📰 👉 Personal news - I'm stepping down from my role as Involve CEO. Family issues mean I need to take a break - so am leaving quite quickly, end this week. Yikes!

Central to the #democratic value of #minipublics is public engagement. Yet, how to generate this engagement in practice remains underexplored. 🔔ICYMI: The latest from @scastell.bsky.social & Stephen Elstub www.publicdeliberation.net/mini-publics...

www.express.co.uk/news/politic... Citizen's Assemblies can't be "stuffed with like-minded eco-zealots" otherwise they aren't Citizen's Assemblies. & even if 100 people all want change and recommend it in an Assembly, the power and accountability to decide remains with the elected representatives.

Involve is recruiting for a new Chair and new Trustees 👇. As you start your break - are you thinking about what you might contribute, to safeguard and improve our democracy at this critical time? Consider stewarding an ambitious organisation, that holds remedies for our democratic ills.

We are at your disposal to help engage people in a fair and transparent way.

The House of Commons Library is a national treasure, and this looks like a really valuable primer, by David Torrance, on how laws are made, where powers are exercised, and what we need to know if we want to understand how (and by whom) we're governed. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

The broader public being aware of and engaged with the work of deliberative mini-publics is central to their democratic value. In this conversation, @scastell.bsky.social and @stephene.bsky.social discuss why public engagement is so important - and so challenging. #CitizensAssembly

Aim is to take complex questions to a space where there is a fuller debate. Assisted dying cuts across political spectrum so falls beyond party politics. Proposal is not for CA to take decisions but to inform debate in open, democratic way. We use other devices for comparable ends -judicial review.

Assisted dying is exactly the sort of morally and ethically complex issue which is fruitfully explored through a citizens assembly. It takes the issue away from Politicians and places deliberation in hands of people charged to consider it over time with no distraction. We need to use this approach.

Great to see Rafael putting forward the important role of public deliberation in complex moral and social choices, & to chat with him about it in advance. There's still time for a Citizens' Assembly on Assisted Dying...