Three Months of Britain's e-Petition System

eldavojohn writes "The idea seems simple. Provide feedback for your government via the internet. If enough people sign a petition, address it. That was the idea when an e-Petition site was launched in Nov 06 for Prime Minister Tony Blair. The BBC is reporting on the million or so petitions that the PM has received since the site went live. While most petitions are rejected or ignored, they have a top ten with one petition having 600,000 signers. Is this a valid way to provide feedback to the government or merely an exercise in keeping the populace happy?"

Validity?

[SeaFox]

Any way one can provide feedback to their government is a valid one. As long as you demonstrate constructive criticism in your method, anything is better than nothing.

The better question is whether the government will take the feedback seriously at all, or if this is like the proverbial comments box that feeds into the building's waste chute.

Re:Validity?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were more than 600,000 people protesting in Britain at the start of the Iraq war.
It went ahead anyway.

Re:Validity?

[rm999]

Good point, feedback is always a good thing; I guess the important question is whether this is the correct way of doing it. Politicians are very busy, and don't like their time being wasted. If the system is not taken seriously, like a lot of other online petition sites, it will lose effectiveness and just waste time.

If this does take off, and becomes the main way for the people to bring up complaints, it will give more voice to people who are tech savvy - not exactly the ideal in a democratic republic (or whatever Britain is).

I like the idea though. I wish more American politicians embraced something like this.

public opinion worthless

[swell]

If we had a government that listened in the USA, we would have mandatory church attendence, half the population in jail, and subsidies for any group (unions, lobbyists, Mexicans, etc) that could gather enough signatures.

Thank goodness that politicians DON'T have to cater to everyone!

Re:Validity?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Blockquoth the AC:

There were more than 600,000 people protesting in Britain at the start of the Iraq war. It went ahead anyway.

That's true, but ignoring a couple of million protesters has effectively brought down Tony Blair and neutered the New Labour government. I can't think of a single high-profile, high-impact change they've got through since then.

The nastiest thing in the works is probably the whole ID cards and National Identity Register policy, for which the introductory legislation has already passed (though only after being rammed through with all the power the government could muster). I nevertheless predict with confidence that this will policy will die before it becomes mainstream, and the framework will be quietly "forgotten" by the next election. Over-hyped arguments about fighting terrorism and pleas to trust the government just ain't what they used to be, and I rather suspect that once the current political fad of believing the world is about to end because of environmental catastrophes has passed, I think privacy and personal freedom will be the Next Big Political Hot Potato.

On which note, it's interesting that by far the most-signed petition on the site objects to the introduction of vehicle tracking and road pricing measures. Many in government, including quite a few of my local councillors as well as the big central government players, seem to think this is inevitable. I rather suspect that it will be shot down on a similar basis to ID cards: it's a not-so-stealth tax, and it's a gross invasion of privacy. It's also overcomplicated when a much simpler alternative already exists via petrol tax, which could achieve much of the same end result. And of course, it's the answer to a problem that has only been created through a combination of poor government strategy and naive business management. The correct answers don't even seem to occur to them: not planning such that much of the population doesn't work locally; providing effective public transport alternatives rather than unreliable, overpriced, and generally less pleasant "services"; getting heavy freight off the roads and onto the alternative networks as much as possible; setting higher basic driving standards to reduce the number of incompetent/inconsiderate drivers who cause a disproportionate amount of congestion; providing serious facilities for cyclists rather than half-assed cycle lanes that do more harm than good, and encouraging employers to provide basics like secure cycle storage and showers at the office; management realising that flexible working hours as a minimum and often telecommuting are now both possible and indeed desirable arrangements for many workplaces; and so on, and so on.

Of course, whether any e-petitions like this will make the slightest difference to government policy remains to be seen. But if opposing a flawed and abusive policy to address the wrong underlying problem can get 600,000 names behind it within a couple of months, put me down as number 600,001; it's got to be worth a try, and even if the current government don't care, it could raise the profile of the issue come election time and get a commitment from other parties to oppose it.

Re:Validity?

[PaulBu]

... it will give more voice to people who are tech savvy - not exactly the ideal in a democratic republic (or whatever Britain is).

And why would you say that? I guess we would both agree that in our time it is, in some sense, better when people going to polls are literate (as in, able to actually read something about an issue) -- not that I would advocate taking the right to vote from illiterate people, that would be wrong.

