Those in favour, say, Aye: the rest of you, silence, curs!
Representative democracy in action in RobespiBlaire's Gulag UK.
The Government is to press ahead with preparations for nationwide congestion charging despite the millionth signature on a petition opposing the idea.
An experiment in internet democracy, in which people were invited to place petitions on the No 10 website and vote for them by e-mail, has embarrassed ministers.
The petition calling on the Government “to scrap the vehicle tracking and road-pricing policy” was due to gain its millionth signature last night, less than three months after it was posted on the website.
It received 92,000 signatures on Wednesday alone, thought to be a record for a single day.
Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said last night that the signatures showed the strength of feeling among motorists but would not deter him from commissioning large-scale road-pricing trials.
Comments (3)
nicholas gray
Americans just don't understand Parliamentary Mathematics! Divide the total population of the U.K. (about 60 million), by the number of Ministers (30?) and you can see that each Minister is worth 2 million people! The one Minister outnumbers those 1 million people right off! (Numbers are approximate, and should not be used in real-life situations). I know you don't have ministers, but you do have various committees and heads of committees, don't you? I'm sure the same principles work there. Do grass-roots protests movements ever work?
Published: February 11, 2007 8:34 PM
jb
At least it was accepted. This petition for tax cuts http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Tax-Cuts/
was rejected for being 'political'.
Published: February 12, 2007 5:56 AM
M-la-maudite
Rejected because it was political? How, on earth, do they conceive of a non-political petition to the government? Isn't that the very essence of both institutions? Surrealistic!
Well, i guess, a petition for an increase in the taxes' rate would have met a different fate, though. Sigh -:)
Or maybe, i'm being too idealistic here. A right to petition might just be inscribed on the book to make it look like people's views matter; but then, you can't expect the government, among all, to respect it's own commitments.
M-
Published: February 12, 2007 10:52 AM