Ever since the Lib Dem leader saw off his political foes in the live debate seven days ago, I’ve been a voyeuristic rider on the Nick Clegg storm.

I’ve learned of his family history (his great grandfather was an Imperial Russian count), his next door neighbour (former Tory foreign secretary Lord Carrington), his school friends (Louis Theroux) and his first employer and mentor (Tory EU commissioner Leon Brittan).

In just seven days he went from zero to hero in the nation’s media spotlight and then back to zero again. For Nick, a week is indeed a long time in politics.

On twitter I stumbled over MrsNickClegg, who is a delightfully sassy, risqué, salsa-loving Spanish tweetstress who rants on endlessly about “her Nick”, the election and other latin-tinged idiosyncracies.

She talks of dinner parties with Eno (he talks endlessly of Bono, Bono, Bono), hiring film star Chrisopher Walken to scare off “filthy Tory” and believes that today’s Telegraph coverage of Clegg’s cash payment misdemeanour is a “a tiny storm in a glass of Rioja”.

Some of her rants are very funny, close to the bone and almost certainly not by Mrs Nick Clegg. But the dialogue is clearly someone with Lib Dem sympathies or possibly someone in the Lib Dem camp. It would be a canny piece of social network marketing and electioneering to keep the Nick Clegg profile high by inventing a wifely doppelganger.

Just possibly, though, she could actually be Mrs Nick Clegg.

Furthermore, with the perfect storm of anti-Nick Clegg headlines on the front pages of the right wing media today – the Sun, Express, Telegraph and Daily Mail all having a go at him or his policies – an ingenious perfect storm of ironic reaction swept through twitter networks to emerge later onto office emails, intranets, facebook accounts and latterly into the Guardian as a hastily written column http://bit.ly/aF5w4n.

Out of nowhere #nickcleggsfault was the most popular hashtag in the UK. It had gone truly viral. In a popular revolt against the national newspapers, a wonderful outbreak of British caustic wit blamed Nick Clegg for everything from the death of Diana and missing your exit junction on the M69 to “my wife wants a divorce and it’s…”. All these misfortunes and much much more were #nickcleggsfault.

Surely never have so many right wing newspapers given such a helping hand to the very object of their derision. Media commentators stress that editors and politicians are unruffled by social networking sites. But they ignore them at their peril. Much of the content can swiftly catapault into the real world.

#nickcleggsfault is a reaction to a possible huge own goal by sections of the media and could signal the arrival of social media as an emerging political force (albeit a gag-strewn one) for change. Whether the Lib Dem’s comms team set up #nickcleggsfault or not is beside the point. If they did, it worked. If they didn’t, it worked.

The question media studies bods are asking is can twitter be more than just a network for gossip and viral marketing? Can it encourage participation and dialogue for social change?

Maybe we’ve just seen evidence of that.

It was former Times editor Harold Evans who once said the Sun is so widely read because the people reading it know they’re cleverer than the people writing it.

I was chatting with Ed Balls yesterday (yes, really), quizzing him about children’s services, and how he intended to make a better world for people in Britain. Above all, I told him I was a wavering voter (probably not true) and what could he say to help make up my mind to vote labour.

The Sure Start programme will make a difference to thousands of lives, he said. Bringing children and parents together in preschool communities, sharing ideas and helping each other.

I know Sure Start will make a difference to the 3,000-odd people involved, but let’s face it that’s a very small population. Most preschools and nurseries rely on charity and donations to exist, people who work there often work for peanuts, or nothing.

The local authority tends to overlook such institutions when it comes to funding, yet Ofsted is keen to ensure that standards are maintained for the country’s tots. So ironically these places are not funded, but they need funds to meet Ofsted regulations. People who work there are not paid, but need to go on paid courses to work there.

What, Mr Balls, are you doing about that?!! Sure Start is small potatoes in comparison to most preschools and nurseries around the UK.

It was at that point that my new friend Ed decided not to continue with the discussion. You see as I would probably never get chance to chat face to face with Ed Balls, I decided to collar him on Twitter (he’s famous for his evangelistic tweets).

Yes, Twitter.

