Ed Dowding

• @tplondon this is my more active account #
• @amanda – @tplondon gave proof to my theory that girls mainly want to be brought glasses of water. #

Time and space stretch out before you
And the universe implores you
To take your place
Amongst all things
And to see what the morning brings
To your own self be true
There’s nothing more to do

You are young and the world is open
So many words you’ve never spoken
Don’t be afraid to stand your ground
When your time it comes around
To your own self be true
There’s nothing more to do

You are part of everything
Find your voice and start to sing

Time and space stretch out before you
And the universe implores you
To take your place
Amongst all things
And to see what the morning brings
You are part of everything
You are part of everything

Time & Space, by The Accidental

• does anyone in London have a magnetic apple macbook pro charger they’d happily sell? Urgently required, as you might imagine.. #
• also if anyone has a blackberry (not pearl) they’d like to sell, I’m an eager buyer. #

Here’s a handy 30 question survey which will tell you which of the main parties you are most allied to: http://euprofiler.eu

The total price is £102.13. But if you want to pay the total price, you have to use a card. All cards carry a fee of £8.09. So.. that’s not really the total fee then, is it?

At midnight last night, the voting closed on my – our – 14 day long bid to make me your independent MEP for the South West.

We made it to second place on the ballot, with some 460 votes (in the fury of urgent texting I forgot the actual number, but will find out on Monday), but were, despite being 20+ in the lead during the day, were eventually pipped at the post by ~20 votes.

I need to work out whether it makes sense to continue (there’s some weirdness in the electoral structure and the effects of proportional representation). I shall keep you informed, of course.

For now I can’t put my thoughts of the experience any better than this:

The [..] freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us.

We were wrought up in ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew.

Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age.

We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.

T.E.Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

There are lots of thank yous to be said. From the 460ish who voted, to the people who helped spread the word, especially on the last day, when about 200 votes were added, I thank you all.

Super special thanks to a few special people – you know who you are, and there are so many that it would be unfair to pick out names here – who read and advised on ideas (sometimes over many years), proofread, inspired, believed, and motivated. Oh, and asked me to read T.E.Lawrence.  You are all splendid people, to whom I am deeply indebted. Thank you so much for your help and support.

Let’s see what’s next.

• one hour to go and we’re back to 15 votes behind – we WERE ahead by the same — text EDDOW01 to 86837 and video at http://www.elected.in – HELP! RT #
• @tomboardman @acton I hear you’re out with a group!! 40 mins to go and we’re back to 15 votes behind – we WERE ahead by the same -text E … #
• 5 mins to go!! Pls ask text EDDOW01 to 86837 asap! Pls RT before midnight! #
• 2 mins – if you’re in a pub stand up and shout: text EDDOW01 to 86837 #
• damn that was close – but I wasn’t enough to draw the crowds. Lost by 24 votes to a woman in what I can only presume was a very large pub! #

The transcript of the introductory video at www.elected.in, as requested by a few folks:

Hello.

My name’s Ed Dowding and I’m running to be an independent MEP, because I’m bored of politics.

I’m bored of the short term thinking, I’m bored of the arguments about people and not about issues, and I’m bored by the way all the truly important problems are ignored.

We seem to have forgotten that the way we live is a CHOICE. It can seem at times that there is so much history shaping the way we do things that it would be impossible to change now. It can seem that we live in two worlds: the one we know in our daily experience, and the one we read about and see on TV. It can seem that no matter what we do or how hard we try, the bad guys still sneak away to safety, and the good guys never get a break.

Today, I’m asking you to give me a break. Today I’m asking you to vote for me so that I can try to make a difference in Europe.

Europe started as an idea for peace, progress, and trade, and then quickly moved into the public realm and started influencing our lives in more direct ways. In the 90s I used to think that they should stop, just wind it back to a free trade area and leave it at that.

But over the last 15 to 20 years, we have grown increasingly aware of emerging global problems. Not only problems born of globalisation like fair trade, and huge companies throwing their weight around, but also the big problems:

SARS and bird flu have shown us how quickly disease can spread in a connected society; climate change evidence mounted and we had storms and HUGE floods. We have had wars about religion and oil .. oil, a commodity which underpins our entire economy — an economy which has become untethered from value, and been shown to have severe flaws, not just if left unregulated, but also inherent in its very structure and operation.

And in response to these problems what do we get from our party politicians? We get… well … not enough. Some nice work against price fixing in the medicinal drugs market, disproportionate amount of chat about a constitution (which I’m against, by the way), and pressure on mobile phone manufacturers to all use the same charger. Which is neat and will save a lot of waste, but leaves me with the feeling that many of them are fiddling, whilst Rome burns.

Does the EU not understand that trust is earned? Do they not understand that if they do the job we WANT them to do, and confront these problems head on, THEN we will see that the EU can be a thing of value?

