Is Devolution really “taking power from Westminster”?

I’ve just seen the West Yorkshire devolution deal described as “taking power from Westminster”. This raises a number of questions, a couple of which are (a) is it really taking power?; and (b) who in West Yorkshire has taken this power?

The West Yorkshire devolution deal has been haggled over for years, and is one of the last “devolution” deals to be agreed between Westminster and local politicians. It is an agreement. And I am 100% sure that it would not have been agreed at all if politicians in Whitehall hadn’t approved every last detail of it. Is this really taking power? I don’t think so. The UK is one of the most centralised states in the world. No subordinate body, beit a Parish Council or the West Yorkshire Combined Authority does anything without the sanction of the national government. And now this national government claims to be giving away power. The devolution deal sets out the terms in which that power is to be given away. It maps out very clear perameters within which the money it is supposedly handing over can be spent. So, in reality, the power stays where it has always been, in Westminster. And you can be pretty sure that if the local bodies deviate in any way from the agreement, then the money won’t be forthcoming.

And to answer my second question. The local body to which the power is supposedly being transferred is the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Who? I hear you ask. Precisely. Next year we are to be privileged enough to get the opportunity to elect a Mayor to head up this body, and that might give it a raise in profile and focal point, but, up to now, most people in West Yorkshire will not have heard of the Combined Authority, let alone know who makes up its membership. So, even if we accept that power is indeed being transferred (which I don’t), do we know who the people are who exercise this power on our behalf?

The flagship project which these new powers and money are to be deployed on is a rapid transit scheme (tram network to you and me). It would be great to have such an initiative in place, it would solve a lot of problems. But, if the power was really being handed over to the people of West Yorkshire, would this be their priority? What about having enough money to put food on the table? What about social care? What about better and cheaper buses? There are probably very many issues which the public would want to be tackled before we got to putting trams on the region’s streets. But oh, the powers over those issues are not being devolved. So is this devolution worth having in any case?

What do you think?

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If you would like to support me to do more of my work in using Digital Storytelling, social media, and video for social good, please consider making a regular contribution via Patreon or perhaps, just buy me a coffee here. I would be especially grateful for this support as I enter my cancer treatment phase.

Practice what you preach (sub-title: I’ve got Cancer)

For more than 10 years now I have been advocating and practising the use of Digital Storytelling for social good. I have worked with professionals in the public and voluntary sectors and businesses to help them tell the stories of the differences they make to individuals and communities, and I have worked with people who have turned their lives around and changed track. I passionately believe that these approaches can be effective in making the world a better place, gaining support for effective approaches, and helping people find solidarity from others in similar situations. I have been a particular champion of people telling the stories of how they deal with certain health conditions so others can learn the lessons they have.

So, it would be hypocritical of me not to practice what I preach wouldn’t it? Well I think it would, and that’s why I am here telling you that last Friday (February 28th 2020) I was told that I have cancer. I was told in a very reassuring manner, and I was immediately told that the doctors think that it is extremely likely that I will fully recover from it, but, nevertheless, I was told something that nobody wants to hear. I have a cancerous tumour in my left armpit. A small lump that I noticed some time ago recently started growing rapidly, and then it started causing me pain, which has got more acute by the week. So, last Friday, I found myself sat in front of a cancer specialist at St. James’s Hospital in Leeds as he told me something that I had been expecting to hear after a series of tests of differing natures. I was expecting it by then because I don’t think you get to meet cancer specialists face-to-face if you are going to be told that you don’t have cancer and have never had it.

The doctor set out the treatment options, which were basically a choice between an operation to remove the tumour followed by a course of radiotherapy; or a course of radiotherapy followed by the operation. I asked what the difference would be, and was told that the former would be the option that got rid of the pain I am experiencing the quickest, but the latter offers the best likelihood of retaining as much of the function of my arm as possible. I chose the latter because my left arm is important to me, especially as I am left-handed.

