Not that it will do the slightest good, if the Iraq war is anything to go by, but the government has just launched a new
e-petitions service, whereby people can submit petitions to Tony Blair online. Organisations such as Amnesty International and Live 8 have been running these sorts of online systems for a couple of years, but going direct through Number 10 feels a little more satisfying (although I cannot imagine Tony Blair glued to his monitor, anxiously watching as the numbers of angry voters clock up before his soon-retiring eyes). Among others currently running are a
petition to not replace the Trident nuclear deterrent and a petition to tax horrendously inefficient and antiquated
incandescent light bulbs.
I have signed up to both of these; it has only taken two minutes, and it makes me feel a little more moral, even if its practical impact will be nil. However, I do worry that this new system will do away with those quaint local news clips, in which angry-young-mum or fed-up-of-Milton-Keynes trots up the steps of Number 10 and hands a wedge of paper to the bemused police officer, who passes it on to a hassled civil servant, to add to the pile on Blair's in-tray.
Update: At 12.07pm today, according to my Statcounter, this blog entry was tracked by someone at gateway-101.energis.gsi.gov.uk. Who is watching the watchers?!
Labels: e-petitions, Politics
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