back to article Gov justifies e-petitions as MPs mull upping debate threshold

The Coalition government's e-petitions website has been defended by the team working on the Cabinet Office's digital-by-default agenda, after politicos considered upping the 100,000-votes-to-get-it-debated-in-the-Commons threshold. In a post on the government digital service blog, Peter Herlihy - delivery manager for the GovUK …

COMMENTS

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  1. J.G.Harston Silver badge
    Unhappy

    [warning: this project calls taxpayers customers]

    What about people too poor to be taxpayers, what do they call them? Worthless scum who can be ignored in our relentless persuit of grovelling to the wishes of the rich?

    1. Ogi
      Meh

      is it so?...

      No no dear chap... you got it all wrong!

      The poor *are* the taxpayers, the rich are the customers.

      At least it seems that way when you see how the gov bends to the will of those with money, while everyone else pays for them to do so via said taxes...

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      They are called the electorate.

  2. peter 45
    Facepalm

    Whaaaaat?

    You mean that the Government gave us a means of making our opinions felt, and are surprised that we use it?

    Its almost as if they expected it to be just a headline grabbing sop to the electorate whilst they went on with the normal business of telling us what we should be thinking.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Big Brother

      Exactly!

      How *dare* people think that they have a democratic right to express an opinion? Don't the Proles know that they should keep their mouths shut and enjoy the Bread and Circuses of I'm Strictly an X-Factor Celebrity...

  3. Usually Right or Wrong
    Facepalm

    Those flaming reporters again

    "He pointed out that media outlets have given such online petitions significant coverage when they came close to 100,000 signatures"

    Make it a threshold of 75,000,000 and even with Ms May's open immigration policy it would take a few years to have that many people voting.

    Will save parliament being forced to debate whether to schedule a motion to consider debating bringing back capital punishment for serious offences such as tax evasion, or in the borough of Westminster, for parking. Instead they can all go home (on expenses) and have a nice cup of tea.

    Does anyone know why we have politicians? Just wondering, it bound to be my fault somehow.

  4. TRT Silver badge

    Something, something, something...

    mass debate, something.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      close

      It's something something something dark side something something something complete.

      There that fixed it.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some politicians probably won't be satisfied until there is a sixty two million threshold.

  6. dotdavid
    FAIL

    Metaphor fail

    ""I believe e-petitions have been a success in building a bridge between people and Parliament "

    If the e-petitions website were a bridge, it would have a huge parking area in front of it and travellers lucky enough to be allowed to cross would end up back where they started.

  7. Naughtyhorse

    Persn'ly

    I couldnt care if thatch has a state funeral or not.

    I'd just like it to be soon.

    No real need for her to be dead even, at least not at the commencement of festivities.

  8. Infernoz Bronze badge
    Mushroom

    The petitions project is already a farce and backwards

    The fact that a 3 line whip was used to crush free voting on a petitioned vote for a referendum on leaving the EU shows the utter contempt/idiocy of the (Socialist) Political Class, especially for the really big important stuff! The mere idea of increasing the signature threshold demonstrates just how arrogant they are.

    This petition project has already been demonstrated to be yet another farce of the moribund (Socialist) Political Class, with its political parties and career politicians; the stasist Socialist parties still don't get it, without a free vote, the whole project is pointless, worse seen to be pointless too!

    The existence of the Tea Party in the USA and the occupy movement around the world shows that people are waking up, abet groggy and confused from the Neo-Roman Bread (easy credit, consumerism and state bribes) and Circuses (mass corporatist media and mass sports), and have begun looking for ways to break free of the prevalent and oppressive Stasism and Corporatism.

    Note: Stasists is a word coined in the book "The Future and its Enemies" by Virginia Postel (1999), for Statists and Technocrats of both the Left and Right wing (Socialist ideologies) i.e. those who resist dynamism in favour of the status quo, ever greater regulation, thus stagnation and decline. The Left and Right wing are just polarities of the bankrupt Socialism ideology, thus irrelevant; the real battle is between stasis and dynamism, hopefully this will become more widely acknowledged.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sure

      And the Tea Party really is a 'grassroots' democratic movement rather than a bit of cynical rabble rousing of the swivel-eyed mob by the vested interests of the nutcase right?

  9. LarsG

    MOVING THE GOAL POSTS.......

    a politicians favouring game

  10. Super Fast Jellyfish
    FAIL

    100 days?

    "said that it has now been more than 100 days since the e-petitions site landed"

    It might only be 100 days since this site landed, and admittedly at least this does have a threshold but there's been an e-petition site since at least 2007 : http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/.

    Although the last government was as determined as this one to ignore the wishes of the plebs.

  11. JohnMurray

    And now for something......

    Here's another one...languishing at nearly 5000....police pensions....little chance of that going past 100,000.

    Pity !

    http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22321

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vanity

    Backbenchers are evidently far too smitten with the magnificence of their own genius to allow debate they aren't seen to control. Typical middleman mentality; not so different from pimps, recruitment consultants, estate agents and other unsavoury sleaze brokers. I've met a fair few MPs who have really impressed me over the years, a great deal more who comfortably fit the 'local councillor who got lucky' mould. In other words, self serving, arrogant pricks.

  13. James 100

    Quite irritating to see some minor politician whining about having to spend time "debating" whether or not the public's wishes should actually be mentioned by the rest of the politicians or not - the obvious solution is to remove this Backbench Committee from the process and have the petition scheduled automatically, taking precedence over all other business since, unlike the stuff the politicians want to talk about, this is being imposed by their employers.

    Better still, bypass Parliament too and have the petition question put directly to the electorate as a binding referendum. Somehow I doubt these turkeys would endorse that particular Christmas either, but it would remove this particular excuse for them whining about us taking up their precious over-remunerated time with mere democracy...

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