So, on the 19th March I start a course of radiotherapy. This will involve me attending St. James’s Hospital for an hour-or-so every week day for 5 and a half weeks. Following that, there needs to be a four weeks’ resting period before I can have the operation. After that, the doctor has every confidence that I will be free of cancer.

So, it’s as simple as that really. Of course, nothing is ever certain, but I have faith in the NHS, and I really have no choice to be optimistic about the future. I have some short term pain and inconvenience to endure, and then it will all be back to normal. That’s how I am viewing it, any way.

The biggest immediate issues, are 1) the pain, which can be pretty intense at times, but the doctors have been prescribing increasingly powerful painkillers, which are more or less managing it now; and 2) the inconvenience and disruption of having to spend part of every week day for 5½ weeks in a hospital more than 20 miles away from where I live.

I’ll take those inconveniences, however, if it means that the cancer is dealt with. I’d like to mention that my family, particularly my wife, Portia, have been immensely supportive, and that all this is much easier to deal with knowing that I have their support.

Work-wise, I am going to carry on working through this, so if you, or anyone you know, has a need for digital storytelling, video, live-streaming, or social media support services, please get in touch. It is ironic that I was in too much pain a few days ago to attend a meeting about setting up a support mechanism for self-employed people unable to work (this was before my pain meds were increased). I have no choice but to carry on working, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Since my diagnosis I have live-streamed a two-day conference, as well as live-streaming an evening event in London, jumping on the sleeper train to Glasgow, and delivering a digital inclusion workshop in that Scottish city the next day. I am still capable of working to full capacity and will continue to do so.

And, I will be digital storytelling my way through the process of dealing with my cancer. I hope that, by doing so, I will be able to be of some help to those going through similar challenges.

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2020 Vision

Sorry, this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a little while. Is it too late in the year to reluctantly add to the myriad of “looking forward to the New Year” articles?

2019 was the first year for a while when I didn’t run some kind of #ConnectedChristmas campaign. After a number of years of attempting to prove that technology can be used to connect socially isolated people together at the time of year when loneliness tends to be highlighted by the media, I decided to give it a rest for at least a year having really struggled to achieve traction with what I was doing in 2018. The activities I ran that year confirmed to me that the people who have remained resistent to new technologies are becoming tougher nuts to crack in their reluctance to engage. It gets harder and harder to find the killer application which will open people’s eyes to what technology can do for them if they have made an active decision to avoid it. Some of these people have had bad experiences of previous attempts to engage them. Others have looked at what their friends and family are doing and have decided it’s not for them. I documented here back in 2012 how some people just don’t want to learn new things, and technology is just one of a long list of things that they are determined to avoid. This has reinforced my belief that we need to step back from seeking to push technology at people, and look at the earlier steps of encouraging a culture of lifelong learning. #FOMO (fear of missing out) is a well-established concept, paticularly among younger people, and on social media, and one of the tactics we can deploy with older people is the sense that their younger friends and family are doing things they are excluded from.

And the other thing that working with older people on new technologies has taught me is that a lot of people exhibit behaviours which prevent them from making friendships. They may be socially isolated, they may even recognise this and want to do something about it; but the way they behave keeps people at arm’s length.

So, 2020 is the year when I want to make a reality of my longterm ambition of creating an independent technology advice service for older people. Over the past 12 years I have seen lots of examples of technology solutions aimed specifically at older people, to varying degrees of success. Most of them have failed to gain sufficient adoption to succeed in the long run. I love working with people who are passionately creating a bespoke service, and I hope to work with many more in the future, but a key issue for me remains how do we get the mainstream technologies that already have widespread adoption to get more traction with older people. In most cases, there are apps and technologies (whether it be Facebook, Facetime, or Netflix), which younger friends and family are using and which older people can join in with given a bit of prompting, coaching, and encouragement. I wrote here about Facebook’s Portal and whether that might be a new, simplified, route to videoconferencing which people uncomfortable with other forms of new technologies might find easier to adopt. But the thing about Portal, is it’s relatively expensive, so the other aspect of what I am seeking to do is to find and test those technologies which can reduce the costs of joining the online world, but which actually work and are straightforward to use. The video below is an example of the kind of thing I am talking about.

