Yesterday was the closing date for our e-petition to review the smoking ban.
Final number of signatures – 5,562.
Now, I can't gloss over the fact that this falls far short of what we would like to have achieved but I don't regret giving it a go and I disagree strongly with some of the boorish comments the petition has attracted elsewhere.
You need national or local media interest to generate significant support for an e-petition. The backing of a big public sector body helps. Ditto a large union or membership organisation. It's helpful too if the issue is topical.
We scored poorly in all these areas.
In comparison however to other tobacco-related e-petitions (including anti-tobacco ones), ours did respectably well. Consider, for example, the number of people who signed these e-petitions (now also closed):
- Amend the smoking ban 608
- Smoking ban review 207
- Amend the smoking ban 83
- Ban smoking whilst driving 80
- Extend the smoking ban to tourist attractions aimed at children 16
- Ban smoking in the UK 47
- Smoking should be banned inside motorised vehicles 2
- Ban smoking in all public places 65
- Ban tobacco 16
- Ban the sale of tobacco products 19
- Make it illegal to smoke in cars with children 7
Now consider the e-petitions that are still open. They include:
- Ban smoking in prison 8
- Ban smoking while driving 8
- Ban smoking in flats 2
- Ban smoking on TV 5
- Amend smoking ban to protect children in cars 6
- Ban smoking breaks for public sector employees 3
- Ban smoking inside the perimeter of children's playgrounds 44
- Ban smoking in cars and all other vehicles 4
- Stop the legislation that will ban smoking in cars 6
- Ban smoking on TV, theatre stage, & new films 4
- Ban smoking in cars carrying under 18's 32
- Ban smoking outside all public entrances and town centres 8
- Stop the plans to ban smoking in private cars 5
- Ban smoking in outside areas of restaurants & pubs that serve food! 33
- All out ban on smoking 3
- Enclosed smoking shelters 2
- Ban alcohol, caffeine and smoking 2
- Stop smoking on the street 23
- If smoking in cars is to banned then it should also be banned in prisons and parliament 5
- Stop all new anti smoking laws 1
- Stop smoking at the school gates 11
- Re-instate shisha smoking for indoor use and prevent further banning of shisha 13
- Investigate legislation to remove or reduce nicotine in cigarettes 1
- Smokers' clubs 4
- Increase the price of tobacco/cigerettes [sic] 3
- Ban small children from cars 7
- Freedom of choice to smokers 5
Add the responses to ALL these e-petitions together and the total number of signatories (some of which may be duplicated) is 1,405.
In that context our e-petition did OK. In fact I can't find a single tobacco-related e-petition (for or against) that has attracted close to 1,000 supporters let alone 5,000+.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was a success, I'm just saying it wasn't the embarrassment that some armchair critics seem to think it was.
My final word on the subject is to thank everyone who supported it. Thanks too to all the bloggers who promoted it and added the e-petition button to their own blogs.
Thanks, most of all, to Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson for lending his name to the petition. He didn't have to but he was prepared to stick his head above the parapet. Not many 'celebrities' would have done that.
Anyway, if you don't at first succeed, try, try and try again. (Have I mentioned that 235,000 people signed our petition against plain packaging of tobacco?)