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The coalition has relaunched an e-petitions website in a flawed attempt to improve democracy.Any e-petitions signed by more than 100,000 UK citizens will go to the cross party Commons backbench business committee, which will then decide whether it is worthy of debate.

This does not mean any parliamentary bills will be tabled as a result, simply that the matter will be discussed.

Leader of the House of Commons, Sir George Young, said that the threshold for debating an e-petition could be raised if too many reached the signatures target.

He said: “We do want to monitor it to see if we’ve got the threshold either too high or too low.

“This is a new initiative and we’ve set 100,000 because we think that’s roughly the right target, but if lots and lots of petitions sail through that barrier then we may need to see if it should be higher.

“If none of them are able to reach that target then we may need to lower it.”

The petitions suffer from the same flaw as when Tony Bliar launched the original scheme- there is no ability for people to counter vote for any proposal.

On the plus side at least some MPs will consider any popular petitions, whereas the labour scheme just ignored voters’ requests.

The first e-petitions have focused on the return of the death penalty- with dozens of separate campaigns calling for it.

Other suggestions include keeping all Formula One races on terrestrial TV, leaving the EU and a lower voting age.

One demands that prisoners’ diets be restricted to bread and water, as in the “good old days”, another that bodybuilding should be encouraged to improve the nation’s health.

Since launching on Thursday, the e-petitions site has experienced problems, with about 1,000 people a minute logging on.

A government spokesman said: “We apologise for any inconvenience experienced as people try to access e-petitions – this is a result of greater-than-expected demand.”

The system replaces the previous e-petitions pages on the Downing Street website, set up when Tony Bliar was PM.

The most popular of these, with more than 1.8 million people in support, opposed road pricing.

More than 70,000 backed the one-word suggestion that Gordon Brown should “resign” and almost 50,000 signed up to the idea that TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson should become prime minister.

Mumsnet the online forum for mothers, has withdrawn its support for Government proposals to censor the web in it’s forlorn claim of protecting children from pornography.
The family forum had initially backed Tory MPs proposals to try and get internet service providers to filter the web which would stop children from accessing pornography.

However, after many of their members reacted angrily to the endorsement of the censorship strategy, which they have criticised for promoting censorship and shifting the responsibility away from parents, the forum was forced to backtrack and withdraw its support.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, and Tory backbencher, Claire Perry, who have been vocal supporters of the strategy which they claim will make the internet a safer place, tried to bully ISPs last week about what the best strategy would be to increase child protection online.

Immediately afterwards a page supporting the campaign, which has since been removed from the site, appeared on Mumsnet, saying: “We’re backing his [Ed Vaizey’s] call, and we’ll be pressing him to ensure that ISPs comply as soon as possible. Society has acted to protect children from pornographic images in magazines, in cinemas, and on videos and DVDs – we think it’s time to act to protect them online.”

However, according to Justine Roberts, the co-founder and chief executive of Mumsnet, many of the forum’s more tech-savvy members, were unhappy with the site supporting Government’s proposals, as they thought the proposed strategy was a bad idea.

She said- “We are not going to back any solution…what we are interested in is protecting children online….However, everything we do on Mumsnet is a conversation and our opinions evolve with our users.”

“We initially supported the Government’s idea to get ISPs to filter the web to protect children from obscene online material, but a number of our more techie users thought it was a bad idea.”

The site is now calling for a broad discussion to discover the best solution to the issue.

Mumsnet rose to promise during the election as an effective lobby on family issues. David Cameron was recently forced to respond to a Mumsnet member who said that the Coalition’s spending cuts to support services meant she felt compelled to put her disabled child into care.

BT has announced a controversial service that some say could allow broadband providers to create a “two-tier internet”.
Content Connect, as it is known, allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that use BT’s network to charge content firms for high speed delivery of video.

It could spell the end of so-called “net neutrality”, where all traffic on the net is treated equally.

Critics say it will also reduce competition for consumers.

“This is a sea change in the way that content is delivered by ISPs,” Jim Killock of the net freedom campaign organisation, the Open Rights Group.

