Except Interesting.

Roo Reynolds has done a nice little write-up.

Ivo and the team have put the whole of Us Now up online for everybody to watch. So you’ve got no excuses for not watching me in slightly soft-focus.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

This isn’t really about expenses. What’s going on has been brewing for a long time - it’s a more general disaffection with the structure of politics in the UK and a belief that politicians just aren’t up to the job of taking important decisions. It was only a matter of time before we found a touchpaper issue to really get things going. I’d focus on making Westminster a better decision making body. It’s going to take a long time for that to happen but there are some things that could be done quite quickly. So here’s what I’d do:

• Halve the number of MPs - randomise which neighbouring constituencies get merged so there’s no argument about it. Do this before the next election.
• Pay MPs 50% more.
• Have no expenses system.
• Don’t allow external employment. Being an MP should be a full time job.
• All benefits or gifts received externally should be declared as they are now.
• Have a mandatory 50% number of women candidates for all parties. If a party is to be represented in Westminster it must put up at least equal numbers of women to men.
• Give up on the idea of surgeries. MPs need to accept that they are employed to take decisions on national issues. Councils are for local issues.
• Ban donations of more than £5,000. Political donations should be tax deductible.
• Parliament should sit around the year, MPs should have normal working hours, holidays and sick pay.
• All votes should be free votes.

Social Innovation Camp Meetup last week was great fun. The guys from Decisions for Heroes presented what they’re up to. Not much doubt about their social purpose - “We Save Lives” is their tagline. John Grant then set everybody thinking about how to reduce junk mail. I hope we’re going to get some ideas sent in on that subject.

Just a reminder that the Social Innovation Camp proper is 5-7th December and you need to submit your ideas by November 7th. So go on… how would you use technology to change the world?

Some fantastic news on Social Innovation Camp. Nesta and The Young Foundation have very generously agreed to support us to run two more camps and a series of monthly meetups that will get underway in the Autumn. The main date for your diary is 5-7 December in Bethnal Green when we’ll be repeating the creative chaos of earlier this year.

Also - we’re hiring, so please spread the word to people who might be interested.

And following up from the last camp we’re moving ahead with the project formerly known as Barcode Wikipedia with some support from the National Consumer Council and MySociety. We have a small piece of desk research (probably 10-15 days of work) that we’re looking for some help with. Drop me a line (paul [at] paulmiller [dot] org) if you’re interested.

For the slightly geeky machinery of government people out there, this is really interesting. David Wilcox and friends have decided to do an open source bid for a tender announced by the Office of the Third Sector for an Innovation Exchange.

I’ve long thought that government tendering processes were one of the big barriers to change in the public sector. My feeling was that change needed to happen on the government side of the equation but maybe I was wrong…

My mobile phone was handed in… one theory the police mentioned was that my trusty Nokia 6230 wasn’t actually worth pinching.

I’m doing a short talk in response to Michael Jacobs at an event at the RSA on Wednesday about climate change and the Stern review. Michael is a member of the UK Chancellor’s Council of Economic Advisers and a brilliant speaker - will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

I think I’m going to talk about optimism and climate change, and how really there’s a bit of pessimism in the way we all think about global warming that we need to confront if we’re going to do anything about it collectively.

Come along if you like. I’m told the ‘full’ sign on the website doesn’t mean completely full and there will be some spare seats on the night.