Legal disclaimer

The opinions expressed by the authors on this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of the Freedom2Choose organisation or any member thereof. Freedom2Choose is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the blog Authors.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

The farce that is government E-petitions.

Well I sorta knew it would happen, my E-petition on the government website was rejected because...there is another petition about amending the smoking ban there. I did a search before submitting my petition but that only threw up two anti smoking petitioners. Here's the email from the site:

Dear John H Baker,
Your e-petition "Amend the smoking ban on pubs, clubs and bingo halls." hasn't been accepted.
There is already an e-petition about this issue.
Please see petition "Amend the smoking ban".
View your rejected e-petition
If you'd like to submit a new e-petition, please read the site's terms and conditions which explain the rules in detail.
Thanks,
HM Government e-petitions http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/
 My emphasis above. Who the hell reads the "Terms and Conditions" of anything that comes from the net? Well I'm about to to see why my petition was rejected and I will rephrase my wording to accommodate them, unless the words smoking and ban offends their sensibilities.

I'll remind you readers again what I put in my now rejected petition:

The smoking ban in the UK was built on a tissue of lies about SHS (Second Hand Smoke) to appease the EU and the domestic Tobacco Control movement prevalent in our ‘big society’. This socially divisive ban should be amended to allow businesses their property rights and be allowed to say whether they allow smoking in their privately owned establishments or not.
There is a movement afoot in this country that apes the puritans of old that want to inflict laws on the people of the UK that forbid them personal choices and freedoms. That failed then and it will fail now as our freedoms and choices will not be bartered.
I therefore ask this government to give businesses the freedom to choose whether they go smoking or non smoking.
The smoking ban was never about health but about social control.
Please sign this petition for the sake of freedom and democracy.
I am a founder member of Freedom2Choose dot info.
Now here's the petition that I was rejected in favour of:
Amendment of the smoking ban allowing proprietors of businesses to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premises.
Was it something I said? Anyway I've signed the petition and you can too but if you can give me any suggestions as to what to write and where I may have gone wrong then I'd be eternally grateful.
I'm off now to have a read of their 'terms and conditions' in an effort to find out why they are being so bloody pedantic?

13 comments:

Lysistrata . said...

John:

Yes, it was something you said.

Your actual petition request: "I therefore ask this government to give businesses the freedom to choose whether they go smoking or non smoking" is buried within a lengthy general rant.

And more importantly, it is identical in meaning to the already accepted one that you quote.

Rather than resubmitting yours and risk accusations of being a "Splittist!", please encourage people to sign up to and vote for the one that's the same as yours but actually there. And put the link on as many sites as possible.

Yours as ever :)

Unknown said...

Actually no, it was something that I wrote, meant to say this in the body of my text. You are right of course and I will push for more people to sign this petition.

It's bloody enoying when your heart rules your head sometimes.

sheila said...

John, if it,s any consolation the Forest one does,nt seem to have gone on either. Let,s just encourage everyone to sign this one.

auntieban said...

I agree with other comments here. It's better to have one than loads of them, and the one that was accepted covers all businesses, not just pubs, clubs and bingo halls. ;-)

handymanphil said...

John, rest easy my friend for you have scored valuable points here-we now know that they are only going allow one petition on the subject so, as others have said, the wording may not be exactly to our liking but we must all sign this petition.
may I suggest a format that was put to me by a member of f2c-'the power of 7'
We each need to sign this petition and then send it to 7 individuals with the request that they then sign and send to 7 other individuals.
If we can do this through blogosphere, then our warriors in Parliament will have just cause to bring this up at any given moment-for it will have abided by their rules yet accrued 100,000+ signatures asap!

handymanphil said...

Now sent to all 200+ members of f2c facebook group with a request that they contact 7 other people.
Let's DO THIS people!

Anonymous said...

Anyone else had my problem? I signed the petition ok and received an email to confirm today, however when I tried to confirm the link wouldn't work, just kept telling me something had gone wrong! Wonder if this is the latest way of stopping the petition.

handymanphil said...

Then we need to see the signatories to check we have each been accepted!

Anonymous said...

Tried again today, still not able to confirm my signature.

Unknown said...

It's been down for a few days but suppposed to be up and running today the glorious 12th. Yep, it is up and running now.

handymanphil said...

You am the man John-can you now check to see if my signature is there please my friend?

Unknown said...

Would do Phil but I can't see a link to see the petitioners?

Anonymous said...

Finally managed to confirm my signature today at last.

opinions powered by SendLove.to

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Pages on this blog