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Monday Feb 12, 2007

'Senior Ministers' unite against democracy

The writers of the BBC's The Thick of It must be rolling on the floor with laughter tonight. In their recent Christmas special they showed the horror of modern politicians at blogs or anything online that made them vulnerable to public comment. It seems life hasn't taken long to catch up with art.

Touted as a great leap forward in e-democracy the number 10 website has been allowing people to set up their own petitions and try to rally support for them, with an understanding that the government will then be prepared to at least consider the results.

So what has caused this progressive and democratic use of the internet to be described by a minister as 'unbelievable'? - even, if the Evening Standard are to be believed, adding: 'The person who came up with this idea must be a prat'

Well the problem seems to be that it is working, people are looking at petitions and people are signing them. This kind of horrendous abuse of democracy has clearly ruffled a few feathers, with Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander forced to defend new government policies on road tax that one petition targets.

That petition has already seen over 1,000,000 people sign up to it, and to be clear, that requires a UK address and email verification. So will the government listen to this petition or will they find a way to ignore it?

If it is ignored it means that the whole scheme has been little more than a wheeze, a fop to the idea of e-democracy that was never intended to do anything more than pretend people could use the internet to participate in their government. If that's the case then expect it to be replaced by a nice little website asking people to leave personal statements about how nice Tony is in real life.

But if it does work, well, this could be the start of something that really matters, a way of creating an instant and significant response to political proposals that provides a permanent record of real public opinion. Agree with the petition or not, it would be a significant step forward for the possibilities of net activism.

Hopefully the later will be true, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it. If over a million people marching can't stop a government policy, it'd be a surprise to see a million clicks manage it. Posted by Jim Valentine ( 9:50 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]

Comments:

I don't understand why people are surprised by any of this. I'm pretty sure that when the guys at MySociety first launched the No10 Petitions in November, it was quite clear that this wasn't a vote; reaching 1 million signatories was never going to trigger legislation.

I've also always been totally scared of "pure" petition-based democracy. With that, you'd see the return of the death penalty and free petrol. National newspapers could easily influence campaigns and you'd have no consistent policy approach. I don't necessarily trust 600 or so politicians to make wise decisions, but I trust them more than I trust the general public.

Posted by Dom on February 13, 2007 at 10:20 AM GMT+00:00 #

Why are you concentrating on this petition when there are much more serious ones to consider?

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/goldanthem/
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/juggle/

Posted by Tom Green on February 14, 2007 at 11:53 AM GMT+00:00 #

It's an interesting point of view you raise Dom, one that addresses issues around legislation creation and the possible pitfalls of direct democracy. Obviously few people would want to see some kind of 'press the red button' tyranny where the lottery program ended with a vote on whether abortion should be legal or not, but that's not actually what's suggested by either my post, or by online petitions.

As to the point about the death penalty - there are 5 live petitions and 2 closed petitions that mention the death penalty. The highest number of votes are 76 for a petition that condemns the death penalty, and of those in support of the death penalty the highest number of votes is 33. This hardly suggests the death craving angry mob that so many like to portray the public as.

But that's beside the point (though its always worth reminding people that the public aren't the fools they'd like to imagine them to be) - this isn't about introducing legislation, or about setting government policy. This is about scrutiny. This is about the checks and balances that the public can provide through services like this.

In a first past the post electoral system, where huge government majorities can be created through small leads in the electoral share scrutiny is vital. In a system of democracy where there is no separation between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary then scrutiny is vital. In a political system where membership of the second house may be on sale to the highest bidder, scrutiny is vital.

The e-petitions system can provide a way for scrutiny of government measures to take place in the public eye. If people are mislead on what a bill proposes then it is the job of politicians to address that misunderstanding - not hide behind the doors of parliament and ignore the dissenting voice of the public when it's so clearly evident, as it is in this petition.

Posted by Jim on February 15, 2007 at 03:35 AM GMT+00:00 #