Posted by Andrew @ April 17th, 2010 11:14 pm. Filed under: In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Presumably The Prime Minister Is Not Too Busy,Rejected Petitions,The ePetition Team is a Confederacy of Dunces,Wait a minute... this isn't a petition! — Tags: Brian Riches —
I’m not sure what the rules are regarding what MPs and Parliament can and can’t do when Parliament is dissolved. I know MPs have rushed to change their Twitter names to ones without “MP” at the end so they can tweet during the campaign. I know MPs’ websites have frozen. And I know the ePetition website has replaced the ‘new petition’ form with a notice saying they won’t be updating.
So… why is it still updating? They haven’t approved a new petition since April 5th, but this monstrosity was rejected at 21 past midnight this morning (apparently):
by Brian Riches (rejected)recognise that the e-petition facility is pointless unless the Prime Minister and Government is seen to respond. Therefore the website should show the number of petitions received, the number the Prime Minister has read, the number where he or the Government has responded positively to the petition and the number that have been ignored. There should also be an end to platitudinous responses.
Because it’s the bread and butter of this blog, let me just quickly mock it.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to go through every single petition you bile-monkeys can vomit up every day? I do. Actually, it’s not all that long, because they’re so invariably worthless that you really only have to skim them. But even so I would rather the Prime Minister not waste his time reading drivel written up by self-important morons with no shift keys (unless the Tories win in which case I don’t want him getting any ideas).
Bonus points to the ePetition team for rejecting it as a “metapetition”.
Anyway. My point is that I don’t understand how rejecting petitions is any different to accepting them — they’re still published, and on exactly the same website. But then, anybody expecting Parliamentary procedure to make sense hasn’t read the response Parliament is giving to Freedom of Information Act requests during dissolution:
When Parliament has been dissolved there is no ‘House of Commons/Lords’ for the purposes of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the 2000 Act, and there is therefore no ‘public authority’ to which the 20 day deadline under section 10 of the 2000 Act is capable of applying. The time limits do not, therefore, apply during the period of Dissolution.
The effect of the 2000 Act, including its time limits, resumes when the new House of Commons/Lords first meets.
“We can’t reply to your letter because we don’t exist, and if we did exist time has stopped, so we certainly couldn’t send you a reply even if we existed, which naturally we don’t. (This reply does not indicate that we received your letter or in any way prove we exist or the passage of time.)” Thankyou, Officer Todhunter.
In conclusion, you can’t get a peep out of the Houses if you want action or numbers, but they’re happy to continue rejecting people.
Ugh. This is like the high school disco all over again.
Posted by Andrew @ November 4th, 2009 6:02 pm. Filed under: In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Maybe... but not for THAT reason,Wait a minute... this isn't a petition! —
The admins of the petition site have rejected the following petition, which I broadly support:
by Ted SmithAlan Johnson has stepped beyond credible remit as the Home Secretary to censor Scientific debate from the public sphere by his dismissal of the Chairman of the ACMD Professor David J Nutt MRCP MRCPsych FRCPsych FMedSci. Professor Nutt was making a valid point about the state of the classification system and he would defend this position in debate, providing evidence to support his statements.The Government, in particular Home Office ministers, have a record of brushing evidence aside in favour of a baseless agenda. This is not the way to restore trust in the Government.
They did so, because it overlaps with this one:
by Robert Moore
This latter petition I cannot support, because it’s almost certainly thinly veiled racism and therefore lands straight in the Maybe… but not for THAT reason category.
So effectively this means that we’re not allowed to petition the Prime Minister to remove Alan Johnson for any reason other than because we hate immigrants, until Moore’s petition closes on the 24th. I appreciate this decision was clearly taken by a web administrator rather than a minister, but it’s the kind of important detail someone should be keeping an eye on, or else the credibility of the whole site (such as it is) could be destroyed.
Posted by Andrew @ April 19th, 2009 7:33 pm. Filed under: In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself —
Here is an entirely sensible petition. In case you tend to read the petitions and skip the commentary, I will now repeat myself in larger letters:
THIS PETITION IS ENTIRELY SENSIBLE
Petition is not about Kettling.
