You’ve got mail

If there is such a thing as e-panic, New Labour is in its grip. Alarmed and caught off guard by the 1.7 million people who have signed an online petition against national road-pricing, the Prime Minister has written a response to them, hastily explaining that the government’s blameless intention is to reduce congestion, rather than to raise a new ‘stealth tax’ or bolster the state’s surveillance powers. ‘Let me be clear straight away,’ says Mr Blair, before doing just the opposite. ‘We have not made any decision about national road-pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so.’ In fact, every briefing emanating from government makes it quite clear that the decision has indeed been taken and that Mr Blair, at least in private, has no intention of ‘capitulating’ to the internet rebels.

Britain has not yet abandoned representative democracy in favour of email plebiscites. But this government was asking for trouble by inviting the public to petition No.