politics for people who care about more than politics

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We have teamed up with Charon QC to do a series of political podcasts. This podcast is an interview with Lib Dem Blogger Mark Thompson.

Mark is a relatively new blogger, who has quickly come to a reasonable level of prominence in the blogosphere. In this interview Mark talks about himself, and how his blog has developed. We also talk about how blogs, and particularly Twitter, have made the national media more “permeable” – and what happens to nuances when blog stories are covered in the media.

We also think about choosing names for blogs, and why it’s a bad idea to try and compete in the search engines with the Head of the BBC. I also explain why I chose the name Matt Wardman when I started writing my own blog in early 2007.

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I have previously reported that a negotiated settlement had been reached and now implemented in the Employment Tribunal action between 32 ex-employees of the former-SPCK bookshop chain, and the Society of Saint Stephen the Great, now controlled by the Charity Commission through an Interim Manager.

I have done a podcast interview with Christine Peacock of the USDAW Legal Department, who has handled the employee cases (and the cases of paperwork) for the last couple of years. This interview aims to show some of the complexity of the case, and to give an inside view of the process. Here it is:

For people who are new to this story, the background to this interview is that I’ve been involved with others in a campaign to place a spotlight on the mismanagement and asset-stripping of the chain of 25 bookshops which used to go under the name of SPCK, by the brothers J Mark and Philip Brewer. This blog has a very detailed account.

A community of campaigning bloggers, and a wider international network based mainly on Facebook and other social media sites, has had a role in this over a period of more than 2 years – gathering information, helping to expose a fraudulent bankruptcy attempt, keeping the Charity Commission on the case, and maintaining a spotlight on the case.

But this still has a long way to run – notably because there are still many small businesses who were simply never paid, and because compensation payments still have to be made – though that can be expected now that the Brewer Brothers no longer control the charity. There are more complex aspects such as what happened to pension and national insurance contributions which the Brewer Brothers never passed to the correct recipients.

And then there is the matter of bring Mark and Philip Brewer to some sort of justice, and making sure that those who need to learn the lessons from this debacle do just that. It is one more signifcant step forward, however.

The two Facebook groups are We Support Dave Walker (who was “Cease and Desisted” after 18 months of objective reporting; his blog is here), and A group for all those people who mourn the tragic demise of SPCK Bookshops, which still have a combined membership of well over 500 activists and supporters.

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At the Wardman Wire, we have teamed up with Charon QC to do a series of Politalks political podcasts.

This is an interview by Charon with Charlie Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor, on assisted dying and the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom .

Lord Falconer put forward an amendment to the Suicide Act, which was defeated in the Lords recently.

Secondly, the interview discusss his thoughts on the reasoning behind establishing a new Supreme Court and the direction it may, in time, take.

Lord Falconer became Lord Chancellor In 2003, with the remit of abolishing the office. His reform included the creation, for the first time, of a Supreme Court for the UK, the creation of a commission to appoint judges, making a full-time independent judge the Head of the Judiciary for England and Wales, and introducing an elected Speaker for the House of Lords.

[audio:http://www.politalks.co.uk/pod/charonpodcast152.mp3]

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We have teamed up with Charon QC to do a series of political podcasts for the Wardman Wire.

Mark Jones is an activist in the small community of Pleasley Hill, in Nottinghamshire. The blog Plight of Pleasley Hill has been set up to draw attention to the work of a small group to revive a sense of community in a small area of terraced housing comprising 3 streets and approximately 125 people.

This initiative launched in early June 2009.

I have interviewed Mark for Politalks because I am interested in very small scale regeneration undertaken by communities themselves, and I think that doing things on a *really* small scale is one of the keys to rebuilding local civic society and politics. By “really small scale” I mean in groups and localities which are small enough for everyone to essentially know all their neighbours.

In this interview, Mark talks about the aims of their project, and the good and bad experiences in trying to work with their local authority as a very small group.

There is much worth listening to here for Local Councillors and Community Development officers.

Direct download link for Mark Jones interview.