“It is essentially them saying: ‘Rather than delivering whatever content is on the internet as best we can, here are our services that we will deliver through our own network.’”

He said the result could be a “fundamental shift” from consumers choosing what video and gaming services they buy on the internet to “buying services from the internet to bundled services from ISPs”.

“This would reduce competition and take investment away from internet companies – that would be bad for everyone.”

In addition, net neutrality advocates says that allowing large content providers, such as YouTube, to pay for premium delivery could put smaller companies at a competitive disadvantage, reinforcing the gap.

But a spokesperson for BT denied that the offering would create a “two-tier internet”.

It said that its new service would speed up download speeds across its network – even for those not buying into Content Connect – by easing congestion.

Network neutrality is one of the founding principles of the internet and is meant to ensure that all ISPs treat all web traffic equally – serving merely as a conduit for whatever data is passing from content providers to end users.

But debates have been raging around the world as the explosive growth in internet traffic – and particularly video – has put a strain on the existing infrastructure.

In the US, regulators recently voted in favour of rules that are designed to uphold the principles of network neutrality.

The EU has openly backed network neutrality, but has introduced regulation that allows network providers to manage traffic on their networks, provided what they are doing is transparent.

The UK regulator Ofcom is expected to clarify its stance later this year.

In the meantime, the UK government has already said that it backs a two-speed internet. This new offering from BT seems to be the first major step in that direction.

Proposed changes to online copyright law will make broadband “unaffordable” for thousands of people, a consumer group has warned.The Government has announced that internet service providers (ISPs) will have to pay 25% of the costs of any challenges against suspected online piracy.

Minister for Communications Ed Vaizey said the move would help protect the “creative industries” which lose out when content, including music, is shared online without being paid for.

But Robert Hammond, from Consumer Focus, said increased ISP costs could be passed on to customers.

He said: “Consumers should not be picking up the tab for the enforcement of copyright laws that will benefit the music industry to the tune of millions.

“The previous government admitted any extra cost on ISPs may push up the cost of broadband, making it unaffordable for thousands of vulnerable consumers who need internet access to get vital services and cheaper deals.”

The other 75% of the costs will be met by copyright holders under the proposals announced.

The fee will pay for the initial notification of people who are believed to have infringed online copyright.

Given the controversy this week of the ACS law fiasco Dr Search views these proposals as nothing short of daft. ACS Law has yet to win a single uncontested case for alledged copyright infringement.

The measures will may come into force next year.

The timetable for broadband in all UK homes by 2012 has been put back by Tory culture secretary Jeremy Hunt- who says Labour’s plan was impractical.
The battle to close Britain’s broadband divide suffered a blow when the government pushed back the UK’s target for universal access to high-speed networks by three years.

Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said that it was not practical to meet the previous government’s target of universal broadband coverage by 2012 – a commitment he had previously dismissed as “paltry”. Instead, Hunt said it would take until 2015 before every home in Britain had at least a 2Mbps (megabits per second) connection.

“I have looked at the provision the government had made to achieve this by 2012. And I’m afraid that I am not convinced that there is sufficient funding in place,” Hunt told a gathering of telecoms operators. “So, while we will keep working towards that date, we have set ourselves a more realistic target of achieving universal 2Mbps access within the lifetime of this parliament.”

At present, 99% of homes can get some form of broadband connection but about 11% – or 2 million homes – cannot get speeds as high as 2Mbps. This limits their ability to use bandwidth-intensive services such as video streaming and television-on-demand. About 160,000 rural and remote households still cannot get any form of broadband, more than 10 years after the first services were launched.

Labour had assigned about £250m from the digital switchover fund to pay for its universal service obligation. It had also planned to introduce a 50p-per-line levy on all phone lines to fund the rollout of superfast networks in rural areas, but this tax was shelved before the election and then abolished by George Osborne in June’s budget.

Hunt’s message to the telecoms industry was that it was essential that the next generation of broadband networks, which offers speeds upwards of 40Mbps, were made available to “virtually every household”. He wants Britain to have the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015.

However, the government also expects the communications sector to take the lead, even though companies such as BT have warned that it is not economically viable to extend superfast broadband across the whole country.

