Not such a good news story after all.
Before Adrian McMenamin gets too cocky about the official Downing Street website attracting more traffic than the unholy trinity of the right, Iain Dale, Guido & ConservativeHome, thanks almost entirely to the new petitions facility provided by MySociety, perhaps he should take a bit of closer look at the top petitions themselves:
1. repeal the Hunting Act 2004. - 11701
2. scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards - 4806
3. Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy - 4584
4. champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. - 3191
5. Change the law to permit our target pistol shooters to prepare properly for international and Olympic competitions. - 3014
6. Ask Staffordshire County Council to drop their current plans for Job Evaluation in the County. Under current arrangements many staff will have their salaries slashed to the extent that it is morally incorrect. - 2717
7. create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format. -2559
8. Reverse the decision not to award D.C Stephen Oake a posthumous George Cross. - 2512
9. introduce legislation to solve the short term funding problems that have been caused by the cuts that Defra has made, and threatens to continue, to the budgets of British Waterways and the navigations the Environment Agency, and to ensure that long-term funding is made available to enable the inland navigation authorities to maintain, improve and restore these important parts of our national heritage. - 2066
10. Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools - 2024
11. Offer the British people a referendum on continued membership of the European Union - 1834
12. cease using the so called need for ‘constructive engagement’ as an excuse to give impunity to Israel to continue to violate international humanitarian law. - 1373
13. stand on his head and juggle ice-cream. - 1316
14. Stop the further expansion of Stansted Airport beyond 25 million passengers per annum - 1240
15. Overturn the National Blood Service (NBS) ban stopping Gay and Bi (G&B) Men giving Blood - 1161
16. ban within government-funded schools the promotion or practice of any particular faith or religion. - 1158
Well there seems to be much in there to like, especially Tim Ireland’s suggestion that he stands on his head and juggles ice cream, but not that much that’s even fairly neutral on government policy.
So what can we learn from this? Only that one of best ways of generating large amounts of web traffic is to piss off as many people as possible and then give them the means to have a go back.
And this is news to us bloggers?
Posted by Unity on 28 Nov 2006 at 20:51 pm
on 28 Nov 2006 at 9:21 pm 1.douglas clark said …
Point.
I signed up for the no secular schools thing, on the basis that they’d at least consider it. Zilch back, obviously. The following did not happen:
“Dear Mr Clark,
We are considering your points on the question of secularising education. As we are all completely mad, could you advise us what exactly is wrong with spreading difference and dissent? We await your reply. And we are continuing to take our medication. Please, do not wait too long.”
Err, no. When it’s gone the round of Civil Servants, political advisers and Tony Blairs Catholicism, it’ll get flattened. Which is pish. Still, the hit count is up, onwards with New Labour. Genuine democracy through PR. Not.
on 28 Nov 2006 at 9:39 pm 2.Unity said …
Once you understand how govnerment (local and national) tends to treat petitions then realise the futility of the whole exercise.
One petition is one response, irrespective of how many people sign the petition.
Its a standard scam - given that the government gets 20 individual positive comments and one negative petition with 15,000 signature, the government’s interpretation of the response its received is 20 for, 1 against.
The pulled this crap on one of the early anti-ID card campaigns by treating all form e-mails as a single response, even though they’s all be sent individually.
on 04 Mar 2007 at 9:11 pm 3.jayb said …
Nice web site.
I think your league table of petitions by extent of support could do with updating though.