A 'Clarkson for PM' facebeeb group has thus far clocked up 379,848 members, who has more clout...

1p a litre? surely you mean 1p a GALLON

Jeremy Clarkson would have been a great PM.

Top story on the number10 website . . .

'Britain “stands by France” in Afghanistan', accompanied by the JC petition response video.

From BBC: "A Conservative Party spokesman said: "While the British public is having to tighten its belts, the government is spending taxpayers' money on a completely frivolous project. This shows how detached the Labour Party has become from the concerns of the British people." "

Someone pass me a cloth- I just spat coffee all over myself at the sheer hypocrisy of that statement.

If they had put out a written statement, everyone would be complaining about our dry, 'out of touch' government. I suppose this will be interpreted as 'frivolous' and the usual suspects will be up in arms at the 'waste of taxpayers money'.

LOL. Fair play to them.

Meanwhile, have a look at www.ministryoftype.co.uk for an overview of the typographical mess that is the 'beta' version of the new site.

damn damn damn damn damn :-( and blast.

Mind you another try as minister for transport is a better suggestion.

and Bugatti Veyron's for all!

But the sad git still hates diesel!

Well, that's nearly 50 thousand more votes than Gordo got when he became PM...

we live in a democracy apparently - so if we could just convince Mr Clarkson to run for parliment, then we'd all be able to vote him in and he'd become Prime Minister that way

if that doesn't work, there's always the good old-fashioned method of a civil revolution - we haven't had one of those in nearly 400 hundred year, must be time for another ruck, no?

When did we need to petition the incumbent PM about a possible new PM???

Surely JC can simply stand for PM for a party of his choosing (or brand new one like Kilroy), then get voted to office.

e-Petitions are not there to actually get any change to happen, don't be silly, anything that gets a reasonable numbers of signatures on there is obviously us surfs getting too big for our boots again and in need of some government patronising.

Jezza would make a far better PM than the current retard we have in power at the moment. I used to laugh at the yanks having bush in power but I have to eat my own words because we let such a complete clueless moron into power ourselves.

Its people like him that make me not want to vote, sure some people say you should vote to keep them out but what other good choice is there?

this is not the states, you don't vote for the leader you vote for the party and they appoint a leader!

It amuses me that people are attacking the video as a waste of money. As though using the government petitions website to call for Clarkson for PM is a sensible use of the taxes which pay for the site. People who submit stupid petitions should have to pay extra income tax. Paris for Queen, obviously.

James Whale

James Whale for PM

and JC for Transport.

that way we would get real common sense into the country's government! :)

because of the level of voter apathy 50k is probably a half decent turn-out.

What IS the point of voting, your options are realisitcally "very slightly left of centre" and "very slightly right of centre" - one party state in all but name.

You know the scary thing? I'm reading the Illuminastus Trilogy and what was meant as satire many years is now becoming scarily accurate.....maybe Brown and co are of the brotherhood???? errrrk!

All Hail Discordia!

Let's spread Erisian principle by doing silly e-petitions to show the government what we think of them?

How about;

"We, the undersigned, request the implimentation of a motion banning all activities of the potential secret society know as the Illuminati in the United Kingdom."

?

Aliens coz they're in charge really...this is all a social experiement....it has to be.....

So according to the Tories, using a YouTube site for weak responses to lame jokes by a set of opinionate knuckledraggers shows NjuLabor being out of touch with the plebs and the times?

I think a closer look will show them it's them that has seen the marbles but not figured out the game.

I'm not British, but I spend a lot of time in the UK. I think this would be a way for you guys to tell the establishment to shove it up - start a movement, convince Clarkson to become an MP. Then the road is open for him, so to say. This would show the world that it's not only the foreigners find the recent developments in Britain weird - the cameras, the overwhelming regulation, the crap public transport, the insane green nazi movement, the nanny state, the list is endless. You guys ruled the world not too long ago. Show everyone that the spirit is not gone. Boris was a reasonable start for London (the attempt of the driving license-less for a 25 quid per day congestion charge, even if you don't move your car? wtf was THAT all about???).

Paris, because her ad is a great example.

... who should never have been allowed to vote in the first place.

If ever there was a good reason to start "thinning out the numbers" as South Park's Uncle Jimbo once so delightfully put it, then surely this was it.

"But the sad git still hates diesel!"

... and he's right.

Diesel sportscars - the bastard offspring of Jeremy Beadle& Noel Edmonds. I'll take my Vrs without the shower of black-soot, thank you :-)

Paris, because she prefers a decent ride.

"..obviously us surfs .."

That's SERF, peasant!

Did ya see what I did there? Did ya?

Everyone knows it, and this just proves it. 49,447 email addresses mean nothing.

If people really want Clarkson as PM then they are idiots. However, if he also happened to lose his mind and put a party up for election, with him at its head, I would take great pleasure in watching his humiliation. Unfortunately, whatever else Clarkson is, he's not an idiot.