Police officers were seen needlessly hitting a woman with a truncheon and violently pushing a man to the floor who 30 mins later died.
Those officers should be immediately sacked for gross misconduct and investigated for possible prosecution. The police officers have the opportunity to defend their actions under questioning.
This should be swiftly followed by an investigation as to why the police officers acted this way.
I reproduce it here because the government’s response to it was to reject it because
It was similar to and/or overlaps with an existing petition or petitions
The ‘additional information about this rejection’ includes a link to this petition:
(THIS PETITION IS ALSO PERFECTLY FINE)
The "Kettle" is best known for having been used in the May Day protests at Oxford Circus in 2001, after which it became the subject of a civil action, brought by one of those contained and only finally resolved by the law lords (in the police’s favour) in January this year.
This intimidatory and inflammatory tactic used by the police can leave those participating in legal protest to be effectively imprisoned on the street for hours on end. The results of this and the implications upon our freedom to protest are plain to see.
How can such heavy handed policing of law abiding citizens be right in a so called democracy?
For crying out loud! The Ian Tomlinson case is sufficiently sinister-looking already. Weeks after it becomes an offence to video the police, someone catches them on camera hitting and pushing over a man they claimed, based on a post mortem by a previously reprimanded pathologist, had died of a heart attack but turned out to have died of being hit with a stick and pushed over, and the IPCC are claiming they asked for said post-mortem but weren’t given it, and it generally reeks of a rather dodgy (and incompetent) cover-up, so it seems to me that it’s in Downing Street’s interests to read the relevant petitions carefully enough not to reject them for reasons which make no sense if you read even one sentence of their descriptions.
Posted by Andrew @ March 21st, 2009 4:22 pm. Filed under: "Making Britain Great Again",I Am A Brain!,I Deserve Free Money Because Of The Credit Crunch,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Lies Damn Lies And Nonsense Statistics,Lord Knows I Ask Not For Myself,Rejected Petitions,Thinking Things Through Is Just Not British,Unworkable Ideas —
The recession could be easily solved by giving all UK families one million pound sterling, this would boost the economy as the money would be spent in shops & saved in banks. This would mean a total investment by the government of approximately £40 million pounds with the current UK population of some 67 million people. The government has already thrown several billion pounds of tax payers money into the banking system yet banks are still failing to financially boost the economy with business’s going bust & repossessions at a all time high. With this proposal people would once again be able to pay their mortgages, there would be nobody on benefits as they would be over the threshold! There would be hardly any need for any social housing! The overall cost to the government would be considerably and progressively less as time went on; thus making Britain great again!!
This petition was rejected because:
Your figures are not accurate.
I assume this is referring to the idea that £1,000,000 × 67,000,000 ÷ (average family size) = £40,000,000. This is an unfair slander against Barrie Skinnard, who of course knows full well that the average family size is 1,675,000. This is why East Enders is so hard to follow these days. And also the origin of the name of new sitcom ‘One Million, Six Hundred And Seventy Four Thousand, Nine Hundred and Ninety Eight Children’. Hm.
Maybe his figures are wrong. I just wish the Government had made that response in the form of a lolcat.
Posted by Andrew @ January 14th, 2009 6:53 pm. Filed under: Everyone Stop What You're Doing Because You're Mildly Inconveniencing Me,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Rejected Petitions,Stand Back! I'm Going To Try SCIENCE!,Stop Spending My Money On Things I Don't Understand.,You Can't Spell "Spam" Without The PM,You Know - We Haven't Banned Anything Lately. —
This is new to me: people using the petition site to spam:
ART THERAPY equals SELF ESTEEM.
