Gordon Brown "resign" petition - A response!
In a rather unexpected move (unexpected by anyway), Gordon Brown has actually responded to the petition that called on him to resign on the No 10 petitions site and that 72,234 of us signed. His response reads:
The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.
I think this response encapsulates everything that is wrong with our Prime Minister. It doesn't even address the issue, i.e. him resigning. I never expected him to actually resign but the least he could do is acknowledge what the petition said in the first place. It just looks like the sort of meaningless robotic nonsense he spews out at every PMQs and every time I ever see him interviewed.
The man seems to be entirely divorced from reality. As I mentioned months ago, more people have petitioned him to resign than the 24,278 who voted for him in his constituency in 2005 (the only mandate he actually has). In fact the total is nearly 3 times that number.
Still, we now only have a few months to go before we all get the chance to show him what we think. He will have no option but to respond to that petition.
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3 comments:
I agree with your post completely!
Unenthralled as I am at the looming prospect of a Tory goverment and BNP electoral gains, I can't see myself voting for Gordon Brown with a good conscience. Even if he genuinely believes he is the best man to run the country, his increasingly desperate attempts to keep a foothold on power tell a different story, and the words ring hollower by the day. His recent support for Alan Johnson was definitely the nail in the coffin: nothing will persuade me to tick the box of a leader who believes (seemingly quite unashamedly) that the purpose of the scientific community is to spin helpful yarns to promote his pet ideology ...
Much as the response is wholly underwhelming, comparing the number of people who did vote for him against the total who petitioned for him to resign is just bad maths:
- There were a total of 100,000 people (ish) who could have voted for him, of which about 25% did.
- There are about 45 million people who could have petitioned for his resignation, of which about 0.15% did.
You might say that petitions are less accessible than voting, or that the petition was not particularly well-known, (ofc the petition was open a lot longer than the polling booths) but that also sort of proves my point - these were two different events occurring in different circumstances and to compare the numbers is pointless, and a disservice to stats.
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