63 replies to this topic

[glorius&victorius]

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/KnightRon/

As part of my work on researching e-petitioning systems, I stumbled on this one!

Ron Dennis, the boss of the McLaren Formula One team, is a credit to the country. He has been a winner in F1 for more than two decades. Now in 2007, the National Anthem is being played worldwide as the McLaren team once again show what British engineering excellence can do. An employer of many people and a real innovator - Ron Dennis should be F1's next Knight.

805 votes! Could that be McLaren employees?

Outrageous!

[howardt]

2007's not been his finest hour, so it's a bit contentious at the moment, but I'd say he (along with Sir Frank) is more deserving than many people who get a K, particularly those who loan several million dollars to the labour party.

Probably won't happen, but it's not a laughable suggestion.

[kar]

I'm not decided if he deserves it personally.

I do though think he has achieved an impressive degree of success and if it weren't for spygate I don't know how you could possibly not justify his knighthood.

The merits of spygate and Ron's culpability in it has been done over and over. I think it's fair to say regardless, his organisation's involvement in it really does preclude him from any knighthood in the short/medium term.

The sad thing is but for that he really would be more deserving than many knighted Britons.

[Owen]

Putting spygate aside, and what may or may not have been said or done by various employees etc. When you look at his achievements and his businesses, they are seriously impressive. He'd get my vote.

[undersquare]

The best thing would be the effect on Max

He's already upset about Ron "the mechanic" having a CBE.

[Hacklerf]

Id rather have Sir Bernie

[Red ITC]

I said at the beginning of spygate that it is a great shame that Ron threw away his K because he truly deserved one. Unfortunately hurting Ferrari was more important that his honour, in both senses.

[HSJ]

Prince of Thieves.

[Certified Half-Wit]

Until spygate it would have been a possibility based on his achievements, but still there would have been too many doubts over his manner, demeanour and character.

I know many believe him to have been whiter-than-white until spygate, but he was regarded as a hypocrite and duplicitous many already. Whilst there are undoubtedly many characters even more shady than Dennis who have received a knighthood, he really is far too mired to be worthy of consideration, when there are so many people - perhaps with lesser achievements, but with their integrity in tact - who are far more likely.

[kyriakos75]

Originally posted by Owen
Putting spygate aside, and what may or may not have been said or done by various employees etc. When you look at his achievements and his businesses, they are seriously impressive. He'd get my vote.

Why putting spygate aside? I thought spygate was supposedly a FIA-Ferrari witch hunt....

[Chiara]

Oh he should get a Knighthood at the very least for the services he has done for the good of all mankind in bringing that shining beacon of light Lewis Hamilton into our otherwise dim little lives....

Perhaps the Queen should throw in a castle or two as well, she can't really need of all them.

[four1]

Using the same reasoning then, there should be a petition to make Luca di Montezemolo a saint.
Where do I sign?

[Owen]

Originally posted by kyriakos75


Why putting spygate aside? I thought spygate was supposedly a FIA-Ferrari witch hunt....

Well, how much did Ron know about what was going on with Stepney leaking information to Coughlan?
I suspect we will never know for certain.

And yes, the spygate fine was disproportionate and inconsistent with other rulings by the FIA. So don't worry, the cosy FIA-Ferrari special relationship is very much alive and well thanks very much.

[Chiara]

Originally posted by four1
Using the same reasoning then, there should be a petition to make Luca di Montezemolo a saint.
Where do I sign?

You need to be dead to be a saint however, there is a Cardinal di Montezemolo who is the archpriest to St Paul in the Roman Catholic Church!

[Sébastien]

Sir Nick-a-lot of Woking ;)

[four1]

Originally posted by Chiara


You need to be dead to be a saint however, there is a Cardinal di Montezemolo who is the archpriest to St Paul in the Roman Catholic Church!

Very well then. Cardinal di Montezemolo can be a living stand-in for now, so as to hold the spot until Luca can fill it. (or has Luca discovered the fountain of youth?);)

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by Owen


Well, how much did Ron know about what was going on with Stepney leaking information to Coughlan?
I suspect we will never know for certain.

I know this isn't the forum - but it again comes back to "if he knew, he was complicit, and if he did not know, he was incompetent".

Now, one cannot know about EVERYTHING that goes on in your organisation - but, when McLaren decided to approach the FIA (or Charlie Whiting?) about the Ferrari floor, it absolutely lacks credibility, to my mind, that it did not cross Ron's mind to ask his team *where and how* they got that information.

Not asking that question, (as he asks us to believe is the case), was a pretty straightforward case of incompetence.

Either that, OR, he DID ask, and decided to be complicit in the spying scandal...but I do not believe this to be the case.

As you say, we will probably never know...but either way, it's not the actions of a potential Knight of the Realm.

