Just had my first e-petition rejected by No 10 - What should I do?

[Lateralthinking1]

So e-petitions are a part of the horse? Damn - foiled again then.

[french frank]

And we know who we are.

Who are you? I can't see what political parties have to do with what you're describing. Putting up a candidate and getting him/her elected (or not) doesn't make you a political party. Politics is at a level set above the immediate interests of individuals, whether they are the London Party or the Party of Yorkshire (we've had a 'Bristol Party', incidentally, and a Bristolian Party - that ended up as a front for a local anarchist - neither attracted much support).

the main parties seem to me to be rather like paying taxes or attending funerals. The public see them as an inevitable part of life but has no enthusiasm. It just feels held to ransom.

I suppose you have a different perspective if you're a grass roots activist, having input into policy at conferences or actually getting out on the streets and doing something to support what you believe in.

You're talking about 'special interests', not politics.

[Lateralthinking1]

On your penultimate point, I agree. A parallel thought is that working for Government loyally brings tensions but as soon as you are on the outside of it, my God. You see what it looks like from others' perspectives.

This is not to say that I am criticizing your party political activism. I don't condemn my past work for Governments. But I think you have an open outlook, as I had, and you will therefore be aware of the insularity of many in groupings. Becoming an outsider shocked me, whereas some wouldn't even fathom it at all. The latter is how our esteemed leaders tend to be.

Politics may be "at a level set above the immediate interests of individuals" but what concerns me is that it is not at a level set above the immediate interests of the dominant parties. Those parties might as well be individuals in that sense and hence are arguably not politics as such at all. Elsewhere ahinton, erm, hints at unreality in the pensions dialogue. Individuals inside huge parties themselves become less real for having to appear to compromise for the sake of a coherent party identity.

I will accept the argument about special interests if, rather than it being for me to prove that forum members have sufficiently common perspectives to represent a philosophy, anyone can show to me that our perspectives as a group are less coherent and cohesive than existing party political philosophies.

Your semi-anarchist candidate is interesting because he/she is just what you would expect of the system we have. A reaction to and against it because it isn't sufficiently incorporating. I would think such candidates would become an anachronism under my system. The channelling would be different.

Incidentally, don't forget that the Whigs pulled a lot of diverse strands together. You had all sorts there once and each speaking from the heart not merely in smoke filled rooms but in Parliament.

[Serial_Apologist]

So e-petitions are a part of the horse? Damn - foiled again then.

More a la carte I'd say..... and that's just for... starters, (to mix meta-horses' doovers...)