Have you signed it?

[Fizzy Bread]

Petition to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.

PETITION (clicky)

The deadline is midnight tonight so the site is extremely busy.. Do sign it though if you can!

[Teesside White]

never even heard anything about it, but after reading it it seems to be a complete pile of crap, i dont drive but i'll prolly sign it

[weallloveleeds]

Is there any point?

The govenment has already said it's going to ignore it.

Democracy & people power my arse

[Jodie.]

TELFORD ;D

[gw]

sign it!

[Fizzy Bread]

weallloveleeds said:

Is there any point?

The govenment has already said it's going to ignore it.

Democracy & people power my arse

Actually, Tony Blair has written an email repsonse to everyone who's signed it. The actual petition is on the no.10 website; they want to get the public reaction to certain policies..

They probably won't bring in such a huge taxing system as they've suggested because of the opposition to it but probably something smaller, or redistribute the funds back into public transport.. (Doubt that tbh)

[jh1980]

When the people don't know what's best for the country, sometimes strong leadership is required!

(yes I am parodying, I'm not actually a total Stalinist!)

Then again if the people of Britain hadn't been stupid enough to vote for Thatcher repeatedly then the Labour party would never have reacted by becoming the moderate-right-wing reactionaries that they are today...

[Neko Bazu]

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

Actually, Tony Blair has written an email repsonse to everyone who's signed it. The actual petition is on the no.10 website; they want to get the public reaction to certain policies..

I do honestly wonder whether it was actually Blair that wrote it or just some pen-pusher (or key-pusher?) in one of his offices. It reads like it was written based on a template!

[Fizzy Bread]

Then again the whole point of democracy is that the people have their say..

jh1980 said:

When the people don't know what's best for the country, sometimes strong leadership is required!

(yes I am parodying, I'm not actually a total Stalinist!)

Then again if the people of Britain hadn't been stupid enough to vote for Thatcher repeatedly then the Labour party would never have reacted by becoming the moderate-right-wing reactionaries that they are today...

[Fizzy Bread]

neko said:

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

Actually, Tony Blair has written an email repsonse to everyone who's signed it. The actual petition is on the no.10 website; they want to get the public reaction to certain policies..

I do honestly wonder whether it was actually Blair that wrote it or just some pen-pusher (or key-pusher?) in one of his offices. It reads like it was written based on a template!

Tis probably just a Civil Servant who's written it.

[Neko Bazu]

jh1980 said:

When the people don't know what's best for the country, sometimes strong leadership is required!

(yes I am parodying, I'm not actually a total Stalinist!)

Then again if the people of Britain hadn't been stupid enough to vote for Thatcher repeatedly then the Labour party would never have reacted by becoming the moderate-right-wing reactionaries that they are today...

Well, the people of Britain weren't stupid enough to vote Blair in at the last election, nor were the people of the US stupid enough to vote Bush in (look at the total number of votes in both cases) - they're both still in power though!

[jh1980]

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

Then again the whole point of democracy is that the people have their say..

yes and as any schoolboy knows (or schoolgirl) we don't have democracy in the true sense.

moreover it might just be a good thing, that!

[jh1980]

neko said:

Well, the people of Britain weren't stupid enough to vote Blair in at the last election, nor were the people of the US stupid enough to vote Bush in (look at the total number of votes in both cases) - they're both still in power though!

That's first past the post for you!

Still before you back Proportional Representation remember it would lead to more fascist politicians in Westminster.

Oh and potentially a Lib Dem Gov't though I know some people wouldn't object to that!

[Rulesaints]

Have you got the email?

[Neko Bazu]

jh1980 said:

neko said:

Well, the people of Britain weren't stupid enough to vote Blair in at the last election, nor were the people of the US stupid enough to vote Bush in (look at the total number of votes in both cases) - they're both still in power though!

That's first past the post for you!

Still before you back Proportional Representation remember it would lead to more fascist politicians in Westminster.

Oh and potentially a Lib Dem Gov't though I know some people wouldn't object to that!

