NO NO NO
We dont want him to resign we want a general election, all that will happen if he resigns is a different labour stooge will take over and carry on much as before
It's easy to mock this government's bumbling attempts to get political mileage out of Web-2-point-twattery - fun, too. But we should also celebrate the brave new world of interactive communication our overlords have opened up. Although our esteemed leader still has no public email account, and his YouTube videos make children …
Is the petition for the wrong thing? For the article to be correct, it should be for Gordon Brown to resign as Prime Minister, not for the Prime Minister to resign. That's a campaign for an infinite loop (which might have been the intention).
You know, like "No matter who you vote for the government always gets in"...
Sorry John Oates,
I don't judge our governing bodies by their ability to use Twitter. I'm sure Obama's facebook is literally oozing with style and charisma but fortunately our leader is more interested in actually trying to run the country. Discussions of the success of this attempt aside - asking him to resign purely because he doesn't moonwalk onto stage Steve Jobs style while simultaneously blogging on his wordpress is simply daft.
..as it doesn't call him a fat one-eyed incompetent Scottish idiot :)
nor does it suggest that Darling or Whacky Jacqui be put in stocks outside Parliament and pelted with rotten fruit and used condoms (or my share certificates which are now worthless)
however..
go on then I will.
The Number10 petitions are almost up there with Facebook groups on the scale of faux-democracy tools.
Can you really imagine him calling to the wife and kids one morning:
"come on you lot, pack your bags - there's a facebook group AND a petition to get me out so we'd best leave."
Bahhh.
Yes, so many newspapers these days feed us the myth that the recession is global, that people are out of work in places like the USA, Spain and Italy, but we all know the truth. It's only really the UK, and one slack-jawed red tie-wearing politico is to blame.
Now I'm no fan of what Labour has become -- and I've never, ever voted for them -- "recession master"? Come off it.
Now I'm not usually one for "Where's the IT angle", but remember that the defining characteristic of your readership is IT. You'll cut your readership in half if you toe any given political line. I'm starting to consider not reading....
The Register is an IT based site, why the obvious political slant ?
If it was useful/unbiased political comment it wouldn't be so bad, but this sort of juvenile "get em all out" approach would be laughable in your average pub talk let alone in a "respected" publication like this one.
leave the political opinion out please, and if you can't then get level headed contributions rather than immature twaddle !
"...can you name somebody in the current government better qualified and capable than Gordo to replace him?"
Or in the Tories? (That'll be the same party that still has the lovely John Redwood, alien of this parish, lurking in the ranks)
The only thing I can think of in the Tories favour is that they promise (ha, ha) to scrap the oppressive nosese that is the the National Identity Scheme (or 'Service', as the IPS now jokingly want us to call it). But other than that they're going to be the same as we had before.
Anyone care to say they think the LibDems holding the balance of power (highly unlikely outcome due to our anti-democratic electoral system) would be any better?
We're all doomed....
Does everyone thats not signing it have to tell everone, can't you put it on your twitter and not here?
(Heres a clue thats why the site is broken into diffrent catagorys, if you only want IT stories just read the IT stories its not hard when the TV news runs a fluff(y) story at the end of the program i turn my TV off because i'm a gruppy man, simply).
So all grumpy people i don't need to know your not signing a petition.
in alienating probably a third of your readership, El Reg. I don't vote for any of your corrupt English parties as I don't live there but even I can see that this must surely damage your reputation as an IT newletter. Who decided to bring partisan politics into tech news? This is boring and pointlessly argumentative.
Sorry, but Brown is a massive failure, and people can see that. If it was asking for the Labour party as a whole to go then I'd go for it but removing just Brown is bad, why?
Because then we'll get Milliband and although he's just as atrocious, he has a lot of charisma and look how easily the British public have been fooled by Cameron's charisma.
No, better to just let them play out their time and keep shooting themselves in the foot so that we don't have to deal with them again any time in the next decade or so than risk them having a leader who is at least charismatic enough to win people over even if not good enough on the competence and policy front.
Let them keep a leader who is neither charismatic or competent, the short term pain will be worth it when it leaves Labour well and truly crushed to the point of no return.
I signed it, but why?
Is the government going to listen? Almost certainly not! It's clear they just take petitions as opportunities for more spin. Those who believe such petitions work will carry on using them, instead of taking more productive action. Those who believe such petitions are useless are more likely to resign themselves to the ineffectiveness of democratic participation. Either way, the government wins.
So why did I sign?
If I don't sign, simply because I expect such a petition to be useless, I'll be letting the government succeed in dissuading me from democratic participation. I'm not going to do that. But that doesn't mean I'm satisfied that signing it was enough.
Such petitions are better used as a way of spreading awareness about the issues such petitions relate to. A petition to decriminalise extreme porn might do nothing to persuade the government to repeal the extreme porn law, but it can still be used as a tool in wider efforts to raise public awareness of, and public opposition to, such laws. CAAN (www.caan.org.uk) have successfully used public protests for publicity purposes in similar ways, leaving the government unable to claim that there's no public opposition to such laws.
This petition is an opportunity to express opposition to this government and Gordon Brown in particular. But I don't mean simply by signing it. I mean by telling other people about it. "Look how fast people are signing it!" - you can't say that to your family, friends and colleagues if there isn't such a petition in the first place. It is in this kind of way that such petitions can increase public pressure on governments, not directly via the petitions themselves, but elsewhere. Just imagine journalists pressing the government on this petition and what it represents if it gets a million signatures.
Directly, these petitions are just about as useless as they could be. But indirectly, in other ways, they can be powerful, democratic tools.
I will play my small part in spreading the word.
If you accept that we are in mess, that socialism is the way to get us out of it and that Labour is the best party to do it, then fine. That's an opinion and debate worth having.
If, on the other hand, you think Gordon Brown is a victim of circumstance, who did everything he could to the best of his ability and that no-one could have managed this country and its finances better for the past 12 years...
...then you simply haven't being paying attention.
Great idea for a petition. Somewhat brave of No 10 to let it onto the site, too. But, to sign it I have to give me name, address, postcode, email address...
So let's try it and wait for the boys in blue with no shoulder IDs, using anti-terrorism laws no doubt, to come calling, put people on the DNA register, watch list for airports, etc.
Mine'll be the one with planted evidence in the pockets.
It was that bit about asking Gordo to pick a window. I think he's ready to move his IT life from DOS 6 now. Possibly even windows 98, or maybe only windows 95.
Sadly though, if you want to get authoritarianism, illiberality and censorship out of our political culture you can't just change the politicians. You have to change the minds (using the term loosely) of those people who keep voting for them.