Smoking ban review more popular than gay marriage proposal!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 12:52 AWT's petition continues to attract support.
Earlier today signatures reached 2,000 and the petition is currently #4 in the Department of Health list and #44 in the overall list. (Update: make that #43. It's just overtaken 'Legalise Gay Marriage'!)
The initial burst of enthusiasm will inevitably subside but, as I keep saying, we're in this for the long haul.
Meanwhile, thanks to the following bloggers who have added their support in recent days:
Anonymong
Joshua Lachkovic's Blog
Mark Wadsworth
If there are any more you can add them in the comments. (See also last week's posts for other supportive blogs.)
I promise I won't write about the petition again – well, not for a week or two at least. We will however do another round of e-bulletins next week to hoover up anyone who has returned from holiday unaware of AWT's petition.
Simon Clark
Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, has just posted a link to the petition on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account it would be a great help if you could do the same.
Reader Comments (15)
Happy to show the support Simon. Cheers for the link.
Need to get those cards printed before it's too cold to sit outside.
Thanks for link, glad to be of assistance.
You can add Bolton Smokers Club to your list if you wish!
I have just had a look at the overall position. I noticed the petition about fuel prices and signed it.
This led me to think that the position of AWT's petition in the list is not particularly important - if we were all to sign the fuel prices petition as well as AWT's, then we would never overtake it unless all the signatories of the fuel petition also signed ours! Nevertheless, I suppose that it is amusing to keep an eye on the position. Number of signatories is the important thing.
I have been posting a link to the petition every day of Facebook Simon.
Yours, the invisible man.
Did someone say that Forest is producing cards? Now there's an excellent idea which would get many more to sign up.
Junican, you miss the point although, ironically, your comment about the fuel prices petition makes it for me. Yes, the number of signatories is ultimately the most important issue, but position is an important factor because it will help maximise the number of signatories.
To date the vast majority of people who have signed AWT's petition are what I would call the 'hard core'. To get the number significantly higher we have to attract the mainstream – that is, far beyond the usual mailing lists and blogs such as Taking Liberties, Dick Puddlecote, Liberal Vision etc. In short it has to reach people who currently have no idea that the petition even exists.
The position of the petition is therefore important. Earlier today you didn't know there was a petition about fuel pricing. You saw it because it's near the top (and therefore more visible than a petition languishing much further down the list) and you signed it.
The same applies to AWT's petition. The higher we can push it the more people will see it and (hopefully) sign it.
Our goal – and I said this when the petition was launched last week – is to get it into the top 20 (approx 5,000 signatories) so that it is at least visible. After that my hope is that this relatively high position will help attract signatories from the mainstream and we'll go from there.
It's a big ask but we have to do this in stages. We are currently in stage one where position and numbers go hand-in-hand.
Mark – yes, we are going to print cards for volunteers to hand out in pubs and clubs. They will feature the petition and the URL and will be available shortly.
Hello, all --
Posted the link Sunday evening here (near the end of the fourth paragraph):
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/secular-pietism-says-youre-forever-children/
Why not try Guido Fawkes' blog? http://order-order.com/
Maybe try Nanny Knows Best at http://nannyknowsbest.blogspot.com/ as well?
@ Simon.
Please do not think for a minute that I am against considerations of position in the table. But we see that the petition to 'deprive rioters of benefits' is top with a massive 200 000 plus! Erm.......what has convinced voters that the rioters were 'on benefits'? What do voters for that petition know about the very complex regulations about claiming benefits? That petition is idiotic, but people have voted for it.
My point, essentially, is the same as yours - only numbers count, but it would be 'nice' to be high in the list. And, as you say, more people will see the petition if it is high in the list - but that does not mean that they will vote for it. ASH ET AL will very quickly point out, in due course, how few people voted to amend the ban, given the opportunity.
I have persuaded my wife to vote and my grandson and his mate. My grandson has put it on his 'facebook' site. My daughters (3) will follow in due course, together with their friends - hopefully.
I think that we should hope for and aim for a steady growth.
I created a google gadget version of the smoking ban epetition, although it completely disappeared off the search list for a few days and then turned up again. At the moment it is still visible under the search terms "smoking ban epetition". I am not sure how useful this is apart from the fact that it will turn up on the iGoogle gadget searches and is easy to add to your iGoogle page.
Thanks, Frank. At risk of appearing pig ignorant, what's an 'iGoogle page?
Simon,
I assume you meant me?
I probably used the wrong word! I meant the home page that google account users are presented with after they sign in, I think that iGoogle refers to the service ie gmail, google blogger etc.
This link will work I hope
here
Thanks, Fredrik – yes, I meant you!