Once upon a time politicians spoke AT you at mass rallies, cosied up to handpicked audiences in TV studios, and answered letters and more recently emails (if you’re lucky). With the advent of social media they now answer to you on Twitter if they want your vote (and if they’re savvy enough to understand the medium).

Funny, it’s amazing how Ed Balls can still come across as smug, lofty and self important in just a few characters, but that’s politics for you.

But it also illustrates how everyone should start engaging in social media to help transform the world around them. People still scoff at me when I tell them to get a Twitter account. To all those naysayers, if you want to chat with Ed you know where to go.

Below are several reasons why they should sign up.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/02/10/twitter-can-save-your-life/

There’s nothing like a shocking death in the community to focus attention on the supposed inadequacies of our public services.

And Birmingham Children’s Services have been under intense national scrutiny following the death by starvation of 7-year-old Khyra Ishaq. Rightly, questions were asked: How could such a terrible tragedy happen in a modern British city? Where were the safeguards to protect the child?

Last Friday I spent an hour or so with Owen Pearson, assistant director of Children’s Services in Birmingham. Owen is a dedicated champion of children’s safeguarding, he’s on call most of the time, often working round the clock. He has no time for holidays, but is urged to take them far away from Birmingham and England so he’s out of contact, “which makes my holidays rather expensive,” he jokes. Above all, he loves his work: “I believe I can make a difference for children. If I’m making a difference for one, then I’m making a difference.”

Some 2,000 looked after children are currently in the care system in Birmingham, and 4 times as many children are on the child protection register living at home.

“Our priority is to safeguard children in their own homes,” Owen says. “Most children don’t’ want to leave their parents. That’s home, that’s love for them. It’s only when they get older they realise they can get out.”

He manages 19 teams; each team has 6 social workers, 2 assistants and a manager. And each social worker has 15 cases or more at any one time. As Americans say, “do the math”. It’s a huge workload.

The teams’ records of helping vulnerable children go largely unrecorded, mainly because of the successful outcomes. Now and again tragedies happen and the teams collectively are vilified across the nation. Such is the lot of Children’s Services throughout the UK.

The reason for my visit was to plan a mini-conference where Owen and Colin Tucker, the Children’s Services Director, will talk to other heads of services to explain the type of work they do and how they’re going to develop this in the wake of little Khyra’s death.

The idea for the conference is to record the “journey” through video engagement of a vulnerable child who is referred to social services. So as Owen and Colin speak, behind them will be a portal containing half a dozen video blogs of everyone connected with the “journey”; that’s the 10-year-old child, social worker, case recorder, legal representatives and child/adult who has been through the care system.

The idea is to give an accurate picture – not a whitewash. Owen was clear about that. He wants to tell the truth and he wants each person in the chain of events to show clearly how the “journey starts and finishes”.

No system is perfect, but if we can show through directors’ speeches and video narratives how everyone is trying to improve the lives of children, then maybe next time tragedies occur, there’ll be less finger pointing and witch hunts and more empathy, understanding and analysis. That way real improvements will be made.

As part of this engagement process, it’s important to keep the portal growing post-event. That way everyone connected with the service can start to talk, engage and share best practice and anecdotal evidence. Using facebook-style profiling, microblogging and video blogs, a community can be formed and managed, and hopefully can act to help avoid tragedies in the future.

I’ve got a friend who’s an ex-con – let’s call him Roger.

Every few weeks I meet Roger in a little pub in a forgotten corner of Worcestershire and sink a few Hereford Pale Ales while putting the world to rights.

Roger is incredibly erudite and eloquent, outwardly middle class and a happily discontented family man. After a few jars, however, he often sinks into a maudlin stew and talks me about his life inside a maximum security prison.

He recounts these “missing years” – even his wife is unaware of his secret history – in a matter-of-fact way. But even after 2 decades, bitterness for the way the prison service operates still burns inside.

Last week he told me of his first day of incarceration on what he terms a trumped up drugs charge:

“Coming out of court and packed into a van, I was too numb to understand what was happening. As we sped away, tears started streaming down my face. Then they came in floods. I was lost, alone, desperate for some kind of shoulder to cry on, some level of deep humanity I could touch.

