I was delighted to be present at the Nominet awards http://nia.nominet.org.uk/winners/2012 in the Saatchi Gallery last night with Beccy Allen and Michael Raftery from Hansard. Photograph here: http://nia.nominet.org.uk/galleries/2012?page=0%2C9
We were in the last group – Online Public Services and Information – the short listed organisations were read out and then the runner up announced. With baited breath we waited and then the announcement: ‘The winner is the Hansard society with Lords of the Blog’.
It was a well deserved victory for the Hansard Society, Beccy and Michael – and, of course, all our bloggers and our respondents.
A big thank you to all – it puts us firmly on the map!
The competition must have been very poor;
“bated” breath” is the normal educated-English saying (and writing);
as for the other “educator” (Beccy Allen) whose Hansard title includes “citizenship educator”
how in the Real Many-Layered-‘world’-of-English-speaking PPeoples
has she ever qualified to be call;ed “good information giver/sharer/leader/’educator’ ?
———-
Maybe Lord Soley (and cliquites) should self-re-educate
this perhaps puts his few (far up there above all levels of Thne People cliquery) firmly on
a
map
but certainly does not any of it nor of them-in-it upon
The Map
of good and honestly-argued two-way democratic communications.
Kind words from Milesjsd as ever. Surprising how long you spend on this awful blog really…
Well, lets hope it continues in the same way it has over the years and grows an even broader vein. It is, after all, the heartbeat of democracy when every man can truly be in it together.
It is extraordinary how organisations invent awards, and then award them to themselves, amidst huge competition.
What a great quote Maude – it should go into the dictionary of quotes!
How kind of you, Lord Soley, thank you.
This is a “little read blog” according to all those who quote something.
The simple fact is that whatever one’s level, calling, mission, or lifestyle
we need to Agree a trustworthy & sustainworthy Common Civilisation Purpose and Constitution,
under which we can
and may
all participate
in democratic dialogue and problem-solving
as Maude has said above
and which all appear to subscribe
(including I think both the Beccies and the milesjsds)
“..The heartbeat of democracy is when every man can truly be in it together (…)”
To Beccy Allen, Lord Soley and all others–
including Maude Elwes, Twm O’r Nant,Milesjsd etc.
I have always thought this blog extraordinary. It does what ought to be done far more often but is not. Congratulations to all who make it what it is…
And who is to say that this blog is not the ‘butterfly’ whose flapping wings have caused the ‘hurricane’ which blew away the ‘programme motion’ from being put to the vote in an ‘other place’ !!!
@Bedd Gelert:
I wonder?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/10/government-abandons-lords-reform-programme-motion_n_1661987.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Ta, FWSIII
do you over-there also use the little social saying
“half-a-loaf is better than no bread” ?
MilesJSD,
Longer version “Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all”…
We have some 63 million democratic subjects; so I wonder what percentage are democratically-participating
in this Lords of the Blog site ?
and I’ve looked for similar sites but found none
only sites like Lord Norton’s which are owner-centric.
So we have far less than half-a-loaf, and percentage-wise this LOTB site, as both unique and imperfect as it appears to be, may well be only as a single breadcrumb;
and no other such reasonably genuine breadcrumb-sites are available to the serious democratic citizens, and surely there must at least one million such, among the General Public having affordable access to a computer ?
———-
Another sense of “loaf” may spring to mind, perhaps:
not
that the red-seat House has more ‘loafers’ in it than the Commons green-seat chamnber;
but that
democratic-participation-wise more than 60 million UK residents are non-participant;
abrogators,
‘democratic-loafers’ –
if you can see my point.
MilesJSD,
I thought of including the second meaning of loaf in my reply to your reply to a somewhat different effect. Participation is a complicated matter. However, here the town hall meeting may be fairly common (I have attended many) but a blog discussion is not. However, I will say that in my case Beccy Allen has responded on behalf of Baroness Deech, Lord Soley, Lord Norton, and Baroness Murphy have all entered into dialogue with me. Lord Hylton responded to me once in a single sentence with a couple of others and I may be missing someone. That would leave a handful of Peers who have not responded to any of my comments on posts (there are surely some but how many my memory does not assure me of entirely). Such posts without interactivity after the initial postbut with commenter interaction exists in many political formats in the world. It is the next step taken by a number of Peers posting here which is distinctive….
Congratulations to the participants, the lords and members of the hansard society to have made the blog a substantial one which has been rewarded as such. I do extend my wishes that it should continue to move into such a smooth trend allowing friendly exchanges and debates to be carried out.Hope that the communication skills of all the participants continue to be as rich as it is, allowing the sharing of views to be successfully passed . Thankyou to everybody and to the hansard society to have made this blog a “famous one”.
God bless the United Kingdom. God save the Queen.
Nazma FOURRE