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Petition Tag - boris
1. David Starkey does not represent London 
Petition calling on Boris Johnson to withdraw his invitation to The Mayor's Thames Festival.
We the undersigned call on the Mayor of London to withdraw the invitation to David Starkey to speak as part of the Mayor's Thames Festival.
In a discussion about the riots this summer on BBC Newsnight, David Starkey used race-based terminology to explain the riots, claiming '"What has happened is that the substantial section of the chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion,"'. He also claimed Jamaican Patois has ''been intruded in England...so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country''. Comments encouraging the idea that black people and black culture lie at the root of the issues leading to the riots can only whip up racism and prejudice.
The Newsnight discussion then turned to the Mark Duggan protest. When Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, responded to Starkey saying that both white and black youth were involved in the riots, he contended that "it started as a black protest about the killing of a black man". When Owen Jones, another guest on the show, pointed out this was a peaceful protest about the shooting of Mark Duggan, and could not be held responsible for the riots, Starkey replied "it very quickly ceased to be peaceful". Quite apart from their race-bias, these comments are hurtful to the family of Mark Duggan, and also ignore the fact that the family strongly condemned violence of the riots.
The true spirit of London is not reflected in comments like these, but in the clean-up operations when people came together from all communities to repair the damage.
It is offensive and insensitive to give David Starkey a platform at the Mayor's Thames festival. Starkey's comments triggered thousands of complaints and have caused deep offence.
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, has announced that 145 pedestrian crossings across London will be removed.
One of those crossings is on Lewisham Way, the removal of which will make crossing the road to St. John's station and St. John's medical centre more hazardous for pedestrians, especially older people, people in wheel chairs and parents with prams.
We are petitioning the Mayor of London to reverse this decision and keep this much used crossing.
3. Introduce Oyster pay-as-you-go to South-East London
In his manifesto at the 2008 London Mayoral election, Boris Johnson promised to hold an emergency summit with Train Operating Companies (TOCs) so that Oyster pay-as-you-go would be introduced to overground stations in South-East London as soon possible. To date, this has not happened.
South London needs more trains.
Even if you haven’t heard of our South London Line (SLL) you may well have used it. It runs between Victoria and London Bridge via Battersea Park, Wandsworth Rd, Clapham High Street, Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye, Queens Rd Peckham and South Bermondsey. It makes a neat U shape through the London Boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, City of Westminster, Wandsworth and the City of London. It is a vital radial and orbital public transport link for these boroughs and we particularly value it because, unlike long distance services, its possible to find space to get on at our inner London stations and moreover, it serves 3 of London’s most important hospitals – Kings and the Maudsley at Denmark Hill and Guys at London Bridge.
Mayor Boris Johnson (Chair of Transport for London) has agreed to cuts this vital transport line for South London and has ditched all plans to improve services.
If this goes ahead hundreds of local residents, patients and staff at the hospitals who had used the South London Line service to get to Victoria or London Bridge will have been robbed without consultation or warning. Journeys will be complicated by hitherto unnecessary changes en route.
South London badly needs more public transport services, Camberwell in particular. And has anyone mentioned climate change in all this ? Fewer cars should mean more trains!
We have until 2012 to fight off the loss of the South London Line so lets show Mayor Johnson, Transport for London, the Rail Industry and our Transport Ministers that we are not going to be robbed!