 

So, here is what I want to do in 2020.

• YouTube reviews of technology which is reasonably priced, easy to use, and likely to enhance older people’s lives;
• Funding to offer independent technology advice sessions in shopping centres, community venues, and in conjuction with initiatives such as Repair Cafes;
• Funding for a technology helpline

Please get in touch if you can help with any of these ambitions.

 

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Social Isolation – Don’t forget the pub

Regular readers of this blog will know that measures to overcome loneliness and social isolation, particularly among older citizens, are a passion of mine. Because of this, I was especially interested to read this recent report from Ambition for Ageing, Greater Manchester’s Ageing Better partnership, on “how shared spaces make communities work”. It is a good report, well worth reading, but I was staggered to find that it contained only one reference to pubs, and that only at the end of a list of potential shared spaces. Now I don’t know the reason for this omission. And, before you start, yes I know that pubs are not suitable for everyone, and that there are many people who consider pubs to be exclusionary; but, if you are considering shared spaces in communities, then how can you not consider the pub, which is probably the orginal community-based shared space? The word “pub” is a contraction of “public house”. That’s what the orginal pubs were, somebody opening up their house to the public. Their role only became formalised when governments started to want to regulate the sale of alcohol and it became harder for just anyone to invite people into their home and charge them for a tipple.

So, I know that there are many groups and individuals who are not comfortable in pubs because of the availability of alcohol. And there are lots of issues for lonely and isolated people, even if they don’t object to alcohol being sold which prevent them from going into a pub on their own.

There are two key issues for me here. The first is that many communities have lost the pubs that were their local hubs in recent years. The smoking ban is a prominent reason for this. I reference this as someone who is 100% in favour of the smoking ban, but I am not oblivious to the fact that a lot of pub custom was lost when the ban came in. This coupled with the growth of sales of cheap alcohol from supermarkets changed many people’s socialising habits. Oh, and, in rural areas in particular, tougher drink-driving laws (something else I approve of) have played their part. I would argue that the loss of the local pub is a big blow to a local community. Different pubs are open and welcoming to different degrees, but the good ones are true community hubs.

And that brings me to the second issue. How welcoming are pubs, and what can be done to make them more welcoming? There are some pubs that not only go the extra mile to welcome people in, but they are proactive in developing their role in addressing loneliness and isolation. One such establishment is The Alexandra in Wimbledon. Not only do they have regular open mornings for lonely people with free coffee and sandwiches, but they also offer isolated people free Christmas Dinners as well. And they don’t just do these things, they are very good in how they use social media to promote and celebrate the activity.

I believe that pubs have an important role to play in overcoming social isolation. It is no coincidence that lots of the action in TV Soap Operas takes place in pubs. They are key locations for social interaction. That’s why I want to research which pubs (like the Alexandra) are taking active steps to reach out to and embrace socially isolated people, and how we can help other pubs which are willing to move in that direction to take important steps. So, if you know of a pub which is good at welcoming people, or you are a pub landlord that wants to make your establishment more friendly to isolated people, then please let me know in the comments below, or email me with the details.

I am looking for funding both to research this issue and to work with pubs that want to do more than they currently are.