[Owen]

Originally posted by Certified Half-Wit

I know this isn't the forum - but it again comes back to "if he knew, he was complicit, and if he did not know, he was incompetent".

Now, one cannot know about EVERYTHING that goes on in your organisation - but, when McLaren decided to approach the FIA (or Charlie Whiting?) about the Ferrari floor, it absolutely lacks credibility, to my mind, that it did not cross Ron's mind to ask his team *where and how* they got that information.

Not asking that question, (as he asks us to believe is the case), was a pretty straightforward case of incompetence.

Either that, OR, he DID ask, and decided to be complicit in the spying scandal...but I do not believe this to be the case.

As you say, we will probably never know...but either way, it's not the actions of a potential Knight of the Realm.

Well, easy to sit in judgement on the sidelines I guess but I take your point. Weighing up a discretion (of which nobody is quite sure of), against a lifetime of achievement though and I still think he would be more than worthy but I'm a McLaren fan and you'd expect me to say that.

[four1]

Certified, oh no, please don't bring up serious and logical discussion in a thread like this. Just let the fun keep flowing.

BTW, has the half-wit himself already been made a knight? If so, maybe they should complete the set by making another half-wit into a knight. Kinda like book-ends.;)

[Chiara]

Originally posted by Owen


Well, easy to sit in judgement on the sidelines I guess but I take your point. Weighing up a discretion (of which nobody is quite sure of), against a lifetime of achievement though and I still think he would be more than worthy but I'm a McLaren fan and you'd expect me to say that.

Just a question out of curiousity as I don't really pay much attention to the whole knighthood thing....

Do they not normally bestow the awards on someone who has won something? I'm not being funny, I just seem to recall that they usually award these things after someone has won a championship, or an olympic medal or something.....such as when England won the Rugby World Cup ....didn't Clive Woodward get something? and likewise for Steven Redgrave the Rower....

[Group B]

Originally posted by Chiara


Just a question out of curiousity as I don't really pay much attention to the whole knighthood thing....

Do they not normally bestow the awards on someone who has won something? I'm not being funny, I just seem to recall that they usually award these things after someone has won a championship, or an olympic medal or something.....such as when England won the Rugby World Cup ....didn't Clive Woodward get something? and likewise for Steven Redgrave the Rower....

Anyone who makes Blighty 'look' successful or superior. Ethics, effort, self acrifice and morality are as nothing with our honours system; if we spawned the porn star with the world's biggest willy we'd knight him

[Josta]

Originally posted by Chiara


Just a question out of curiousity as I don't really pay much attention to the whole knighthood thing....

Do they not normally bestow the awards on someone who has won something? I'm not being funny, I just seem to recall that they usually award these things after someone has won a championship, or an olympic medal or something.....such as when England won the Rugby World Cup ....didn't Clive Woodward get something? and likewise for Steven Redgrave the Rower....

John Major was knighted 13 years after he won anything.

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by Chiara


Just a question out of curiousity as I don't really pay much attention to the whole knighthood thing....

Do they not normally bestow the awards on someone who has won something? I'm not being funny, I just seem to recall that they usually award these things after someone has won a championship, or an olympic medal or something.....such as when England won the Rugby World Cup ....didn't Clive Woodward get something? and likewise for Steven Redgrave the Rower....

It's a mix. Sometimes for high-profile sporting achievers, but also to long-serving civil servants, senior politicians, ex-Prime Ministers, businessmen, (Sir Richard Branson has more than a stain of impropriety about him, what with only just escaping a jail sentence for VAT fraud years back), and so on. You could broadly sum it up as "the great and the good", but there are evidently multiple examples of many who ain't great and/or ain't always been good.

From BBC website ( http://news.bbc.co.u...ine/7171417.stm "Now awards have gone to "ordinary" people. Edward Wilson was made MBE for three decades as a street sweeper in London's West End. Anne Milner earned the same honour for her work as a traffic warden in Cornwall. Dinner lady and school cleaner Dorothy Winner, a head teacher who had turned around a failing school, was knighted."

I'd suggest Ron's best chance is to start working in the McLaren canteen.... (Anybody want to guess what Ron has insisted the official name for the McLaren canteen is?..."Zonal locational structure facilitating gastronomic fuelling input preparation and consumption". ****. I couldn't get paradigm in! )

Originally posted by Josta


John Major was knighted 13 years after he won anything.

I'm not sure that winning the right to enter Edwina Curry's vagina is anything to boast about.......maybe it was an award for bravery!

[Sébastien]

Originally posted by Group B
if we spawned the porn star with the world's biggest willy we'd knight him

Ahh well so if you guys would bestow a knighthood on the world's biggest dick, than Ronzo still has a good chance not?

