Selling the Crown Jewels and seeing how many policemen can get on a motorbike have headlined previous forays in these pages into the parallel universe of Rejected Petitions to the U.K. Parliament. With all current petitions being due to be closed on May 30th until after the forthcoming General Election, it seemed like an appropriate time to take another dive to see what gems could be found.
Most proposals for petitions are reasonable and fail solely because there is already a petition on that issue to which the hopeful petitioner is directed. Thus, there is usually a rash of proposals about things that are perennially of general concern, such as the availability of tobacco products to children, potholes on major roads and the closure of health service facilities. Legalisation of cannabis is also a popular rejected petition. Another theme is for particular people to be honoured or stripped of honours, and the hopeful petitioners are reminded that this is a matter for the Honours Committee and not, directly, a matter for Parliament.
Rejected petitions also reflect the times more immediately, such as attempts to raise petitions to hold a General Election (a matter purely for the sitting Prime Minister), stopping the fining of families who take their children on vacation during term time (a matter for schools and local educational authorities) and calls for the Football Association not to stop holding FA Cup replays (a matter for the FA alone to decide). All of these were the subject of numerous rejected petitions along with proposals either to legalise or ban e-scooters (petitions already exist) and to make it illegal to tamper with the design of the flag of St. George (remarkably, not under the purview of the U.K. Parliament).
And then the gems. Behind many of these it is possible to sense anger, impulse and humour. This is evident in the speed with which many have been typed, with scant regard to capitalisation, spacing or punctuation. Some of the hopeful petitioners were clearly lexicographically challenged, and all the titles are reproduced as they appeared on the Rejected Petitions website. For example, consider the proposal to “Make it a legal requirement to upload photo I’d for social media accounts uk” [sic].
You can almost sense the alcohol or fury-fuelled sentiment behind the petition to “Get rishi sunak out of office”. Naturally, such ad hominem attempts to raise petitions fail on the basis that they are “about honours or appointments”, and petitions also fail if they include “calling for Ministers to be sacked or for a vote of no confidence”. Election fever had clearly not gripped one hopeful petitioner, who resurrected an old Rejected Petitions chestnut to “Put ‘None of the above’ on all General Election ballot forms” which continues to be rejected because there is an existing petition on the same issue.
Remarkably few rejected petitions are overtly political, but one exception was the suggestion to “vote for Independent Aberdeenshire. From. Scotland,but not United Kingdom” [sic]. This seemed like a poorly structured cry from the heart from a fellow Aberdonian who had suffered enough under the reign of trans-terror and restrictions on free speech by the SNP. It was rejected on the grounds that “It requests action at a local level”. Also, from north of the border, but with ‘Scottish’ misspelt, was the very strange request to “Add Scotttish Gaelic as a supported languages on digital game fronts”. This rather niche request was rejected as it is not something that is the responsibility of the U.K. Parliament.
Not all petitions are negative and there were a few requests – all rejected naturally – to honour various people. From someone clearly unable to see through the doom laden rhetoric of the elder statesman of modern Malthusianism, came the suggestion that we “Put David Attenborough on a bank note”. The petitioner did not say whether this was to be effected before or after his death. “Make David Tennant a lord” was the subject of another rejected petition, and I so wanted the response to be that he could not be made a lord because he was already a Time Lord… but it wasn’t.
One we could all have got behind, had it been permitted, was the suggestion to “Give Mr. Alan Bates (from the Post Office) a Knighthood”. It was touching how the hopeful petitioner felt the need to ensure that the person reading the request knew that Mr. Bates was “from the Post Office” despite the fact that his long-standing departure from said Post Office was what gave rise to his fame.
Some requests are remarkably vague, such as the one which simply said “Build a Primark”. Delving a bit deeper into this compounded the vagueness, as it was to be built “Next to lidal, So I don’t have to travel a long way away” [sic]. Unfortunately, which ‘lidal’ was not specified. Had the missing details been provided, it is quite possible that this petition would not have been rejected. Who knows?
Some petitioners really lack the knack of writing concise and memorable titles for their requests, such as “We would like to be able to get to go in the gymnasium in the allander” which, on reading, seemed like a perfectly reasonable topic as it was about the physical and mental health of young people. Nevertheless, it was rejected.
My guess is a Tottenham fan requested we “Get rid of Arsenal FC as a football team” and someone, possibly a vertically challenged petitioner, had clearly had their hopes of becoming a model dashed in requesting that we “Remove height restrictions in modelling agency’s” [sic]. The U.K. Government Petitions website is just the place for the terminally disaffected to vent their feelings. The mental health benefits of such a service cannot be underestimated.
The rejected petitions website is not only amusing, it is educational. The request to “Ban the production and sale of blue swimwear for babies and children” highlighted a concern, for which a petition already exists, about the purported danger to babies and children of wearing blue swimwear, which allegedly makes them invisible in the water, making it harder to see them if they get into trouble. I had no idea that this was considered a problem, but it is.
Parliament should be exhorted to “Make it legal for drivers to report a collision with a cat”. Apart from wondering how large a cat must be to be ‘collided’ with, as opposed simply to being run over, presumably the petitioner meant that it should become a ‘legal requirement’ to report squishing a tabby if you were the driver of the car that squished it. This is clearly not a new concern as a petition already exists on the same topic.
It is hard to make sense of what the petitioner was asking in proposing a petition on “Telephone masts bullying our famers making them take 95% cut”. And that was precisely the conclusion of the civil servant responding, who rejected the petition.
I couldn’t end without reference to one request which pulled at my heartstrings. I imagined some young lad in an area far from the green belt or sports facilities whose request was “I would like a small football pitch made near my house to play with my friends”. Bless!
