do e petitions work?

KIPAX

KIPAX

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KIPAX Lancashire UK
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i see a lot of them.. usualy bad mannered indignant demanding this that and other... usualy setup when riled about somehting..

has any ever worked that we know of.. actualy anyhting been changed based on an e petition..

i am not saying there hasnt..its a serious question ?
 
wow not seen that before.... wow! again...

36 thousand petitions in first yr and only 11 get a debate and nothing resulting from them..

I would say complete waste of time....
 
Well we are getting close to the truth about Hillsborough thanks to an e petition that got the ball rolling.
 
norters said:
Well we are getting close to the truth about Hillsborough thanks to an e petition that got the ball rolling.
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but again.. nothing ? no end result from an e petition ? getting close doesnt quite hack it as success IMHO .. IF it gets an end result then great and I hope it does... .. but right now you would have to say no :(
 
KIPAX said:
but again.. nothing ? no end result from an e petition ? getting close doesnt quite hack it as success IMHO .. IF it gets an end result then great and I hope it does... .. but right now you would have to say no :(
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But the end result is to have the issue debated - which has happened for at least 11 e-petitions.

That BBC article is now out of date by the way.
 
tiler65 said:
But the end result is to have the issue debated - which has happened for at least 11 e-petitions.

That BBC article is now out of date by the way.
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yeagh i know.. thats why i mention.. in the first year :)

right.. so.. I fully admit i havent a clue about the process.... but can anyone tell me what good comes from a debate in parliment.. how do we know how big a debate it is.. whats the point of them debating it....

honestly truthfully dont know...
 
What we have to remember here is that when Tony Blair set up the e-petition system he promised that his government would listen to the public ... he never said they would act on what they heard though.

They exist simply to give Joe Public a forum to vent on without any requirement to do anything. When was the last time a politician stood up and admitted they'd got something wrong? All you get are sound bites and empty re-assurances that everything will be fine.
 
I think they would work if more people used them rather than just moan about things and not actually do anything about it....this is the problem with the UK public.

Also out of those 36k how many were more duplicate issues.
 
Its a few years on and theres been thousand more petitions and millions of signatures and ..........as far as i can tell not one single petition has changed anything...
 
KIPAX said:
Its a few years on and theres been thousand more petitions and millions of signatures and ..........as far as i can tell not one single petition has changed anything...
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Except the Hillsbrough result?
Scrap that. As it was started as a grassroots movement years before any petition.

You’re quite correct, only 68 have resulted in a response from the government and none appear to have changed anything.

A great big waste of our taxes.
 
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So it seems.. Agreed.. even if one did result in something.. i would still class it as a waste of time :(
 
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I think they "work" in the sense that they make people think they are doing something rather than smashing windows.

It's an easy way to keep people quiet and allowing them to feel like they have "had their say". A bit like being forced to eat cake to raise awareness of something or other.
 
KIPAX said:
So it seems.. Agreed.. even if one did result in something.. i would still class it as a waste of time :(
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Absolutely, lobbying your MP with something worthwhile and tangible would almost certainly result in a private members bill which have a far greater chance of meaningful results.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I think they "work" in the sense that they make people think they are doing something rather than smashing windows.
.
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in the same way changing your facebook profile picture helps save cancer :(
 
why the focus on e-petitions, it's exactly the same process for paper petitions. get enough signatures and it gets debated, no guarantee something will be done however. thats just down to how **** our government is.
 
E-petitions are just another con to fool the public into thinking that the Westminster (and the other dodgepot rag-tag parliaments/assemblies) are interested in our opinions.
 
I currently have an e-petiton running and while maybe at 46000 signatures it will not get a debate I parliament, it did however get a lot of MPs in the local affect areas interested, also got a lot of media coverage both radio and TV in the areas being affect by the closure of a much needed facility.
 
Hopefully one day we could dream of having direct democracy - i.e. all of us voting digitally for the important stuff (presumably after completing all the relevant reading, etc). The internet finally allows that to happen on a large scale. It will take a lot for the change to happen so don't hold your breath.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Hopefully one day we could dream of having direct democracy - i.e. all of us voting digitally for the important stuff (presumably after completing all the relevant reading, etc). The internet finally allows that to happen on a large scale. It will take a lot for the change to happen so don't hold your breath.
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And how would you validate that people had done ‘the relevant reading’ and not been influenced by Russian criminals or were taking their moral lead from medieval fairy tales.

Democracy has worked for a hundred years what is sounding its death knell is misinformation, so more of that is the problem not the solution.
 
KIPAX said:
yeagh i know.. thats why i mention.. in the first year :)

right.. so.. I fully admit i havent a clue about the process.... but can anyone tell me what good comes from a debate in parliment.. how do we know how big a debate it is.. whats the point of them debating it....

honestly truthfully dont know...
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The debate becomes a matter of record - in Hansard. That means that neither Parliament nor individual MPs can say that they were not aware of the issue. It also means that when the government of the day is privately perusing their programme they know there is a deal of public concern on the issue. That will influence their approach to new legislation.

It is naïve to think that a single petition could change our laws - and frightening if it was so - but considered and useful change needs a variety of inputs and petitions are one of those inputs.
 
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