Preparing for this weekend’s debate

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Preparing for this weekend’s debate

08.01.2010 // by Paul Senior

Over the course of this weekend's Deliberative Poll, several participants will be blogging on the POWER2010 site to share their thoughts and experiences debating the future of British democracy.

Paul Senior: Spent quite a bit of time Wednesday and Thursday evenings going over the info pack about the event. There's a lot in it and I can see this is not going to be an easy ride.

Very interesting set of topics - ideas from 4000 people on how we might change Britain's political system for the better, distilled into 58 suggestions.

Like a lot of people, I do think our system needs attention - many people are totally disengaged from the process, and feel alienated.

Then I looked up a bit about the background of POWER2010, the original Power Inquiry and also a look at Professor Fishkin's site to get a basic understanding of how the event is likely to work. Never heard of deliberative polling before.

Seems this is likely to be quite an unusual opportunity. I'm expecting to find a significant number and cross section of different people from around the country, and looking forward to some interesting discussions.

Good job I'd done a bit of swatting - I was invited onto Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning, to answer a couple of questions about how I came to be going to the event and what I expect from it (you can listen in at 08:51 here).

Thankfully it wasn't a contentious interview, James Naughtie was very polite.

All I'm worrying about now is the weather - I have to be on the train to London at 7.45 which is cool - I'm an early riser.

I am a bit worried about Sunday though when snow is set to cover the south east again - hopefully I will be able to get home okay when it's all over!