If you accept block voting by the majority to exclude the minority from decision making, any internal rules the majority use to make decisions can be democratically defended.

This story has changed. First we were told the £5m was for security, now he describes it "frankly" as a "reward". We should shut billionaires' big money out of our democracy.

And again, without this being a strong endorsement, his book with Steve Rotheram is a good "argument for institutional reform paired with personal political story"

"We simulated 1000 contests between Starmer and Streeting, unfortunately they became aware they were living in a simulation (which they were not happy about) and this might had some impact on our results"

My piece on government AI in Public Technology today www.publictechnology.net/2026/05/13/s... As more AI systems are used in government, we need to get better at asking questions about them and getting meaningful answers.

Fan of Labour back row on the left

New Welsh Government has been announced (including 2 new MSs going straight into full senior minister roles) and former MP Elfyn Llwyd as Counsel General ‘Designate’ - Nb that this is the one other govt role which is a Crown appointment and requires approval from MSs #senedd #devolution

In my mind, the most significant hurdle in the process - as it's possible to allow redress through an apology rather than refer on to the Standards Committee.

Did a little deep dive into the data for last week’s Senedd election. ⬇️

Bit in my granddad's memoir about being in an isolation hospital for a few months for scarlet fever before getting the penicillin spray, right at the changeover point as it became more widely available.

Obviously I'm a stuck record on this, but they could actually fix the donations/freebies issue rather than the current strategy of hoping no one brings it up.

As Owen says DSIT senior leaders/politicians should be furious at the wasted money and wasted opportunity for economic growth / better services underlying this mess

Obviously I'm more pro membership, but the rules have problems. The big slow down has been that mayors aren't eligible, which is bad as (ignoring the specifics of the person) some of your biggest name politicians are *likely* to be mayors.

📣Really interesting piece from @mysociety.org summarising the final session in the recent FOI workshop series they hosted. They invited FOI officers to discuss the biggest pressures they face and the day-to-day realities of administering the system. www.mysociety.org/2026/05/11/f...

To join this up to the failures around gifts and hospitality: what do we think the intentions of Google were in giving a bunch of MPs a nice day out to Glastonbury?

Likely to enter another cycle of "membership choosing leader bad" opinions, so here's my case against MPs alone choosing their leaders

Obviously I'm a stuck record on this, but they could actually fix the donations/freebies issue rather than the current strategy of hoping no one brings it up.

Today the new #Senedd meets for the first time. The first items on the agenda will be the election of a Presiding Officer (Llywydd) and a Deputy. Paul Davies, former Tory group leader, and Huw Irranca-Davies, Labour’s outgoing Deputy FM, are the two declared candidates for PO. #senedd26 #devolution

I did know this, but the reason I know this is because of the detailed constitutional discussions about what the Martian constitution should be in KSR's Mars books - which feels like the worst reason to know this.

Galaxy brain synthesis: a spreadsheet is a story

Not thrilled at the idea this criticism is on the same spectrum as death threats and violence.

I scrape public documents, publish links to them for free and for my newsroom AND AI is abusing scraping so much that more cities, counties and other public entities are blocking all bots, including my polite ones that visit *maybe* once a day anyway, my public notice bot ➡️ @gapolbot.bsky.social

At some point advocates of small House of Lords reform have to reckon with the fact that the failure to make progress suggests they're not actually that small.

At last, PPBs with the filming grammar of peep show or sci-fi shows where they realise they've swapped bodies by looking in the mirror

📝 New blog looking at the forthcoming Senedd election consoc.org.uk/senedd-elect...

It's great and on-brand that Lucas, after killing Maul so decisively by having his two halves fall separately down the shaft, asked "what if he's fine tho"

Lots of misunderstanding about Wales’s new electoral system — how it works, what it takes to get elected, and especially around tactical voting. Partly to sort my own thinking, I put together something that tries to make sense of it. Proper write-up coming soon. jaclarner.github.io/jaclarner/bl...

So, ok. But is the view also that the Conservative party was wrong to get rid of Boris Johnson?

I mean this isn't the intended takeaway, but should be a knighthood for the BBC commercial team www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/enterta...

Last register of the parliamentary session, some quick notes

We are looking for a @societyworks.org developer (deadline end of May) and a @mysociety.org user support officer (deadline tomorrow) to join us: www.mysociety.org/about/careers/ I think it’s a good, fun place to work, with good dev processes, but I would say that :) Happy to answer any questions

It is very funny/pleasing to discover that @theyworkforyou.com’s scraping of parliament.uk back in 2004–6 is now a source of the official Parliament record of those times. As the person who has to manually fix Hansard XML most mornings, not so sure about that “modern Hansard format” though ;-)

The ministerial gifts and hospitality data for March is out. This is published as about 50 separate CSVs, which we bring together and republish here pages.mysociety.org/ministers-gi...

A "tut tut we need to talk about electronic voting rather than drinking" article without noting that Ellie Chowns did talk about this after the election and the line then was *also* that new green MPs don't understand how things work www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Each step of this takes forever, but if it gets past the first hurdle (parliamentary commissioner doesn't just let him apologise) I don't see why it would stop short of this?

Another debate where one side has to adopt the "people do not respond to incentives" position.

Could you spare half an hour for a chat? We're keen to speak to youth groups of all types about collaboration, outreach and how (or if) you use data. Find out more - and please pass this on to your network - thanks! www.mysociety.org/community/yo...

Farage has previously been through the parliamentary commissioner process for late declaration of payments - shouldn't be allowed the same "oh admin is hard" excuse www.parliament.uk/globalassets...

Last register of the parliamentary session, some quick notes

Not sure this is true - after the election there's a retrospective 12 months that covers donations.

Freedom of Information informs parliamentary debates even without MPs making requests themselves - examples this week of MPs raising FOIs made by academics and constituents www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=... www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=20...

Quick thread on voting both ways in the House of Commons 🧵

A colourful one

New House of Commons vote: Privilege - https://votes.theyworkforyou.com/decisions/division/commons/2026-04-28/512

Bizarre this continues - yes most votes are whipped, but the whip isn't a one way flow of information, and MPs are nevertheless *responsible* for how they vote.

Freedom of Information informs parliamentary debates even without MPs making requests themselves - examples this week of MPs raising FOIs made by academics and constituents www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=... www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=20...

"Maybe if you hung around a few more weeks before mouthing off, you'd understand that the tax-payer funded duckhouse is just one part of an intricate complex system that is the only way of running politics and stop being so selfish in rocking the boat"

Think Parliament’s bars are best understood in that way: they aren’t a consequence of “the weird working style of MPs”: they’re there because loads of workplaces did used to have wet canteens, and Parliament is a workplace that modernises itself slowly.