House of Commons Petitions Committee

Mark 45 Comments

100,000These are the MPs who will decide whether or not our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting, which passed 100,000 signatures yesterday, the 13 August (the day after the Inglorious 12th), will be debated.  They next meet on 6 September so the more signatures we can amass by then, the better.

Are any of you constituents of any of these MPs and fancy going along to a surgery (soon) and telling them, as a constituent, that you would like to see this matter debated and that you signed the petition?  Can’t do any harm and these MPs work for you.  If you go, I’ll send you a copy of Inglorious to give to them.

Since the average number of signatures per constituency is now 164, I feel we are slightly unlucky to have only four of the eleven above that threshold (I know, it’s not a normal distribution…).

 

Helen Jones (chair) Labour – Warrington North 141 signatures

Ian Blackford SNP – Skye, Ross and Lochaber 457 signatures

Ben Howlett Conservative – Bath 236

Steve Double Conservative – St Austell and Newquay 201 signatures

Jim Dowd Labour – Lewisham & West Penge 187 signatures

Catherine McKinnell Labour – Newcastle upon Tyne North 123

Nick Hurd Conservative  – Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner 106 signatures

Paul Flynn Labour – Newport West 100 signatures

David Mackintosh Conservative – Northampton South 98 signatures

Paul Scully Conservative – Sutton and Cheam 93 signatures

Oliver Dowden Conservative – Hertsmere 89 signatures

[registration_form]

45 Replies to “House of Commons Petitions Committee”

  3. The Petitions Committee can:

    * ask for more information in writing—from petitioners, the Government, or other relevant people or organisations
    * ask for more information in person—from petitioners, the Government, or other relevant people or organisations. This might be in Parliament or somewhere else in the UK
    * write to the Government or another public body to press for action on a petition
    * ask another parliamentary committee to look into the topic raised by a petition
    * put forward petitions for debate in the House of Commons

    So, we would certainly be wanting the first two, the third and fourth might give ‘them’ the opportunity to kick it into the long grass?

    Fifth, would be entertaining and bear in mind any inaccurate briefings prepared for MPs by civil servants of other ‘advocates’ (either side) can be challenged and investigated?

  5. I have emailed Ian Blackford in order to arrange a meeting with him. He has a constituency office/surgery just up the road from me, so it would be no problem for me to speak with him. I will let you know if I can arrange this meeting before 6th Sept. Wish me luck!

    1. Andrea, he is my MP too (the Black Isle), if you think there is strength in numbers let me know and I’ll join you.

      1. Callum, that would be great. I just phoned his Dingwall office and apparently he’s out of the country until the 25th August, so I was told to phone back then. Doesn’t give us much time for a meeting before the 6th Sept, but we we’ll persist/insist! PM me on the Let’s get MAD for Wildlife FB page (which I manage) and we can arrange things.

      1. I’ve just caught countryfile on catch up – brilliant piece, is CF trying to make up for previous failings? You came across very well Mark, Andrew Gilruth was clearly floundering. The grouse moors don’t out of this at all well, massive blow to their PR.

        1. Gilruth didn’t directly answer any of the questions put to him at all. They weren’t all that difficult! I imagine that this fact alone will not be lost on the average Countryfile watcher.

      1. Anand – I wonder what this is. It’s a bit unusual for something this big to happen this quickly and me not to have a clue what caused it. I don’t have a clue this time.

        1. I don;t see any strange constituency leaps do you?
          And nothing weird from abroad.
          When i saw suspicious activity in the last 3 days there was one that had no signatures at all in Scotland except 1 in paisley whilst the rest of the country had colour throughout the map
          Another had a massive block around the east Midlands. It looked to neat.

          I am just guessing but i would think it would have to be a pretty clever and motivated hacker to keep the overall league tables that we have been seeing over the last months. But we have no shortage of motivated enemies.

