What should the Labour Party do next?
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Independent Minds
With the Labour Party languishing in the latest set of polls – recording in one poll its lowest rating since opinion polls began in the 1940s – a third place finish looming in next month’s local and European elections, and rumours of a challenge to Gordon Brown’s leadership rippling through Westminster, what should the Labour Party do next?
We would like you to help us crowdsource this issue by adding your thoughts to The Independent’s interactive visual map of the choices the party faces – either directly to the map or via the comments below – and to start the conversation and debate we have included some initial issues (and mooted leadership challengers) on the map.
As before, the whole structure of the map is like a wiki – every aspect is provisional, and open to further iterative improvement – and everyone can add new issues, positions, pros and cons, and comments to the map.
The aim is to weave together all of the salient arguments into a rich, transparent structure that anyone can explore quickly and gain a relatively deep understanding of the relevant choices.
The map starts as a simple seed and evolves into a mature representation of the community’s understanding as more people begin to layer in their thoughts and suggestions. Moreover, as you begin to rate the different ideas the visualisation changes to signal which ideas are perceived to be strongest and weakest.
To start exploring the map, click on one of the small spheres to move down deeper into the debate, and on the largest sphere to move back up. Use the buttons below the map to access the fuller underlying content and to add comments and new ideas to the map.
You are welcome to just watch the map evolving here – but the map and the community’s understanding will mature more rapidly if register and begin to comment on and rate the different issues and arguments, and to add new issues and arguments of your own.
As with the other maps in the series you can you can keep up to date with developments on this map via the Independent Minds blog and @TheIndyDebate on Twitter. And you are welcome to embed the map on your own website or blog (like a YouTube video) using the code shown below:
<iframe src='http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.aspx?r=18238' frameborder='0' width='450' height='600'></iframe>
If you would like to see similar maps for the other political parties let us know in the comments below.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
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Comments
Where are the options that say 'Resign en-masse'; 'Call a General Election' ; 'commit collective ritual suicide with Samurai swords' ?
The country has had enough of these clowns/crooks (not sure the order is correct but anyway..). We might JUST have more respect for them, in the long term, if they called a General Election 'on their record' and conceded that subsequent decimation at the Polls was a reflection of their piss poor performance, rather than a temporary failure of the delusion/bullshit machine.
Labour Governments ALWAYS leave the country in a worse position than when they take power. FACT. (copyright Spanish Waiter/Liverpool)
This map is different to the earlier maps in the series in that it is exploring the question from a particular institutional perspective (i.e. the Labour Party's perspective). Future maps will consider what the other parties should do next as well as exploring reform of the political system from a non-partisan perspective.
With this overall framework in mind, I have added your suggestion about the potential long-term benefits to the Labour Party from calling an immediate general election to the map, here:
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.a
Please don't hesitate to elaborate on this point on the map - or to add any additional points to the map - if you would like to do so.
David
Run around like headless chickens
Copy american ideas and brand them new
Start some wars
Never tell the truth
Lie smear and tarnish parliament
Do a few dodgy deals for knighthoods
Do a few dodgy deals for funding
Waste lots of money
Have no control over spending
Remove all positive police action from the streets
De educate young people
Promote talentless tokenist women
Encourage corruption
Align yourselves with corrupt and incompetent city people
Start a few more wars
Sacrifice the UK people for TB's pension fund
Be generally amoral
Sink to oblivion 2010
posted in june 1997
Because it's the one the majority of the British populace want!!!
The "Call a General Election now" option is here:
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.a
David
I have added this point to the map here:
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.a
David
Now If I have this difficulty you can bet your best blouse that the average bod will find it too daunting and time0consu,ming to 'get head around'.
Marks for ejfort
What's the tool in use? It reminds of PB and Visual Thesaurus (both much easier to use, admittedly for a less complex purpose, though PB can grow very big
But it isn't even beginning to become clear how to propagandise
It's evidently powerful and potentially significant, but a lot more work is needed to make the front end easily used by both the dull-witted (like moi) and busy people
We are conscious that there is a learning curve for visual mapping and a learning curve for using the tool, and we are developing continuously and iteratively to simplify the learning curves for both; so that the full power and potential that you highlight of collaborative visual mapping of this kind can be realised.
So feedback of this kind that helps us to understand and prioritise what we need to improve next means a great deal to us and is hugely appreciated.
Thanks again,
David
David
And what of the libdems
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/here
large unreported elsewhere, I WONDER WHY?
'We will clean up politics... There is unquestionably a national crisis of confidence in our political system, to which Labour will respond in a measured and sensible way."
Labour Party election manifesto
General election 1997
Some response! We are in a worse mess now!
I have added your suggested position here:
http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.a
...and suggested cross-linking it to the discussion elsewhere on the map about the key messages to the electorate.
David
To add new spheres to the map yourself, click on the button with the image of the pencil (in the button row below the graph) and then, after logging-in, click on the Edit button on the Dashboard (top right on the new view of the map that opens).
We plan to enable the ability to add new spheres to the map directly from the visualisation above soon.
David