Hunt, though, said that innovative solutions were the answer. “I don’t want to hear about how to roll out a fibre-optic pipe to every home in Wales,” said Hunt, who suggested the water mains and sewers could be opened up if this would cut the cost of building new networks.

He also conceded that commercial operators could not solve the problem alone. “There is market failure now so I believe there will be market failure in the future, but I would be incredibly pleased to learn that this is not the case.”

BT has committed to spending £2.5bn to extend its new fibre network to two-thirds of homes, but has warned that it cannot go further without government support.

The government also said that it would start three trials of super-fast broadband networks in rural areas this autumn. These pilots should identify ways of bringing broadband to areas where it is not economically viable – through partnerships, funding support, or by relaxing legislation.

Mr Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said he would be scrapping three quarters of the Government’s 820 websites. About 600 Government’s websites will be closed, saving £100 million, Mr Maude has announced.
Whitehall sources were reluctant to name which sites will close although one suggested that www.lovechips.co.uk – a website run by the marketing department of the Potato Council – would be unlikely to survive the cull.

Mr Maude said all of the sites “will be subject to a review looking at cost, usage and whether they could share resources better”.

The review, which will report back in September, will aim to close 75 per cent of them, and halve the costs of the remaining websites.

No new Government websites can now be set up, the Cabinet Office said, without the permission of a new Whitehall efficiency board, chaired by Chancellor George Osborne and Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury.

Mr Maude said: “The days of ‘vanity sites’ are over. It is not good enough to have websites which do not deliver the high quality services which people expect and deserve.

“That is why we will take tough action to get rid of those which are not up to the job and do not offer good value for money and introduce strict guidelines for those that remain.”

A report from the Central Office for Information, published today, found that £94 million was spent on the construction and set up and running costs of just 46 sites. The Government also spent £32 million on staff costs for those sites in 2009-10.

The most expensive websites were uktradeinvest.gov.uk which costs £11.78 per visit and businesslink.gov.uk which costs £2.15 per visit.

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed in the budget yesterday that the 50p a month landline tax for next generation broadband will be scrapped.
Instead the government will leave the majority of super fast broadband roll out to private investment.

The Conservatives opposed the introduction of the broadband tax and it was dropped from the Finance Bill at the end of the last parliament.

Speaking about the decision to scrap the tax, he said: “I am happy to be able to abolish this new duty before it is even introduced. Instead, we will support private broadband investment, including to rural areas, in part with funding from the Digital Switchover under-spend within the TV Licence Fee.”

Labour had planned to create a rural broadband fund via the new tax which were supported by the Liberal Democrats but were heavily criticised by the Tories.

Despite the lack of new funding, the coalition government has said it is committed to providing broadband improvements.

In a speech at the beginning of June, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said that it was his goal to provide Britain with the “best superfast broadband network in Europe”.

To achieve this, he is considering forcing water, gas and electricity companies to open up their ducts to allow fibre to be laid inside them. Experts estimate that a large chunk of the cost of offering fibre networks is associated with the expense of digging up roads to create the new ducts.

Last month, Ed Vaizey was appointed as the new broadband minister.

He will oversee the roll-out of next-generation broadband. He is also responsible for ensuring that all homes have a minimum speed of 2Mbps (megabits per second) by 2012, honouring a pledge made by the previous government.

Say goodbye to your transistor radio – labour’s digital switchover is killing it off.

The controversial Digital Economy Act, passed as one of the current labour government’s very last pieces of legislation in the “wash-up” process before Parliament is dissolved next week, enacts a legal framework to end FM, AM and Long Wave radio transmissions – despite huge practical objections and warnings that pressing ahead may result in a “public backlash”.

For almost 90 years through wars, royal weddings and moon landings, British radio has relied on the traditional analogue signal to bring news, music and entertainment to millions of listeners.

But now the hiss and crackle of the analogue radio set are finally set to become a thing of the past, with a new law passed yesterday paving the way for digital radio switchover in 2015.

Recent statistics show that the vast majority – 94 per cent – of radio listeners are satisfied with the service they currently receive and that less than a third of radios sold in the UK are digital.