We vote for Parties.

We don't get to vote for individuals.

That party representative represents his/her constituency in Parliament.

Then the leader of the party that has the most votes (someone that has also been duely elected to Parliament) will usually become Prime Minister.

That is why Gordo manages to be Prime Minister without ever being voted for that position.

Technically, we never voted for his Holy Toniness to be Prime Minister, either. This isn't a Presidency - it is a Parlimentary Democracy (I use the term loosely).

So...

For JC to become Prime Minister, it would require him to form a party.

Get his members to win in as many constituencies around the country as possible - i.e. First Past The Post election victory - Then for him to form a government.

As you may have noticed, it isn't easy to fix this crappy excuse for a democracy - Viva La Revolution!

Grief, I read someplace that the tories are pissed about it, claiming it wasted public money.

FFS, one staffer made it in his/her own time, cost bugger all, and actually quite well done (in my opinion). Made me laugh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7571973.stm

Bet they fire* the bugger for having a sense of humour.

(* Friend of mine, close to John Major about 15 years ago, told me that he got really, really irate when his new car arrived. Why? 'cos it was grey. Blame Spitting Image)

"we let such a complete clueless moron into power"

No matter what your views on his political competency, describing a man who, according to many, achieved one of the best degrees in this country of the last 50 years as a "moron" suggests rather a lack of reading on your part.

Moron!

Al Murray's Pub Landlord would be a much better PM than Clarkson.

You DO NOT vote for the party, indeed it is only very recently that party affiliation was allowed on the ballot form.

You vote for your local representative, as an individual.

Of course since most people are too thick/uninterested to care about the people, putting the party on the form makes the choice easy, hence the bunch of tossers we have at the moment. Then again, as the "Literal Democrat" incident showed, some people are too lazy to even read the form properly, never mind research the candidates.

"If people really want Clarkson as PM then they are idiots."

As opposed to voting for....?

Technically, JC doesn't have to form a party or even be elected.

It is only constitutional convention that dictates that the leader of the largest party in the Commons in invited by the Monarch to form a government. The Royal Perogative gives the Queen the right to plonk whomever she wishes in the hotseat. Admittedly, doing so would cause some degree of havoc.

Similarly, it is still possible to govern from the House of Lords, but this hasn't been done since Alec Douglas-Home for a few days before he renounced his peerage to fight a by-election. It hasn't been done in anger in more than 100 years.

/pedant

10 points. So true.

The yanks get Paris brought in to political debate, we get a pot bellied git who hates motorbikes.

"BBC says spoof video 'ill-judged'"

"The sketch was filmed for BBC London's assistant editor, Simon Torkington, who is leaving to work at the al-Jazeera news network in Qatar."

"Newspapers have branded the video, a reworking of Tony Christie's hit, a waste of licence fee money."

"But the BBC has denied that licence payers' money was spent on the film. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5337758.stm

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "While the British public is having to tighten its belts, the government is spending taxpayers' money on a completely frivolous project."

I think we've all been thinking that of the e-partitions site...

Fantastic in that I assumed it was only in the realm of fantasy that a decidedly tongue in cheek petition was actually answered ahead of ever-so-slightly more important ones.

I'd have signed it.

so we cant have an old fart who complains about every tiny little problem he caused all by himself or by not RTFM'ing.

Big loss.

Who says that Government has to be completely dry and boring? Nice to see a sense of humour for once...

Presumably the threshold for serious consideration was 50,000 votes...

Who are the buffoons who complain about wasting tax-payer`s money on this? Can`t they see............it`s HUMOUR! You know - jokes, laughs and stuff! I know our government has........er.......shall we say, certain faults, but to come up with a little titter (no comments, please about G. B!) when they are normally known for being stuffy and out of touch is very laudable, surely?

Yet again, ambitious but rubbish.

Actually you do vote for a person. That person may or may not be associated with a certain political party however there is nothing to stop them from changing sides once they've been voted in. The paid up members of the party vote for the leader not just the political in crowd.

Wasn't the way Gordon Brown became PM on the back of TB a bit like someone else taking your driving test for you?

While, technically, you vote for the person not the party, in reality, the majority vote for whoever represents 'their' party. They may as well just colour code the ballot paper to make it real easy.

And since the vast majority of 'individuals' voted in to parliament are party members then they are unable to vote freely on the vast majority of decisions made in the Commons without the risk of de-selection, losing the colour against their name and seeing their political career dissolve - Because the majority of voters vote for the party. Theory is all well and good...

"Wasn't the way Gordon Brown became PM on the back of TB a bit like someone else taking your driving test for you?"

And wasn't the way TB became PM a bit like getting in to a girl's knickers by secretly reading her diary (carpet focus-grouping)?

JC - Jesus Christ, John Cleese, Jeremy Clarkson...

GB - (Global Beaurocracy), George Bush, Gordon Brown.

... you figure.