THEN we will see ourselves as part of an amazing organisation that is solving mankind’s problems together, because there is no way that we can solve these problems on our own.

Well it turns out that the EU DOES know this. If you read the research and ideas coming out of the EU, many of them are BRILLIANT. Marvellous solutions for making transport zero-carbon, large funds for energy research and implementation, some excellent work in early identification of pandemics, and much more. You should take a look at europa.eu.

So if we know what needs to be done, why aren’t we doing it?

Because the people who make the choices, the politicians, lack the vision to see the solutions; and those who do are allied to parties which work on vote chasing and short term appeal. They are frightened to deal with the problems, because they think you are not ready to face them.

You’re not stupid. You know there’s an energy crisis. You know there’s a population crisis. You know there’s climate crisis. You know that something really needs to be done about these.

But it’s also a lot easier if you can make it someone else’s problem. So you did that. You assigned politicians to represent you in this representative democracy.

But they haven’t. Even given the scale and immediacy of some of problems they’re supposed to fix they have stuck to party lines and old solutions based on a fundamental misapprehension of the problems: aid policies based on the same system which created the need for aid, a war on terror which creates more terrorists, farming methods which create famine, legislation which is aimed to help businesses, but ends up ruining them; a currency which is supposed to bring stability but which magnifies the financial shocks. In the words of Einstein, ‘we can not solve problems using the same thinking used when they were created’

What we need in Europe – what we need in ALL politics – is people who don’t care about politics. We need people who care about getting the best long term solution. We need people who are strong enough to stand up for what is right, — even if it’s painful.

People who can talk with honest urgency about fish stocks and agricultural policies, who will campaign loudly and effectively about the overwhelming need for transparency and openness in Europe, people who will represent your DISGUST that we can bail out banks but not find money for public transport and energy; people who will work tirelessly to bring you the answers you deserve.

It is not overstating the situation to say that humanity faces a choice right here, and right now, about how we deal with the century to come.  — About how we deal with problems which simply can not be adequately dealt with at the national level. Problems which require us to all pull together if we’re going to see the next century.

Not only does humanity face a choice, but YOU face a choice. This is YOUR economy, YOUR country, YOUR Europe, YOUR world, YOUR life, YOUR future, YOUR vote… this is YOUR moment to make a difference.

Here’s what you can do, right now, to make change happen:

Please vote for me before midnight today, Friday 24th April, by text EDDOW01 to 86837.

Learn more about the issues at www.electEd.in, or by googling ‘Ed Dowding MEP’

And put it in you diary to vote in the elections on 4th June. If you are not yet registered to vote, you can get a form online at www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

If we work together, we can do this.

• anyone have any tips for a good webcam recording and editing software on the mac? need to do a quick promo video. #
• is about to release a video and will be asking for massiver RT please!!! #
• argh videos take SO long to process! And iMovie is pants at actually editing.. #
• Intro video to Ed Dowding, indepedent MEP candidate at http://elected.in/ –voting closes at midnight tonight!! Please watch, vote & RT!! #
• It’s 4pm on Friday — that means it’s watch videos time! Please get everyone to gather round and watch http://www.elected.in and see if you like it #
• @taghioff I’ve seen some great demos of algae tech — it’s definitely working well, it’s now just scaling I think? #
• @tagioff ps I know a chap working on algae and other renewables in China if you want an intro #
• Ok ok I’m know I’m being annoying but videos work!! Votes are charging up & soon to be in first! http://www.elected.in — please RT! #
• since we’re on videos, Matt did a great job at making 3 boring hours quite gripping: http://bit.ly/17t4LG — man that was fun! #
• @alices but what a show! :p #
• We just moved into the lead! http://bit.ly/w3uU3 Let’s take it home! 6h47 mins left to vote! http://www.elected.in for new intro video! Pls RT! #
• @galgo I know – exciting times, eh?!? Will be cycling around the SW for the next month on tour — I’ll swing by! #
• @galgo negative campaiging would be fun, but … well it’s not really cricket is it? Let’s let the ideas compete, not the people. #
• @hermioneway your great videos inspired me: http://www.elected.in — thank you! x #
• Seeing people tonight? Did you like the video at http://www.elected.in? Jot EDDOW01 to 86837 on your hand & ask ppl to text – it’s their future too #
• US DoE est. that if algae fuel replaced all petroleum use in US it would require 15,000 sq.ml. Less than 15% area of corn harvested in 2000 #
• TED is coming local! This is going to mean a lot of GREAT ideas being talked about! http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/260 #
• Nailbiting! I’m only 3 votes from winning — pls ask everyone to text EDDOW01 to 86837 – I’m SURE you’ll like the vid at elected.in x #