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It’s now official: Video Chat produces “all the feels”

This is a follow up to my post about the potential power of Facebook’s Portal to be a force for digital inclusion. I’m still not sure about whether, given Facebook’s track record on privacy, these devices will be welcomed in everyone’s homes, but I do believe that, on the face of it, at least, they do appear to be a game-changer for video conferencing. In fact, I am wondering why I am calling it “video conferencing”. In the context of something like Portal, I reckon that video conferencing sounds like a very corporate, business-like term, whereas Portal, as the advertising for it makes clear, is about bringing people together. It’s about joy and sharing. For years, I have advocated greater use of video chat to bring people together and reduce loneliness and isolation, and I have met resistance from people who have told me that such mechanisms are impersonal. But the Portal advertising, which features The Muppets, is clearly focused on emotion, empathy, love and friendship. And I was prompted to write this piece by seeing an advert for Vodafone’s new 5G service, which, again, focused on the emotional impact of connecting people via video. Here it is:

This advert focuses on Grandparents telling their grandchild bedtime stories via hologram. It’s a story told with an obvious tug on the heartstrings. So, it seems to me that big business now believes that emotions can be projected across the internet, and thus used to sell their products. And it has always seemed strange to me that people who have probably grown up weeping over films at the cinema and on TV, and perhaps eagerly awaiting the next retailer’s Christmas Advert, don’t think that one-to-one video could have anything to do with emotion.

The time has come to dispense with those notions of video chat being impersonal. They are standing in the way of taking practical action to deal with loneliness and isolation. When I did a piece of work for the Centre for Ageing Better a few years ago I met Greta and Arnold who were getting daily updates on the progress of their young greatgrandchildren via WhatsApp, and Joyce who had reconnected with her family across the Atlantic after a 40-year break via Skype.  I still love the CNA Speaking Exchange which pairs students learning English in Brazil with isolated older people in the USA. I will leave you with an inspiraitional video from that project. I am still looking for funding to run something similar involving UK older citizens.

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A Portal to Digital Inclusion?

So, Digital Inclusion colleagues, what do we think of Portal by Facebook? If you haven’t seen it, basically it’s a video conferencing kit, which comes in four different forms, the Portal TV, which plugs into your TV and sits on top of the set, the Portal, a 10 inch, Digital Photo frame-like device with video calling and Alexa built-in, the Portal mini, basically the same thing but 8 inches, and the Portal+, which gaves the same funcitonality in a device with an HD, 15.6 inch screen which pivots to differing orientations. One of the differences it is offering compared to other video conferencing set ups is that the camera follows the person around the room, and the microphones are designed to pick up the voice wherever it comes from. The marketing around it has focused on images of people, particularly older people, using it to communicate with their families in other parts of the world.

I have written in the past that I think video conferencing has an important, and largely unacknowledged, part to play in digital inclusion. I wrote here about the idea of Serendipity Screens, and here about Technology-Enabled Nattering. Video conferencing has been around since the advent of the internet, or even before, but it has yet to hit the mainstream, and it still hasn’t broken through to any great extent into the realm of family communications with the older generations. Will Portal be the device (or devices) to break through? Certiainly I think linking it to the TV will appeal to some who have not seen any reason for owning a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. And the photo frame-like devices may also break through with the non-technology owner. Portal uses WhatsApp to make its video calls, and you can only call people who have WhatsApp or Facebook accounts. We all know there are lots of privacy concerns around Facebook and its associated companies, so some will steer clear of Portal because of that. Facebook appears to be trying to address some of those issues by providing sliding covers for the cameras in the devices which offers some degree of comfort that they are not watching us all the time.

In all aspects of technology development there usually comes along a device or an app that suddenly transforms people’s attitudes and then everybody wants one. The example I often cite is the iPod, which was by far not the first mp3 player, but Apple adapted the concept in ways that made them must-haves to the mass market. Whether the Portal is the iPod of video conferencing remains to be seen, but it is interesting to see that some of the approaches to video which myself and other digital inclusion advocates have been promoting for years are being used to promote this set of devices.

Is Portal really a game-changer for digital inclusion?

