Parliament has no time for 100,000+ signature e-petitions The UK's e-petitions initiative, intended to get the public's issues debated in the Commons, has fallen at the first hurdle, with two petitions on ice due to lack of time. The e-petitions website lets the public start a campaign and invite people to sign to support it. Once signatures go over 100,000 – as has been the case for …
The E-Petitions site was always a way for people to vent their spleen and blow off some steam. The government never gave it any credence and will never give it any as it hopes once people have had a moan they will feel better. The truth is the government is now so out of touch with the electorate that whatever they are so very busy doing, you can bet that it has nothing to do with domestic issues are more to do with how they can conquer the middle east.
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Democracy in action!
all show and no go
they can talk the talk , but can they walk the walk? no
all the gear and no idea
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What a beutiful , simple , cheap idea this was to connect the populace to the government , to give a real feel of openess , communication , and democracy.
And now its "we've not got time" FFS these issues should go to the top of the queue, they are the ones that we , the people , their employers , ie thier boss, want discussing .Not whatever other naval gazing bullshit they had scheduled.
I guess they realised that some of the questions might be a bit unpleasant for them.
The government has decided to spend all its time rabbiting on about thing IT wants to talk about - not things THE PEOPLE (who, incidentally put the MPs there) want discussed.
To put it in perspective, if all the 100,000 people who signed any one of the qualifying e-petitions could be bothered to get off their arses and actually vote, they'd represent the majorities of the 4 safest parlaimentary seats (or the 60 least safe: which had majorities less than 1,500 votes). You'd think that sort of political influence would gain some respect. But I guess that since there's no possibility of another election for several years - where these e-petitioners could register their displeasure at being ignored, the people in charge can afford to ignore them all. Isn't democracy a wonderful thing?
and set out the way it will operate. so the whole idea was a spin to make labour look like they hadn't lost the plot and where trying to be in touch with its electorate.
They probably hoped it would quietly die after the election.
Shame as in essence it was a good idea and mean't we didnt need to try and convice our MP's that our causes where true and just and held a majority support .
because, frankly, which government gives a flying monkey about what people say? Over 1 mln protested in London over the UK joining the invasion/liberation of Iraq. Not good enough.
And the best (or worst) to come out of any debate would be a view of the Commons, courtesy of BBC Parliment, with the minimum number of MPs required to run a debate, what is it, two of?
So... how long have those e-pets been active? And how many debates have we had? Say again?
Like so much of what the government had promised, yet another commitment is broken. Cameron committed himself to a lot of things, but not much at all has been done and the rot and injustice has continued. Many promises have been shelved. I don't know if it's because of internal differences within the coalition or if he's simply all talk and no action. :-(
Very. A lot of lobbyists are paying the EmmPeas an awful lot of money so they can feel important.
Oh and also trying to manipulate debates in favour of rather questionable agendas.
E-petitions are worth as much as the current raft of elected clowns. Maybe if you pony up some cash so they can junket/spend on a second house/buy luxuries, then they'd spend time debating it for you
Have you tried organising a country-wide petition? Even if you can organise one, it requires people to be in the right place to get others to sign. In the past I've seen a petition handed in to Number 10 and thought "I'd like to have signed that, but I didn't even *know* about it..."
(Oh and before now AIUI governments have tried and sometimes managed, to get a huge petition written off as a *single* comment!)
I'm inclined to agree with you (that it's insane), but clearly others are not. Hence there should be a debate.
Of course, those that started the various counter-petitions are also missing the point. The government was never undertaking to implement any petition with 100,000 votes, just to debate it. If you strongly disagree with an e-petition, you should sign it!
(Or at least, that would be true if it was actually going to get debated)
Benefits being docked is one of the most pointless, biased and illegal ideas that you'd think an MP came up with it. Or the Daily Mail. Which on second thoughts, they probably did come up with that one.
To think that you can punish some people and not others (not all rioters were on the dole etc), outside the judicial system (we're presumably still going to prosecute them under general law, right?) is as misguided as the notion that we should or even could shut down Twitter if "call me Dave" so decides.
I'm quite happy living in a society that at least attempts to deliver even-handed justice. A lot happier than I'd be if we were up for laying down random punishments on certain people purely on account of 0.1% of the population being arsed to click a mouse button.
I dont see how the riots highlighted an attitude that working for a living is optional. Where did that come from?
What is this about there being no consequences for criminal behaviour either? Also not something the riots have shown.
Now, if we were talking about white collar crime, then its a different matter.
They always were, and they always will be. No gubermint is going to pay them any attention unless they happen to agree with whatever the gubermint wants. We live in a democracy, but only with constraints.
Perhaps we should have an e-petition to call for the abolition of e-petitions.
For most people democracy = representative democracy. We don't need Athenian-style direct democracy (for free, land-owning men only) for the voice of the people to be heard.
It would help if the Government provided some of its Parliamentary time for the e-petitions that came through the system that they instituted to be debated, rather than taking a chunk out of the little time the Backbench Business Committee has to play with. I'm sure some enterprising MPs will adopt the measures that have been proposed but it is the Government that deserves the blame for not thinking this one through.
"Unfortunately, the group that is supposed to get a chance to discuss the issue, the Backbench Business Committee of MPs, is complaining that the one day a fortnight it has scheduled for debate is chock-a-block with its own issues and the government hasn't given it any extra time to deal with e-petitions."
... so what they're saying is the day that was put aside to deal with e petitions actualy ISN'T put aside for dealing with e petitions.
They're saying that the one day a fortnight that the Backbench Business Committee has to deal with *any* issues it wants to raise is not sufficient to also take on a bunch of other issues. If the Government wants to get credit for instituting an e-petitions system, it should either provide the Backbench Business Committee more time or allow the e-petitions to be discussed in Government time.
I seem to recall that one of the most popular No. 10 Downing Street e-petitions was Jeremy Clarkson for PM, so let's not pretend that this is going to be a great way of making public policy, at least in the short term.
I always thought that the whole e-petitions thing was for the purpose of paying lip service, as in "tell us what you really want us to do but that we'll do our own thing anyway".
Setting the bar to about 0.16% of the entire population of the UK seemed a bit high (considering it was internet only and that only adults are eligible to vote), and correct me if I'm wrong but I think these are the first two petitions to actually hit the barrier meaning that they've effectively set a precedent for not dealing with any others "because we're too busy".
If you really cared about your electorate, you'd *make* time.
Unfortunately this isn't at all surprising. Common sense dictates that e-petitions be assigned to a specific MP that would be responsible for initiating the debate, as no MP would want to voluntarily associate themselves with the inevitable radical proposals that will follow. And further, it has to be common sense that such debates be scheduled so as to not conflict with existing proposals or committees.
It's just a shame that their PR department has got ahead of itself and that they can't deliver on what seems like a genuinely good concept.
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