Nick Hurd has been appointed as the new Minister for Civil Society at the Cabinet Office, reflecting a shift in language away from the ‘third sector'. The new Minister set out three areas which government policy will focus on, building on an open letter he wrote prior to the election, as Shadow Charities Minister.

A central part of the Conservatives' approach to civil society and to support community action is set out in what they describe as the ‘Big Society'. The ideas draw heavily on thinkers such as Red Tory author, Phillip Blond, and the father of US community organising, Saul Alinsky. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister set out the government's plans for the Big Society recently. Nat Wei, a new peer, and founder of the Shaftesbury Partnership, has been given a role as unpaid adviser to oversee the plans. He will be working alongside Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society and Francis Maude MP, the new Minister for the Cabinet Office.

The new coalition government, the first in the UK for over 60 years, is based on intense negotiations over policy between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The government has published full details of the coalition agreement between the two parties over their programme of action and policy priorities for the next five years. This follows a briefer outline of the key aspects of the agreement that was published shortly after the coalition was formed. Urban Forum has published a briefing on the initial coalition agreement and we will be publishing a briefing on the full document shortly.

The change in government means a completely new set of Ministers across Whitehall, including a significant number of Liberal Democrat Ministers. A briefing on relevant Ministerial appointments will be available on our website in the next few days. In the meantime, you can find the full details of all appointments, from Secretary of State, to Minister of State and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State here.

The implications of the change in government and of the negotiations between the coalition partners are still emerging, with an emergency Budget planned for 22nd June. Urban Forum will be bringing you briefings and analysis as things become clearer over the next few weeks. Some initial reaction to the results of the general and local government elections can be found on our blog. Current posts include; the collapse of the far right vote, the untold story of the local government elections and some handy tips for community groups on developing relationships with councillors.

Following the local election results, it is definitely the case that there are a significant number of new council administrations, and a large number of new councillors.

Local councillors and councils are important to local VCS organisations in many ways - they influence funding, policies, and partnership arrangements all critical to the work of the VCS.

With the media fixated on national political developments, they have as yet neglected the local election results, but there is a story to tell.

Elections were held in 166 authorities in England. All council seats were up for election in all of the London boroughs, a third of council seats were up for election in 20 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 71 district councils, and half of council seats were up for election in seven district councils.

They all agree:

• To more mutuals and cooperatives and to employees and citizens running public services - why is it you wait 20 years for political support and then, like a London bus, three come along at once?
• Restoring the link between the basic state pension and average earnings - is it cynical to suggest it's not coincidental that this coincides with recession and tightening of public sector pay?
• Cleaning up Westminster and giving people the power to recall their MP when they misbehave
• Supporting the Green Economy to deliver new jobs
• Getting banks lending again and not being so naughty in the future

Who'd be against?

All the parties are in favour of; greater efficiency, more democratic and accountable public services, fairer society, less bureaucracy and citizens having a greater say over decision making. Well there's a surprise! Who would be in favour of more bureaucracy and less efficiency?

Eye catchers?

• The Conservatives big idea is the Big Society and a neighbourhood army of community organisers.
• The Liberal Democrats are going with radical plans to reform the tax system and make it fairer
• Labour's plans for the Post Office include a national network of credit unions and community lenders funded by taxing the banks

They said what?

‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant' (Conservative)

There will be more Mandarin teachers in schools (Labour)

‘Following the election of a Liberal Democrat government...'

Finally...

Being one of the few people sad enough to have read all three manifestos from cover to cover, I can now say; there's not a lot in there we didn't know already.

There's also a lot of repetition. There's also a lot of repetition...

Given that very few people actually read these things, couldn't they have cut them down a bit and saved the environment that they are all so committed to protecting?

The three major parties have given us surprisingly different offerings in their bid to attract our votes in the general election. No, not their policies. . . . where there's a remarkable amount of consensus (plus some key differences). I'm talking more about the way they present their ideas and the design of their manifestos.

I know remarkably little about design, but even I can see that there are big differences in the look and tone of the manifesto offerings from the major parties.

The Conservatives have given us a plain blue cover with just few words inviting us to join the government. Inside the pages are full of stylish graphics mixing text and images, together with slightly bemusing graphs and catchy slogans like ‘bye bye bureaucracy'.

Then there are postcard-like profiles that don't really seem to link to anything in particular. The architecture of Glasgow's buildings may be beautiful and of significant cultural interest, but why do we need to know that 8 out of 10 of the largest insurance companies have offices in the city? Or am I missing something?

Overall, though, I think, it looks pretty smart and the design definitely has a fresh and chic feel to it.

The Conservative manifesto comes across as something of a ‘story', which I guess is what they were after. I've heard it being described as the ‘narrative of their philosophy' and, I think that description's about right. It's not awash with policies - though there are some - but there's lots and lots of narrative. Perhaps it's the ‘big story' of the ‘big society'?