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What a long trip to Cornwall taught me about the need for online access to events

Last week I was in Cornwall. A long way from home for me. I was there because I was delivering some Digital Inclusion training to the staff of Coastline Housing on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Cornwall is somewhere I have visited a handful of times for professional reasons over my working career, and I have also been there for holidays 3 or 4 times. Distance is a relative thing. Cornwall is a long way to travel for me, living in West Yorkshire, but it may not be so far for you wherever you are reading this. The geography of Britain means that the North of England can feel a long way from the seat of power in London, but, in the North of England, at least we have the advantage of some relatively fast connections to get to London and elsewhere (don’t get me started on HS2, though). Cornwall, on the other hand, is a peninsula. I was reminded during one of the sessions I ran, that Redruth, where we were, is 3 hours away from Bristol. So, you might travel to Bristol and think you are in the South West of England, but you can keep going for another 3 to 4 hours and still not fall into the sea. To get there, I took a train to Leeds, then spent 6 and-a-half hours on another train to Plymouth, and then another 90 minutes on a train from Plymouth to Redruth. If you live in Redruth and want to visit London, it will take you 5 hours on the train. It’s a long way from London, the Midlands, or the North of England to Plymouth, but the train gets there relatively quickly. Once the train leaves Plymouth and heads over the River Tamar into Cornwall it moves a lot more slowly and stops at every little rural station.

I could have flown to Cornwall, it takes not much more than an hour to fly from Manchester to Newquay. But Newquay is still quite a long way from Redruth and the logistics of getting from one place to the other proved difficult. So, after considering all the options, I decided to treat the challenge of spending nearly 9 hours (each way) on trains as an opportunity to get some work done. And I resolved not to complain about it, reasoning that this was an everyday occurrence for the people I was travelling to work with. But, during one of the sessions that I ran in Redruth, participants talked about how their geographic location hinders them; how they find it hard to get to conferences and events; and one particular story about a good practice visit to the North of England involving two hire cars and a plane journey. So, it seems, that even living day-to-day in a “remote” location doesn’t mean you can take the travel difficulties in your stride. In fact it probably means that you just don’t have access to a lot of opportunities that others take for granted.

None of this will come as any surprise to anyone who lives and works in a rural area, or somewhere else at distance from the main sources of population. It is a real issue. And yet it is an issue to which we have the solution. But it is a solution which is still not being used anywhere near as widely and effectively as it could be. Scroll back to earlier in the same week, I was in London (yes that place, the centre of power in Britain) live-streaming the Patients’ Association AGM (video below). That organisation commissioned me because they wanted to take their first steps towards ensuring that their business is accessible by their members wherever they are in the country. In an era when we have the ability to reach beyond the rooms we are in and invite others to join our discussions, why are so many organisations still resistant? This is a genuine question. I’ve been live-streaming events for close on ten years now but there are still too many organisations who don’t want to open up their events in this way. Not only that, but it’s very evident that if you live-stream an event in the evening or at a weekend you get a lot more engagement. And I think that is because people don’t feel able to watch live-streams while sat at their desk in the office. It’s not true that engaging with an event through a screen is the same as being in the room, but it is a good option if you can’t be there. I think people erect unnecessary barriers to engagement with events online, and I think we need to break down those barriers. I’ve long believed that the ability to reach out to anywhere in the world using the internet should change the way we work. In the context of organisations such as the Patients’ Association, their mission is to involve people in influencing how health services are delivered, and that is more effectively done if they are reaching out to members wherever they are.

So I believe that we need to drive a big culture change. The first is in organisations who need to see that involving people who are not in the room is a major aid to their work. Beyond that, climate change means that we need to reduce the need to travel to events, and we can lower travel and accommodation budgets. Now I know that a lot of organisations make some or all of their income from running events, but I also believe that there will always be people who want to be in the room, and if live-streaming an event proves to depress numbers attending, then incentives should be offered to attendees.

The second element of culture change is that organisations should be encouraging their staff to seek out and watch live streams of events as alternatives to attending them. And sitting at your desk watching a live-streamed event should be seen as a perfectly legitimate thing to be doing.

