Last updated on October 18th, 2023 at 08:29 pm
Reading Time: 3 minutesA week or two ago Mrs May, our beloved Prime Minister, announced that forever more there would be a Stephen Lawrence Memorial Day. She may well think that’s appropriate, but surely it opens the doors for other victims. There are surely other people, victims of violence, who deserve their own Memorial Day.
This Is EXACTLY How This Government Views A True Hero
One of these, in my opinion, was the late PC Keith Palmer, murdered by a Terrorist whilst protecting Parliament.
To recognise his valiant sacrifice I started a government petition to commemorate PC Palmer in a similar way to Stephen Lawrence.
Create a Permanent National Memorial Day for PC Keith Palmer
The precedent was recently set by the Prime Minister in creating a permanent Stephen Lawrence Memorial Day. Whilst Stephen Lawrence did not deserve to die and the circumstances of his death were quite awful, so were the circumstances surrounding PC Keith Palmer’s death.
He died violently with no regard for his personal safety, protecting the politicians and staff present within the Houses of Parliament. If it is important to remember the death of Stephen Lawrence in this way, then surely it is important to remember the death of a Police Officer protecting Parliament from a ‘live’ Terrorist Attack The creation of a permanent PC Keith Palmer Memorial Day will properly reflect a true act of selfless bravery, keeping our politicians safe from harm. A true Hero.
It seemed reasonable to me, people signed it. People said they wanted to sign it but it had been taken off line whilst it was ‘checked’. Then today I got my email in response to my petition. REJECTED. Why? I thought. What could possibly be wrong with it, it was polite etc. Then I read the test of my email.
Dear Alan Wright,
We rejected the petition you created – “Create a Permanent National Memorial Day for PC Keith Palmer”.
It included confidential, libellous, false or defamatory information, or a reference to a case which is active in the UK courts.
We’ve marked your petition as confidential to avoid the risk of causing distress to the family and friends of PC Keith Palmer. Parliament has been working to find the most appropriate way to honour and remember PC Palmer, in consultation with his family.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards:
https://petition.parliament.uk/help#standards
If you want to try again, click here to start a petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check
Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament
Confidential, libellous, false or defamatory information? Really? Where?
A reference to a case which is active in the UK courts. That can only relate to a Coroner’s Inquest surely, but why not be precise so that I, and the others who signed or supported it , can understand?
We’ve marked your petition as confidential to avoid the risk of causing distress to the family and friends of PC Keith Palmer. Personally i find that comment highly offensive. I would not do anything that I thought would cause distress to PC Palmer’s family and friends and I’m mortified at the suggestion that this petition might do that.
I am sadly left with only one conclusion, that this government really doesn’t care about the Police Officers that, every day, protect them and the Public to the very best of their ability. Further than that I really don’t wish to say.
ADDENDUM
I emailed the Petitions Committee querying their precise reasons for binning my petition and received this very prompt response
Dear Mr Wright,
Thank you for your message.
As we explained, we marked your petition as “confidential” to avoid the risk of causing distress.
I absolutely understand that it was not your intention to cause distress to the family and friends of PC Keith Palmer. However, I hope you will understand that we can only accept petitions of this kind with the consent of those close to the person who has lost their life.
A petition campaign can be very high profile. If your petition were successful, it could be seen by hundreds of thousands of people and would be likely to make the headlines. A debate in Parliament (if it reached that stage) would also be very high profile. That would be good for your campaign, but it might not be what someone’s family and friends want to happen.
If a campaign is run without the involvement of the person’s family, it is very hard to know how they might feel about it. There is a risk that people might not welcome having so much public and media attention, which might be intrusive. They might also prefer to remember the person they have lost in a different way.
As we explained, Parliament has been working to find the most appropriate way to honour and remember PC Palmer, in consultation with his family. I’m sure you would agree that their wishes should be paramount in any decisions that are made.
Best wishes,
Anne-Marie
I can’t be bothered to email them further, but it does seem to me that there is more than one interpretation of their response. This Is EXACTLY How This Government Views A True Hero
Ironic thatit is his friends and colleagues that in all probability have signed the petition request.
Obviously they couldn’t say sorry Theresa May made a complete mess of immigration policy and targeted hard working British Citizens of West Indian origin which has become not only an embarrassment to the government but a national disgrace.
So to spare her embarrassment we have tried to limit the damage and embark on a cheap political ploy so that the Conservative government might stand a chance of retaining some voters from ethnic minority communities.
So we made up a memorial day for Stephen Lawrence.
I doubt there are any Police Officers or former police officers who do not view Stephen Lawrence’s death as an appalling crime against an innocent young man.
But my goodness how many other victims of equally appalling murders have there been on the UK streets under some horrendous circumstances.
At this time there’s an epidemic of violence and deaths mainly against young men predominantly from ethnic minority communities directly attributable to yet another of Theresa Mays I’ll thought out policies.
Policies that have been politically motivated rather than being based on evidence or sound judgement.
Policies that she has pushed through ignoring evidence that indicated that her judgement to be flawed.
This is yet again a cynical, shallow manipulation that has been ill conceived and will leave so many families of the victims of violence and racially motivated violence of all races and colours feeling that they in some way not worthy.
It’s not that Stephen Lawrence is not deserving the point is that they are all deserving.
What should have been thought through and considered and could have been something noble, honourable that commemorate the loss of so many lives and provided some comfort to so many families has been reduced to no more than a cynical political ploy that doesn’t even come close to dealing with the grief of losing a loved one to violence.
This government is a total shambles. Most probably due to a lack of experience. They certainly don’t want the petition to be seen. By marking it as Confidential it disappears as though it never existed.
It’s very odd that the Government would object to this petition on the grounds that they’ve given. Maybe the real reason is that if such a petition were to succeed, it would cast a spotlight on something they’d rather the public didn’t know. That due to their failings an unarmed police officer was killed protecting parliamentarians and others, while he grappled with an armed killer. Fortuitously his killer was stopped by an armed police officer who just happened to be nearby, as an armed protection officer to a government minister. If it had not been for this officer, it would have been left to other unarmed officers to deal with this Jihadi, intent on killing. Because here’s the rub: The post to which Pc Palmer was stationed, which had previously been an armed post, had been down graded to that of the ‘traditional unarmed bobby’, apparently because
certain Parliamentarians had objected to the unseemly sight of armed officers at the Palace of Westminster. Pc Keith Palmer leaves a wife and children, without a husband and father, all because some important people felt that it was not in keeping with our traditions, to have armed officers posted in plain sight at the Palace.
From their response this morning they certainly don’t want it being seen by a large number of people, and they have taken it down so that is not even visible as a ‘Failed Petition’ or whatever they call it. It never existed. I’m quite certain that there would be far more shame on Parliament than distress caused to PC Palmer’s friends and family, I would never wish to,do that.