UK's House of Lords Speaks To Voters Via YouTube, Blogs 109
PHPNerd writes "In a bold move to connect with the next generation of young British voters, the House of Lords has launched a YouTube video series that will detail what it does and make it more accessible to the younger generation. It accompanies an experimental blog in which various Lords write about political issues and can receive feedback from anyone around the world. The article quotes spokesman Owen Williams saying, 'We're trying to engage with younger people and people who may not be interested in politics. We looked at YouTube because it appeals to people outside the political elite.' Is this doomed to failure, or should more governments be doing something similar?"
The first blog posted today (Score:2)
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What the hell is wrong with flash? (Score:1)
Flash still sucks (Score:2)
Sure, for a time flash support wasn't too great with Linux
And still isn't. It eats lots of resources and creates instabilities inside Firefox because it runs in the same thread.
And it's for i386 only, at a time when 64bits processors are almost standard.
Thus forcing 64bits Linux users to either use an additional unsupported layer to adapt it into 64bits browser, or to switch back to a 32bits software.
There's no flash on the iPhone.
There's no flash on the PS3/Linux.
There's no flash on most PDAs.
There's no flash for anything else except i386. Not for any of the var
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Speaker blocks moves to put parliament on YouTube [computing.co.uk]
"Footage from the chamber and committee rooms are only available subject to a licence which is issued by the speaker.
Martin will not allow material to be available on web sites such as MySociety and YouTube for fear of manipulation, according to deputy commons leader Helen Goodman.
"The licence stipulates that material must not be hosted on a searchable web site and must not be downloadable," she said."
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What kind of website would they accept exactly? Only a near-inaccessible government archive, with no way to find what you're looking for?
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House of Lords Rap (Score:5, Funny)
We are the members of the House of Lords
And what we're laying down won't make you bored.
We debate the shit the House of Commons proposes,
But we ain't no rubber stamp like some people might supposes.
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'Cos I gonna ask the Hon. Member to give way
Whilst some fools be acting bent,
We ensure all legislation gets an independent review before receiving Royal Assent.
M.C. McGonnagal
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It's "the noble Lord", make sure you remember!
Re:House of Lords Rap (Score:4, Interesting)
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When Britain really ruled the waves,
In good Queen Bess's day,
The House of Peers made no pretense,
to intellectual eminence,
or scholarship sublime.
Yet Britain won its proudest bays,
in good Queen Bess's days.
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
as every child can tell,
the House of Peers throughout the war,
did nothing in par-tic-ular,
and did it very well.
Yet Britain set the world ablaze,
in Good King George's glorious days.
And while the House of Peers withholds,
its legislative hand,
And nobl
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May I be the first to say (Score:3, Funny)
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However, I'm guessing that this is expressedly prohibited by each members contract with their sponsoring corporation.
Re:politically incorrect (Score:1)
Tried it before (Score:5, Funny)
As someone from the US (Score:3, Funny)
Love,
American Nerd.
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- Hell's Grannies
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I would not only encourage young people in Britian to watch youtube, but to also have more tea parties.
I agree! We should throw the goods foisted on us with unfavourable trade treaties by those imperialist and aggressively repressive "foreigners" from the other side of the Atlantic into the harbour where they came ashore! No more shall the government of the United States of America transparently manipulate our government into pandering only to their interests, to the detriment of the loyal people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island!
....oh, that wasn't what you meant?
Constitutional Role (Score:3, Interesting)
"The fancy of the mass of men is incredibly weak; it can see nothing without a visible symbol, and there is much that it can scarcely make out with a symbol. Nobility is the symbol of mind. It has the marks from which the mass of men always used to infer mind, and often still infer it. A common clever man who goes into a country place will get no reverence; but the 'old squire' will get reverence. Even after he is insolvent, when every one knows that his ruin is but a question of time, he will get five times as much respect from the common peasantry as the newly-made rich man who sits beside him. The common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense. An old lord will get infinite respect. His very existence is so far useful that it awakens the sensation of obedience to a sort of mind - the coarse dull, contracted multitude, who could neither appreciate or perceive any other."
"we're cutting your net off for p2p, vote for us!" (Score:1, Offtopic)
The posturing was so obvious and stilted it wasn't funny.
such lines were spoken as---"you just want help getting to the seventh level in world of warcraft"
They might have thought it was a success but they came off sounding even less connected with the ipod generation than "series of tubes" Ted.