And then the Lib Dems have got, some words on their cover. And some pictures inside. In fact, lots of pictures...of Nick Clegg and Vince Cable. (By contrast, the Tories have one of David Cameron and Labour not a single picture of Gordon Brown. I counted seven pictures of Nick Clegg).

I suspect that in advance of the campaign starting, the Party strategists felt their biggest challenge was to make Nick Clegg better known among the electorate. This has obviously changed since the first leaders' debate, but perhaps this now serves to focus on perhaps their greatest asset - their leaders' popularity. Nonetheless, the design of their manifesto is, at best ‘traditional' and at worst, downright boring. But it's probably ‘honest'.

The Lib Dems should be applauded for being the only one of the three major parties to actually put numbers in their manifesto. Tables of figures setting out where their savings will come from and where they will spend the money. The Lib Dems are honest in a way that neither Labour nor the Tories are in telling the public how their numbers stack up. It doesn't particularly matter, I don't think, that they are fairly unintelligible to the lay person. It's reassuring to know they're there...a bit like a nuclear deterrent perhaps (that the Lib Dems would scrap).

Labour's brightly-coloured cover image has brought comparisons with the Soviet era, with all the obvious political associations that come with that. I think it's more evocative of 1930s modernist work, but then again, what do I know? Inside, there are very few graphics and not a single picture throughout. And the images used for each chapter heading look like they've been created in powerpoint.

A bit of a ‘marmite cover' - love it or loathe it! - but at least it elicits an opinion of some description, but from thereon in, from a design point of view, it's all downhill.

Labour offers us policy. Lots and lots of policy. I guess it's a consequence of actually being in government that they've got detailed plans to present - presumably one of the advantages of having civil servants to develop plans for you. Having said this, it is pretty consistent with Gordon Brown's reputation for ‘doing detail', and so perhaps the manifesto is an embodiment of his personality?

In fact perhaps that's what we've got with all three of them. Cameron's Tories are big on style (but possibly light on substance?), the Clegg and Vince double-act from the Lib Dems are honest (but maybe a bit dull?) and Labour, under Gordon Brown, give us detailed policy (till it's coming out of our ears).

The introduction into British politics of the live televised debates between the would-be Prime Ministers marks an historic change to the way elections are conducted in the UK. They have certainly dominated media coverage of the election and have propelled Nick Clegg into the political spotlight. The Lib Dem leader's performance in the first debate smashed the prevailing opinion that there could only be two possible winners in the election. Ironically, Clegg's performance (almost universally being hearlded as 'the winner') may actually make it less likely that we have these sort of debates again in the future!

If the election results in a hung (or ‘balanced') parliament, with the Lib Dems holding the balance of power, there is a strong likelihood that electoral reform will be a non-negotiable issue for agreeing a coalition government. Historically electoral reform has been the centrepiece of Liberal Party policy, and despite some posturing by the party hierarchy over the possibility of working with either Labour or the Tories, it remains a likely requirement for any parliamentary alliance. [Given that a move to a more proportional voting system would significantly boost the Lib Dem's representation in Westminster, it's hardly sensible for them to start changing their position now, does it?] With two of the three major parties now advocating political reform, the likelihood of the next general election (or at least the next-but-one) being fought under a new electoral system is greater than at any time for generations.

A move to Proportional Representation, or the ‘more proportional' but not strictly PR electoral system advocated by Labour, would have the effect of increasing the representation of smaller parties. We could expect to see MPs elected from the Greens and UKIP (and possibly the BNP too) as well as a significant increase in the number of Lib Dems in Parliament. And over the longer-term we may well see increasing political fragmentation, with new parties emerging and an erosion of traditional Labour and Conservative power.

This increase in the number of political parties and the shift from a two party (or even a three party?) system, would pose some significant barriers to any plans to hold leaders' debates in the future. After all, it's been difficult enough to agree on a format for the leaders of three parties to debate. How much harder would it be if there were a significant number of MPs from other parties? And one wonders whether it would even be appropriate to have a 'leaders debate' anyway with some many more variables and permutations. Would we have a debate with six party leaders in the future? Or perhpaps, we would have one debate for would be Prime Ministers, and another for would be 'kingmakers' with the smaller (but no less important) parties? And what would happen if we got more extremist and anti-democractic parties being elected? Some argue that it is right to 'starve the BNP of the oxygen of the media' and would no doubt refuse to enter into debate. And if they did, would the debate be dominated by an anti-racist alliance against the BNP?

It's hard to see how the leaders debate could easily work with a more diverse party system.

Of course, a new format could probably be found that's better suited to a multi-party democracy. But there is still an irony that success should result in extinction. In twenty years time, we may look back at the debates as the turning point in the way our politics is conducted and come to regard the three live debates as something of a unique political oddity.