THE internet is a force for freedom. The Chinese state employs 10,000 censors to monitor it and still they fail, so Labour’s attempts to enact control over the web in a liberal democracy were always going to hit a few bumps.

writes Alex Hilton in The Scotsman.

But that wasn’t going to stop them trying. So the party’s general secretary, Ray Collins, and the Prime Minister’s head of strategy, Damian McBride, brought in Derek Draper to be a tame blogger. Mr Draper then set up Labourlist.org and was promised access to ministers.

It was launched at Labour HQ and Mr McBride’s old colleague Charlie Whelan provided Mr Draper’s funding from Unite’s political fund, the trade union he now works for.

They then pursued the unsustainable charade that the project was independent of the Labour Party.

If it had been an overtly Labour HQ project, then Mr Draper would have been accountable for his excesses and without doubt, Mr McBride would have baulked at using an official Labour channel for his smear tactics.

Sneering at Tories with lies about sexually transmitted diseases, mental health problems or homosexuality counteracts the very noblest aims of the Labour movement.

We believe in equality for all regardless of their sexuality and we believe in reducing the stigma associated with sexually transmitted diseases and mental health problems, not least so that people will seek early treatment.

Politics is the means by which a country is run and good politics means a country is run well.

But politics is also the name of a silly game played by silly boys in the Westminster bubble.

It’s a fun game, I fully admit, and sometimes it just has to be played. But when playing a game is your ambition and your daily motivation, it’s time to grow up.

Mr McBride and Mr Draper suffered from being in the Westminster bubble where all they saw was the game; where a lie here or a smear there are just bishops and rooks on a chessboard.

Somehow they had lost sight of that other politics – that which is concerned only with delivering a secure, fulfilling and sustainable society for its citizens.

Anonymous rumours have always been part of politics, although in the past they would be disseminated over boozy lunches on journalists’ expense accounts.

This was the foundation of the cosy relationship between lobby journalists and their political sources. Yet with the emergence of blogs and anonymised e-mail accounts, politicians now have access to new vehicles for their gossip-mongering.

Blogger “Guido Fawkes” has benefited from a range of such tips, including those that have led to official investigations of think-tank The Smith Institute and of former chairwoman of the Conservative Party, Caroline Spelman.

I know many Labour figures who shun these silly games. There are many more who, like me, enjoy playing a game from time to time but who don’t let it get in the way of more noble, long-term objectives. But this week, until this embarrassment dies down, every single one of us will look like a duplicitous, power-mad fool.

The G20 summit is over and the world has agreed to more than a trillion dollars of additional liquidity and a tightened framework for financial regulation. No w is perhaps the Prime Minister’s last chance to call a general election on a date of his own choosing.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

Will blogging change the world? Or even local democracy? Probably not, but clever databases may well do so.

Alex Hilton wites for the IDeA The Social Media Online Conference 6-8 April 2009

In 2003, a year after being elected to Redbridge Council, I became the deputy editor of w4mp.org, a website for people who, like me, worked for Members of Parliament. The W4MP team were discussing how to improve the website and I suggested a gossip column might go down well. Maybe two weeks later the Palace of Westminster authorities suggested this column was incompatible with the funding we received from them and so it was spun off into an independent website called Recess Monkey.

A friend built Recess Monkey for me and it was six months later that it was explained to me that I was a blogger. I was shocked. I’m still embarrassed by the word “blogger”. It makes me feel like I’m a pasty boy who really ought to get a girlfriend instead of a computer. And the word “blogosphere” gives me acid indigestion.

It was at this time that I was a young councillor in opposition just hitting the wall where I would realise that the dinosaurs running the authority were no more interested in public opinion (between elections) than they were in mine. I was horrified at the unashamed elitism of the senior councillors - but even more horrified that they thought they were the elite.

I’d sit in meetings fuming to myself - the the public wouldn’t stand for it if only they knew what their councillors were doing. But the local paper was only interested if stories were simple. Anything that couldn’t be explained in three sentences would get spiked or buried deep in the paper.

Blogs wouldn’t have solved that. Of the 250,000 people in Redbridge, I doubt I could have convinced more than a thousand to read regularly a dry rant at my colleagues incompetence in the face of my own impotence. It wouldn’t have improved accountability and governance.

But clever databases do have a lot to offer in this arena. But only if authorities can distinguish between empowerment and engagement.

Power doesn’t just appear - it is given and taken. To give the public more power in local government, it has to be taken from councillors. This would fundamentally undermine representative democracy in local government and damage accountability rather than enhance it.

Put it this way. A councillor who decides something silly is accountable through an election. If certain decisions are delegated to citizens juries for example, who holds them to account? And anyone who has been a councillor knows exactly which residents would choose to sit on a citizens jury. You may even know their names and they are by no means representative of a broad cross-section of the public.

The focus should be on engagement rather than empowerment. An authority should be on a mission to convince every person that they are a stakeholder in the council. Looking after vulnerable elderly people and children in care should not be portrayed as a responsibility of the authority - people should realise that this is all our responsibility and that we are delegating that responsibility to the authority. Delegating, not abrogating.

And this is the case with all local services. Authorities have huge amounts of data available on their services, but tend to keep it under wraps or obscure. One task for a clever database could be to put all this data on a website so the public can drill down as far as the like to investigate the performance of the authority.

Perhaps, instead of publishing the budget papers only as word documents, councils could enter all budget items onto a database searchable by the public, with monthly variances exposed for everyone to see.

Give people all the information is my proposal.

This would lead increasing numbers of people to scrutinise the authority and provide alternative plans, suggestions, criticisms - and fundamentally, have far greater intelligence available when it comes to voting.

And when Councillors find their work scrutinised day to day, perhaps they might want a blog so they can explain themselves.

John Prescott challenges Dan Hannan to tell the British people his views on the NHS in the Euro election campaign.

Edinburgh South MP Nigel Griffiths has had a rough few days after the News of the World exposed an extramarital affair. It is clear from the article that the paper was desperate for a public interest angle.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

It’s unfair that people don’t trust politicians. How does a desire to use the political system to make Britain a better place automatically earn the mistrust of the public?

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

It is difficult to know the correct amount of gravity to apply to this statement. I am OK. I am still in hospital. I am getting better. But on Friday I nearly died.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

They cannot help it. Politicians cannot stop themselves vilifying those in unpopular professions. Bankers, for instance.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

The expansion of Heathrow Airport has been described in the media as ‘Gordon’s Poll Tax’, which sounds an excessive accusation.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.

David Cameron’s search for an economic policy will fail while he persists in treating it purely as a PR tool.

writes Alex Hilton in PR Week.