The same slight bias towards "tech--" (and probably something else) -- savvy individuals might be healthy as well.

Paul B.

P.S. Yes, I do like the idea too!

Re:Validity?

[TubeSteak]

If the petitions are narrow & specific, then I agree this might be a useful tool.

But more often, you got petitions like "cure world hunger" or some other broad/vague wording which has zero chance of being feasible... but what politician is going to come out against curing world hunger?

FTFA, it seems like the Brits have relatively specific petitions, which is a good thing. OTOH, how many successful petitions will ever advocate higher taxes or anything that will require sacrifice?

Re:How about a ballot instead?

[bogjobber]

That's one of the really great things about federalism. Your voice can be heard and have an impact on local issues, most of the time without the national government stepping in and screwing things up.

Re:Validity?

[sumdumass]

One of the reasons for a government is that what best ofr you isn't neccesarily best for everyone. On the same note, what is best for everyone might not be whats best for the country. And even more easily seen is that just because something is popular doesn't mean it is the best for anything.

I'm not saying that anything you describe is good or bad. It is just that governments do things against the populous for reasons we don't like. A good case might be distribution of wealth. Some people might thinkit is a good idea to take all the money from the rich and spread it around to everyone equaly. And when you realize that means you would recieve several thousand dollars it might even be popular too. But we know that if anything like that happened, it would likley ruin the econemy, cause massive inflation and stop the incentives for anyone to make more then they currently are (if it gets taken and given away to someone who made less).

The points you brought out don't seem like anything I would like to happen here but i think we are on the same track. I guess the system might be a good way to let the government make a solid case for doing something that isn't popular and they will probably throw the dog abone every once in a while too. I think it is definatly a bad ordeal if your government takes an opinion poll before take a stance on something. Which might be the end run effect of this petition system were they see how many people are going to be pissed before doing something. This is something that got america in the shape it is in.

Re:Validity?

[DavidShor]

Controlling road usage with a petrol tax is like conducting surgery with a sludge hammer.

In order to manage traffic, prices would need to be algorithmically changed several times a day depending on how much road capacity exists in an area. Otherwise you will have large areas of road with excess capacity being held up by crowded bottlenecks.

Re:How about a breath of fresh air instead?

[bky1701]

Funny, see, no one ever asked ME about the DMCA, net neutrality, copyright extension ad nauseam, the PATRIOT Act... need I go on? Needless to say, medical marijuana is still "bad".

Democracy theater, that's all we have. Important issues are ALL left up to the "wise" ones in the senate.

The problem with a petition against ID cards...

[simm1701]

If you are against ID cards (and I am) are you really going to put your name and address on a petition stored in a database the goverment run?

I mean really?

Re:The problem with a petition against ID cards...

[coastwalker]

It would be cowardly not to. The problem with the ID card system and the state database is its potential for misuse not paranoia that the death squads will be on the street next week. The most likely problem comes when different departments of Government start data mining the information collected for excuses to impose penalties or deny services to individuals to save money. Government security organisations already have the ability to mine most databases for what they regard as suspicious individuals and this is unstoppable. What is most objectionable is that petty bureaucrats be allowed to pick off the tails of the normal distribution and discriminate against them. The first rule of Engineering is that if you want to control something then you have to measure it first.

Protests

[MrSteveSD]

If they can ignore 1 Million people marching in London against the Iraq war, they can certainly ignore 600,000 on some website. What you really need is something like the Swiss system where the public can instigate a referendum. All they have to do is get a certain number of signatures together to kick off the process.

Re:Validity?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Although somewhat true, other forms of transport (i.e. roads and planes) do actually receive massive subsidies via methods such as road/airport building projects.

Except that roads don't. In fact, if you look at the amount of money raised by the government through direct methods of taxation on motorists (petrol tax, VED, etc.) and compare it to the amount of money spent on maintaining the roads and providing related services like road policing, you'll be lucky to find a year in which motorists get back as much as 1/3 of what they're charged. The motorists subsidise the government, and heavily, not the other way around.

This is one obvious reason the whole "everyone should use public transport" argument is disingenuous. If everyone used public transport, UK Plc would go bust within months. The same hypocrisy is evident in speeding fines, congestion charging, car parking charges and so on as well, of course: those administering such schemes have a vested interest in charging as much as possible from as many people as possible without actually making it so expensive that they really do change people's behaviour.