That was quick!
Last year we reached the 10,000 signatures milestone on 31 July – after 65 days.
This year, the milestone was reached on 5 August – on Day 15. More than four times quicker!
Thank you to everyone who has signed – all 9,999 of you.
Thank you to all who have promoted it – especially Chris Packham, Birdwatch magazine, Rare Bird Alert, the League Against Cruel Sports, the Raptor Persecution Scotland (though it is so much more than just Scotland) blog, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, and the Green Party itself.
But also a bunch of individuals who have been untiring in banging on about banning driven grouse shooting – on Twitter they include @ASPaton, @BlackLabrador10, @McKenzie6593, @MMNNActionUK, @rob_sheldon, @raptorpolitics, @HenryHenHarrier (isn’t he cute?), @birdman1066, @alanmcbride, @georgialocock and @wildeaboutbirds, and many others too numerous to mention.
There are 388 e-petitions on the Westminster parliament website – this is the 13th to reach the 10,000 signatures mark. Let us remember that this has been achieved without the support of the RSPB, without the support of the Wildlife Trusts, without the public support of any wildlife conservation organisation. It has been achieved by a bunch of individuals supported by the League Against Cruel Sports and the Green Party. Ours is a small, but growing, popular movement. We are leading the way.
Thank you again to all who have signed and promoted this e-petition. Have a day off and then come back with a friend, two friends, three friends to get the numbers going again, please.
More on this later today. But ‘Thank you!’ for your support!
Ban driven grouse shooting – please sign here.
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Great “stuff” Mark
Congratulations Mark, a great result but still a long way to go. I have just reread the DEFRA reply from 5th September last year. I wonder if we will just get the same regurgitated answer?
Richard (and everyone else) – my signature is just one of 10,000 (actually 10,300 right now) so it is ‘well done, us!’.
It would be surprising if the response were exactly the same as the e-petition is more broadly targetted at a wider range of ills of grouse moor management.
But I agree that it would be remarkable if the response showed much grasp of the issue – we’ll see. In particular we will see whether it offers an alternative solution to the range of problems – I bet it won’t! And if it doesn’t then it will show that Defra is completely adrift on this issue.
Here’s to the next tranche that delivers it into the political mire that is Westminster!
You know that principled group of establishment figures deemed worthy of increased public funding ….
Mark et al.,
I predict it will be the same, more or less, as previously issued. Defra will be aware of this petition, the likelihood of it exceeding 10K and will likely have had the written response prepared many months ago; possibly even before your petition was published. It may even just state; “I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave a moment/ a year ago”.
I can say the above with some certainty as I submitted a FoI request to Defra a couple of months back; they regurgitated the same, more or less, response that they have done for other FoI requests that had ‘hen harrier’ mentioned. This, despite the fact that they failed to answer many of the specific questions I raised in my FoI!! I have asked Defra to review their response, as they are bound to do under the legislation, highlighting the questions that in my opinion, they have failed to acknowledge, let alone answer, with an explicit statement that failure to do so will result in the Information Commissioner being informed. I am awaiting the outcome of their review.
Nevertheless, the petition is worthwhile as it sends a message to Whitehall and policy makers that public opinion is growing, is more agitated and is keener for the issue to be dealt with. That is the important, subtle message that the exceedance of 10K in short order sends. But it really needs to reach 100K for it to be significant in its own right as it will then force the Parliamentary authorities to decide if they have a debate. That decision will be an interesting one, especially given the failure to amend the Hunting Act, a manifesto promise. Politically, it would be wise to avoid the debate from the Tory perspective in my view as the Government would likely loose any vote, if it came to this. But it would be really interesting to put them in that position.
Richard
Brilliant news!
See you on Sunday Mark, along with quite a few others I hope.
Forecast is 70% chance of “heavy rain” between 4.00am and 4.00pm. Not again…?