E-petitions have hit the headlines lately; first, the EU referendum, then rioters losing their benefits and soon to take to the ring, a proposal to stop the UK hitting the 70 million mark.
With MPs often too consumed with their own agendas or obediently following their lord and master to benefit their personal ambitions, the public feel they aren’t being listened to. And if the EU referendum petition is anything to go by, they are right.
But letting real people have their say is always a double-edged sword. Public anger often turns to something far uglier – baying for blood, hang-'em-high mob justice. Just check out the rejected suggestions on the government’s own petition site…
But the e-petition site is pointless if MPs don’t pay attention. It’s simply window dressing designed to convince voters that their elected representatives give a damn. But, in reality, MPs aren’t taking our concerns seriously. It may be fashionable to mock the average voter’s call return of capital punishment or national service but that is genuinely how they feel; were such measures reintroduced they would be popular, at least in the short term. A large number of people see these as necessary for the good of the country – we cannot and ought not dismiss them as the ‘lunatic fringe’.
Yet instead of a little of education here and there, our politicians choose to patronise us, as in the AV debate. What makes a bunch of Oxbridge graduates who have spent their adult lives in the Westminster bubble fit to make decisions that affect how we live? Too few, including Ed Miliband, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, have much experience of the real world.
Morale in this country is at a very low ebb. The effects of the recession have left the rational folk embittered, poor and struggling under the heavy weights of debt, bills, unemployment and the rising cost of living. Yet our politicians don’t seem to be subject to this – unless there’s an early election they are safe for a few more years.
Stories such as a eurozone minister living it up in £20k-a-night rooms in the Ritz don’t scream recession to the genuinely afflicted back home.
It is no wonder the public want to put politics in their own hands. But are e-petitions really the answer? They are just faceless lists of names, and as we have seen, ignorable.
People need to make better use of the press if they want to make a change. When the big-selling dailies get behind something, they can give a movement huge exposure, and politicians are far more likely to pay heed to a campaign in The Sun or The Mail than an online petition. There is also nothing wrong with meeting MPs face to face, in surgeries or town halls, badgering them so that they take notice.
Newspapers feed off public opinion; they don’t want to alienate their readers, and politicians understand the press’s power against them – just ask Neil Kinnock. When hundreds of thousands of people sign a petition, that shows editors and proprietors which way the wind is blowing. By harnessing the power of the Press, popular change can happen during a Parliament.
Comments
Clr Ralph Baldwin / November 10 2011 3:54pm
At the moment the press is all we have. A bunch of spoilt corrupt ignorant brats only concerned with cashing in in what should be a public platform and whose record across Europe and the World is one of utter failure. They have no clues to solve problems because they weren't sent to Westminster to represent anyone other than themselves.
They don't understand democracy because they were not sent to Westminster to promote it.
The three main parties now have a record of being closely associated if not entirely bought by the City which can offer them perks and "career progression" beyond Westminster. The perpetual delusion continues as they utterly fail to understand the basic functions and role of Government and the Constitution.
How can they? Their boss is Tesco or Sainsbury because thats where the money comes from and they do so love it!
It means the next generation of fixers and failures can occupt positions in power later on.
You only have to examine the numbers of MPs in senior positions in Labour to see how unequal a party they have truly become. Wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, its more like the narrow population of a rural village or in a western where everyone is in-bred and backwards than a professional political body and definetely the final signs of Labours decline from political party to a dysfunctional cult or splinter group.
Meanwhile movements are taking shape and form based upon specialist areas within the democracy to offer the voter an alternative. Wherever the viable alternative has occured the voters have gone for it, SNP, UKIP have replaced Labour which is good and healthy for our democracy.
There quite simply is not enough room for two Tory parties and as the Tories are closer to the center ground than Ed Milliband at the moment (by a whisker as both have not hit the target narrative they need) the people leading Labour will continually seek an ever narrowing group in the population associated by the City and vested interests. And since the Tories have not been in power for very long they have no fears of a 1997 event occuring anytime soon and should be looking to expand their political reach, their failure to make advances comes down to their refusal to clean themselves up and show the public that they really do give a damn. Cameron is a one man team here and though i suspect that may win them the next General he really does need to ensure he can reach out and that means making sacrifices that they would not ordinarily consider.
Otherwise Cameron risks the least worst option at the next General Election and this is a feeble unhistoric and weak target to aim for, during a time of austerity and struggle Cameron must prepare new and imaginative methods to show the people he is on their side and keep the City at arms length.
Ed is a disaster and the public have keyed into this swiftly.
Clr Ralph Baldwin / November 10 2011 4:04pm
So labour is lost in a web of self-deceits, on the one hand believing themselves to have some form of moral authority, but the moment they get close to power cashing in and promoting authoritrainism over democracy at every opportunity under the ridiculous contention that it is somehow "modernism".
No direction and meaning as they have clearly spent all their time envying the Tories and wanting to be like them when they could have reached and done so much more and truly turned our country into a modern democratic leader for the world to envy as they did in the post war years with the cration of some incredibly bold policies.
The good news is that they will now that they have abandoned any pretense of progressive identity (Nepotism and corruption vs equal opportunity, competition, mertiocracy and democracy) they can only try and out-Tory the Tories who are not exactly the flavour of the past two decades, again because they are dominated by greed and ambition to be like their Tory friends.
Because of this it is essential that the Tories seize the initiative because whosever does will probably be the natural party of power for the next few decades. They can if they have the discipline and courage totally redefine politics they can defend the best of past traditions whilst creating the new ones for tommorrow defined during a difficult time out of necessity. Give our educated population the power they need to help define and reform policy and you mitigate yourself from U-turns damage, use the vast communication we enjoy today to reach out to people in their own fields and let them show you how they can define their lives, find jobs through communication.
This is the age of communication and the prize is there for the one that uses it to truly bring responsible and realsitic democracy to a much ailing UK.....