Government by petition?

On December 27th the Government published a discussion paper which among other things would require local councils to "respond" to any petition signed by more than 250 electors.

I have waited a few days before commenting, as the whole thing seemed like some kind of hoax - Dec.27th seems a "good day to bury", - no-one would not ice. A few other commentators have picked up the story, so it seems to be genuine.

Hazel Blears, the author of the paper, may be flying a kite. Does she really think that Democracy is served by the small number of cranks and riders of hobby horses, who regularly pester councils in one way or another, having some sort of power over all electors and determining policy.

Of course "respond" may mean nothing more than acknowledging - as was the case when Downing Street opened its Petition website early in 2007 and acknowledged and then completely ignored the 1.8 million signatories petitioning against road pricing.

We may be prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she is merely trying to activate an interest in politics which has been destroyed by years of centralisation on London. Such gesture politics are not going to convince electors who feel that they have little power locally, as councils do little more than accede to what is controlled in London.

Surely no local council will do more than merely acknowledge a petition signed by so few. Nor would enlarging the number of signatures, to, say 10% of electors, or about 7,000 to 8,000. Why should such a small proportion be empowered to decide for the other 90%, who may not even have been approached?

If she really believes in restoring locally democracy, then she ought to devolve real power to local councils, - for police policy and appointments, local transport, education. People might then fall over each other in eagerness to vote - their votes would matter in changing what was deemed unsatisfactory or in trying something new.