E-democracy strikes

Interesting how the use of the Internet, You Tube etc. by governments can bite back, as they seek to open up. This being the latest to strike the walking corpse that is Gordon Brown's New Labour government in Britain:

There have been many joyous postings on the Downing Street website in recent weeks to show the world that No 10 is a happy place.

Scores of pictures of the Downing Street garden in bloom have shown that staff are enjoying the wonders of spring. And of course there are lots of pictures of Gordon Brown holding earnest meetings with world leaders as he works hard to save the world economy.

But what is this? A suggestion has slipped on to the website that all may not be well beyond the iron gates of Downing Street. In fact there is a demand that the prime minister should be evicted.

By 7.00 last night nearly 10,000 people had signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling for the prime minister to resign. The petition, only posted five days ago, simply states: "We the undersigned petition the prime minister to resign".

The petition was posted by Dr Kalvis Jansons, an academic mathematician, who describes himself as a disillusioned "traditional Labour supporter". The "final straw", which persuaded him to post the petition, was the prime minister's initial reluctance to apologise for the emails by his former special adviser Damian McBride smearing the Tories.

Jansons, from Hitchin, Herts, who has taught at University College London, deliberately worded the petition in simple and brief terms to avoid it being blocked by No 10. In a message on the site, he wrote: "There are many reasons why we might want Brown to resign, but rather than having lots of narrow petitions on this topic (most of which have been rejected), I wanted one for all of us."

Jansons told the Press Association: "I wanted a simple, clear, generalised petition which would cover all the bases and comply with their rules. I wanted it to be something that could unite the country."

For the full story, link here.