Can we ever hope to influence Beijing?

China officially became the second biggest economy in the world last month overtaking Japan for the first time, and while the influence of China over most international processes has been clear for a long time, can we ever expect to influence the Chinese government? Both Oxfam and Greenpeace must believe so, as they’ve expanded out of [...]

Are we seeing the first ‘twitter’ revolution – a campaign reader

For the last month my trending topics have included terms which relate to the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and now Libya, but can the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt be described as the first ‘twitter revolution’?  Here are some useful articles about the role of social media in the recent uprisings in the Middle [...]

APPGs and Charities – What the data shows

The Guardian DataBlog has today made available information on all the contributions made to support the work of All Party Parliamentary Groups in the current Parliament. They found that 283 of the 450 groups received some kind of financial support from outside interests. The groups, often know as APPGs for short, are made up of MPs and Members [...]

EU Citizens Initiative – All you wanted to know (and much more beside)

Yesterday, the European Council adopted a regulation that will allow the ‘European Citizens Initiative’ to go ahead from early 2012. A key part of the Lisbon Treaty, the initiative allows a group of  citizen to bring legislative proposals to the European Commission, providing they can gain the support of a million other Europeans. The documentation [...]

Happy Birthday War on Want

I wasn’t aware of the story that led to the founding of campaigning organisation War on Want until this week but it’s an inspiring reminder of the difference that one individual can make, the story goes like this; On 12th February 1951, The Manchester Guardian published a letter from Victor Gollancz (a prominent publisher and socialist) calling for people to [...]