Mastodawn

Jonathan Schofield

Coming to you from just north of the sea, at the bottom of Portsmouth South, a preview of a thing I have made.

It’s a resizeable interactive hexmap of UK constituencies:

- It builds upon the hexmap layout developed by Open Innovations: https://open-innovations.org/blog/2023-08-03-hexes-for-the-next-general-election
- But instead of SVG, it’s rendered from JSON using CSS grid, and each cell is a `<button>` that can open an info panel.

It’s a work in progress for something I’m collaborating on. Hopefully, more on the interface later this month.

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

…a bit more on the intent. The hexmap is a support for a new democratic campaign tool we’re calling On The Record.

At the heart of On The Record are instances of a ‘twollock’, which is a neologism for ‘Tightly Worded Legal Clause’.

Each twollock is a precise form of words that *should* be in a bill passed by the UK’s House of Commons. If it were included, and the bill passed and implemented, it would *measurably reduce carbon emissions*.

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

…A twollock is necessarily precise, so probably not catchy and maybe a bit wordy.

So each twollock would have a ‘placard’, a proxy phrase with which to campaign ahead of a known legislative timetable.

An example placard is “No new UK waste incinerators”.

Such a phrase would be sent into the public domain through channels we have at our disposal, as well as broader social media, where members of the public would be asked to *register* their stance on the proposal…

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

…The hexmap thus becomes one way to make visible the level of public support for the twollock and, crucially, to create highly visible pressure upon each MP to take a stance too, ahead of the vote.

Some key facets are hoped to be:

- it’s not an “email your MP” tool
- it’s not a petition, it’s a public register
- although a degree of public anonymity will be supported
- it’s not a hand wavy campaign, it’s precise and dovetailed with a legislative timetable…

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

…
- it may begin to grant people a sense of agency within our inadequately representative democracy
- it will draw together in a single place and make presentable scopes of info about our Parliament which are rather fragmentary and dispersed at present, and in so doing may in itself create a positive feedback loop.

We’ll see I guess 😃

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

…If any of this sounds like something you’d like to help build, I’d love to hear from you. There’s a lot to sort out.

There is *no money* in it. All contributions are pro bono

dorian f moore Mar 1

@urlyman very intriguing, would love to help if i can.

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

@dorianfm cool. Thanks. I’ll send some further details during the week 🫡

Silversnapples Mar 1

@urlyman this is fab!

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

@Silversnapples thank you. Fun to make. Will be quite excited to see it move into use for the purpose it’s made for 🤗

Silversnapples Mar 1

@urlyman 🙌 perfect timing for the up and coming May elections.
Gotta wonder if political parties might love this as a campaign strategy planner.

@urlyman
This all sounds really cool, but what's most intriguing to me is how on earth you are making a CSS grid hexagonal. Are these like two grids overlayed on top of each other, one for the even rows and one with an offset for the odd rows?

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

@fnohe yes, you got it!

A grid per row
Each cell hexagonalised with clip-path
Alternating rows locked in with margins

Jonathan Schofield Mar 1

@fnohe the prototype is made with a JSON approach that’s a bit of a kludge. And my data schema has evolved since then.

As soon as I get the html prototype aligned with the data schema I’ll put the code in a repo and share it

Silversnapples Mar 3

@urlyman saw this and thought of your project.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVak578jO_U/

Or https://myelectionmap.co.uk/

Green New Deal Rising on Instagram: "ELECT HOPE THIS MAY 👉 myelectionmap.co.uk 👈 On the 7th May, millions of us will go out to vote in the UK’s biggest elections since 2024. This is the best chance we’ve got to turn the tide against the far right and elect candidates who stand for real change. Just like we did in Gorton and Denton. Just like we did in Caerphilly. These elections are proof that when we get organised, we win. My Election Map will point you to the places where your time and energy could tip the scales for inspiring, progressive candidates. It's easy to use: just enter your postcode and get shown a list of upcoming events nearby - from doorknocking to leafleting to phonebanking. Use it. Share it. See you on the streets ✊"

654 likes, 25 comments - gndrising on March 3, 2026: "ELECT HOPE THIS MAY 👉 myelectionmap.co.uk 👈 On the 7th May, millions of us will go out to vote in the UK’s biggest elections since 2024. This is the best chance we’ve got to turn the tide against the far right and elect candidates who stand for real change. Just like we did in Gorton and Denton. Just like we did in Caerphilly. These elections are proof that when we get organised, we win. My Election Map will point you to the places where your time and energy could tip the scales for inspiring, progressive candidates. It's easy to use: just enter your postcode and get shown a list of upcoming events nearby - from doorknocking to leafleting to phonebanking. Use it. Share it. See you on the streets ✊".

Instagram

Jonathan Schofield Mar 3

@Silversnapples Oh cool. Thanks :)

I better get my skates on so I can open source it.