Somehow I doubt it.

At first it sounds like an attention grabbing policy, that a petition delivered to Parliament containing 100,000 signatures will have to be considered for debate. But there are far too many weasel words in it for my liking.

I’ll hand you over to the loving embrace of the BBC (emphasis mine):

Campaigners who gather more than 100,000 petition signatures couldhave their ideas debated in Parliament, via a newly launched government website.

It allows popular petitions to be discussed by the backbench business committee of MPs, which has the power to propose debates on non-government matters.

So, if you get enough people together, there is the chance that your petition might be discussed by a backbench committee who might propose a debate which will be subject to the usual whippings and even if they did make it through a vote would then besubject to committee hearings, secondary debates and the Lords where if it survives it will probably be changed beyond all recognition.

To be honest this sounds more galling to me than just being told to sit down and shut up. They ask for our opinion, will make the flimsiest attempt to consider it and then punt it out of play while turning to us and sneering ‘well, we considered it, prole. What more do you want?’

Labour has said the petitions could lead to debates on “crazy ideas”.

Which I take to mean any idea they’ve not come up with.

It is lip service at democracy when not actually providing any at all. I’d be happier to see a policy of bit of legislation that means the submission of a petition of, oooh, let’s say, 1.5 million people forced the holding of a referendum.

There are currently two newspaper campaigns that have risen on the back of this. The Sun, ever the moderate, wants a debate about bringing back hanging. Forgetting of course that the ECHR precludes the death penalty. It is not a petition I would sign at any rate.

The Daily Express, slightly smarter than The Sun, has a petition calling for an EU membership referendum. This is a referendum I will sign. Assuming the debate is successful and we pull out of the EU, no doubt the Express would then start another one for the return of hanging.

However I really think it makes no odds. If you want out of the EU, I’d urge you to sign the Express’ petition anyway, just to send a message if one really were needed. But be under no illusions, the answer will be ‘nah, we don’t fancy it.’

The bunch of bastards sat in Westminster couldn’t give a damn about our opinion, and asWitterings from Witney points out, are starting to get spooked by us. Our best hope for getting out of the EU is to vote UKIP en-masse (unlikely) or wait for Cyprus, Italy and Spain to bring the whole house of cards down (much more likely). The problem with the latter is that it will cause us significant pain.

Also available at the new thesnowolf.com

The One That Had A Good Time. . .

Not long in from OH's little stroll. I would have stayed longer, but the Snowolf doesn't understand and needed a walk of her own.

I'll not do a complete re-hash, but I will say that I was surprised with the reception we got from the phalanx of armed forces vets in the Westminster Arms and around Parliament itself, good men and women who seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing, why were doing it and as far as I witnessed, wishing us all the best.

Some people get very snotty about 'The Walk', and I don't understand why. Is there a 'look at me!' aspect about it? Perhaps for some. Did we change anything? Not in the slightest. Did we make the 646 quake in their boots? No way.

When asked by a friend why I was doing this, my response was 'Well, if I don't, who will?' Did it matter if I did it? No.

The same friends also display a certain nervousness, the expectation that I will get into trouble. Well, why would I? There is no law in this country about wearing a mask, or walking down the street, or doing both simultaneously. As disturbed as I am about the way things are going in this country; things haven't got that bad yet. It is not an offence to go out sans ID, unlike some of our fellow EU members. Yet.

Doing what we did today, we were never going to get into any trouble. There isn't any there to be had. I'll let you into a little secret. What we did today was not daring in the slightest. It was not subversive, not radical, not anything.

From my perspective, OH's line about it only being a walk is not some mechanism to get around protest laws in Westminster, it is a clear statement of fact. The way some people react when I tell them about it, you'd think that we were running the risk of being cast into some Cat. A prison somewhere, never to be seen again.

The sad thing is, this says more about the public's perception of what is permissable, than it does about any laws Westminster and Brussels have passed. If they can suggest that doing this is likely to end badly, if they can insinuate that going for a walk and wearing a silly £5 plastic mask is some form of civil disobedience, then the gig is up. They don't need to pass any laws, they don't need to explain to the electorate why they've done it. We've done it for them.

It makes me very sad that people's automatic reaction to the act of wearing fancy dress, walking down one of the busiest streets, in one of the world's busiest cities, carrying nothing but a few quid in your pocket, could somehow result in 'trouble'. As a result, they don't do it.

I don't think they should do it, it's up to them. Most halfway sensible people wouldn't even consider it. But isn't it amazing that this equates to trouble? How conditioned we become to accepting authority over us, and fearful we are of questioning it.

So, that bring us back to the question put to me. Why did I do it?

Because I wanted to.

Because I could.

Because I was able to meet a group of likeminded people. Young and old, male and female. I was able to meet the two young Geordie girls who had spent what must have seemed like the last week on a bus down from Newcastle, just to do this. The residents of France and Switzerland, showing that whilst they may be ex-patria, they still think of home.

The main reason I did this was because it was fun.

Remember folks, the only real barriers in your way are the barriers you put in place yourself.

The One That Is Ashamed. . .

If ever there were a demonstration of Parliament's contempt for the public they are supposed to be serving, it came just now as the Speaker addressed the House.

I'll gloss over the fact that he didn't seem to understand the procedure of the House and had to discuss it with the Clerk, and focus instead on the fact that during the numerous points of order he effectively denounced Douglas Carswell's early day motion as a peice of trivia.

His refusal to pass any comment on his immediate future can only lead me to suppose that it is his intention not only to see this term out, but also to stand for election at the next election. Convention has it that a serving Speaker is unopposed by the two other main parties in his consituency during an election. Bollocks to that convention, the Lib Dems and Tories should piss all over that. The status quo must not be protected.

It isn't just that the Speaker should be offered up as a sacrificial lamb for the malfeasance of the House, he isn't a scapegoat and should not be treated as one, but he is one the worst troughers out there.

By refusing to give time over to Carswell's EDM, he has refused the House the opportunity to discuss his tenure as Speaker and has dropped the hot spud squarely in the lap of Brown. Brown will do nothing. I have no doubt that a number of 'honourable' members that would vote in a motion of no confidence in Martin would do so in the hope that the House surrendering him to the mob would deflect attention away from their own avarice, but that should not detract from the decent MPs who realise that his isn't, has never been, and will never be up to the job he is supposed to be doing.

Once again the political class hold up two fingers to the public and shout a hearty 'fuck you'.

The Queen has the prerogative of dissolving Parliament whenever she sees fit, I sit here in the hope that Her Majesty uses that right sooner rather than later.

This is an absolute disgrace from a legislature who do nothing but look out for their own personal, financial interests. The sooner we can kick out the whole sorry lot of them, the better.