Oh, I was just raising the point, is all - I do appreciate that our current system is among the least shitty available

[weallloveleeds]

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

weallloveleeds said:

Is there any point?

The govenment has already said it's going to ignore it.

Democracy & people power my arse

Actually, Tony Blair has written an email repsonse to everyone who's signed it. The actual petition is on the no.10 website; they want to get the public reaction to certain policies..

They probably won't bring in such a huge taxing system as they've suggested because of the opposition to it but probably something smaller, or redistribute the funds back into public transport.. (Doubt that tbh)

...Well I'm still waiting for my token e-mail That's my point; they have seen that a large proportion of the general public is against this scheme, yet they have chosen to ignore it and crack ahead- so what was the point of signing a petition after they had announced they were going to ignore it? And, as this is the most signed petition to date, and it has beeg ignored, it kind of de-values the whole point of having petitions in the first place, as if this one gets overlooked, what chance does a petition with maybe only 10k signatories on it have?

[jh1980]

weallloveleeds said:

...Well I'm still waiting for my token e-mail That's my point; they have seen that a large proportion of the general public is against this scheme, yet they have chosen to ignore it and crack ahead- so what was the point of signing a petition after they had announced they were going to ignore it? And, as this is the most signed petition to date, and it has beeg ignored, it kind of de-values the whole point of having petitions in the first place, as if this one gets overlooked, what chance does a petition with maybe only 10k signatories on it have?

Well said WALL.

You may recall that 2,000,000 marched through London in opposition to the invasion of Iraq... with similarly little effect.

So basically - don't bother signing petitions.

[Fizzy Bread]

weallloveleeds said:

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

Actually, Tony Blair has written an email repsonse to everyone who's signed it. The actual petition is on the no.10 website; they want to get the public reaction to certain policies..

They probably won't bring in such a huge taxing system as they've suggested because of the opposition to it but probably something smaller, or redistribute the funds back into public transport.. (Doubt that tbh)

...Well I'm still waiting for my token e-mail That's my point; they have seen that a large proportion of the general public is against this scheme, yet they have chosen to ignore it and crack ahead- so what was the point of signing a petition after they had announced they were going to ignore it? And, as this is the most signed petition to date, and it has beeg ignored, it kind of de-values the whole point of having petitions in the first place, as if this one gets overlooked, what chance does a petition with maybe only 10k signatories on it have?

They haven't made a decision about road pricing yet!!!

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6381153.stm

In an e-mailed reply to the signatories he (the PM) wrote that no decision had yet been made on pricing, but the aim of a scheme would be tackling congestion.

In his email respsonse, the PM said...

Let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so.

They are going ahead with some local pilot schemes, the funds from which will go back into local transport.

[Neko Bazu]

jh1980 said:

So basically - don't bother signing petitions.

Yup - apathy's the way to get what you want nowadays

[weallloveleeds]

fizzy0bread0lufc said:

weallloveleeds said:

...Well I'm still waiting for my token e-mail That's my point; they have seen that a large proportion of the general public is against this scheme, yet they have chosen to ignore it and crack ahead- so what was the point of signing a petition after they had announced they were going to ignore it? And, as this is the most signed petition to date, and it has beeg ignored, it kind of de-values the whole point of having petitions in the first place, as if this one gets overlooked, what chance does a petition with maybe only 10k signatories on it have?

They haven't made a decision about road pricing yet!!!

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6381153.stm

In an e-mailed reply to the signatories he (the PM) wrote that no decision had yet been made on pricing, but the aim of a scheme would be tackling congestion.

In his email respsonse, the PM said...

Let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so.

They are going ahead with some local pilot schemes, the funds from which will go back into local transport.

They've obviously not made the decision to implement national road pricing yet, as they still don't know how it would work, and there's too much public pressure for them to be able to succesfully implement it at the moment.

...You don't think these local schemes are going to lead on to a nation-wide scheme then?

I'm sure I've heard that this petition is going to be ignored on the news, earlier this week.