This week’s coverage from across the web

Power2010 Blog

// All Entries »

This week’s coverage from across the web

05.02.2010 // by Ghazal Tipu

It's been a jam-packed week for POWER2010 in the media and across the blogosphere.

On Tuesday, Gordon Brown announced plans for pushing through a law which would allow a referendum on whether to switch to the AV voting system after the general election.

Commentary on this latest political manoeuvre, late in his tenure, has been scathing. In Tuesday's Guardian, Michael White cites POWER2010 director Pam Giddy who says Brown is admitting that the current set-up no longer works but the reforms he proposes are too late in the day and lack credibility.

On Wednesday, Helena Kennedy wrote in the Guardian that, so close to the election, Brown's speech was too resonant of the "scheming" and calculation political reform is supposed to put an end to, before pointing out the virtues of the bottom-up campaign process POWER2010 is carrying out.

Across the Irish sea, POWER2010 inspires Elain Byrne, a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, who highlights the grave need for reform in Irish politics. She offers Power2010's campaign as a democratic approach that Irish politics could usefully learn from.

In an incisive piece in the New Statesman, Will Straw, of Left Foot Forward, identifies POWER2010 as part of a "new movement politics", one of several new organisations "bypassing conventional party politics, building a pluralistic movement and effecting change."

The Guardian politics blog reported on POWER2010's joint letter with six other democracy organisations lambasting Brown's hypocritical decision to squash parliamentary reform.

On LabourList Pam Giddy put a forceful case for a more honest and democratic approach to constitutional reform than the government is engaged in, while the Edinburgh Student Journal quotes POWER2010's Guy Aitchison on David Cameron's proposal to cut the number of MPs by 10%.

Momentum is gathering across websites where bloggers are using their own sites as platforms to drive campaigns around the reforms they want to see.

On Tuesday, Graham Smith, of Republic, urged readers to vote for reforms that are republican in nature.

The Alligator is not in favor of PR but advocates a "None of the above" option on ballot papers.

Media Lens, meanwhile, is pushing for the Regulation of Lobbying to get to the final five.

Whilst Mrs Rigby is promoting English Votes on English Laws.

If you've written about or linked to POWER2010 please let us know in the comments below - and if you're a blogger why not add one of our fashionable and much sought after Voting buttons to your sidebar?

Ghazal is a volunteer with POWER2010.