Author | Lightnews

Sym Roe

Sym Roe

@symroe.bsky.social

6.4K followers 86 following 93 posts

Turning Python and UK elections into Democracy Club, from Stroud https://democracyclub.org.uk/

democracyclub.org.uk

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Reposted by Sym Roe

Sarah Drummond @rufflemuffin.bsky.social · Sep 29

Asking for a friend - amazing social CIC doing good things in nature.

Looking for a South West (ideal) based fractional CTO who can also get their hands a bit dirty, and help a volunteer model of developing their platform

They have a backend dev, and hiring a front end.

Any ideas/connections?

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 8

Yeah, I think that's the same CGR process as we talk about here. Can be changing names and or boundaries. In theory this is tracked by OS, but they do miss some

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 8

"Data" is seen too much as "publishing a book" rather than "running a service". Thinking it's something that can go in a "library" shows how deep this thinking goes.

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 8

We're really lucky in this country that gerrymandering is basically not a thing

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 8

Very doubtful: they are minor enough changes. You're right that it's hard to prove, but I would bet that the changes have never altered the outcome of a local election.

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 8

Did you know that councils can change their own ward boundaries? And sometimes, no one really notices?

democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/08...

New post from @democracyclub.org.uk talks about how this is tricky for us to track, and what we think could improve the process

Community Governance Reviews

Community Governance Reviews keep parish and community councils in line. But they are hard to keep track of.

democracyclub.org.uk

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 7

Three masts and one foremast

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 6

🤯

"The term soap opera originated from radio dramas' original sponsorship by soap manufacturers.

The term was preceded by horse opera, a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_op...

Soap opera - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Aug 3

www.discogs.com/release/6617... has been my focus music of late

Ariel Kalma - Open Like A Flute

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2015 Vinyl release of "Open Like A Flute" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 31

Where I have some thoughts on digital improvements that can follow from The Elections Strategy. I think the "digital notices" thing could be a really interesting pattern in legislation

Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · Jul 31

Some great practical extensions of the election strategy by the election data experts at Democracy Club.

Includes a good write-up of @symroe.bsky.social's "hang on, can we just define 'giving notice'" argument. democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/07...

Thoughts on the Elections Strategy

Earlier this month the government published its '*Strategy for modern and secure elections*'. We outline some of our ideas for digital implementation of this strategy.

democracyclub.org.uk

Reposted by Sym Roe

Julia Cushion @juliacushion.bsky.social · Jul 31

Finally got my film developed - wish I could time travel back to eating icecream in mechelen with the amazing #tictec crew!

@democracyclub.org.uk @symroe.bsky.social @myfanwytristram.bsky.social @zarino.co.uk @dracos.co.uk
@mysociety.org @societyworks.org

a group of people eating ice-cream in front of the tower in Mechelen, Belgium

Reposted by Sym Roe

Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · Jul 31

Some great practical extensions of the election strategy by the election data experts at Democracy Club.

Includes a good write-up of @symroe.bsky.social's "hang on, can we just define 'giving notice'" argument. democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/07...

Thoughts on the Elections Strategy

Earlier this month the government published its '*Strategy for modern and secure elections*'. We outline some of our ideas for digital implementation of this strategy.

democracyclub.org.uk

Reposted by Sym Roe

Democracy Club @democracyclub.org.uk · Jul 29

New blog!

Political parties won 12.9% of English town and parish council seats in 2024/2025. But party involvement at this level is controversial. We take a look at what the data can tell us about partisanship in England's first tier of local government.

democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2025/07...

Parish councils and political parties: some initial findings

A dive into the politics of England's first tier of local government.

democracyclub.org.uk

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 18

My friend Hatty has written a detailed plan for the implementation of votes at 16: docsend.com/view/9nnhamt...

DocSend - Simple, intelligent, modern content sending

DocSend helps you communicate more effectively by telling you what happens to content after you send them and letting you keep control in real time.

Reposted by Sym Roe

Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · Jul 17

Effective end to the open register (good! It's a weird legacy of when voting rights were restricted and was open so you could challenge. Now just a weird privacy thing that has a lot of outputs)

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 17

Does the business of spamming random CVs to people really work? If I get an unsolicited "we found a dev you might want to hire" email, it doesn't matter if they're excellent, I just focus on the fact the recruitment company is spamming me. They must make money somehow, though?

Reposted by Sym Roe

Matthew Somerville @dracos.co.uk · Jul 14

Finding the Private Eye crossword tricky this week. Resorted to googling a clue, to be greeted with this. Googled another just to see (I’d worked out that one), got... the same answer. The most average answer to all crosswords!

“AI Overview
The solution to the clue “dark drink (cap to be removed)” is SPIRE. The “cap” refers to the top letter of the word “drink” (the letter K). Removing that letter from “drink” leaves you with “d rin”, which when rearranged, spells “spire”.‘

Google query: “Order one to have new union”
First result is the Private Eye website listing the crossword itself. Under that is the AI Overview, stating:
‘The answer is SPIRE.
This is a classic crossword clue, playing on the phrase “order one” which refers to a spire, and “new union” which is a clever way to describe the joining together of elements to form a new spire.’

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 10

The team are in London in accommodation that's not suited to the heat. Anyone have cool working suggestions for 5 people in the Shepherd's Bush area?

Reposted by Sym Roe

Matthew Somerville @dracos.co.uk · Jul 8

I’ve put an HTML version of Volume 1 of the Post Office Inquiry report up at postofficeinquiry.dracos.co.uk/report/

Footnotes all present, internal links to inquiry documents not there yet, but hopefully will be straightforward to add in a bit.

Reposted by Sym Roe

Matthew Somerville @dracos.co.uk · Jul 5

Followed a link in a message on my phone to legislation.gov.uk, and this time got fed up enough of its desktop-only website to do something about it: presenting adlegem.dracos.co.uk which will make a legislation.gov.uk page readable on mobile :)

Followed a legislation.gov.uk link on your phone? Found it impossible to read?

adlegem.dracos.co.uk

Reposted by Sym Roe

Clare Griffiths @statsgeekclare.bsky.social · Jul 4

Can someone please make this work in Edge!? I love it.

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jun 26

I've made a browser extension that replaces _that_ dot with a random emoji.

github.com/symroe/GOV.U...

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 1

I tend to use government by exception. Having quick access to "apply for compensation for a criminal injury" is, hopefully, not something I need 'quick access' to (or at least not quicker than just searching the web for it.

I expect others are different and need to use somethings daily/weekly/etc

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 1

Play store:

"GOV.UK ID Check" helps me log into "select" services.

Then "GOV.UK One Login": "proves my identity"

Then "GOV.UK": "Quickly access relevant topics, local services and pages you’ve visited before".

I need to use "One Login" to "personalise my experience", but is that the app?

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 1

This feels a bit like when they got Universal Credit to use Verify in order to boost the number of people using that service's stats. Is "more people use the latest login system" the KPI for this app?

Hopefully they use web push etc (PWAs) as well as a native app

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 1

Seems like I need to make an account in order to do anything in the "GOV.UK" app.

I have no reason to do that, so I'll uninstall until I have a reason.

Sym Roe @symroe.bsky.social · Jul 1

Screenshot of GOV.UK app asking for One Login