If they want to reach out to we, the younger generations, then they need to stop railing against a common, accepted, everyday activity for 99.9%
Re:"we're cutting your net off for p2p, vote for u (Score:4, Insightful)
I would argue that everybody should be represented in the house of Lords. And in general the people who are appointed have either held power or are well versed in 'speaking truth to power'. Together they make up a broad political cross-section of society that is largely driven by the priciples of science and law, it's quite amazing sometimes to sudenly hear a politican make sense and express doubt when they have been freed from the schackles of party policy. I would also argue that the US copyright regime and a large spontaneous US festival in the 60's should not be on top of their agenda.
IMHO setting up shop on youtube is an excercise in transperancy (others may see it as propoganda), either way there are plenty of old farts from the 60's like me who use it, and transperancy (or access to all propoganda's if you like) is always a GoodThing(TM). OTOH the second life thing sounds like an experiment with 'the new media' that was sold to someone without a clue, I would expect better from THoL.
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Re:UK's House of Lords Speaks To Voters Via YouTub (Score:2)
For some reason I have a sneaking feeling that we will have been better off BEFORE this "iConstitution"...
Re:Goodbye House of Lords (Score:5, Insightful)
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you know from my post that i'm american, but from what i've been reading on
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Still, my response to you is relevant
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Will it succeed? Depends on the execution... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they make it accessible by speaking plainly, relating the issues to how they affect young people, Britain, and the world, it might have a shot at moderate success. (particularly if they show it in schools)
In any event, if executed halfway decently, I believe they should be commended for trying, regardless of the outcome.
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Let's hope it does have a positive effect as too many youngsters do not have a clue about politics and either don't go and vote or go and vote for the one with the weirdest name / nicest colour badge etc.
Personally I use messenger to get my kids to come for their tea and it work
No rick rolling (Score:2)
They should use Slashcode! (Score:1)
Hopefully this is the first step in that direction.
I wonder if slash is up to the task of handling such contentious material? Politicians and their "offices" can be so viciously manipulative sometimes...
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What, more or less vicious and manipulative than people who are emotionally invested in free software, anti DRM, Microsoft hatred, Apple love .... ?
I totally agree that Slashcode should be used more widely for hosting debates. Wordpress really doesn't cut it, it just can't scale as well as Slashcode can.
That said, there are a couple of things to be wary of. One is that Slashcode has a few problems that for whatever reason have never been fixed. One is that the overrated/underrated mods shouldn't exist
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Sir Norman Fry (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ZO6w0rl6Y [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6eRIAA6mE [youtube.com]
they caould also ... (Score:1, Interesting)
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Brilliant idea!
"Furthermore, it will be illegal to Lord Byron sucks dick park on the street with your vehicle facing oncoming traffic..."
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The House of Lords (Score:5, Informative)
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The peer was the Earl of Cardigan.
The police largely got away with it, of course.
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Try Spitting Image again (Score:2, Informative)
The Royal Channel (Score:2, Interesting)
A little girl is losing faith in democracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Or rather, I wouldn't be surprised if one did.
The unelected house of lords appears to be contributing most of the good governance of the UK whilst the elected house of commons is contributing most of the crappy stuff.
If we can't fix our system of government (the main probably being we lack a proper head of state, leaving the head of government with excessive powers) then how can we convince younger generations that democracy is worth it?
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Personally, I think a strengthening of the Select Committee system is the way to go.... but that doesn't sound very sexy, does it?
OK, I also have a mad proposal for reform of The House of Lords, that I think would help, but would never be accepted
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Under your system, I think we would see a rush of "retirements" and a great many underhanded deals of the type "You elect me and I'll elect you".
If someone is known to be too much of a freethinker, NO ONE in the Commons (except the candidate himself) would wish him elected to a body that could thwart the Commons' will.
UK Loses out to the USA in awesomeness (Score:2)
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Oh they are titled are they? Oooooo, by a monarchy of the british empire. So lets see, this is a tough one, umm, lemme think, oh, I know, I want to be a lord, but I don't want to "self appoint" myself, hey, I'll ask my buddy joe monarch to do it. ya, that's the ticket. heck, all the little people out there will not catch on. And what is it with accepting a Monarchy? I mean common, to accept class status by blood? that is dark ages crap! It's bad enough we have a president thos *Thinks* he is a king,
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Firstly, the monarchy wield essentially no power, so that point is moot. Of course there are people who think we should get rid of them, and some of their arguments are fair enough, so I'll give you that one.