Finally, the mystery of Belinda the cat can be solved by checking the request to “Let Belinda the cat back in Tesco”.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.
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The decision not to charge Nick Lowles is bizarre and definitely has all the aroma of two tier politically motivated justice. That Allison Pearson warranted the heavy hand of the law and Lowles zilch demonstrates all we need to know about impartial application of the law
All I can say is that Hope not hate appears to have the same phrase book as War is peace, Slavery is freedom. In other words they are the very opposite of the name on the tin
Hate not Hope.
Peace in Europe is war!
Left Wing Lawyers Hate Britain
I think all Lefties hate their countries and yearn for a Far Left communo-fascist one world government that can be remote and remove them from all blame and authority. We saw how the EU did this here and has given us nothing but pygmies in government and Parliament.
Excellent detective work, Laurie Wastell, on the past life of this Lord of the Realm and lawyerly henchman of the Enemy Within.
Now please turn your sleuthing skills to the past lawyerly life of the Man Himself in Person, Sir Two-Tier.
SO Hermer is actually Two Tier’s subconscious voice , what a thorough traitorous Barsteward, .
Radical past?
Doesn’t that include every member of Starmer’s cabinet?
We are led by Communists it is blatantly obvious
Why do the choices always have to be between Hitler or Stalin? The communists pushing their agendas are no better ethically or morally than the fascists.There are 100’s of millions of us that want nothing to do with either. We just want common sense governess, equal treatment under the law, fair taxes, Governments not run by extremist nut jobs from either end of the political spectrum. So one while one side is uncovering the ills of the other, they are ignoring the ills their own ideology creates.
Makes you wonder if the Wall coming down in 1991 was a good idea!
In East Germany they regret it and would love to rebuild it to keep out western Far Left fascism.
Shortly after Berlin wall came down in 1989, Helmut Kohl (CDU, chancellor of the FRG) held a speech in Berlin where he mentioned the possibility of German reunification. This was rudely rejected by Walter Momper (SPD), then the so-called governing mayor of West-Berlin, with the words (quoted from memory)
Warum quatschen sie denn jetzt von „Wiedervereinigung“, das will doch hier überhaupt niemand hören!
[Why are you blathering about “reunification” now, despite nobody here wants to listen to that?]
At the earliest opportunity, Momper’s party had formed an East-German branch ‘cunningly’ named SDP so that nobody would notice that it was really the same party and they had loved to keep two German states and thus, have twice the amount of government positions at their disposal. The SED (former state party) quickly transmogrified itself into the PDS¹ which is meanwhile (current name Die Linke, The Left) a force to reckon with on the German left and behind-the-scenes responsible for much of the leftward lurch of Germany under Angela Merkel, former MfS² informer and daugher of a family who voluntarily immigrated into the GDR from the FRG.
We should maybe have kept the wall to keep the communists out. But on the other hand, we were (and are) all Germans and not just pawns of parties named with some combination of the letters S, D, and P (and Ö).
¹ This means for a short while we had the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). These are obviously all completely different.
² Ministry for Security of the State, the Stasi.
Additional bit of information: The name SPD goes back to the 19th century and by that time, democractic didn’t have the positive meaning it has gained meanwhile. Originally, it mean dedicated to overthrowing the established political order¹ in order to replace it with some kind of people’s republic.
¹ Constitutional monarchy.
People getting shot by soldiers (or torn to pieces by mines) for trying to escape from a state imprisoning them is quite obviously such an ideal state of affairs that no one could ever want to change it .
Why do you believe you could chose Hitler in the unlikely event you would want that?
In 1939, Germany and the USSR jointly invaded Poland. This caused England and France to declare war on Germany but not on the USSR they ultimately married while handing Poland over as wedding gift (plus everything in Europe eastward of the current German eastern border and westward of the current Russian western border). Hence, you (so to say) quite voluntarily chose Stalin and that’s why you’re still haunted by his political heirs today. The communists never kept their intentions to take over all of the world in order to remake it in their own image secret.
I do enjoy a good demolition job. Excellent work.
The conclusion that Hermer is clearly another traitor is unavoidable.
““if Western societies objectify women by sexualising them then it’s no wonder that some Muslims have fallen into temptation”……..Well they’re already sexual so that is BS for a start.
What he meant to say is allow them to walk around stark naked (for Muslim standards) in public, marking this a the oldest rapist’s excuse in the world: She was really asking for it! She wore a miniskirt and I just couldn’t control myself!
I think I have an idea or two what to do with people who suffer from this overcome by an immoral alien culture-problem and it would have to do something with avoiding avoidable exposure by reducing intercultural mixing by wide¹ spatial separation.
¹ About 4967 miles, the distance between London and Karachi.
If this was happening in Germany, there would be no reason to write an article about it as that’s probably the biography of almost all SPD, Die Linke and Green Party politicians and a sizeable subset of the CDU/CSU and FDP as well.
The likes of Hope Not Hate are going to be looking very sad soon….as the USAID money spigot has run dry…..
If Harmer is looking for more work representing prisoners whose human rights are being abused then, perhaps, he might like to take up the case of Tommy Robinson.
It is quite clear that Robinsons treatment is not prison as it should be but is Cruel and Unusual punishment. This is obviously contrary to the Human Rights legislation, and I am amazed that the Attorney General has not taken any action against the Justice dept, or whoever is responsible. In fact we should crowd fund action against both He and the PM for this failure to act, the failure is clearly political in nature, and Britain often acts against other Countries for such violations in the UN. Elon and Trump may well mention it in the UN, putting Britain in the Piriah state category!
It should be noted that Hope not Hate is one of the bete noise of the Trump administration and Musk, so any Gov’t association with it doesn’t do us any favours.
PS shouldn’t it be “Hope not – HATE” ?