Petition for Gordon Brown to resign

[Zenith.UK]

Okay, so we know that it will get ignored like the driving one a year or so ago but if YOU think that Gordon Brown has some responsibility for the state of the UK, then sign the petition!

Petition to: resign. | Number10.gov.uk

That really is the official 10 Downing Street website, and that really is a petition calling for Gordon Brown to quit. Pass the message along!

 

[Chilly]

lol

 

[mooSe_]

lol

 

[Tom]

I don't want him to quit. I want him to continue to symbolise everything that 'New' Labour is, and that it claims it isn't.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

When will people learn that online petitions aren't worth the paper they're not even printed on?

 

[Zenith.UK]

Well 1.6 million people signed the petition against road-charging and it certainly made the Govt sit up and take notice. That's 1.6 million people using the official Number 10 website to make themselves heard and despite the brave facing in the media, Labour politicians were rattled. They simply didn't expect anywhere near the level of response the petition got. They couldn't even dismiss the signatories as simply clicking a button as you have to provide your address, receive an email and click a link in the email to register your signature. You have to actually put effort into it.

Now I'm not suggesting that this petition is legally binding or even to be taken seriously. What I hope is that people will use this opportunity to make their feelings known using the "official" petition system provided by Number10.gov.uk. The best that might happen is that Labour get embarrassed by a media story about "X thousand people demand Gordon Brown's resignation".

 

[Gumbo]

Didn't someone from here develop the petition bit of the site? Or did I dream that?

 

[Rulke]

Nah he doesnt need to resign, just have a sodding election


Much the same thing really!

 

[TdC]

Didn't someone from here develop the petition bit of the site? Or did I dream that?

I think you're thinking of Steiny? Dunno if he did this site though...

 

[00dave]

Lets start a petition to let Tdc swaffle gordon brown

 

[TdC]

no way man, I have class

 

[00dave]

you hide it well I must say

 

[TdC]

*makes your-mum joke*

 

[Sparx]

i love these totally pointless online petitions. And Its not Browns fault the worldwide Recession started, it was US banks

 

[Raven]

Its his and Alistair Darlings fault they seem to think there is light at the end of the tunnel, it is also their fault they have royally screwed us and probably our kids through their idiotic solution to fix it. Not to mention the fact that they didn't save anything at all when times were good, quite the opposite actually. Any idiot could see a "bust" was coming sooner or later, you can't have boom without it.

All governments are responsible, mostly ours and the US.

 

[Furr]

Question is that since he broke an pledge in "Blairs" election manifesto, doesn't that mean he no longer has a mandate? We never voted for Brown, I know I know that's not how it works, but if someone takes over the leadership of a party then breaks one of its key election pledges given under the previous leadership then I would say that we should be given a snap election.

But yeh, f**k Brown, f**k Labour

 

[00dave]

I still think its a pile of shit that it's the party you vote for not the leader. The conservatives lost the last election because the media was on a mission to make Michael Howard look like some sort of demon, how many times did they play that Jeremy Paxman interview. When the choice was between him and Blair it was simple in most people's heads. I don't think anybody really thought Blair would give up and let Gormless Brown take over, but if they had maybe the election would have had a different result.

TBH the rules should be change in leadership instant election.

 

[MYstIC G]

I think you're thinking of Steiny? Dunno if he did this site though...

He does, through mySociety.

Frankly this is the most useless project they've done. It will serve no purpose until somebody counts up all the "denied" responses to demonstrate that government doesn't listen.

 

[Chilly]

If a million REAL people in London standing around shouting about the a war cant stop that, what fucking hope do you think a million sigs on a petition will do?

Absolutely fuck all. Waste of my time and yours. Gordon brown knows FULL WELL how unpopular he is.

 

[Scouse]

i love these totally pointless online petitions. And Its not Browns fault the worldwide Recession started, it was US banks

I'd say you *may* have an arguable point there but for the fact that the recession isn't the only thing that's completely fucked up about Britain at the moment...

 

[ECA]

i love these totally pointless online petitions. And Its not Browns fault the worldwide Recession started, it was US banks

sigh you know nothing, I cant even be bothered to explain it to you.

 

[Sparx]

sigh you know nothing, I cant even be bothered to explain it to you.

How can i possibly learn if you just sigh and take the high ground thinking your all smug?

 

[Wij]

Just google credit crunch causes or something and you'll find Brown and his pitiful FSA up to their necks in it along with banking reforms both here and the US.