Presently I am seeking funding to be able to offer my art classes to people with learning difficulties. I would like to be able to pay for a venue, support workers, user transport, and my time to be able to offer free classes to centres for people with special needs. I have a venue that I could use, but need some funding to set it up.Presently I am working at Centre 404 in Camden Road in Holloway with several groups; children, teens and adults with learning difficulties,I would like to able to expand my operation. I have worked previously at the Camden Society and the City Lit. The value of art and music therapy is of tremendous use to individuals in assisting them with communication skills, the expression of emotions and as a way of developing teamwork, motor skills, eye hand co-ordination and ultimately self-esteem. I have designed a series of fun, easy participation art classes. I am open to any suggestion that you may be able to offer to raise funding for this very worthwhile venture.Yours sincerely GERRY LAFFY 07986-376844
gtheartist84@hotmail.com
I mean, really I ought to obscure his email address so that spam crawler bots can’t find it. But instead of that I think I’m going to repeat it in the form of a link in case they don’t spot it. Fair, after all, is fair. To that end, I WOULD LOVE TO PURCHASE A GENUINE DIPLOMA AND SOME PILLS THAT WILL EXPAND MY PENIS. Oh, this makes me angry. It just makes me want to kill Greeks.
the greeks have been totally pining for a war with the UK- behaving arrogantly, being disruptive in the EU… the list goes on. I suggest that Gordon Brown declares war on Greece to show them the consequences of messing with the UK.
But wars are expensive. If we want to raise the capital to raze a capital, we’d better reject this petition:
Government tax us too much, they take advantage of the fact they have all this money and so as a way of paying back all taxes to be reduce to 1% or less. We deserve to treated fairly.
So essentially, ‘ban public services’.
Unwanted faxes offering goods and services that continually come through on fax machines waste time and paper when industry is trying to cut costs. Unnecessary wastage of paper and fax machine use in environmentally unfriendly, wasting resources and adding to glabal warming.
Maybe you shouldn’t own a machine that’s the same as email except that you can’t copy-paste it, it takes longer, it requires it’s own unit and phone line, and it prints automatically because it has no screen. Ban marketing faxes? Ban faxes outright would be more sensible.
I’m not against the idea here, but personally, I’d have picked a deadline in April some time.
We believe that no two murders are the same, and cannot be classed under one offence. We believe in degrees of murder reflecting the severity of the offence. We also believe that the death penalty must be reintroduced ASAP for first-degree murder, as it is a complete nonsense to keep people in jail for "life" for such heinous crimes.
This is pretty vague, but really I share it for the Epic URL Fail.
This is the peoples petition, since people are the true directors of the NHS, and change can only come through them. By exposing our stories and concerns we can hope for true reformation of this system once and for all. Please sign this petition to let The Goverment know that the people want to run their own healthcare service, and care deeply for it.
Thank you.
Official Government Response (really):
Please rewrite your petition specifying in what way you would like the NHS to be changed.
Haha. There’s sometimes no response but patronising, is there?
To base national policy on politicised opinions from the IPCC is folly.
CO2 is an essential trace gas for human existence , not a pollutant.
As is being proved by the continual increase in CO2 levels, whilst temerature levels decrease, there is no relation between the two.
Couple this with the discredited "Hockey stick" in all its incarnations , the truth about the true aim of so called environmental policies is being exposed as taxation , nothing else.
Oh, fuck right off. Just because something is essential doesn’t mean it can’t also be a pollutant. You’d die if you ate no calories. Oxygen is toxic. It’s just a good job nobody does anything about these petitions.
Thousands of e-petitons are signed on this database. Do you think the government takes notice of them? Probably not. Legitimate and successful e-petitions should be voted on prior to the budget and then brought in as a government action and made law.
Like I say, it’s a good job nobody does anything about these petitions.
Posted by Ben @ January 5th, 2009 6:35 pm. Filed under: Hug A Granny,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Really REALLY Bad Ideas —
I’m not even going to bother with a commentary to this petition – the two “signees” have provided it for us.
currently the queen recives £36,7000,000 a year tax. this is not nearly enough to maintain all of her estates. A quote from an internet page says “Calling Queen Elizabeth II as the richest royal across the globe is a passé. The list is updated by Forbes. To your much astonishment, Queen is worth $600 million that clearly puts her on eleventh position in the list of top-15 monarchs identified.” yet she is the monarch of the most people! i would petition to raise the tax from 61 pence per person to £20 per person giving her a well overdue wage increase from £36,700,000 pounds a year to £1,219,500,000 (1.2bn a year)putting her back on track to true greatness. all the top ten richest monachs have more than 1bn pounds reserve so why shouldn’t our great queen?
you have allowed a petition on the same topic as this I just give figures why is this not approprate? isnt it the executives job too increase or decrease her majesty’s finance?