[Group B]

Originally posted by Group B

Anyone who makes Blighty 'look' successful or superior. Ethics, effort, self acrifice and morality are as nothing with our honours system; if we spawned the porn star with the world's biggest willy we'd knight him

Edit; almost forgot, we also offer enoblement in exchange for the clandestine forwarding of cash

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by Sébastien

Ahh well so if you guys would bestow a knighthood on the world's biggest dick, than Ronzo still has a good chance not?

Well played.

[Josta]

Originally posted by Group B

Edit; almost forgot, we also offer enoblement in exchange for the clandestine forwarding of cash

Or if enoblement is not to your taste, exemption from tobacco advertising laws cost only a million quid.

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by Josta


Or if enoblement is not to your taste, exemption from tobacco advertising laws cost only a million quid.

It was actually Labour who approached Bernie for the money, not the other way around (well, according to one account I've read anyway). Neu Labour certainly shot themselves in the foot with that one...and Bernie was suitably pissed off with being dragged into a political furore when he had no intention of doing so.

Did Bernie ever cash his refund cheque in the end?

Agree with your point though..."honours" have long been for sale in the UK...I would think Ron has enough saved up to purchase one.

[Josta]

Originally posted by Certified Half-Wit

It was actually Labour who approached Bernie for the money, not the other way around (well, according to one account I've read anyway). Neu Labour certainly shot themselves in the foot with that one...and Bernie was suitably pissed off with being dragged into a political furore when he had no intention of doing so.

Did Bernie ever cash his refund cheque in the end?

Agree with your point though..."honours" have long been for sale in the UK...I would think Ron has enough saved up to purchase one.

I think he had put aside a few million for it, but then the bloody FIA went and nicked it before he had a chance to pay up.

[Group B]

Originally posted by Josta


Or if enoblement is not to your taste, exemption from tobacco advertising laws cost only a million quid.

Indeed, we purvey all manner of goodies. We're currently doing a special offer on arms deals; just place a big order and watch that corruption investigation fade away into the ether

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by Josta


I think he had put aside a few million for it, but then the bloody FIA went and nicked it before he had a chance to pay up.

lol

Originally posted by Group B

Indeed, we purvey all manner of goodies. We're currently doing a special offer on arms deals; just place a big order and watch that corruption investigation fade away into the ether

Well, this is where New Labour and McLaren rather remind me of each other...

Everybody knows the Tories and Ferrari are prepared to act a bit dirty sometimes - but they don't go round claiming to be whiter-than-white.

New Labour and McLaren have both been very keen in the past to bang on about their whiter-than-white credentials. Both organisations have now been shown to be somewhat lacking when it comes to their actions meeting their claims.

Nobody's entirely clean in F1 racing or politics, and those who think it is wise to claim they do have a moral superiority to their competitors will sooner or later be made to look like fools.

[Only Massa]

Originally posted by glorius&victorius
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/KnightRon/

As part of my work on researching e-petitioning systems, I stumbled on this one!

Ron Dennis, the boss of the McLaren Formula One team, is a credit to the country. He has been a winner in F1 for more than two decades. Now in 2007, the National Anthem is being played worldwide as the McLaren team once again show what British engineering excellence can do. An employer of many people and a real innovator - Ron Dennis should be F1's next Knight.

805 votes! Could that be McLaren employees?

Outrageous!

let's make him knight of Mordor, alongside sauron

[rhm]

Originally posted by glorius&victorius
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/KnightRon/

As part of my work on researching e-petitioning systems, I stumbled on this one!

Ron Dennis, the boss of the McLaren Formula One team, is a credit to the country. He has been a winner in F1 for more than two decades. Now in 2007, the National Anthem is being played worldwide as the McLaren team once again show what British engineering excellence can do. An employer of many people and a real innovator - Ron Dennis should be F1's next Knight.

805 votes! Could that be McLaren employees?

Outrageous!

Thanks for the headsup. Signed!

[Ricardo F1]

He'll get one, and it will be well deserved.

[Kami P]

Another F1 joke ....they don't call him wRONg Dennis for nuthin!!!
A jealous and bitter old fool, he should keep his trap shut.

[Lazarus II]

Exactly how many people is Ron Dennis responsible for employing in Britian (remember these would be TAX PAYING citizens) and how long has he done so?

Funny how many here (me included) are NOT british citizens and yet they seem to believe their opinion matters whether Ron gets a Knighthood

[rhm]

Originally posted by Kami P
Another F1 joke ....they don't call him wRONg Dennis for nuthin!!!
A jealous and bitter old fool, he should keep his trap shut.

Next time you're thinking of posting something like that, just take a few minutes to consider all he's achieved compared to all you have. I bet Ron Dennis doesn't have to slag off people he doesn't even know on the internet to make himself feel better.

