I'm interpreting the intention as that you gather as much support as you can behind a general topic (how many death penalty duplicates are there again?) and then if it actually does get up for debate you push the point the petitions are a shopping list of some random points with singular common theme and as such must be debated independently. It should be obvious to anyone deciding which petitions to debate, but I might be too optimistic...
I'm not convinced cycle lanes can ever work, but admittedly I've only experienced the UK farcilities.
The best petitions are the ones that are simple and uncluttered (unlike UK cycle lanes, oddly, LOL). Cycle facilities can work, they've been proving that for a number of years abroad. We're just slow to catch up.
Basically though - e-petitions are meaningless.
The Coalition trumpet them as better than the e-petitions Labour ran - but they have no constitutional validity whatsoever and are a pointless workover of the pre-existing Government e-petition site.
They may not be as weedy as they once were. A few MPs had been talking of giving them more power so there is an obligation to debate the popular ones in Parliament. Several of the previous ones had been looked at seriously (sex offender related issues, prison reform, and saving the NHS money) though mostly inter-departmental stuff.
If there's anything of use in
this blog post, then please feel free to copy and use it.
Read that a little while back. The issues have been in the back of my mind for sometime now. I've put the epet in, lets see if they run it.
