Justine Roberts to participate in Labour family policy review

[Eleison]

Just heard this on the PM programme and tbh it makes me want to leave mn. We have any number of properly constituted campaigning bodies, representitive of their members through governeance structures. And yet a limited company that sells advertising space and that dips into a talkboard to get copy for press releases and a bit of a steer on its campaigning priorities is pushed to the forefront, essentially because it is a big player in the media.

Reminds me of Alan Sugar getting the position of business tsar on the strength of The Apprentice.

I don't want a sports journalist talking for me. I don't want MN to posture alongside third sector organisations.

They may well campaign on issues that are entirely consensual but the detailed stances and strategies they adopt are very much their own, very much underdetermined by the talkboard that is the pretext for their influence.

I think it is a consequence of the erosion of genuine political participation, when we let a billboard owner speak for us.

If MN don't make clear the numbers of participants that their consultations are based on; if they don't make clear that the term 'Mumsnet' doesn't mean the collective voice of the talkboard but means MNHQ; if they don't make some effort at a better structure of consultation to justify their claim to speak for, what, a million people(???) then they will be doing something invidious, something which is of a piece with the Big Society's failure to respect a distinction between genuine third sector organisations and business.

Surely she can do what she wants so long as she's either speaking for herself or reflecting back the range of opinions.

Of course, if she is speaking for herself. Is that the basis on which she claims influence though?

i think that Justine would consult the MN boards when asked for an input on any major issue, the same as she does if appearing on tv/radio shows.

In that repsect i can't see why she would be any different to a politician, speaking on behalf of their delegates. Well actually i can....Justine is more likely to actually say what we have asked.

In fact i would suspect that Justine would have more "voters" than most local Mps.

And i think that moderating these boards will have given her a massive insight into the way modern families work and the way the parents of many modern families think about certain aspects of society.

Yes,, but she's not a fool she's not going to push one pov on each issue. She will hover be able to reflect the range of views. Can you image the outcry on here if she did anything else?

Hover =however.

But how can she reflect the range of views on here. Might as well try to reflect the range of views on a crowded street. If there was statistical analyses of thread after thread, or if there was a consultative structure that resulted in more than a few hundered people giving a view which is then magicked into the Voice of a Million, then ok.

Without that, it is just a bit of co-opting by the Lab Party, to get a ride on the media that MN attracts. And co-opting too by the govt on some issues, to generate the appearance of wide consultation.

I think that even the most heated deabtes end up with a majority view.

I will admit to being concerned that it will make those who do not know MN assume we are somehow in bed with labour.

Eleison, I think you're quite right re the need to clarify, often and clearly, whether an MN campaign represents the views of 100% of all MN users, or 50%, or 90% of those who posted or whatever. Or when it is, as you suggested, just the views of MNHQ. And of course they have every right to make their personal views known, but they can't assume cohesive agreement from such a huge forum.

But having said all that, is participation in a policy review the same as say, the MN stance on the EE/cot death issue (which caused upset at the time)? They're contributing to a discussion which may or may not become opposition policy - but the discussion is an important one.

I'll be interested to read the details of this review in the paper tomorrow. I've just caught a headline now. It is a bit depressing from the point of view of a Labour Party supporter, too. Labour's capacity for grassroots consultation of their own membership is poor, and their willingness to be a party whose policies and principles are defined by its membership is tiny. A flashy review with some big media names is pretty typical of their post-Blair functioning, as a media-led election winning machine.