Brown and Blair cosied up to the Banks because they were making huge profits off the back of crazy risks. They didn't even tax the banks properly as the tax raked in from them rose only slightly since 97 whilst profits were up 5 to 10 times. Did Brown express any concern about the way the banks were operating ? Did he cock. Knighthoods all round and what's a 'risk' again ? Rhetoric like "we've abolished boom and bust" hardly helped foster an atmosphere of preparation for bad times.

Resignation is not enough. Expiration would be a start. Mutilation an added bonus.

 

[Zenith.UK]

It started last Wednesday and I signed up at about 750. Now it's over 14,000. It's already over the point where it's supposed to get a formal written response from the Govt.
Yeah! Right! Like that'll happen!

 

[ECA]

How can i possibly learn if you just sigh and take the high ground thinking your all smug?

It's not that I'm taking the high ground and being smug, it's just you sound like you've already made your mind up and taken a very shallow view of the situation and then broadcast it as statement of fact.

I don't think I could change your mind and telling you why what you said is wrong would be a waste of time.

 

[old.user4556]

Just google credit crunch causes or something and you'll find Brown and his pitiful FSA up to their necks in it along with banking reforms both here and the US.

Brown and Blair cosied up to the Banks because they were making huge profits off the back of crazy risks. They didn't even tax the banks properly as the tax raked in from them rose only slightly since 97 whilst profits were up 5 to 10 times. Did Brown express any concern about the way the banks were operating ? Did he cock. Knighthoods all round and what's a 'risk' again ? Rhetoric like "we've abolished boom and bust" hardly helped foster an atmosphere of preparation for bad times.

Resignation is not enough. Expiration would be a start. Mutilation an added bonus.

Absolutely.

Those that raised the risks about the absurd lending were moved on elsewhere.

 

[old.user4556]

How can i possibly learn if you just sigh and take the high ground thinking your all smug?

From the UK's perspective in a nutshell:

The banks were lending and lending and lending and lending on the back of cheap and easy wholesale money. Rates were low for interbank lending, so it was an opportunity to lend more... and more. Everyone was living in a credit generation, things they couldn't afford were easily accesible (Range Rovers, expensive holidays, Gucci this and that), including bigger and more expensive houses.

95% LTV mortgages weren't enough, so 100% mortgages came along. On the back of upward spiralling house prices, people who could afford it were being priced out of the market. First time buyers couldn't get on the housing ladder, and the banks needed to lend to them to line their pockets further to keep the cash flowing. Enter Northern Rock as a saviour with 125% LTV mortgages. People could borrow more, house prices were even more artificially inflated. Then, throw in self certification mortgages where people could just say "we earn £x00,000" without any verification (sub-prime lending) - to stem the rises prices the BoE kept putting rates up and up.

On the other side of the pond, you had sub-prime lending. Everyone gambled on the house prices going up.

Suddenly, people couldn't afford the repayments and the house prices started to drop hugely. The financial markers paniced, the banks all wanted their money bank, the cheap money supplies dried up, none of the banks were lending to each other, the banks all realised they had lent way more than their balance sheets would allow, all the huge players were exposed to toxic assets and toxic loans related to investments in sub-prime lending, their investments were worthless, everyone went bankrupt.

Northern Rock which relied heavily on the money markets was the first casualty. The rest of the industry followed not long after.

In my opinion, the majority of the UK (basing this opinion on friends, family and what I witness what goes on around me) were living on borrowed time. People were buying cars they couldn't afford thus bouying the car market, people were buying houses they couldn't afford thus bouying the housing market - it was only a matter of time (I saw this long before anything happened) before it all came crashing down to the ground one way or another, we couldn't go on borrowing that way. It's criminal that Brown and the FSA didn't intervene quickly enough.

 

[DaGaffer]

Here in Ireland they were even more stupid; so convinced were they that the housing boom would continue indefinitely, that the government (while making all the same mistakes with the banks as UKGov), narrowed the tax base to pretty much rely on housing taxes (building and stamp duties) as the key consumer taxes (top rate of income tax dropped from 47% to 41% in a few years) and go off on an orgy of public spending (the rise in basic social security payments over the last 5 years has been more than the total dole payment you can receive in the UK) that is now going to strangle them as unemployment starts to spiral (a single mother would need to earn €37,000 to be better off working!) All the good work this country did in the last 20 years could be ruined for a generation because government, banks and property colluded in the madness.

And I don't really blame the general public here for loading up with debt; the government actually encouraged them to buy second or even third properties as investment vehicles and to keep the boom going; in a country that had never seen such improvement in quality of life before. Its fucking shameful.

 

[old.user4556]

(sorry for the dreadful spelling mistakes above, doped high on codeine for this flu thingy)

 

[Scouse]

Yep G. Of course, the masses of people who pointed this out in advance were trashed...