How I changed the face of British politics

"The web has enabled me, an armchair socialist, to take a small, tottering digital step into the smouldering wreckage of real-life politics," writes Michael Parson in a comment article about 10 Downing Street's e-petitions. "After nine years of having my heart broken by a misguided idealist who led Britain into an illegal and unjust war, I stuck it to Tony"

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Like many people, I have a few issues with the way Tony Blair's government has led us into this ill-judged war in Iraq, but I haven't really done much about it. I voted Liberal in the last election and my vote helped to kick out my sitting Labour MP and put in a Liberal MP, but I couldn't join the millions of people who marched in central London in protest at the war because I had a brand new baby to care for. I've toyed with the idea of writing to Blair personally, but it always seemed pointless. So imagine my delight when I got an e-mail from 10 Downing Street asking me if I wanted to start an online petition.

I've watched  too many episodes of The West Wing not to get a contact high from seeing "10 Downing Street" in my inbox, sandwiched between messages about the toilets by the lifts being broken and the arrival of the post in reception.

The e-petitions team sent me a note announcing the beta test of the new e-petitions area on the 10 Downing Street website. The site explains that while petitions have long been received at the door of No. 10, something I've always found charmingly medieval, the new system enables anyone who's a British citizen to create a petition and get it signed. According to the site, the system has been developed in partnership with "non-partisan charitable project mySociety" to enable anyone to address a petition directly to the Prime Minister.

I'm pretty sure that when I received the e-mail yesterday the Beta had just opened, so I went to the shiny new petitions area and contemplated it with the pleasure of a skier standing before a fresh piste of untrammelled snow. I cracked my knuckles and gave it some thought. Call for Blair to resign? Too shrill. Suggest an amusingly obscene and anatomically impossible performance from our dear leader? No dice. Petitions are vetted for "offensive language", as well as other reasonable criteria: party political statements, defamatory remarks, spam adverts and so on.

Still, here was my big chance. Finally, after nine years of having my heart broken by a misguided idealist who led Britain into an illegal and unjust war, I stuck it to Tony.

My petition reads: "We the undersigned call on the Prime Minister to accept that the current war in Iraq is an illegal war that has done enormous damage to Great Britain's standing in the world." There. I've said it.

This was clearly a solemn moment. In my mind's eye I saw a growing number of people signing my petition - linking through from a blog here, a radio report there. A trickle, then a flood, then an avalanche. The numbers would grow and grow, breaking the software at the 10 Downing Street website. Computer experts from Microsoft would be wheeled in to devise novel counting methods to keep pace with the extraordinary speed at which the signing numbers - whirring like the dials on a petrol pump, falling away like the leaves on a calendar in a Forties film. Soon the pressure would be too great. Blair would resign. After two months of a media feeding frenzy, I would decline all further offers of interviews (out of consideration for my family) and begin to negotiate lucrative publishing contracts. Of course, I wouldn't let the fame and the money change me… unless there was an offer to appear on Strictly Come Dancing.

Today, flushed with anticipation, I went to the 10 Downing Street site. So far five people have signed up to my petition. It's a start, but I no longer have the website to myself. There are already 110 petitions there. Ten people have signed up to Gary Blake's petition to "Keep HP sauce in Britain". Thankfully no one has agreed with Tim Ireland's suggestion that the Prime Minister should "Stand on his head and juggle ice-cream".

I also note with alarm that some shifty sod claiming to be called Dan Rogers has a petition in which he calls for Blair to "Admit that he misled Parliament and the British public about the reasons for going to war with Iraq". He's got five votes too. That attention-seeking, self-important little popinjay.

Never mind. The web has enabled me, an armchair socialist, to take a small, tottering digital step into the smouldering wreckage of real-life politics. I feel much better. So go start a petition and tell Tony what you want him to do.

By the way, I'm working on my salsa moves.

Michael Parsons is Editor of CNET.co.uk, the personal technology and consumer electronics website. He was Editorial Director of the Industry Standard Europe and European correspondent for The Red Herring magazine, and spent five years working in Silicon Valley and worrying about technology. He can be reached at Michael.parsons@cnet.co.uk