Sometimes the most unlikely things open a world of fun you never knew existed. As the recent recipient of a rejected parliamentary petition email (a failed, but not entirely serious attempt, with others to prevent the Conservative Party using the word ‘conservative’ in its title; unfortunately, it is not something the U.K. Government or Parliament is directly responsible for) I realised that this was ‘a thing’ and decided to dig a bit deeper to see what other petitions had been rejected and why. Indeed, I wanted to know if such a list even existed. It did not take long; I simply Googled ‘rejected petitions’ and this took me to a page on the Petitions webpage of the U.K. Government and Parliament website headed Rejected Petitions. On June 7th 2023 there were 35,842 with the most recent entry for June 4th.
The vast majority are rejected on the basis that they are “about something that the U.K. Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for”. And it turns out that the U.K. Government is not directly responsible for very much. The remainder are rejected on the basis that there is “already a petition about this issue”.
The range of issues that provoke people to try to raise a parliamentary petition vary from disgruntlement and frustration to the genuinely aspirational. Some are just daft. Almost without exception, they are amusing.
The disgruntled
Using the past month as a sample, among the disgruntled petitions was one requesting a re-vote for the 2023 Britain’s Got Talent final to make Lillianna the winner because “it was an unjust decision”. Another person had clearly failed his citizenship application test, the Life in the U.K. Test, demanding that it “should stopped” (sic). Part of the explanation offered by the applicant who considered the test was “just money making business” (quoted verbatim) was: “I have tried my self three times and every time all funny questions, when we r preparing fro exam, we r reading completely different and exam is completely different.” Clearly, this disgruntled applicant, in addition to demonstrating a poor grasp of the King’s English, did not grasp the nature of an exam. ‘No reply’ emails clearly got someone’s gander up as they tried to raise a petition to “Ban all no reply emails from the internet” on the basis the these were “annoying, impersonal and rude to the users who receive them”. They considered that “no reply emails are a form of digital rudeness and disrespect that should not be allowed in the modern world”.
The aspirational
Animals were the subject of nearly 1,000 rejected petitions and mostly about their welfare. “Change the law as regards rabbit welfare… to improve the lives of rabbits and stop rabbits from being Britain’s number 1 most neglected pet” was the basis of one attempt which also called to “make vaccinating rabbits compulsory”. Was this, perhaps, the first indication of a nascent Rabbit Liberation Movement? An especially ambitious attempt at a petition called to “Make killing birds Illegal!” as this was “destorying (sic) our wonderful nature!” This also demonstrated a common feature of many rejected petitions, a tenuous relationship with the rudiments of spelling and a fondness for exclamation marks. The applicant justified the attempt as “It is such a nice world we live in and birds play a big part in it”. Others on the animal welfare front clearly have not done their homework and requested for “Cats to not be classed as vermin” on the basis that “Cats are pets that many families around the world they are loved and nurtured like humans and for them to be classed as vermin is unfair they are not disgusting animals the (sic) are kind and loving”. In fact, cats are not classed as vermin in the U.K.
The daft
While I do not doubt the sincerity of the any of the above rejected petitions, some efforts really did stretch credulity. I don’t know which one of the blob has the job of reading applications for petitions but there cannot be many dull days. One of the best was the request for “Sun cream to be excluded from luggage weight” on the basis that “The weight given for luggage on airlines can be low for families going on holidays, when taken (sic) into account all the things that need to be taken. The amount of suncream and maybe medicine and medication can add a huge bulk to this weight”. They continued, saying that “good quality suncream is imperative” and that suncream is “a necessity not an option!” In addition to the grammatical and exclamation hallmarks of many petitions, this one also suggests that the petitioner does not realise that there are pharmacies in other countries.
Not within the past month but unable to resist seeing if any of the rejected petitions referred to COVID-19 — and many did — I was in two minds about whether this one was serious. I am still not sure. Someone tried to raise a petition in 2020 to “Allow healthy men to volunteer and be infected with COVID-19 for herd immunity”. The person had clearly given this a great deal of thought and called “for healthy men 18-40 to be infected voluntarily and wait out the infection with free beer!” A rigorous medical test would have to be passed prior to getting their hands on the beer as the volunteers “will need to prove their lungs are healthy by running round the schools field in a set time”. If the scheme ever got going the applicant, being the instigator, was “happy to volunteer first”. My guess is the person is fit and likes beer.
The person petitioning to sell the crown jewels, which may only be valued at £3 billion, wanted to give the money to the NHS. Given that the NHS annual budget is £71.5 billion, selling the crown jewels would keep it going for about a fortnight.
Some petitions came from school pupils. One was from some pupils of Imberhorne school in East Grinstead who had clearly been excluded from the year end prom. Their attempt at a petition was titled “Help us go to prom” reckoning that they should be allowed “to attend prom and say goodbye to there (sic) school years and friends”. Another rejected petition reckoned that “teachers should be doing there (sic) jobs properly”. This referred to pupils being prevented from using the toilet on demand and the petitioner wanted this alteration to the rules “so i dont shit my self or pe thanks”. When I noted that teachers were being exhorted to do their “jobs properly” I hoped it referred to the rudiments of spelling.
The not so daft
Finally, a petition with which I agreed and was glad to see that it had only been rejected due to the pre-existence of a petition on the same issue, requested that we “Have ‘None of the above’ added as an option on all ballot papers”. In explaining the request, the petitioner said that “By allowing people to vote ‘None of the above’ it empowers them to explicitly express their discontent with the political system”. Split infinitive apart, I’d vote for that!
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
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Back when petitions against covid folly and evil were more of a thing, and I signed a few, I always found it extremely depressing to see how few other people had signed most of them and often saw other petitions that called for the government to sort people lives out or prohibit X or Y that seemed like trivial rubbish in comparison – those had 10 or 100 times as many signatures. “Our” petitions were mainly about the government doing much less. Nothing I’ve seen since has given me much cause for optimism.
‘Startrek’ the originator of tv’s most famous split infinitive. To boldly go.
Just absolutely insane what is happening in Ottawa. A school has been given a directive to instruct staff to treat all pupils as nonbinary and use ridiculous pronouns when referring to them, so the sensible and concerned parents, regardless of faith, are rightly uniting to fight this lunacy. There’s an 8min video which shows what’s happening. And why is it always the trans radical nutters that wear face nappies? Speaks volumes I think.
”In an unprecedented display of unity, Christian and Muslim communities joined hands with concerned parents in Ottawa in opposition to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s (OCDSB) plan to force non-binary pronouns on all students.
The directive, issued to all staff, advised the use of ‘they/them’ pronouns for all students until their preferred pronouns were expressed. The move, viewed as an overreach by many parents, triggered a protest attended by more than 250 individuals.
The email directive sent out by the OCDSB, aimed at fostering “inclusivity and belonging” according to spokesperson Darcy Knoll, met with considerable backlash. Anonymously speaking, one Ottawa mother, formerly associated with the OCDSB, expressed her shock, remarking that the emails from the board sounded more like “LGBTQ propaganda.” It was not a stand against inclusivity, she clarified, but against the erosion of open discussion and the propagation of a radical stance that silences any expression of doubt or differing opinion.”
https://thecountersignal.com/muslims-and-christians-unite-against-school-board/
I don’t know where you found this Mogs but it is excellent.
The assault on humanity cares nothing for our religions except in so much as they can be used to foster divisions so this coming together, particularly Christians and Muslims in Ottawa will definitely not be to the Davos Deviants liking. Let us hope this is a sign of a slowly forming united opposition.
Speaking of religions, hux, I think you’ll like this as it is excellent news. It also reminds me of the Christian teacher recently featured on here, who was sacked because he refused to buy into the Woke bollocks and use a kid’s preferred gender pronouns as opposed to the sex they actually were. I hope that guy now has a solid case off the back of this doctor’s success.
”A Christian doctor sacked by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for refusing to use hypothetical transgender pronouns has been vindicated by the General Medical Council (GMC) following a fitness to practise self-referral.
Dr David Mackereth, 60, had been an practising doctor for 26 years when he lost his job with the DWP. He told the DWP in a training session that in good conscience as a Bible-believing Christian he could not identify clients by their chosen ‘gender identity’ instead of their biological sex.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “David Mackereth’s case challenged the sanity of our society, and our society was found wanting.
“We welcome the official conclusion by the GMC, but the freedom to hold a belief but not express it is no freedom at all. More must be done to recognise and protect the freedom of professionals with Christian and gender critical beliefs on these issues to use their professional judgment without fear of severe and unjust ramifications.
“Dr Mackereth chose to sacrifice his distinguished professional career rather than compromise on the Bible and his conscience. The requirement to use transgender pronouns defies common sense and Christian faith. It serves no useful purpose except filtering out firm Christians and men of principle such as Dr Mackereth.
“If we tolerate this as a society, if we give in on the essential freedom of thought, conscience and religion, no other freedom is safe. We are determined to fight all the way to secure justice in this case.”
https://christianconcern.com/news/christian-doctor-fit-to-practise-after-trans-pronoun-self-referral/
Thanks Mogs. Well done to all concerned.
Is anybody here seeing a duplicate of this article on the home page? DS dropped a newer article about heart failure deaths at lunch time but it isn’t visible, I only happened to see a link to it on Twitter. Wondering if the problem is at my end or are others not seeing the newest article either?
Two links to this article on the homepage for me.
And yet I saw this via a Twitter page;
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/10/heart-failure-deaths-in-may-hit-44-higher-than-pre-pandemic-why-is-government-refusing-to-investigate/
How strange….
If we sell the Crown Jewels the family that currently has call on them gets thrown in for free.
It would be good to see a list of petitions that are approved, but get a very small number of signatures showing how wacky everyone else thinks the idea is. I remember seeing one a few years ago calling on the government to give ancient trees rights, but can’t remember what rights the petitioner was calling for. Maybe the right to vote or self declare their gender identity.
“Split infinitive apart” indeed!
Nothing wrong with split infinitives in most cases. The obsession with them comes from times when Latin (whose infinitives cannot be split, consisting as they do of a single word) was the sine qua non of scholarly language – it being considered uncouth, consequently, to split the English versions, which of course consist of two eminently splittable words. Split away! No harm done!