Here’s another part of the Tory engineered crisis hitting the NHS, and probably one you may not have heard of. I got this email petition today from 38 Degrees on behalf of a new campaign group, Save Our Pharmacies, against the mass closure of NHS pharmacy services. Lloyd’s have put something like 1,300 of their chemists up for sale or closure. One of the pharmacies near me is due to be sold to an independent rival. I’ve also heard tales of terrible service about some of the other local pharmacies. In one incident, people queuing for their medicines were left without them when the pharmacy closed because the pharmacist was due to go to another chemists’. The impression I’ve got is that they’re short of staff, and this is having a disastrous effect on customer service. And then the government increases the pressure by telling everyone to see them instead of going to the doctor. This is why I’ve had no hesitation in signing this petition. I hope you will do so too.
‘Dear David,
Your local pharmacy could be on the brink of collapse if the Government doesn’t announce more funding. [1] The closure of pharmacies could mean you and your family not being able to get the treatment or medication you desperately need.
Since 2015, funding has been cut by 30% and hundreds of pharmacies that play a huge and vital role in our communities have closed their doors for the final time. [2] This simply cannot continue.
That’s why the Save Our Pharmacies campaign group have started a petition calling on the Health Secretary to safeguard NHS pharmacy services and ensure local pharmacies have a future. [3] The petition has already been signed by thousands of people and continues to grow.
So, David, if you want to make sure your local pharmacy can keep its doors open, sign the petition now, and send a clear message to the Health Secretary: save our pharmacies!
What: Please provide immediate, fair and sustained funding, to safeguard NHS pharmacy services and ensure local pharmacies have a future.
Why is this important: Our local NHS pharmacies are on the brink of collapse, despite having proven during the pandemic that they are more needed now than ever. Since 2015, their funding has been cut by 30% and 720 pharmacies have permanently closed, putting vital NHS services at risk. Without fair funding from the Government, many more pharmacies will be forced to close.
Something the government can do straight away is to fund a ‘Pharmacy First’ Service in England so people with minor illnesses can be treated on the NHS by their local pharmacy, instead of having to wait to see a GP for a prescription.
Community pharmacies provide vital health and social care in communities across the country, including the most deprived neighbourhoods. Please back our local pharmacies – so they can continue to keep people well and save lives
As I’m sure you know, Gary Lineker has been censured and taken off air by the BBC for supposedly breaking the corporation’s impartiality rules with his comments about the Channel migrants. I got this internet petition from 38 Degrees on behalf of the Mirror newspaper this morning, calling for him to be reinstated. I’ve signed it, because there is a free speech issue here beyond whether Lineker was right or wrong. I’ve also heard that the other Beeb sports commenters have walked out of Match of the Day tonight in sympathy.
BREAKING: Gary Lineker has been pulled off air by the BBC for challenging government policy on his personal social media. He now won’t present Match Of the Day until further notice. [1]
If you agree the BBC should immediately reverse this decision, will you add your name to the petition now?
This is Britain in 2023. Lineker is a sports presenter for an independent broadcaster owned by us, the British public. Our BBC should hold people in power to account and reflect different opinions across our country. We should ALL be able to disagree with government decisions, and we should ALL be allowed to say so.
The BBC’s decision has just been announced, so we need to act fast to show them that the public won’t stand for this.
David – will you join the huge public backlash and add your name to the petition to bring Gary Lineker back to Match Of the Day?
With former Conservative Party donor turned BBC Chairman, Richard Sharp’s relationship with the Government under increasing scrutiny, it’s more important than ever that we, the British public, demand a free, independent BBC that holds those in power to account, without fear or favour. [2]
The Daily Mirror has already set up a petition calling for the BBC to reinstate Gary Lineker to Match of The Day. Hundreds of thousands of us adding our names within hours of this decision being announced will pile the pressure on the BBC to reverse their decision.
So, David, will you add your name now to demand the BBC stands up to political interference, by bringing back Gary Lineker?It only takes 30 seconds to sign!
I got this email from the internet petitioning organisation 38 Degrees yesterday. They are launching a pin as part of their campaign against the Tory privatisation of the NHS. They say it’s free, but they’re asking for donations to fund the campaign. I don’t object to this as it is in a very, very good cause and have donated and ordered one for myself.
‘David, we’re planning the next steps of our NHS anti-privatisation campaign and we need your help.
Since we launched our petition warning the Government not to listen to the likes of Sajid Javid and Ken Clarke’s ideas on charging the sick for being sick, over 103,000 of us have added our names. [1] Thanks to you, our strength is growing.
Over the next few weeks, we want to drive home this message to the Government: don’t you dare privatise our NHS! And together we’ve come up with the perfect plan. Thousands of us said we’d help shine a spotlight on the issue by wearing a pro-NHS pin in a recent survey. [2] So, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make it happen.
Now, here’s the exciting bit – we’ve designed a striking limited edition pin that we can all wear to send a clear message: the British public demand an end to the creeping privatisation of our NHS, and are proud of this cherished institution. We’ve already sourced a UK based ethical producer to bring this vision to life.
But if we’re going to send our pins to production on the scale needed, we’ll need your help. To do this, we need to raise £32,000. That’s a lot, but if just 3,721 of us chipped in an average donation of £8.60 today, we’d have the money we need to hit go right away!
So David, will you help us make this exciting plan a reality by chipping in today? After you donate, you can sign up to reserve your own pin.
Imagine walking along your high street – and seeing the people you pass wearing this pin with the same message as you. Our strength is in our numbers, David. No matter what the rich, powerful and connected might think, they won’t get away with charging for NHS services if we – the people who use it – fight back. And we could even get pro-NHS MPs to wear it too!
We know public pressure works. Last year we turned a disused ambulance into a huge advertising van and drove it across the country, while Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak battled it out to become our next PM. [3] In her first speech as Prime Minister, Liz Truss said the NHS was one of her top priorities. [4] And Rishi Sunak has been forced to promise he’ll bring down waiting lists. [5]
Together, we’ve held our politicians to account, and reminded them of how much ordinary people like us value our NHS. If tens of thousands of us show our support publicly, nothing will be able to stop us.
So, David, will you be one of the special people that helps make this happen by chipping in whatever you can afford today? After you donate, you can sign up to reserve your own pin.
PS: 38 Degrees is a campaigning organisation with a small office team and so doesn’t have the facilities of an online giant like Amazon. Please be patient with us after you make your order, we will try our best to get orders out to you as quickly as possible! To ensure as many households get a pack we’re limiting orders to one pack per household. Please also note, packs will not be shipped outside of the UK. You can find out more on our FAQs page here.
As well as getting people to upload videos about their experiences with terrible buses in the area, 38 Degrees also encouraged them to write to their local authorities. I did so, and received this kind reply from the Labour party West of England metro mayor, Dan Norris. