Despite the best efforts of uncooperative computers and a dodgy printer, a group of us made it down to Westminster on Wednesday morning to hand in the petition on recall. And a suitably hefty tome it made too with a total of 5,111 signatures.

The first port of call was the Houses of Parliament to hand it over to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Taking time out of his prep for Prime Minister’s Questions, we were collected from central lobby and escorted up to his office. As you might expect, the Lib Dem leadership have been squirrelled away at the top of one of the Palaces of Westminster in something akin to Rapunzel’s tower. After negotiating the stairs we were welcomed in by the man himself (surprisingly tall and a very firm handshake in case you were interested).

Clegg quizzed Executive Director David Babbs on the organisation and cast an envious eye over the rapidly increasing membership numbers – 38 Degrees is going from strength to strength in a way that the old-school political organisations can only dream of.

It was then time for the handover. And there’s very little resistance from the Lib Dems on the issue of a right to recall. Clegg even asked if he could sign the petition himself – one down two to go. If only all the party leaders were so receptive to the people’s desire for real change in the way our politics works.

The next stop was Downing Street, to see if we could hand in a copy of the petition at number 10 for Gordon’s perusal. We didn’t make it through the main gates, but the very friendly police officer on duty took our names and agreed to hand in the petition on our behalf. It’s a shame the Prime Minister, or a member of the government, couldn’t take a little time out to listen to what our members had to say on the issue – they’ve clearly been too be busy thinking about how best to fudge the next big issue on the agenda.

But at least we can be sure the petition will have made it into government hands – and a reply to our demands should be imminent. The Conservatives on the other hand have to date been unable (or unwilling) to accept the petition at all. We’re still hoping for an audience with David Cameron to hand across the demands on all our members behalf – come on, Dave! Fingers crossed it’ll happen before all the MPs jet off for summer recess.

We’ve got the support of one of the three main parties, now we just have to hope that all the grand words used by Labour and Conservative alike about listening to and engaging with the people in the light of the expenses scandal were more than just hot air. The enthusiasm of 38 Degrees’ membership shows a clear will from the public at large for a right to recall – the politicians must take note.

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It feels like politics in the UK has lots its way. The Labour government which inspired such hope twelve years ago is no longer trusted and torn by conflict. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have also had their share of scandal. Last week most of us chose not to vote for any of them, whilst the BNP profited from the crisis to make alarming gains including two MEPs. Right now we can’t rely on the Westminster parties to sort this crisis out on their own. But People Power can force their hand. There’s never been more need for us to come together to demand politicians properly sort out our political system.

In two weeks almost 6000 people have got involved with 38 Degrees. Our campaign for a recall law has moved the issue right up the agenda, with party leaders now agreeing to “look into” the idea. This isn’t yet a victory, but it is progress – recall started being talked about seriously as people started signing our petition. This shows that we do care about sorting politics out, and that by working together we can force politicians to respond. What should we do next? We were planning to hand our recall petition in this week, but events have moved fast and we feel we should decide together what our next steps are.

Our Recall petition, now over 4000 names strong, is definitely something we need to build on.  My view is that the best time to deliver it is when the Party Leaders meet to discuss reforms. This meeting has been promised, but a date hasn’t be confirmed yet. After that I think we should probably turn up the heat on individual MPs, and make sure they’re sending a clear message up to their leaders that a real recall law, that puts power to hold our local MP to account firmly in the hands of the people, is an important part of the solution.  It feels like this campaign is still building momentum – what we’ve done so far has put the issue on the agenda, but more pressure is needed to make sure the positive talk is converted into real action.

Polls tell us that three quarters of us now believe that big changes are needed to the UK political system, more than ever before [1]. The current crisis presents us with an opportunity to demand changes which could make politics better, for good. But what are the most important changes to focus on? Should we keep all our attention on demanding a Recall Law that would mean politicians couldn’t ignore voters between General Elections? Should we campaign for changes to the voting system to ensure parliament better reflects who we voted for? Or should we be doing something else entirely? We’re most powerful when we work together, so we need to decide together what we work on.