn’t, and it looks like Jenny Dawe won’t either.

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Well, Edinburgh Labour Councillor Andrew Burns thinks so. Now that the Scottish Greens have changed their policy after their recent conference – he thinks the numbers stack up. Shame that control over the voting system used to elect folk to Holyrood is devolved to Westminster.

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