Consultation - New Labour Style

One million eh? The magic number that requires New Labour to ignore the population. A million people marched against the Iraq war and we know what the result was. Please, don't get a million people to oppose newkular holocaust, who knows what Tony might do then.

Currently 5 people a second are signing up. ;)

No surprise though, is it? What did they expect - that we would all say what a good job they were doing and how we'd all like to pay more tax to spend on illegal invasions? 'Blair listening' remains an oxymoron.

I think we need to do a 'Celebrity Big Brother' kind of thing, then we only need 40,000.

God preserve us from direct democracy. Do you really want to be ruled by people who have all the responsibility of 6 month old babies?

The Blair WarCriminal petition first got sabotaged by the site admin, and now seems to have disappeared .

As the Man said, its who counts the votes that counts.

Uncle Joe.

I think it is just that they think that We're the Government -- and You're Not

There's a very good piece in the Guardian's CiF by Henry Porter that is worth reading.

"Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said last night that the signatures showed the strength of feeling among motorists but would not deter him from commissioning large-scale road-pricing trials.

In an interview with The Times, he said that many of the claims made by those promoting the petition were “falsehoods”. He promised that there would be safeguards to protect motorists’ privacy and that the system would not be used to catch drivers speeding."

Ah well, that's all right then.

They'll put up a premium phone number petition line next, just to see if people will pay to be ignored. And they will.

At least they only ignore us. If you are unlucky enough to be muslim and antiwar it appears that you stand a chance of being arrested.

Remember Pastor Niemoller:

"they came for the communists... and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Those of us in Britain who favour democracy should heed these words daily until we get a representative government.

I know this will appear fantastical, but if only it would be possible to somehow organize a mass, nation-wide movement (along the lines of the American beef boycott of over 20 years ago) whereby motorists would resolve - for a week, let us say - to strictly observe all speed limits.

Not only would this leave many people in pocket, but we would also have the satisfaction of depriving the government (ultimately) of a great deal of revenue. And it would also be amusing to see if the government were to publically congratulate the motoring public on this achievement - after all, the objective os speed cameras is to promote safer driving rather than gather revenue...isn' it?

I'm not sure it's a great deal of revenue, in the scheme of things, isn't it a few tens of millions?  Compare that to £4.5bn in rail subsidy, a lot of which goes in inefficiency, and it looks like speed cameras per se aren't that much of a money-spinner, so I doubt Gordon would be weeping for his missing baubies.

Of course, another effect is to reduce fuel consumption and thus CO2 emissions - I drove back from Birmingham last time I visited my folks at a max of 70 with the aircon off and got at least 10mpg more (over 50 by the end of the journey as compared to around 40 normally).

As a rough general rule, for any journey you will use approx. 50% more fuel at 70mph, than you would have used at 50mph.

pls. check out this amusing piece: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/120207_b_petitions.htm

Tom, you're probably right that the income loss would only be a few tens of millions ; mind you, the fuel which wouold not be burnt would further reduce government revenue through less fuel duty and VAT being gathered.

I suppose what was behind my post was, rather, the idea that there might be certain situations in which mass action could have an effect through the sort of pressure that hurts people - whether firms or government - most, ie financial pressure. Effective, and with the advantage that it's all completely legal - very difficult to smear with accusations of mob or street action, terrorism, or whatever. Even this government would find it difficult to criminalise "organised consumer choice".

Why don't all the car drivers protest by holding a massive traffic jam outside of every school in the country to say "We're driving to save the next generation."

Oh, you do that every weekday anyway. 

Privatize the road system.  You know it makes sense. 

As a rough general rule, for any journey you will use approx. 50% more fuel at 70mph, than you would have used at 50mph.

Presumably at 0 mph you use no fuel, and if you drive backwards petrol will magically appear in your tank?

:)

As for petitions, it would indeed be a bit silly to take political action solely based on them.  A far better idea is to have a representative democracy, however out current system doesn't totally fit the description 'representative' or, for that matter, 'democracy'.

Personally I'm not against road-pricing per se, I'm against the current government doing another massively expensive intrusive IT project affecting everyone in the country, largely at the behest of ACPO.  I also don't trust the buggers with my personal information in any way shape or form and feel no great desire to increase their store of knowledge about me.  Encouragement (tax breaks?) of the scheme set up by some insurance companies to put a black box in the car in return for lower premia sounds a lot better.  Doesn't need a massive state solution, just a bit of thinking, and this is one area where I'm quite happy for the private sector to come up with something.

I already insure my car for 10k miles per year and drive rather fewer (28,000 miles in 3.5 years).  Why should I pay the same car tax as someone driving 50,000 miles in the same type of car?

Petitions are a humiliating relic of the feudal past. Far better to use economic muscle. And if one wants to go along the legislative road, why not the Swiss system of (binding) referenda? It hasn't done them too badly, has it.

Successfully implement a pay-as-you-drive road charging scheme?

This arrogant New Labour dictatorship consistently screws up any project more complex than 'running a bath' and invariably manages to squander hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money whilst doing so.

New Labour's (i) serial gross incompetence, (ii) social engineering lunacy, and (iii) obsession with 'stealth taxation' have over ten years reduced the UK to little more than a depressing shambles.