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by rhm


Next time you're thinking of posting something like that, just take a few minutes to consider all he's achieved compared to all you have. I bet Ron Dennis doesn't have to slag off people he doesn't even know on the internet to make himself feel better.

It's OK - Ron hasn't heard of the Internet, or been exposed to the Internet, and certainly was not aware of any of the information contained on the Internet. If any of his senior management have come across the Internet this was distributed only in a limited way. If somebody, a disgruntled driver, for example, were to threaten Ron by going to Max with the contents of the Internet, you can be quite sure Ron would call Max immediately to let him know that he is now aware of the Internet, although would continue to deny that he was personally aware of any of the contents of the Internet.

So it's OK. For now, Ron doesn't even know about the Internet, so he will have no possibility, let alone need, for slagging people off on this medium that he is not yet aware of.

[Chiara]

Originally posted by rhm


Next time you're thinking of posting something like that, just take a few minutes to consider all he's achieved compared to all you have. I bet Ron Dennis doesn't have to slag off people he doesn't even know on the internet to make himself feel better.

Ron doesn't need to do it on the internet. He does his through the media ;)

[blackgerby]

Number 10 E-petitions don't get people honours. There's a nomination system - http://www.honours.gov.uk/
If you want Ron to be honoured, you need to follow the process and fill in the form here

I reckon there's a few marshalls who deserve to be nominated.

[Ricardo F1]

Originally posted by Kami P
they don't call him wRONg Dennis for nuthin!!!

Uh, only Ferrari nuts on this forum call him that as far as I'm aware.

[WACKO]

Let's say the timing could hardly be worse

[Certified Half-Wit]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1
Uh, only Ferrari nuts on this forum call him that as far as I'm aware.

With respect - only McLaren "nuts" are likely to claim McLaren won the WCC ("on track" or otherwise) in 2007...as far as I'm aware.

[Ricardo F1]

Originally posted by Certified Half-Wit
With respect - only McLaren "nuts" are likely to claim McLaren won the WCC ("on track" or otherwise) in 2007...as far as I'm aware.

Last I checked if you totalled the points McLaren scored (or in the case of Hungary should have scored) McLaren were WCC's. It's not nuts, it's fact.

[Chiara]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1
Last I checked if you totalled the points McLaren scored (or in the case of Hungary should have scored) McLaren were WCC's. It's not nuts, it's fact.

But they were disqualified from Hungary points wise because they ran a new gearbox without putting it through the appropriate safety checks with the FIA first. If they can't get even simple procedures right regarding the legality of their car - they have only themselves to blame.

[littlewoodenboy]

knight the printer that blew the whistle on the single most dishonorable event to ever occur in grand prix not ron. never ron .

[le chat noir]

Originally posted by Chiara


But they were disqualified from Hungary points wise because they ran a new gearbox without putting it through the appropriate safety checks with the FIA first. If they can't get even simple procedures right regarding the legality of their car - they have only themselves to blame.

not true. they got a fine for that. the exclusion from points was due to trying to cover fa's arse after he'd had a go at blackmail and sat still in the pits.

and on track, as its qualified, is still true, and not nuts.

he'll get one in next years honours after winning the wdc, wcc in 08. if not then, then in 09 on doing a double-double and retiring

[undersquare]

Originally posted by Chiara


But they were disqualified from Hungary points wise because they ran a new gearbox without putting it through the appropriate safety checks with the FIA first. If they can't get even simple procedures right regarding the legality of their car - they have only themselves to blame.

Actually they were fined $50,000 for the untested gearbox. The points deduction was for trying to protect Fernando by lying to the stewards about the countdown, when he blocked Lewis in the pits in qualy.

[Chiara]

Originally posted by undersquare


Actually they were fined $50,000 for the untested gearbox. The points deduction was for trying to protect Fernando by lying to the stewards about the countdown, when he blocked Lewis in the pits in qualy.

Yes of course, you are right. I forgot about the fine.

McLaren themselves dropped the appeal against the Hungary Stewards Decision - so they wouldn't have got those points in case. So on paper Ferrari still won the WCC.

Anyhow, I'm for a weekend of revelry so all have fun debating Ron's Knighthood ciaooo!

[le chat noir]

Originally posted by Chiara


Yes of course, you are right. I forgot about the fine.

McLaren themselves dropped the appeal against the Hungary Stewards Decision - so they wouldn't have got those points in case. So on paper Ferrari still won the WCC.

Anyhow, I'm for a weekend of revelry so all have fun debating Ron's Knighthood ciaooo!

they dropped the appeal as its was pointless - they literally had no points to gain due to the spying thing.

but yes, on paper ferrari won, hence the on track remark