Francis

So the forum is pointless then, if the views you are getting have to conform to the views you have already got from another source?

You're merely paying £7.5 million, and possibly a lot more, for an echo.

So why add to it?

But they can't, so it's just another waste of money.

Wake up, smell the real world.

Firstly, if we followed this ludicrous course, we'd spend millions of pounds on a white elephant, secondly the importance of comments would be determined by opinion polls, so the opinions are already canvased, thirdly it would hardly even be approaching democracy.

I mean think about it for one minute, I mean that, stop daydreaming, stop trying to justify what was an awful idea, and think about it for a while.

Let's start by actually thinking whether a system like this is going to make one iota of difference to anything, shall we?

Let's, for example, compare it to the equally idiotic white elephant which was the Number Ten petitions, introduced by Tony Blair, has that given the people anymore power, or made the government anymore accountable?

Of course it hasn't, a good number of petitions are pulled, if they don't match government thinking, a further number are completely ignored, because they don't fit government policy, and the vast, overwhelming majority of the public don't even participate in them, so they have achieved nothing, zero, nought, nada, not a bean, and now you want to spend millions of pounds on an equally useless and toothless scheme that further burdens the tax payer, and further burdens our legislative system?

What exactly would happen on your little forum, and remember, think about it this time, actually stop and think.

Firstly Mrs. Miggins, of Shrewsbury, and the millions of other elderly pensioners like her, who don't have any access to the internet, would have no say, and the same would apply to Keith, the unemployed plumber from Derby, who doesn't have an internet connection.

Peter from Ipswich, who isn't the most articulate, and a little hot headed, has been banned, because members of the British Hooligan league baited him into saying something silly, and Jennifer, of London, left because she was frankly uncomfortable because of abuse from the same parties.

Mr H. of Andover, would like to participate more, but unfortunately the surgeries clash with his work hours, and Miss. L. of Gwent is nervous about her privacy, as her questions are private and personal, so she'd rather use traditional methods anyway.

So all in all we're left with a goodly share of the population being excluded from your rather costly little white elephant.

Meanwhile, back at BHL headquarters Biffer Barry has got his mates together, and they've decided to invade the MP from Norwich's surgery today, and steam roll it, in an effort to push their opinions onto the government, and the people, we've already seen them bait Peter, into getting banned, and scare Jennifer off, but on top of that they've sent a virus to Ian, to incapacitate his computer, to make sure he can't participate, and sent copious amounts of pornography to Lisa, from Scotland, to chase her away, and now they sit there mob handed, several members with multiple ID's, set up using proxies, bouncing the discussion in their direction, only for it to be ignored anyway, because it doesn't conform to the opinions that were collated in a recent opinion poll.

Bit of a pointless, and expensive waste of money, wasn't it?

And, on the off chance that the MP did take Biffer and his friends seriously, a complete undermining of the democratic process.

No, it's far, far worse.

Exactly, so why undermine that system with junk?

We have a system, one man, one vote, and if the elected representative doesn't fulfill his obligations his term can be terminated at the next election.

It's not a perfect system, but it works, and giving over to mob ruled forums, that exclude vast swathes of the population, and would be ignored by the politicians anyway, except where politically expedient, is not only naive folly, but potentially dangerous to the very fabric of our democracy.

I for one would be loathed to pay vast sums of money to set up an unwanted, unneeded, unworkable system, that further over burdens our legislation, and serves no purpose, but could potentially be misused to undermine the democratic process.

Why you insist on continuing to push such a line, when it's clearly been demonstrated that it has no merit, is beyond me.