-
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown - Source: Reuters -
Related
The most popular petition on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's own web site is one calling on him to quit.
More than 72,000 people had signed the online petition by the time it closed on Friday.
The "E-petition" section of the Downing Street web site is an initiative to increase citizens' access to government.
Petitions are not binding but backers are promised an official response when they achieve 500 or more supporters.
The petition is another sign of Brown's slumping popularity. An opinion poll this week found less than a third of voters thought he was doing a good job.
The petition calling for Brown to step down has consistently been the most popular on the website since shortly after university mathematician Kalvis Jansons, 52, submitted it in April.
Jansons, who describes himself as a former supporter of Brown's Labour party but is otherwise unconnected with formal politics, said he and his colleagues were "fed up" with the prime minister and wanted to send him a message.
"It was intended to be the focus of people's anger, for him to know how people feel," Jansons told Reuters.
Brown's Labour government, which trails the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls, is widely expected to lose an election which must be held by June next year.
However, Jansons said he had little expectation that Brown would agree to the petition's demand, which he said had the shortest title on record - the single word "Resign".
As it closed it was comfortably ahead of the second most popular petition on the Downing Street website, which had 52,000 calling for a rethink on plans to scrap childcare vouchers.
Brown's spokesman said e-petitions were an important way of people expressing their views. "The prime minister is not personally responding to petitions, otherwise he might have little time to do anything else," he added.
