ICELE have started a new people finder - a directory of practitioners in local e-democracy work. Take a look and sign up here.

The Government has published a consultation document, Unlocking Talent that covers a range of community-building ideas, including support for local democracy and participation. The Society will be writing a response to the consultation.

An article in Comment is Free suggests that French local government shares one of the problems of British local government: no-one takes its elections seriously.

The idea that local government elections are a referendum on national parties is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and in a time when the London- or Paris-based media are reducing coverage of policy in favour of covering the horse race, it’s a reflection of wider media trends.

It’s also very damaging, particularly to the morale and quality of local government councillors. What message does it send to them, when the performance of the Prime Minister has a bigger effect on their election chances than anything they might do?

You might hope that the rise of blogging and more local commentary would help, but many political blogs are given over to commentary on national media and personality issues, rather than discussion of local politics.

Many congratulations to Society member and Governor Andrew Hardie, who is getting married today.