The NPF’s programme only mentions the digital economy once, and this is to promise more speed, everywhere it can go. There are two internal pressure group style swarms/groups/initiatives.
The first is launched by the front bench incubated if not commissioned by the impressive Chi Onawaruh MP, currently shadow spokesperson for the Cabinet Office. This has it’s home at this site, so they’ve done well to get the name, you’d think that HMG would have got that although the fact it’s not .gov.uk is a clue. Chi publicised the initiative at in an article at Labour List called How can we make Digital Government work better for everyone?. The site shows a great deal of thought has been undertaken in launching this site.
The second initiative is @LabourDigital, which has a web site, http://www.labourdigital.org, and a now familiar New Labour bit bucket crowd sourcing site. In this case, it’s an email address! I have just subscribed so let’s see how proactive they are. The also have, I think, a Google+ profile. It takes some detective work to find out and the last post is Nov 2013.
The launch took place at Google’s London Campus and the key speakers were Martha Lane Fox, Lord Parry Mitchell and John McTernan which I attended and met some jolly interesting people, you know who you are. The launch was flagged/reinforced by the following articles,
- at Labour List, The Whitehall machine isn’t up to the job. Labour must crowdsource by John McTernan. who points at,
- Lord Parry Michell’s Labour List article on the Digital Divide, who also talks about VC funding and the disruptive nature of the internet to historic hierarchies
- and Theo Blackwell, on of Labour Digital’s founders, from North London reviews the work of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills on the Future of Work
- the launch was trailed at Labour Uncut in an article by Jonathan Todd, “Welcome to the Brave New World”, This is well worth reading as it addresses not just the relatively narrow policy area of digital policy governance but also global macro economic policy as does the one comment.
I have made this a wiki site article, because I may need to extend it as my ideas develop, certainly the Review will take some thought.
Prag Rad are running a Digital top of the Manifestoes event on 13th May 2014
ooOOOoo
Having spent some time thinking about the EDRi charter, I have come to the conclusion we need the following slogans/policies
- Public Money buys Public Domain (or maybe a copyleft right)
- Law must be Transparent, the regulator’s code must be free
- A fair copyright term, it can’t all be enclosed forever
During Corbyn’s second leadership battle, he commissioned/received a digital manifesto, mirrored here… which was critiqued by Paul Bernal. I felt that Paul’s critiques were about right and that it is suggested that Richard Barbrook had been very influential in its genesis; he was present at its launch. I feel that it ignores the collective thinking that has occurred around the EFF/ORG about how basic internet regulation must defend the citizens abilities to express themselves on the internet as poitical actors. This involves defending the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of research, a fair trial & fair access to culture. I need to read some of Barbrook’s stuff, but his breakthrough work is 20 years old, and even the Californian Ideology is over 10 years old. (Not to say that his political predictions aren’t coming through, it’s just I question if his proposed political response remains valid and sufficiently comprehensive).
This whole page needs reorganising, the 2014 content needs to be moved into commnts, and the 2016/17 content moved to the main page.