And finally, we need to break down the reluctance that many people seem to have in engaging with live-streamed events. People are quite happy to watch “X-Factor”, “Strictly Come Dancing” and “The Great British Bakeoff” on TV and get immersed in the action, but they treat not being in the room at a conference as meaning it is not worth bothering with. Now, there may be a challenge here to event organisers to make their events more engaging, but that would benefit those in the room as much as it would those watching online.

Put yourself in the shoes of people living or working in areas where travel to most events is difficult or impossible. They are missing out on so many opportunities that the rest of us take for granted. And I speak as someone who regularly complains that events being held in London makes them inaccessible to those of us in the North of England. We owe it to those people to open up those events to remote participation. I want to go further than live streaming. I want to have rooms full of people in different parts of the country interacting with each other and providing active input into events. There are so many possibilities but we are being held back from realising their potential. So I am looking for partners to help me develop a comprehensive service to make crucial events in the public and non-profit sectors truly open and interactive. Contact me if you want to be part of this.

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Dementia Choices Action Network (D-CAN) – Starting out using video to share

Last week I was very fortunate to be involved, as videographer and digital storyteller, in the inaugural National Assembly of the Dementia Care Choices Action Network (D-CAN). D-CAN brings together a number of stakeholder organisations with an interest in Dementia with NHS England and Improvement, Alzheimer’s Society, the Coalition for Collaborative Care and others, including people living with Dementia. A key aim of the network is to embed the principles of Universal Personalised Care (UPC) into the practice of supporting people with Dementia across the Health, Social Care, and voluntary and community sectors. D-CAN aims to provide a space wherein innovative practice and lived experience can inform practice at all levels.

i am pleased and excited that D-CAN has begun by recognising the power of video in disseminating messages and ensuring that members can learn from each other. Members want to break down the walls that exist between professional disciplines, between different organisations, between organisations and patients, and between people in the room at meetings and those who can’t be there. And it is this latter aspect that I want to talk about here. I have long believed that the public and non-profit sectors are failing to take advantage of the tools that the internet has given us to communicate beyond normal boundaries. Particularly where organisations are seeking to communicate messages and engage people in their work, it seems self-evident to me that using online video and social media will spread their reach far beyond the walls of the room they are in. That this is happening far too infrequently is a great source of frustration. Ian Donaghy, who hosted the Assembly, mentioned a number of online video resources during his comments, and he asked the audience who was aware of them. Very few of them were, and this is telling.

Stepping away from the direct field of Dementia for a moment, I am going to cite the case of Molly Watt. Molly is an inspirational young woman who lives with Usher Syndrome (which causes deaf / blindness). She has created her own Foundation, works as an accessiblity consultant, and uses online video and social media to document her life and how she uses new technologies to live as full a life as possible despite her limited vision and hearing. I know that she has provided inspiration for many others living with the same condition and given them confidence to overcome the barriers they face to achieving their ambitions. Peter Berry was diagnosed with Early Onset Dementia at the age of 50. He has made more than 100 of his weekly video diaries documenting the challenges of living with his condition. Usually his diaries are just him and his camera, but he has occasionally involved his wife, his daughter, and friends to give a perspective on what it’s like living with someone who has Peter’s conditon. A few years ago I was videographer at two North Wales Dementia Meetups. At the first event I interviewed a number of people in the audience who were living with Dementia. Several of them told me that their diagnosis had left them depressed and despondent. A year later, at the second event, some of those people were on the platform telling their stories and recounting how the first event had given them inspiration to turn their lives around and take positive actions to overcome the limitations of their condition.

OK, so the last example is about inspiration coming from the people you directly interact with, but there cannot be any denying that online video amplifies and spreads the ability to learn from how others do things. And that these lessons are all the more powerful when they come from people like you, living daily with the condition you live with than from official sources.

The fact that D-CAN is making some steps towards recognising that online video has a role to play in connecting people beyond physical meetings is, to me, a great, positive step forward. I believe we need to build on this step and roll the use of video into further meetings and into helping those living with Dementia to learn from each other. And we need to extend this practice into many other areas and many other conditions.