The influential House of Lords Communication Committee, chaired by Lord Fowler, has also warned of the consequences of a digital switchover for the millions of perfectly functional analogue radio sets in Britain. Up to 100million existing sets will effectively become useless, while radios in 30million cars will also need to be converted – at a cost of upwards of £55 a time.

Switchover has also been the subject of fierce opposition from some radio campaigners, including 14 operators of local commercial radio stations who have today written to The Daily Telegraph saying that their “ability to operate in the future is directly challenged by the digital radio switchover proposals” in the Act.

These small stations – from West Berkshire to the Shetland Islands – said that they face being excluded from the new digital service and therefore starved of listeners and advertising.

The House of Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee this week warned of a “digital divide” in radio, with coverage patchy at best in rural and remote areas.

The organisation leading the proposed switchover, Digital Radio UK, says that the benefits of digital radio include a greater choice of services, improved sound quality and new functionality such as being able to pause, record and rewind radio broadcasts. Switchover will also lower costs for radio broadcasters, who currently have to pay to transmit their services twice – once on FM, and once on digital.

Digital Radio UK says that the new law provides a framework for digital radio coverage across the country to be improved, and for car manufacturers to start fitting digital radios as standard. “Radio deserves a digital future and this legislation is the first key to unlocking that,” said Ford Ennals, its chief executive.

The target date of 2015 for switchover to digital radio was described by culture secretary Ben Bradshaw in the House of Commons this week as “an incentive not an ultimatum”, with the precise date remaining to be set by the incoming government after the general election. The switchover date will not be set until more than 50 per cent of radio listening is via digital means, and national digital radio coverage reaches a comparable level to the current FM signal.

Controversial elements of the Digital Economy Bill will face further scrutiny as the bill is passed, Commons Leader Harriet Harperson has said.

Part of the bill, which refers to how copyright holders can block access to websites hosting pirated content, will be subject to further consultation.

Several MPs called for the whole bill to be delayed until after the election.

Despite objections, the bill was given a second reading and will be rushed through its final stages today.

The Tories have said “big questions” have been left unanswered while the Lib Dems are seeking greater scrutiny of some aspects.

Closing the debate, Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms said: “The choice we have is to act on unlawful downloading or not to act. That is the choice the House needs to make.

Ms Harman revealed to Parliament that one element, known as Clause 18, will be subject to “a super-affirmative procedure” – meaning the details of it will require further Parliamentary scrutiny.

Clause 18 was hastily rewritten by the government. It was intended to future-proof the law against new methods of accessing pirated materials.

It grants rights-holders the power to force service providers to block access to websites hosting pirated content.

The Liberal Democrats have called for a similar procedure to be applied to the issue of how public wi-fi will be affected by the bill.

Currently, if the bill passes into law, the owners of publicly-accessed wi-fi will be held responsible for content that is illegally downloaded by individuals using the hotspot.

Which would effectively shut down all public wifi access in the UK. Reducing the UK back to the dinosaurs.

The second reading of the bill was somewhat overshadowed by the earlier announcement of the general election and few MPs gathered in the Commons to hear Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw introduce it.

However, a heated debate followed with several MPs, including Labour MP Tom Watson, calling for the more controversial elements of the bill to be removed.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt branded the bill a “digital disappointment of colossal proportions”.

For the Liberal Democrats, culture spokesman Don Foster condemned the government for allowing a “totally inappropriate” amount of time for debate on such a major piece of legislation.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart, a former member of Celtic rock group Runrig, told the Commons that internet file-sharing was not unlike a person walking into a record shop and taking whatever albums they liked – for free.

He said: “The cream of the UK’s creative industries want to ensure that we have this bill and these measures. Then we can continue to have the best creative industry and digital economy.”

But Mr Watson, a long-standing Labour opponent of the bill, urged the government to rethink rushing through the legislation.

“In the last seven days, 20,000 people have taken the time to e-mail their MPs. They are extremely upset that it won’t have proper scrutiny,” he said.

There has been mounting public opposition to the bill, particularly the plans to give Ofcom the power to cut off the internet connections of persistent pirates.