We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to exert a degree of control over the distortion of serious policy questions which pass for petitions on the Downing Street website
In particular, he should establish an Advisory Committee on Democratic Credibility (AC/DC) which should concern itself with just one specific question before authorising petitions to be uploaded to the site:
1. Does the petition include overstated or inaccurate claims about government plans that may cause members of the general public to unwittingly rule out changes to their lives that would be obviously beneficial. If so, this petition should be rejected or revised and resubmitted before being uploaded.
In order to ensure that the spirit of the petition mechanism is not lost, AC/DC should have a locked in lay majority. We suggest three lay members and two official Government members with no less than five years experience in policy formulation. All five should be appointed by a troika of the PM, the permanent secretary for Government Communications and the editor of the Daily Mail, and should serve no more than one four year term.
This petition closed on Sunday 27 May 2007 without having attracted any support at all. The creator was left in a minority of one. Here’s your chance to comment on this petition.