What Did Belinda the Cat Do?

Selling the Crown Jewels and seeing how many policemen can get on a motorbike have headlined previous forays in these pages into the parallel universe of Rejected Petitions to the U.K. Parliament. With all current petitions being due to be closed on May 30th until after the forthcoming General Election, it seemed like an appropriate time to take another dive to see what gems could be found.

Most proposals for petitions are reasonable and fail solely because there is already a petition on that issue to which the hopeful petitioner is directed. Thus, there is usually a rash of proposals about things that are perennially of general concern, such as the availability of tobacco products to children, potholes on major roads and the closure of health service facilities. Legalisation of cannabis is also a popular rejected petition. Another theme is for particular people to be honoured or stripped of honours, and the hopeful petitioners are reminded that this is a matter for the Honours Committee and not, directly, a matter for Parliament.

Rejected petitions also reflect the times more immediately, such as attempts to raise petitions to hold a General Election (a matter purely for the sitting Prime Minister), stopping the fining of families who take their children on vacation during term time (a matter for schools and local educational authorities) and calls for the Football Association not to stop holding FA Cup replays (a matter for the FA alone to decide). All of these were the subject of numerous rejected petitions along with proposals either to legalise or ban e-scooters (petitions already exist) and to make it illegal to tamper with the design of the flag of St. George (remarkably, not under the purview of the U.K. Parliament).

And then the gems. Behind many of these it is possible to sense anger, impulse and humour. This is evident in the speed with which many have been typed, with scant regard to capitalisation, spacing or punctuation. Some of the hopeful petitioners were clearly lexicographically challenged, and all the titles are reproduced as they appeared on the Rejected Petitions website. For example, consider the proposal to “Make it a legal requirement to upload photo I’d for social media accounts uk” [sic].

You can almost sense the alcohol or fury-fuelled sentiment behind the petition to “Get rishi sunak out of office”. Naturally, such ad hominem attempts to raise petitions fail on the basis that they are “about honours or appointments”, and petitions also fail if they include “calling for Ministers to be sacked or for a vote of no confidence”. Election fever had clearly not gripped one hopeful petitioner, who resurrected an old Rejected Petitions chestnut to “Put ‘None of the above’ on all General Election ballot forms” which continues to be rejected because there is an existing petition on the same issue.

Remarkably few rejected petitions are overtly political, but one exception was the suggestion to “vote for Independent Aberdeenshire. From. Scotland,but not United Kingdom” [sic]. This seemed like a poorly structured cry from the heart from a fellow Aberdonian who had suffered enough under the reign of trans-terror and restrictions on free speech by the SNP. It was rejected on the grounds that “It requests action at a local level”. Also, from north of the border, but with ‘Scottish’ misspelt, was the very strange request to “Add Scotttish Gaelic as a supported languages on digital game fronts”. This rather niche request was rejected as it is not something that is the responsibility of the U.K. Parliament.

Not all petitions are negative and there were a few requests – all rejected naturally – to honour various people. From someone clearly unable to see through the doom laden rhetoric of the elder statesman of modern Malthusianism, came the suggestion that we “Put David Attenborough on a bank note”. The petitioner did not say whether this was to be effected before or after his death. “Make David Tennant a lord” was the subject of another rejected petition, and I so wanted the response to be that he could not be made a lord because he was already a Time Lord… but it wasn’t.

One we could all have got behind, had it been permitted, was the suggestion to “Give Mr. Alan Bates (from the Post Office) a Knighthood”. It was touching how the hopeful petitioner felt the need to ensure that the person reading the request knew that Mr. Bates was “from the Post Office” despite the fact that his long-standing departure from said Post Office was what gave rise to his fame.

Some requests are remarkably vague, such as the one which simply said “Build a Primark”. Delving a bit deeper into this compounded the vagueness, as it was to be built “Next to lidal, So I don’t have to travel a long way away” [sic]. Unfortunately, which ‘lidal’ was not specified. Had the missing details been provided, it is quite possible that this petition would not have been rejected. Who knows?

Some petitioners really lack the knack of writing concise and memorable titles for their requests, such as “We would like to be able to get to go in the gymnasium in the allander” which, on reading, seemed like a perfectly reasonable topic as it was about the physical and mental health of young people. Nevertheless, it was rejected. 

My guess is a Tottenham fan requested we “Get rid of Arsenal FC as a football team” and someone, possibly a vertically challenged petitioner, had clearly had their hopes of becoming a model dashed in requesting that we “Remove height restrictions in modelling agency’s” [sic]. The U.K. Government Petitions website is just the place for the terminally disaffected to vent their feelings. The mental health benefits of such a service cannot be underestimated.

The rejected petitions website is not only amusing, it is educational. The request to “Ban the production and sale of blue swimwear for babies and children” highlighted a concern, for which a petition already exists, about the purported danger to babies and children of wearing blue swimwear, which allegedly makes them invisible in the water, making it harder to see them if they get into trouble. I had no idea that this was considered a problem, but it is.

Parliament should be exhorted to “Make it legal for drivers to report a collision with a cat”. Apart from wondering how large a cat must be to be ‘collided’ with, as opposed simply to being run over, presumably the petitioner meant that it should become a ‘legal requirement’ to report squishing a tabby if you were the driver of the car that squished it. This is clearly not a new concern as a petition already exists on the same topic.

It is hard to make sense of what the petitioner was asking in proposing a petition on “Telephone masts bullying our famers making them take 95% cut”. And that was precisely the conclusion of the civil servant responding, who rejected the petition.

I couldn’t end without reference to one request which pulled at my heartstrings. I imagined some young lad in an area far from the green belt or sports facilities whose request was “I would like a small football pitch made near my house to play with my friends”. Bless!

Finally, the mystery of Belinda the cat can be solved by checking the request to “Let Belinda the cat back in Tesco”.

Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.