Posted by Andrew @ November 28th, 2008 5:51 pm. Filed under: ...Or Else!,Gibberish,I Am A Brain!,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Not Government Business,Rejected Petitions,The Nasty Television Upset Me! —
Is… is that a threat? And what the hell is an OTSBIPP?
We do not want Kerrang! choosing the bands to play at Download, Since they started fewer and fewer people have been wishing to go to Download Festivals, myself included, what once a dream would now be a punishment, I and many others have said we want Kerrang! out and have the general public vote rather than someone who thinks because it has guitars or a pretty frontman it should be at this Festival. Many people won’t stand for this and I have many people dying to sign this petition.
Are these people not aware that there are loads of just general petition websites out there and that those don’t work either?
To publicans and restraunteurs and all those concerned, who wish to encourage a strong economy and a strong tax economy by selling cigarettes to the general public under licence, of which this will be a national democratic success
I’ll get right on that! Just let me find my English-Moron Dictionary.
And lastly, an apology. I recently mocked someone called Paul Shakesby for petitioning the actual Prime Minister to get personally involved in a decision he disagreed with made by judges on the X-Factor. At the time I believed this to be well outside the government’s remit. I see now that I was mistaken. This from the Times:
The PM has been bombarding contestants on The X Factor with missives urging them to rebel against Simon Cowell’s strictures. …Mr Brown has become fascinated by its ITV rival which he sees as a model for “unlocking potential”. A weekly viewer with Sarah and their two children, Mr Brown has found the time to fire off no fewer than 12 letters during the current series.
Doesn’t that technically make him a crazy man?
Yesterday Spanish finalist Ruth Lorenzo revealed that Mr Brown wrote to her praising her for ignoring Cowell’s instructions to sing in her native language. …“He said, ‘Keep singing in English, girl. You’re doing a great job! Going against Simon’. It was great.”
Daniel Evans also received a motivational note that read: “Can I say that the next time Simon says that you are only supported by the over 60s, you can tell him that my wife Sarah and I disagree. Although you would be better off mentioning Sarah rather than me, as she is much farther away from 60 than I am!”
Gordon Brown is 57.
Sometimes I despair of this country, but then I remember that the alternative appears to be moving to America and I’m not convinced I can think of that as ‘better’.
Posted by Andrew @ November 26th, 2008 5:41 pm. Filed under: A Rose By Any Other Name Would Be Less Funny,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Not Government Business,Rejected Petitions,The Nasty Television Upset Me!,spelin an grammer —
it is up setting to sse one man namely Jamie oliver use a subject like childrens welfare to get into the news to promote his flagging carreer.
Yeah! Let’s also ban Children in Need and Comic Relief! Those bastards Wogan and Henry, what have they ever done for me, a reasonably well-off adult in no particular hardship?
Fabian Delph, the latest in a long line of Leeds United starlets has broken through to the first team.His performances leave members of the crowd speechless.
In order to ensure he does not go to a premier league club for a poultry sum, only to sit in the reserves and rob the viewing public of his talents, this petition is lodged. Please support us in this noble cause.
I’m almost certain there’s a clause in the Geneva Convention specifically to stop this. I’m pretty sure it mentions Leeds United by name. I remember, because that’s unusual in a human rights convention.
A digusting decision by Louis Walsh and a decision made by the bizarre Cherly Cole means that the decision to vote Scott off the show was flawed. We demand the PM’s intervention to reinstate Scott.
Parliament already phoned up two million times to vote for JLS. Why do you think the economy is in so much trouble?
