London, Apr 27: A petition on 10 Downing Street’s own website calling for Gordon Brown to resign as Prime Minister has passed the 10,000-signature mark.

By 7.00 last night nearly 10,000 people had signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling for the prime minister to resign. The petition simply states: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.”

Dr Kalvis Jansons, an academic mathematician, who describes himself as a disillusioned “traditional Labour supporter”, posted the petition.

The “final straw”, which persuaded him to post the petition, was Brown’s initial reluctance to apologise for the emails by his former special adviser Damian McBride smearing the Tories, The Guardian reported.

Jansons said: “I wanted a simple, clear, generalised petition which would cover all the bases and comply with their rules. I wanted it to be something that could unite the country.”

His aim was to make his petition the most popular on the site. A call for the RNLI to be protected from maritime radio licence fees is the most popular petition at the moment, with 28,000 signatures.

Other petitions on the site call for an end to plans to part-privatise Royal Mail, preventing any increase in university tuition fees and opposing restrictions on vitamin supplements. (ANI)