The Wardman Wire

Following up to the recent Online Symposium “Devolving England” that we ran during October, I’m making the articles available as a download.

This was the introduction by Dave Cole:

One of the issues that’s always bubbling under is devolution in the UK. While three of the four home nations have their own parliaments, England is run from Westminster, where the West Lothian Question still holds - why can Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs vote on issues that don’t affect them? Should we give more power to local councils, or are city regions a better way to go?

There were 5 contributors:

1. First up - Dave Cole thinks its A Long Way to Westminster.
2. Following on, Garbo looks at prospects for an English Parliament.
3. In response, Matt Wardman looks at the multifarious levels of government we now have and suggests a judicious shave with Ockham’s Razor.
4. The Thunderdragon looks at devolution and democratisation.
5. And Damian Hockney, late of the London Assembly, gives us his take on devolution after his time at City Hall - warning us to be wary of booby traps.

You can download the document here (PDF, 200k), or via the Publications Page - accessible via the menu at the top of the page. This is the first official one we have done, so comments are welcome below.

Sponsorship Opportunity

We are planning to do a number of Online Symposia during 2009 - ideally around one a month. We are actively looking for sponsorship .

An online symposium is a series of articles from a range of viewpoints on a common subject over several days. We are experimenting with this as a way of encouraging thoughtful debate amongst bloggers and others. Each series of articles is published on the Wardman Wire, and also as a PDF download - as an experiment in making blog-debate available more widely.

There are full details in this separate article.

Tags: dave cole, devolving england, online symposium