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Oh no! A hundred and forty members of parliament have signed an Early Day Motion expressing their opposition to the part-privatisation of the Post Office. The government must be shaking in their boots, yes?

What do you think?

Early Day Motions are merely a much more expensive version (they cost on average £290) of the petitions we all sign from time to time. With the flick of a pen or the click of a mouse, like us, MPs sign up, think ‘job done’ and then go back to doing what they’re told. And the government can get on with ignoring them. Like us.

Hell, even MPs who sign the things ignore them. Look, for example, at the number of MPs who signed the Early Day Motion against a third runway at Heathrow Airport and then dutifully voted for a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

Still, if things do look like going against the government on the issue of the Post Office, don’t think the government doesn’t have other weapons in its armoury apart from MPs’ own cowardice. Maybe the Prime Minister could turn on the waterworks once more, in a show of dignity befitting his office, as he begs wavering MPs to save his skin.

No doubt the dire opinions polls will be waved under noses (despite Brown’s predecessor ones proudly proclaiming: ‘You can’t do this job if you’re going to do it by every day’s opinion polls’), appeals to loyalties made, jobs as bag-carriers offered, emotional blackmail notes sent, and grave threats issued.

If you want to know why hardly anybody takes politics seriously, you just have to watch this same capering rigmarole being trotted out every time something needs privatising, or an airport needs an extra runway, or the population needs databasing, or brown people need disappearing, or whatever policy it is this week vital to securing the ‘legacy’ and ‘values’ of the grand old Labour Party.