          1. Anand – I’ve looked at it in the same way. Typical of us isn’t it? worried that we are doing so well!!

          1. Owen – I saw that. Do you think that might be it?

            Also, my website has had higher than usual traffic this evening and I see the Amazon ranking of the paperback Inglorious has also improved a fair notch – those things suggest a website or newsletter. that is somewhat reassuring. I’ll say again – maybe we shouldn’t worry about success – but we are very determined to be fair.

  8. Mark, I noticed the surge too. Reasons I can think of;
    1) Countryfile (followed by meal times, and then the end of a sunny day so surge delayed by a couple of hours)
    2) Delays at the Petition site sending out emails/updating (it’s happened with other petitions) so they are coming through bunched
    3) Someone is trying sabotage it by rapidly adding with false signatures; this happened at least twice on the Invoke Article 50 Petition in the last 24 or so hours. Interestingly this doesn’t appear to be anywhere near as odd as IA50 (e.g. over 3,000 signatures an hour in the middle of the night), and I haven’t spotted any weird geographical concentrations. If, however, there is anything suspicious going on the Petition site seem pretty adept at spotting it and will no doubt rectify it in short order

    1. The signing rate has suddenly slowed right down again – so it’s either been a bot or a glich on the petition sign. I’m guessing bot, short periods at a time, over an 1-11/2 hours

      1. Jim – not sure. My limited experience of traffic on my website is that it can be a little clumped and jerky, like this is, even when one knows that its source is an email sent to many people at once.

        but you do have a track record of being right!

        1. I’m really no techy, Mark, so i’ll leave this to those who really know what they are talking about, but that was a truly mad hour or so. The rate went suddenly gone down from over 1600 an hour/26+ min to 2.9 per minute over the last 10 minutes. The current rate is now 156 per hour. I hope you are right, and no doubt you have already thought it, but I think an enquiry to the Petition team would be in order, just to make sure all is well.

          1. It’s been spotted and the total amended. I’d still make an enquiry though, just to make sure they haven’t been too zealous! As things stand we are approaching a thoroughly respectable 3000 for the day.

          2. Jim – looks like you were right. Total got well above 109000 and now has been cut to 107300 or so.
            Feels as though there is a process for spotting these problems and weeding out false signatures. Good.

            Will sleep easier knowing we are back on straight path – not that it was ‘our’ fault.

          3. That’s good,I thought it was me ,it suddenly shot to 109 000 then back down to 107 000 ,great it’s sorted out now,but we still need to keep up the pressure and get as many signatures as possible as Mark says.

        2. The petition total has been cut from 109,063 to 107.331, so obviously something untoward happened. Still accumulating signatures though.

          1. John – it’s a good thing I believe. Looks like we had signatures added by a bot. The total was steaming along inexplicably earlier. I tweeted about it. Am glad that there is a way of spotting these things and weeding them out. I’ll sleep better because of that. Although I will
            Sleep well anyway because I intend to stay up and watch the athletics until late!

          2. OK, this is how the tracking bot works on the epetiton site.
            You register your name including postcode and email.
            It then sends a confirmation email to click a link
            After clicking the link it automatically adds your signature
            It then runs check for authenticity. It checks IP address, server used etc.
            People can try a clean browsing history and deleting cookies however it goes on your specific IP address
            By the sounds of it someone has tried to manipulate the vote but the tracking bot has spotted it, kept one signature and deleted the others registered to that IP address

          3. Douglas – many thanks. I may, in a while, copy this comment of yours to the comments of the post I have just published. Very helpful – thanks.

          1. Mark – I wonder if something like this has happened once before? I posted a total in a comment on Friday which turned out to be at least 1,000 signatures too high – in the mid to upper 93,000s which can’t have been right because a later refresh showed only just above 93000. I assumed the error was mine and it may well have been.
            It would be interesting to know what the e-petition people do to weed out fake signatures and to ensure any genuine signatures posted during a bot attack don’t get thrown out with the bathwater.
            Oh, and as I’m here 107520, with 22 in the last hour.
            PS saw the guy on Twitter with the space elevator petition.
            PPS you’re right to be all over this, presumably you know the story of the third Chartist petition of 1848?

