By David Ferguson
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown does not have his troubles to seek at the moment. A fleeting success in organizing the G20 summit was further undermined this week when Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk became the latest in a series of Western leaders lining up to tell Brown that his solution to the economic crisis – massive fiscal stimulus (in Britain's case funded entirely by borrowing) – is no good.
This week a petition calling on him simply to "resign" became the most popular petition on the official website of the Prime Minister's Office.
E-petitions in the UK were implemented some years ago by a government keen to show its e-credentials. Members of the public are invited to propose petitions which will then be allowed to run and collect support on the Downing Street website. Unfortunately they have proved something of a mixed blessing. In 2007, when the system was still being piloted, a petition against the government policy of road-pricing obtained a massive 1.8 million+ signatures. The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, emailed all the signatories to tell them that the government intended to go ahead with its plans anyway.
Generally, petitions achieve only a few dozen signatures. Of 4752 petitions currently live on the site, only 116 have attracted more than 1000 signatures. But last week a petition submitted by Mr Kalvis Jansons, calling on the Prime Minister simply to "resign", caught the imagination of a frustrated public. Within a matter of days, the petition had shot to the top of the charts. It currently has over 31,000 signatures, and given that it is due to run until October 2009 many more can be expected.
Worse news was to follow for Mr Brown. A counter-petition submitted by a supporter, Bob Roberts, calling on the Prime Minister to "carry on leading this great country of ours", has attracted only a couple of dozen supporters. Among these few even fewer appear to be genuine, while most are obviously phony and regularly have to be deleted.
Mr Roberts is a well-known Labor supporter who posts regularly on a wide variety of political blogs in the UK. His petition has attracted the support of such individuals as "I. Wright" (= "Aye right!", a common Scottish expression denoting skepticism or disbelief), "Joy Wendy Endcomes"(= "Joy when the end comes" – a reference to Mr Brown's departure), and "Ivor Broquen-Printer" (= "I've a broken printer" – a reference to the PM's reputation for breaking equipment when angered).
The tattered remnants of the Prime Minister's credibility took another blow Thursday when his government was defeated in Parliament on a Bill which sought to restrict the right of settlement in Britain of Nepalese Gurkhas who have served in and fought with the British Forces. Yesterday he faced another defeat on a hasty and ill-judged measure to assuage public anger by establishing some measure of control over MPs' expenses.
At Party level his colleagues are mired in a series of distasteful personal and professional embarrassments that have been exacerbated by a repeated failure to address genuine public concerns: a sordid sex scandal involving MP Nigel Griffiths in his parliamentary office has been swept under the carpet with the assistance of the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards; Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appears to devote most of her attention to swindling the public of hundreds of thousands of pounds in expenses that are invariably "all in accordance with the rules"; Labor Lords Taylor of Blackburn and Truscott, who have just been found guilty by their peers of agreeing to accept cash in exchange for amending Parliamentary legislation, are to escape with a slap on the wrist; an apology had to be dragged out of the Prime Minister following the leak of information on an ugly campaign of lies and smears orchestrated by one of his closest advisors, civil servant Damian McBride.
Labor supporters in general, and his Parliamentary colleagues in particular, appear to be running out of patience with Mr Brown. There is increasing talk of a resignation, and the smart money is moving rapidly in the direction of sooner rather than later. Perhaps the Downing Street Petitioners will have their wish, long before they reach their hoped-for target of one million signatures.
(China.org.cn May 1, 2009)
