No. 10 petitions - get them while you can

Over a million people have signed an online anti-road charging petition (you can add your name by clicking here although the site has been close to meltdown most of today) and they have drawn attention to the online petitioning service that 10 Downing Street launched last November.  You can see the general details at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk and I suggest you look at it sooner rather than later.  Given that so many people have used it to criticise a Government proposal, don't be surprised if Blair & Co find that it is somehow inappropriate to continue providing the service, no doubt claiming some unspecified "technical difficulties" or that the money is needed to pay nurses, or some other nonsense.  And even if they do survive, I can't see Brown standing for that sort of public criticism for long.

They do have some weasel words to help them - all petitions have to be approved by Downing Street Officials (whoever they are) before they are launched online, and they have plenty of headings under which to refuse to publish them.  You can see their policy at by clicking here.

I especially enjoyed the bit which prohibits "petitions which are intended to be humorous ... however witty these are, it is not appropriate to use a publically-funded website for purely frivolous purposes."

So the challenge now must be to get a petition accepted that is a joke, but that the officials have not spotted.  Any Oldies got any thoughts?  Please post a comment (click on the link at the top of this entry) with some ideas.

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Comments

[Tony Hewlett]

What would the result have been if the question were "Should other people pay to use the roads in order to reduce congestion?"