Eastleigh Manifesto

Traditionally a manifesto contains policies that a party wants to implement if elected. The Eastleigh Manifesto is different: it contains policies that people would like parties, or independent politicians, to implement for Eastleigh. A party manifesto is written by party politicians but the Eastleigh Manifesto is written by ordinary people.

At least, that’s the plan! To work, the Eastleigh Manifesto needs you! If you have an idea about the future of Eastleigh, don’t keep it to yourself; suggest a change to the manifesto! Anyone can edit the manifesto and there’s a step by step guide to help you below.

There’s already one policy in the manifesto, and the hope is that it will provide inspiration for a positive future in Eastleigh. Anyone interested in standing as an independent candidate in local elections could campaign on some of the policies in the manifesto, local party’s could use it to feed into their own manifestos if they have one, or you could use it to find out which candidates support policies you agree with before voting.

That’s the background, now for the fun bit: how to edit the manifesto!

How to suggest a change

If you already know what you want to add to the manifesto, follow the steps below. If you’re not sure what to add, there’s a list of ideas which you can check out for inspiration first.

Step 1: open the manifesto!

There’s a page describing how to contribute which you can read now, or just follow these steps and come back to it for more information later.

Step 2: Create a GitHub account

You need to log on to update the manifesto and for now you can only use a GitHub account to log in. If you don’t already have a GitHub account, create one now for free.

(In the future it would be nice to be able to support alternative options for logging in. If that’s something you would like, please leave a comment and let me know which account you would prefer to use!)

Step 3: Start editing the manifesto!

Click on “Suggest a change” in the manifesto and log in using your GitHub account.

Step 4: Grant access to the manifesto app

The manifesto is managed by an app which needs access to your GitHub account. (You should only need to do this the first time you log in.)

Step 5: Submit your first changes!

It’s time to share your ideas for Eastleigh! When you’re ready, click on “Submit changes” at the bottom of the page.

Step 6: Describe your proposal

All proposals are voted on before being accepted for the manifesto, so give yours a memorable name and short description. You also need to confirm that you are happy for your submission to be part of the public domain manifesto. Read the Contributor License Agreement and include the following statement in the description:

"I have read the CLA Document and I hereby sign the CLA"

Click on “Submit changes” when you’re ready.

Step 7: That’s it!

Just wait for comments and votes on your proposal. If your proposal is accepted and added to the manifesto, you’ll get to vote on future proposals!

If anything goes wrong, or you have any comments or suggestions for ways to improve the manifesto app, please leave a comment below.

Advertisement

e-lections

Something strange is happening in Hedge End: not only is there a local election with a choice of four candidates, but three of them have agreed to campaign online! In previous local elections there hasn’t been any choice at all but this time most of the major parties are represented, and there’s an independent candidate!

Impressively the only current independent councillor managed to convince two of the candidates to answer a few questions on his blog. One other candidate didn’t accept the premise of the question and instead submitted a statement, while the remaining candidate declined to take part at all. So thanks to Keith Day, here’s who you could vote for in the Shamblehurst by-election:

• Michale Steven O’Donoghue of Melbourne Gardens (UKIP)
• Paul Redding of Newcliffe Gardens (Conservative Party)
• Raymond Ronald Turner of Newcliffe Gardens (Independent)
• Richard Sean Effeny of Walker Gardens (Liberal Democrat)

It’s fantastic to see such a simple and effective use of a blog for some constructive local politics, and it’s also nice to see a bit of discussion going on between the candidates in the comments!

If only the Liberal Democrat candidate could have taken part as well. Given the recent Liberal Democrat community speedwatch campaign, it would have been nice to have been able to leave him a comment to see what his views are on an alternative approach to road safety near schools. Admittedly, he may not have been that interested in my comments given I can’t vote in this election but I might have omitted to mention that! Hopefully there’ll be even more participants in time for the next local election I can vote in.

Photo © Roo Reynolds (CC BY-NC 2.0)