[Liverpool] PRESS RELEASE - Public Whip - http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/byelection

[Aidan McGuire]

Help Appreciated - Hope ok to post here.

*** Action for Crewe & Nantwich byelection. ***

Julian and Aidan seek volunteers for action this Saturday before the  
Crewe & Nantwich by-election to hand out non-party election leaflets,  
and to promote the election webpage quiz. The purposes are:

(a) to attempt to raise awareness of the issues we care about that  
are not featuring as any part of the campaign.
(b) to develop the science of connecting electoral politics to  
campaign web-pages.

If you are a member of No2ID, or any campaign that is effected by the  
decisions made in Parliament whom you seek to influence through the  
MP's constituents, you need to be involved with this project. During  
the election campaign, the political parties produce dreadful  
propaganda with terrible webpages, and get away with it. We need to  
learn from their techniques, and establish what actions make a  
difference. We will produce different leaflets, some in colour, and  
distribute them to different parts of the city. Perhaps you could  
make a contribution to it. Anyone who joins us on the day will get  
access to the full log-files and comments generated by the web-page.
This will be a learning experience, so that come the general election  
we might actually be good.

Please contact Aidan and come along.

Please feel free to pass on this press release..


-------------------------------------
Press Release – Immediate Release -
14 May 2008
The Public Whip


While activists are descending from all corners of the country to  
Crewe & Nantwich to help with their partys' by-election campaigns,  
volunteers from the Public Whip
today launched an online questionnaire to help people make up their  
minds about who to vote for. The webpage:   http:// 
www.publicwhip.org.uk/byelection
compares people's opinions to the way each party has voted in  
Parliament on a selection of important issues that have been in the  
news in the last five years. It uses the web-site  
www.theyworkforyou.com as a source of data.

As Julian Todd of Public Whip explained "An election is the one time  
people have a direct say in what the politicians do. Unfortunately,  
with slick sound-bites and colourful leaflets focussing on one or two  
key points, it's easy to forget the bigger issues that will be  
decided by the MP who eventually wins the seat."

Aidan McGuire said "The national issues which our Mp's have control  
over are not being discussed with the candidates during this  
campaign. People are easily distracted by smaller matters like car  
parking charges, when what is actually decided by those who are  
elected include compulsory ID Cards, nuclear power plants, freedom of  
information laws, and the strategic supply of fuel and electricity."

"We want people to remember the bigger issues and ask hard questions  
of the candidates about how they would vote after they are elected.  
People have become used to not being told what the policies are and  
not insisting on their right to know."

Here in Crewe & Nantwich, the Labour candidate, Tamsin Dunwoody, is  
running on her mother's name. Gwyneth Dunwoody was a popular MP  
partly because she had a mind of her own and did not vote the  
government line on every issue. How many people have looked up which  
were the issues she rebelled on, and has anyone asked Tamsin whether  
she would take the same position on those issues?

Julian said: "We want people to start using the internet more  
effectively to understand what their MPs are doing and to keep a  
close watch. Who knows, they might start doing more of what people  
want them to do, rather than their own thing all the time. That's our  
idea of what democracy would look like.

"That's why we've brought the Public Whip website to the voters of  
this city. It's our tiny contribution to democracy. We hope to  
inspire other people with our example so they bring their own  
democracy projects to places where it matters, like this by-election  
and other elections in the future, to help voters make an informed  
choice.  Democracy is too important to be left to the political  
parties alone.


About the Public Whip
Public Whip is a website that scans Hansard, the official  
Parliamentary record, for all the votes by Mps and sorts them into a  
database for further analysis.  It was originally written by Francis  
Irving and Julian Todd in 2003.  All the software is free and open  
source and is completely self-funded and maintained by volunteer work.


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