  9. Should we worry or just accept that there may be a degree of Countryfile effect? Have to say though was disappointed that Charlotte Smith allowed AG to drift, but I’d still score it Avery 1, Gilruth 0 and that’s a considered analysis not a biased one. My comment about Duncan Thomas would be unprintable so I’ll save you the trouble of editing it. Maybe we have DT to thanks as well?

  10. Anyone who’s met Bob Elliot will know that his integrity shines through. His insistence on criminality was incisive. It was the totality of the argument that was so persuasive.

  11. I’m guessing there was a glitch in the system, as the petition has just dropped 2,000 signatures in the click of a refresh!

  12. Today’s adjective is: dramatic

    With the Petition site rapidly spotting a bot attack, and duly amending the day’s total, a steward’s enquiry now seems unlikely. So we will proceed;

    The day ended on: 107,392

    Today’s signatures: 2993

    Peak signing rate: an issue

    Last week (6th-12th August)
    Peak day (12th) – 11,689
    Total for week = 25,635
    Daily average = 3662
    Petition total (end 12th)= 97,895
    Constituency average (end 12th) = 150.6

    This week
    13th = 6504
    14th = 2993
    Daily average = 4748.5
    Constituency average (end 14th) = 165

    Due to the variables (TV/radio, afternoon broadcast/morning broadcast, bot attack/no bot attack, etc.), at this time it is impossible to calculate how much of a Botham (10000+ signatures) a Gilruth is worth. In passing, however, I note my amazement that this

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iumcdfcjps

    could be fused with this

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTcngg3xJx0&list=PLHJ5BjJEO4jv23KjkFB6IygzwtEBGgOoY&index=3

    in a single performance. Unique, bravo, I salute you, Andrew!

    And, finally, just a bit of hypothetical;

    if we maintain the following daily rates over the last 37 days the petition will finish on:

    500 signatures = 125,892
    650 signatures (1 per constituency) = 131,442
    1000 signatures = 144,392
    1500 signatures =162,892
    2000 signatures = 181,392

    1. Jim – I love it! Just out of interest, what would the daily signing rate be to get to 250k?

      1. Well then;
        as of the end of last night the daily signing rate (over the last 37 days) would have to average;
        2503 for 200,000
        3854 for 250,000

        Already over 1000 signatures so far today…..

  13. The petition has reached the threshold at which it will be considered for a debate in Parliament and let’s hope that this does happen. Clearly the more signatures it can get over and above the 100K mark , the stronger the case will be to have a petition but it is vital that every effort is made to ensure that the Petitions Committee does not overlook it.
    As well as directly contacting MPs who are members of the committee, it is also very important that we should each contact our own MPs and urge them to press for this to be debated in Parliament. I have written to mine but it struck me that it would be useful if there was a handy fact sheet that could be sent to MPs with the key facts and figures. I would think something that is reasonably succinct and digestible but nevertheless contains the key arguments and evidence and references/links would be helpful both in terms of persuading MPs of the need for the debate and arming them with relevant information once it takes place. Does such a document already exist?

  14. Mark – Nick Hurd is my MP. I’ve been trying this morning to make an appointment to meet with him in person. His constituency office is closed until Wednesday and the alternative number I was given on the answerphone message was less than helpful. I was basically told to phone the constituency office. I was however told by the lady on the phone that she didn’t think Mr Hurd was holding any surgeries until late September at the earliest so not much help there either.

    I’ll see what I can on Wednesday and if I can arrange a meeting before Sept 6th I’ll take you up on your offer of a copy of Inglorious to present him with. If not I’ll be sure to send him a nice groveling email.

  15. Pingback: Over 109,000 - Mark AveryMark Avery

Comments are closed.