The growth of the internet has brought with it an explosion in the use of online video. More than a year ago, a report was published which showed that young people watch Netflix more than they watch the BBC. The millions of hours of online video which exist represent a major learning opportunity that, by and large, our public institutions are not making adequate use of. And they need to be seeding this resource with their own content that people can draw on. I am hopeful that D-CAN can be part of this process.

All the video from the first National Assembly of D-CAN can be viewed here. The video below, of the delegate interviews starts with Christopher Richmond, who lives with Dementia himself, telling his story. This is just the kind of thing I want to be able to support more of.

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Is Local Radio the Route to Digital Inclusion?

I’ve been doing increasing amounts of local radio in recent months. I’ve been appearing regularly on BBC Radio Leeds, on the Breakfast Show as the New Technologies “Professional” (usually a 10-minute slot) and, once a month, on the Big Yorkshire Phone-in, doing “Tech Hour” in the afternoon. I’ve also done a few slots this year on BBC Radios Sheffield, Derby and York. One of the reasons I like doing this is that I have become increasingly convinced that radio is the route to reach digitally excluded people. I have been searching for some time for tools to reach people who are not online at scale, when you are just an individual freelancer like me, and not a big organisation with a substantial budget. If you are reading this then you will be well aware of the powerful reach of social media and of tools like YouTube, but digitally excluded people don’t use these channels, so where can you reach significant numbers of them?

I don’t think it’s giving any secrets away to say that the demographics of the audience of BBC local radio stations tends to be weighted towards the older age group, and it follows that a proportion of them will be digitally excluded. The listeners’ questions when I am on the air tend to range between the very basic to the guy who wanted to ramp up the RAM on his Android phone. On one occasion, as I was leaving the studio after doing “Tech Hour”, the producer called me over to tell me she had a lady on the phone who hadn’t managed to get through while I was on air, but she wanted advice on where to get started on tech as she had never used a computer or smartphone. I suggested that she start with her local library; the lady didn’t know if she had a local library; the producer Googled it for her, and found that there was one, but it was open restricted hours and staffed by volunteers. I don’t know if it was anything I said on the radio that inspired her to want to get online, or that it just happened that she was spurred to do something by hearing the programme, but this is just the kind of person that I think local radio can reach.

I will continue doing what I can to reach out to people over the airwaves and, hopefully, to convince some that the world of digital technologies is not at all scary and will enhance their lives. I think radio is a powerful tool to reach digitally exluded people. If any other radio stations want to work with me on this, please get in touch.

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Does Brexit Mean People are Getting to Know their Politicians Better?

I have often been shocked at how dis-engaged many people are from the political processes which influence their lives. I have frequently had conversations with people which reveal that they know little or nothing about the politicians who represent them, or the systems that control so many aspects of their lives.

As you probably know, I am a big advocate of storytelling, and, in the political context, I believe that those politicians who tell their own stories are more likely to connect with the public. I think there are a number of politicians who have done this well over recent years, but they are in a very small minority, and, to most voters, the back story of most of their representatives is a mystery. And yet, the majority of people (still, just about) cast their vote every few years, with, it seems to me, limited knowledge of who they are voting for.

And it works both ways, for every politician who has a heart-warming story to tell which is likely to endear them to voters, there are others whose story would be likely to turn people off voting for them if they only knew it.

And so to Brexit. I think Brexit has put more politicians in the limelight that has previously been the case, and this has made me wonder if it means that more of the public is getting to know them. Of course there are still those who take little notice of the news, and in particular political news, but I find it hard to believe that political news has not seeped into a lot more people’s consciousness over recent months.

So, has Brexit resulted in more people knowing who more politicians are, understanding what motivates them, and what their background is? If so, will it make any difference to people’s voting intentions?

What do you think?

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