So far as the House of Lords goes, you seem to be thinking that "lord" means "deity". Maybe you've only heard the word being used to describe Jesus; I don't know. To British people however, it doesn't imply that we are treating these people like Gods and it carries no religious overtones, so calling so
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"Voters?" (Score:2)
This is a great idea. (Score:2)
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Re:"We lie cheat and steal... " (Score:5, Informative)
Some might say that this is a problem because it's not representative. However, unlike an elected body it's free to make decisions on their merit without the worry of being popular. i.e. it doesn't have to pander to the current tabloid whims.
Also, it has the advantage of having a large number of non-partisan members who aren't on the political party leash, many of which are experts in the fields of business, science and the law.
The main purpose of the House of Lords these days is to put a brake on all those stupid, popularist, knee-jerk bills the current encumbent party tries to force through. Of course, they don't like this and are hence trying to "reform" the house and make it weaker.
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Let's go with;
Firstly; rank and privilege are actually not respected by the majority here.
The British consitution, as it stands, establishes the supremacy of both Parliament as a whole and the Commons within Parliament. The English Civil War(War of Three Kingdoms), Act of Settlement and Glorious Revolution firmly cemented Parliament's control over the monarchy. The Commons controls the finance and inheritance of the Crown. The Crown retains the theoretical ability t
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Unfortunately, it also seems to lead to a rather nasty strain of eliteism. Check out this indictment of referendums [wordpress.com]. Yeah, I kid you not, the guy thinks referendums are on principle a bad idea because the result can depend on how you phrase the question.
To support this he uses the one of the weakest arguments I've seen for a long time - that based on "surveys" (uncited) if you ask people whether they want an elected second house, they say yes, and if you ask people if you want an expert and independent se
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Where are you from that the assumption is arrogant? I definitely live in the "sad but true" part of the world and would like to come there.
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Now, a House of Lords that was selected by an open lottery, rather than a hereditary one, would be an interesting idea. Maybe you'd require some level of educational attainment, say make it open to anybody with an adv
Re:"We lie cheat and steal... " (Score:5, Informative)
To be perfectly frank, at times the Lords is the only thing standing between us and yet another stupid, knee-jerk law that would do more harm than good. If you've been following UK news lately you'll have seen a number of instances of bad anti-terror laws being abused to do things including making sure families are in the right area for the school they want to send their children to to enforcing local rubbish disposal rules.
Oh, and none of the Lords are self-appointed; some inherited their titles from their parents, while these days most are awarded them by the government.
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Sock puppet: be my guest!
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"So the government gets to choose who will watch over the government?"
All the parties represented in the Commons put forward candidates for a Peerage in proportion to the number of seats they hold. They are often party politicians but not always -- for example Mary Warnock [wikipedia.org] was made a Baroness and Life Peer in 1984 after her work chairing the Committee of Enquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology. As a member of the House of Lords she has been instrumental in shaping the legislation that has helped m
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Re:"We lie cheat and steal... " (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be a troll, because only a troll could deliberately misunderstand the way the British Parliamentary system works so badly. Where's my (-1, Wrong) moderation option?
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To expand on this -- the British system of "constitutional monarchy" with House of Lords and House of Commons has been in existence and working fairly stably for over half a millennium. If it was such a terrible, terrible idea, and doomed to failure by neglecting the needs of the common man in favour of putting wealth and power in the hands of only a privileged few, one would expect that it would have been overturned by bloody revolution by now, wouldn't one?
I challenge you to name a country which has ha
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That's a challenge you can't meet, either. It has most definitely not been 500 years since the last major rebellion in the UK. The Glorious Revolution was in 1688 and there were continued uprisings from that up until the mid-18th century. And since that time, a large portion of the country has actually led a successful rebellion and formed a new
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In true democracy, there are no "populist" proposals. Either majority of people wants the proposal, and then it should be accepted, or majority doesn't want it, and then shouldn't. People can hear the expert opinion, but the final decision is theirs. If you don't like that, you don't like democracy, plain and sim
Re:"We lie cheat and steal... " (Score:5, Insightful)
They also tend to be rather better than the Commons in terms of serving the people (they have often voted against legislation that undermines civil liberties, for example), because they are far mroe independent from the executive.
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And the Commons votes to increase surveillance of people through cams.
The Lords opens its own doors to cams.
I mean isn't this a paradox?
The people who need NOT be concerned about people do the best for them. And the bastards that need to heed to people trample upon them and get re-elected.