Ken Clarke is pushing on with implementing the Bribery Act – despite claims from Labour earlier in the year that the government could be about to delay implementing the Act indefinitely.

A Whitehall IT chief has admitted that, “Labour ministers ordered expensive computer projects because they wanted their policies to “sound sexy”.” It certainly helped explain Labour’s sudden conversion to having an e-enabled general election (plans since dropped). This was an announcement suddenly rolled out by Robin Cook despite completely cutting across the electronic counting and voting pilots the government was funding at the time and despite the lack of evidence from those trials that an e-election would be cost-effective or produce higher turnout.

And finally, news from Scotland – a last minute error with the paperwork meant that the nomination for one of the Liberal Democrat Scottish Parliament constituency candidates did not go through.

Because, you see, Labour MP and campaign coordinator Andy Burham has said that his party would not be working much for a Yes vote in the AV referendum as,

It would be a recipe for chaos and confusion if Labour candidates were also supporting AV in their literature.

Odd then that it wasn’t a recipe for chaos and confusion in London in 1998 when there was a referendum on the same day as other elections. And I’m sure that the fact that the 1998 referendum was introduced by a Labour government whilst the 2011 one was not has nothing to do with his views. I mean, that would just be churlish, wouldn’t it?

So I guess the conclusion is that Andy Burnham’s saying he’s not as good as previous Labour campaign coordinators. After all, if they managed it without chaos and confusion, why can’t he?

It’s good though to see that not everyone in Labour is taking as implausible a line as Andy Burnham and in fact some pro-electoral reform campaigners are willing to campaign for a Yes vote. Step forward Will Straw on Left Foot Forward:

During the leadership campaign Ed Miliband … told Left Foot Forward, “I support AV for the House of Commons and will campaign for it.” Little wonder, when the system worked so well for him during his own leadership contest. Reversing this position now will look to political and constitutional reformers like rank opportunism…

There is no obvious reason why Labour can’t, in LBJ’s words, “walk and chew gum”. Why shouldn’t Labour’s candidates support AV in their literature? After all, there is no additional cost to including a line in a direct mail or leaflet that is already paid for. While the party can be excused for prioritising victory in Scotland and Wales, campaigning for AV need not be a huge drain on resources or time.

You can read Will’s full post here.

Will Straw from Left Foot Forward has blogged about his own contribution here and The Voice’s very own Helen Duffett was one of the speakers at the launch event.

My own piece looked at ‘Lessons from the disappearing phone boxes for the internet and politics’ which tries to get at why people so often ask the question ‘Will the next election be an internet election?’ followed shortly after by’Well, that wasn’t an internet election’ – and yet the use of the internet has become so pervasive in politics:

Does the rhetoric and analysis of Joe Trippi and Clay Shirky or the reality of the mobile phone more accurately foretell the future impact of the internet on British politics? That isthe central question for anyone looking to predict how technology may change politics andcampaigning over this new Parliament…

Here’s the report in full, including my piece:

The internet and the 2010 election: putting the small ‘p’ back in politics?

You judge a set of tax proposals by who gets what money. It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Who could possibly object to that? Well, for a start – me.

The reason is highlighted by Will Straw’s analysis of the key policy goals laid down by Nick Clegg. Looking at the Liberal Democrat proposals to raise the basic threshold to £10,000 and so take millions out of the income tax system all together, Will judged it on the basis of who gets what in their pocket (or rather, a promise of a shortly to be published analysis of that). But that’s not the whole story.

There is a major benefit which doesn’t get counted in pounds and pence in your pocket from being taken out of the income tax system – if you are the sort of person who struggles to handle complicated bureaucracy, who moves in and out of jobs through the year, who doesn’t have the financial cushion to see them through while tax takes are adjusted and over/under payments come and go. Or indeed, if you’re the sort of person for whom all of that applies.

Among the millions who would be taken out of income tax all together with a £10,000 threshold are many who fall into those descriptions.

People who will benefit from having the hassle of struggling with the tax system lifted from them. People who will benefit from not having to worry about how tax is under or over-paid if they move between jobs or different pieces of part-time work. People who will benefit from not struggling to make ends meet because, while there is a tax adjustment coming down the line, they aren’t getting the money in their bank account right now. People who just don’t have the financial resources and bureaucratic experience to see themselves through dealing with an at times complicated, unforgiving and slow moving tax system.

Making bureaucracy simple for individuals is a much under-rated policy goal. Business and red-tape hogs the limelight in this respect – with the result that we end up with well intentioned policies such as the Office of the Public Guardian mired in over-complicated, expensive bureaucracy that turns what should be a great service for the most vulnerable in society into a service for those with money to spend on lawyers.

So when judging a tax policy – and above all, when judging it by the progressive yardstick – don’t just look at the theoretical implications. Look at the bureaucratic reality too.