MPs doing what the public wants?! What a crazy idea. It'll never catch on.
Gov reduces e-petitions to public spleen-venting exercise
MPs don't have time to debate the public's e-petitions, a senior minister said yesterday in Parliament, adding nonetheless that it was a nice way for people to express what they was interested in. The e-petitions website hasn't quite delivered the utopian future of internet-democracy some might have hoped – out of the five …
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Friday 4th November 2011 17:49 GMT Graham Marsden
"It is a mechanism for...
"...making it look as if we give a damn what the public wants and let's them think that by signing a petition something will actually change."
There, fixed it for you.
Seriously, though, if you want to at least have a chance of anyone paying any attention to you, write to or e-mail your MP via http://www.theyworkforyou.com
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Friday 4th November 2011 19:51 GMT Keep Refrigerated
+1
The only shock to me is that there are people still out there that think e-petitions was anything but a way of channeling protest and petitioning off the streets and onto a bulletin board that can essentially be ignored.
Most people are placated when they feel like they are being heard, it matters not whether the listener gives a damn.
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Friday 4th November 2011 23:28 GMT James 100
Petitions can work...
... but they need to be enshrined in law as a way to BYPASS politicians, like in Switzerland and California - if they get a chance to override the electorate, they'll use it.
Very simple change: reach 100,000 valid signatures, the question gets put to the electorate within 2 years. The majority vote on that issue is then law, and can only be overturned by a subsequent referendum - no politician tinkering permitted.
Simple question for them: should this be a democracy, where they do what we want, or the opposite, where we do their bidding? They pay just enough lip service to the former, but it's pretty obviously they're really after the latter - and all too successful at getting it.
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Saturday 5th November 2011 12:44 GMT Bluenose
Let the mob rule
The idea that just because 100K people sign a petition means it should become law terrifies me. The idea that such a small mob should have such power is incredible. Then someone suggests that we should commit to allowing such things to go to a full referendum is suggested and again the thought terrifies me that people who have no real understanding of the facts or impacts of their simplistic ideas should have the right to create ignorant and probably xenophobic laws (e.g. Swiss law on banning minarets). And then I though hang on these same people are the ones who tell me that everyone in the UK wants a referendum on the EU and yet ever they get to vote for that every 5 years or so at the General Election and thus far, Nigel Farage is still not Prime Minister. May be allowing the people to vote in referenda more frequently is not such a bad thing.
But I always thought that the e-petitions web site was a farce simply because there are about 100 petitions on the same subject all with about 10 votes. No way was it ever really designed to work.
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Monday 7th November 2011 08:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Please carry on filing epetitions...
... while we carry on ignoring them.
Oh, gosh, I was afraid something would change. I give the politicians one clear warning: if they ever threatened to pull out the plug on the epetitions they ignore, I'll start a epetition requesting for the website to remain live. Oh wait, aren't they using my tax money to ignore me?
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Monday 7th November 2011 10:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
The MPs have other issues they want to debate?
100,000 people can be ignored so an MP can persue his own interests?
I guess Tony Blair's "I won't be told what to do" speech should have softened the blow but at some point these guys are going to have to visit planet earth and check in with the rest of us.
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Monday 7th November 2011 23:32 GMT Delbert
PR exercise
If you had any dealings with this huge waste of time and resources under the previous government you would have no doubt what it was. Even petitions with massive support were ignored with subscribers receiving platitudes via email which said in a nutshell what the govt's policy was, that they were elected and no matter how many told them where to stick it they had the mandate and thanks for being gullible. I had hoped the new govt would have allowed free votes on matters of great concern but it doesn't really look like it.