E-petitions democracy in action? mob rule? accountability?

Taking a glance through yesterday's paper I read a reaction to one of those new fangled government e-petitions.  Since the example being written about concerns itself with the prospect of the UK population increaseing to seventy million people, no surprise that this was an ideal subject for a "liberal" journalist to slur, us the public with the dismissive comment "What passes for a debate on immigration". Of course there has been no open public  debate on migration for obvious reasons.

Without a doubt being able to register your opinion in a quick and easy way, does not form part of a comprehensive or considered debate on any subject, however the whole purpose of these e-petitions is to flag up issues of concern that may not have been covered during normal business of government, one such being something that is of major importance, here in Thanet,  the subject of  animal welfare which has generated its own  e-petition.

Looking through the list of e-petitions I don't doubt that some are just plain mad, but if someone is sufficiently concerned to register their support for a particular proposition then surely should be taken seriously if their view is shared by sufficient numbers.

Coming back to the petition "No to 70 million" I shall be signing up for this, and no doubt this will come as a surprise to journalists and Westminster politicians, I don't consider myself  in anyway right wing, for this reason, mass immigration Labour's policy,  part of a crazy social experiment to create "diversity"   has resulted in exploitation of both UK nationals and migrants who are paying the price of low wages, poor living conditions, poor education and an over subscribed health services the only beneficiaries being big business who've ruthlessly exploited the situation, while half wit middle class "liberals"have backed the policy with all manner of airy fairy notions of diversity, ignorant of the fact that this is not about racism but increasing poverty and deprivation.

Politicians and media bods, have a contempt for public opinion when it does not fall within their own narrow prejudices and experiences, I just wonder, how for the want of a better term, the establishment, would see things if they themselves were losing out on jobs, schools, homes etc despite having contributed to the economy all their lives just because a Labour government choose to experiment. 

Still not being a right wing bigot, I invite you to read an alternate take on that issue, who better than Tony Blair multi-millionnaire, who is not noted for his concern for working people and responcible for the unplanned and probably unsustainable policy to justify, read this article from the Mail. 

Since its unlikely that people like  Tony Blair or former colleagues in Labour are ever likely to meet with people like me, these e-petitions at least give the  opportunity of registering our concerns, admittedly it wont help the many thousands who've lost jobs in the last few years but maybe a few politicians will take note.