Journal :: Petitioning the Prime Minister – A Do it yourself Guide

Published: November 16, 2007
Author: Paul Cadde
Category: Back Office
Permalink: Petitioning the Prime Minister – A Do it yourself Guide

Petitioning the Prime Minister seems to have become a national sport since it became possible to do this online. No longer do you need to trudge through the streets gathering your signatures, and make your way to Number 10 to hand deliver your petition. Now you can sit quietly at home, set up your petition on a site helpfully set up by the Prime Minister’s staff for the purpose, and send out thousands of viral e-mails to all your contacts enjoining them to vote with you.

We recently endorsed such a petition, and thought it might be quite interesting to see what other burning issues have concerned constituents so much that they have felt the need to start a petition.

The petition site rules ban any petition that is pure humour rather than a serious attempt to change government policy, or any which do not raise issues which require government action. Recent petitions which managed to get through despite this rule, with the number of signatures at the time of writing, include:

• Make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister (23,422)
• Replace police helmets with baseball caps (3)
• Make the sale of pork scratchings compulsory in establishments that serve ale for consumption on the premises (15)
• Do something about the smell of rotten eggs in Darwen (2)
• Introduce “peternity leave??? for pet owners to look after new born animals (10)

There are numerous petitions that have been rejected. Except where the contents are libellous or offensive you can usually read even the rejected ones. Recent rejections include:

The Prime Minister should resign
Rejected because it was too similar to another petition. Not wishing to appear party political, I will not comment!

It should be made illegal for MPs to lie to the electorate
Rejected because it was too similar to another petition. Comment as above.

Water should be banned
Rejected because the petition does not relate to government policy

The Prime Minister should become debt free
This was a serious petition aimed at trying to make the nation debt free, but rejected because it appeared to be talking about the Prime Minister’s personal finances.

A number of petitions were also rejected because the petitioner put his or her name where the subject of the petition was supposed to appear. Thus we have one petition which would have read “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Ian Beardsall???, whereas Mr Beardsall had intended to set up a petition to abolish employer National Insurance contributions.

If you want to set up a petition, the moral is to read and follow the instructions carefully, and then to think very carefully about the wording so that it really reads the way you intend. Do not put any advertising or website addresses in your petition, and check there are no similar petitions already on the site – two of the main reasons petitions are rejected. It would also help to check the grammar and spelling. A petition is only rejected for faulty grammar or spelling if it is so bad that it is difficult to follow the meaning, but you probably do not want to look as uneducated as half the petition writers appear.

If you do want to create your own petition, all you have to do is to go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/new, follow the instructions, and you are ready to roll! And don’t forget to let us know about it if it is something close to the heart of financial advisers – you might then find a link to it in a future newsletter.

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