I recently had a petition rejected by this website because I was told it contained; ‘Issues for which an e-petition is not the appropriate channel’. My e-petition submission asked; ‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recommend to Her Majesty The Queen that my cousin – UK born international pop icon Peter Andre, be knighted and henceforth known as Sir Peter Andre for his services to the music industry’. This seemed very strange after stumbling upon a petition conceived by a Mr. Charles Lee who has already had his e-petition accepted by the Downing Street website with a petition that asked; ‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recommend to Her Majesty the Queen that the comedian Ken Dodd be given a knighthood’. To me, this seems grossly unfair why the Prime Minister should recognise an old buck-toothed comedian and not an international pop icon. Therefore, I hope that people will realise the unfair nature of this action, sign this new petition which will hopefully overturn the original decision and allow me to get approval of my original petition to receive a knighthood for Peter. Thank you for reading – Andre Andre.
Is your name really ‘Andre Andre’? Your parents had a sick sense of humour. Although at least they never unleashed Peter on the world.
And this is funny mostly for the response:
This is England, English law stands, do not let sharia law get in by the back door.
Apparently, “This petition has been rejected because: It contained language which is offensive, intemperate, or provocative.” One can only assume the Prime Minister is a fan of tenuously inferred innuendo.
But then, look at the URL. I expect it was called FuckSharia or something.
Posted by Andrew @ November 14th, 2008 10:26 pm. Filed under: I AM TALKING!,In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself,Racism,Rejected Petitions,spelin an grammer —
Let’s play ‘spot the racism’:
South Africa… Stautes in London should be reserved for British heroes and heroines. TO REJECT THIS PETITION AFTER IT HAD ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED AND GAINED 133 SIGNATORIES IS NOTHING MORE THAN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD AND DEFINITELY UNDEMOCRATIC. THE PETITION WAS RAISED IN GOOD FAITH WITH NO MALICE INTENDED. IF YOU DON’T LIKE PEOPLES COMMENTS WHO ARE SIMPLY ABUSING THE SYSTEM JUST DELETE THEM AS YOU HAVE BEEN DOING SO.
I mean, ‘Stautes in London should be reserved for British heroes and heroines’ is fair enough and not in and of itself racist, but the actual petition title is rather suggesting the statue should fuck off home to Indianistan or wherever, isn’t it? Damn foreign statues, coming over here, stealing our plinths.
And here is one that was rejected because “it contained wording that is impossible to understand”:
UK, US AND IRANIAN TERORIST GOVERNMENT MIN CONTROL AND ELECTROMAGNETIC TORTUREER
…and yet John Prescott was given a cabinet post. Such a double-standard.
Edit: This is also amusing, from the rejected petition site:
Nice work, there. Clearly you’ve thought about how this might look.
Posted by Andrew @ October 29th, 2008 7:00 pm. Filed under: In Which We Mock The Petition Site Itself —
Just a quick break from our regular programming to celebrate a dumb response to a petition. These are written by the actual government. First, the petition:
China has continued to support the illegitimate Junta that continues to rule Burma. Recently Burma has seen massive peaceful protests from Monks and ordinary citizens alike, despite this the Junta has cracked down and begun the murder of the peaceful protesters.
When an emergency session of the UNSC was called – China blocked Sanctions against the Junta.
I feel that it is Immoral and unjust that China be able to benefit from western economies and obtain money that would come from the Olympic games they are due to host.
I call on the British government to boycott the ’08 Olympic games in response to this disgraceful situation.
Now, the response:
Political reform in Burma remains a priority for the Government and the Prime Minister personally. China is in a unique position to help bring about positive political change in Burma… We welcome China’s willingness to play a positive role and their offer of $15 million in aid. The Prime Minister has raised the situation in Burma in his discussions with Prime Minister Wen, most recently during UN General Assembly week in New York. …
The Beijing Olympics were, above all, an opportunity to celebrate genuine Olympic ideals of sportsmanship, including the considerable British success. For the UK, the handover to London 2012 gave additional significance to the Games. The Beijing Olympics were also a vital milestone in China’s re-emergence onto the world stage and an important means to increase mutual understanding between China and the rest of the world. Supporting such re-engagement is firmly in our national interest. …
But our approach of engagement with China is not at the expense of human rights. It is integral to their promotion. The Prime Minister made clear to his Chinese counterparts while he was in Beijing that we continue to have serious concerns about China’s human rights record, and will continue to focus on this both bilaterally and through the European Union.
This is all well and good, but this was published on Monday. One might argue that that isn’t helpful.