Number crunching*
2,099
People signing HP Sauce’s “Save the Proper British Cafe” petition.
1,638
People signing The Euston Manifesto.
* With apologies to Private Eye
Posted on May 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
| See also • The Enough Already! Manifesto • links for 2008-04-17 • Number crunching |
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Filed under ...In a brewery, UK politics |
2099, you say? Tosh! 2100. I am “Truly Proper British.”
Ha! I’m 2099. Welcome to The Village, Number 2100.
2101. Not that I can find any numbers on the site; where’d you get them from Justin?
Also, why are you apologising to Private Eye, it’s not like Ian Hislop is likely to figure out how to use the ‘net any time soon.
OTOH, Even if you don’t fully trust any one information source, there is value in repetition. As blogs echo information, it gives a sense of its importance and credibility. If a report is only discussed in one place it might be notable, but in general if an issue is being discussed most places you happen to visit, that indicates the information has some significance maybe we ought to shut up about Euston? I’m bored now.
I recall that the latest Private Eye pointed out how HP Sauce is running a “save the british cafe” campaign and cozying up to McDo at the same time.
I read the first page of signatories to the EM, and see similar inconsistencies: for example the person who describes himself as a “compassionate republican” and the person who describes Ramsay Clarke as a “pro-totalitarian quack”.
The other thing to point out is that the EM purports to attract signatories from all over the world, while the HP sauce campaign is targetting UK residents.
I remember Tim Ireland getting justifiably scathing about the Sun only offering an ‘agree’ option in a phone poll about castrating foreign peadophile terrorists, or somesuch, not to mention all the talk about having a ‘None of the above’ category on ballot papers. In the same vein, then, can anyone recommend an online petition host or similar where we can offer a “Won’t sign the Euston Manifesto” option, purely out of a sense of balance, like?
Incidentally, the Eustonites must be congratulated for their modesty. Have you seen the example entry for the signatories’ “How I would like to be described” field? It’s “Emeritus Professor of Politics, Manchester University, UK”. Oh, dear.
Ian: why not go to PledgeBank and do something like, “I pledge never, ever to sign the Euston Manifesto but only if … actually, but nothing.”
I think it is ridiculous to compare these two figures. The “Save the British Cafe” campaign is an attempt to do something serious to maintain and improve the quality of life in Britain.
Looks like the EM is playing catch-up.
Yawn………. back in my box.
Oscar: did you mean something like this? The wording was slightly constrained by PledgeBank, but I think it’ll work as a rough proxy to the Manifesto’s success. Sign-me-do!
Mat, the numbers were in the top right of the screen when I was there. Much like the EM.
To be fair, this doesn’t reflect too poorly on the EM authors. HP are running a populist marketing campaign. The EM is trying to do something political - with much less of a budget, I’ll wager. Similar to people voting for Big Brother housemates, yet not in the General Election. The number of people signing up/participating in something is not directly correlated to how important it is.
Not that I have signed either pledge. Nor have I been voting in Big Brother. I did vote though.
It’s all a bit reminiscent of the “charity jam” interview on The Day Today.