Extraordinary.
Having rejected Antony Worrall Thompson's petition entitled Save Our Pubs and Clubs: Amend the Smoking Ban because "There is already an e-petition about this issue", the DH has just accepted a THIRD petition on the subject. Click here.
What I didn't tell you is that on Monday I emailed the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons to find out what had happened to Antony's petition because at that stage it had yet to be accepted or rejected.
Within two hours Antony's PA received an email that read:
Dear Antony Worrall Thompson,
Your e-petition "Save Our Pubs and Clubs: Amend the Smoking Ban" hasn't been accepted.
There is already an e-petition about this issue.
I immediately rang the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, which is in charge of the e-petitions website, to find out more.
To be fair, the people I spoke to were courteous and helpful. (They all sound remarkably young, or perhaps I'm just very old.)
I was effectively told that following receipt of my email Antony's petition had been recommended for publication but the DH had ignored that advice.
Now, three days later, the DH has seen fit to publish a third petition about the smoking ban with a fourth allocated, somewhat bizarrely, to Defra. Yet still they won't accept Antony's.
Anyway, I have just spoken to someone else at the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, following which I sent them another email urging the DH to reconsider Antony's petition.
They have promised to take it up with the DH but I'm beginning to lose the will to live.
PS. I have been exchanging emails with Joe Jackson on this subject and I hope he won't mind my repeating what he had to say:
"I think AWT's [petition] was rejected because it was the most eloquent and most likely to succeed."
I couldn't possibly comment.
Btw, the proposer of the latest petition is the enigmatic Chris F J Cyrnik who occasionally comments on this blog, but not always using his real name.
STOP PRESS: Good news, I think. Can't say anything yet (don't want to tempt providence) but watch this space.