“I was bundled out of the van, taken to a place where I was ordered to strip. By this time I was sobbing uncontrollably. One of the prison officers shouted to his mate: “We’ve got a crier!”

“They all laughed, dragged me into a cell and squeezed me into a straitjacket. I was unable to move for the next 12 hours and had to piss myself inside the suit. I was let out next morning; I wanted to kill myself.”

What struck Roger the most was the malevolence of the system. Any weakness shown was met by force and brutality. His gaolers would punish crying, but respect violence towards other “cons” in a world turned upside down.

Only the beer brings out Roger’s deep-seated scars. He talks to no one else about this – it will always remain bottled up inside.

Below is a recent interview I had with Christian Wraxall about how social media engagement can try to bring people with mental health problems together to talk about their shared concerns and histories.

When I asked Roger would he ever want to be involved in such a network he said: “Before, when I’d just come out it would have helped enormously. But that was then, not now.”

My 10 year old went to a real-life Willy Wonka land with the school recently. Afterwards, he came home beaming, eyes bright and arms heavy with assorted chocolate bars and sweeties. He’d been to the Cadbury-owned Bournville factory near Birmingham and wanted to take us all back there soon.

Unfortunately, Cadbury sold out to Kraft for £11.9 million a few weeks later and on hearing about the takeover he asked: “Dad, why do Americans have to take Cadbury’s away from us?” genuinely mystified.

I replied: “Because lots of people will make lots of money.”

“Can we still all go there?”

“Probably not.”

At this point I don’t want to descend into an anti-capitalist rant about greed, big business, asset stripping healthy companies and not giving a toss about the little guy (although I just have), but what I find most distasteful is the £240 million the lawyers, accountants, bankers and PR agents have pocketed from the deal. The gadflies in a feeding frenzy round the cash cow’s arse, if you like. “It’s drinks all round and holidays in the Maldives, guys.”

Meanwhile, everyone living around Bournville will be fearful for their jobs, their livelihoods, their families and lucky if they get a break at Skegness this year.

Ironically, the Cadbury family first built a model village for the Bournville factory workers 100-odd years ago and it’s their descendants who will be the prime targets for impoverishment after Kraft start to apply economies of scale to its new investment.

So what’s all this got to do with CandE (communication and engagement)? Well, a lot actually.

Hyperlocal media involves people getting together to write blogs, film videos and generally connect with everyone in the local community about local issues. The idea is that if people get involved they can make a difference – and even change things for the better.

Recently, Niki Getgood spoke about hyperlocal media initiatives, including working on a local project for Bournville, at the Birmingham social media café (more on this in the next blog). Here she is talking about it.

I’ve also attached a quick commentary by William Perrin – who is part of the Power of Information Taskforce – talking about how hyperlocal initiatives can help to change your environment.

Of course, none of this will save jobs or mortgages in Bournville, but when communities engage they can help improve the lives of people who would otherwise be isolated and disenfranchised.

My little boy plays for an under 8s football team as a defender – and he’s pretty good at it. His team is chock full of highly competitive little boys, watched over by highly competitive mums and dads. And the relaxed Saturdays of old have now become a rather fraught, fractious and sometimes tearful affair depending on the fortunes of the team.

“So what of it?” I hear you mutter.

Well, this team has a website and after each match one of the dads writes up a small report about the game. Most kids’ football teams have this type of weekly reportage after each game. Outside the team it’s only of interest to the highly competitive mums and dads of other teams and is more often an excuse for a frustrated dad to try out his John Motson hat (not to mention coat).

Athough only a handful of parents and children read the match report, I still reckoned I could come up with something a little more interesting. So I took my little Flip camera along and filmed a rather bemused coach and manager after the game (see Grant and Richard below). I told them I wanted the to “do a Fergie”.

The day after I uploaded my experiment I had calls from other parents and children telling me how much more they enjoyed looking at the report.

Comments included:

“It suddenly comes to life.”

“I wanted to hear more from them.”

“Is this going to happen every week?”

“Never bring THAT camera to a game again!!” (that was the coach)

Suddenly people had become immediately more engaged. The small footballing community I belong to started laughing and joking and talking more.

Going forward I want to persuade a parent to comment each week after every match, taking the engagement idea one step further (altho the coach and manager are still in the denial stage). Simple really – and fun. Shows what you can do when you get a community talking rather than emailing or posting dry, humourless comments on a forum.

Ever thought much about Stockport? Me neither till a year-odd ago. So here are some facts that might be helpful if you’re in a pub quiz – or wandering around Stockport.

* Stockport is in Greater Manchester.
* Stockport was completely destroyed during William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North.
* Stockport was the centre of the world’s hatting industry and exported 6 million hats a year in Victorian times.
* Stockport’s Victorian viaduct is the world’s biggest.
* 10CC and the Stone Roses recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport.
* BBC TV series Life on Mars was filmed inside and on top of the Stockport council building.
* And finally (and the point of my Stockport post), Stockport is also doing Britain’s first council community engagement site.

“Rubbish, they’re all at it,” I hear you say. Not true.

A lot of public and private organisations are setting up websites, local community social network sites and the like. But if you look closely they’re mostly on the 2 dimensional, build-it-and-watch-them-come model.

Most work on the facebook-style approach where people set up their profiles and then join online groups. Great if you’re an online groupie-type of person, but most people aren’t. They’re too busy, apathetic, unsure about the technology, watching TV etc.

Stockport’s approach is a simple one; don’t write, use video blogs and tell people what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, how your life is. This becomes an all inclusive network, with no hierarchy, managed by Stockport council and sealed for security.

It’s also proactive, meaning that all registered users are sent emails each week to invite them to watch the latest blogs. Simple. Effective. The system is operated out of the CareKnowledge social care information portal.

I suppose you could call this a bit of shameless self promotion; I’m editorial director at CareKnowledge. But I reckon that if you’ve started something genuinely groundbreaking you may as well blow your own trumpet. I also believe that this type of network could bring about genuine change for staff and communities; seriously improve the lives of many people who are isolated, old, suffering from mental health conditions, have disabilities of some kind.

Here’s Rob Powell, of Stockport council, and Natasha Howells, who works for a social enterprise called Pure Innovations, talking about the programme.

It was only recently that Sheena became a carer. Her aged mum, Gladys, suddenly and inexplicably felt sick for much of the time; no longer ate much; no longer walked anywhere; became housebound; bedbound; and eventually passed away on a busy workday behind closed curtains amid floods of tears by the grieving family.

It was a sudden, cruel and relatively brief introduction to the world of the carer – and Sheena coped through a combination of stoicism and selfless devotion.

 Caring is a very private affair that happens in millions of homes across Britain. Thousands of people – you, me, Sun readers, Guardian readers, X-factor voters – quietly carry out their carer’s roles with little fuss, behind closed doors and with few rewards except to help their loved one. In many ways it’s a tragic culture of silence, but one of deep love and understanding.

 It turned Sheena’s world upside down; she’ll never be the same, but she would never have had it any other way. Importantly, she now understands what it is to care for someone and how that has helped her life.

 Carer’s stories like Sheena’s are often hidden from view and seldom surface amid the razzmatazz of daily life. Just imagine if more people could tell each other about the tragedies, the love, the necessary sacrifices that occur when you’re caring for someone.

 Last weekend the Guardian ran a beautiful photographic essay by Chris Steele-Perkins on the hidden face of caring www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/14/magnum-photographs-carers

 Steele-Perkins sums up by saying: “Caring is an activity that usually goes on behind lace curtains, and it was special to be allowed into people’s lives to take these photographs and record their feelings. As I grew more involved with the work, I started to realise that while I was indeed photographing carers and the cared-for, I was also beginning to map out the considerable parameters of love.”

 This perfectly encapsulated the world that Sheena inhabited when she was caring for Gladys. Apart from close family and a few work colleagues, nobody knew Shena’s world had imploded or had any inkling of her strength of character to ensure her mum’s final days were peaceful and shrouded in love.

 I was able to gain an insight into this selfless world of caring for a simple reason: Sheena is my wife.

Gladys and Sheena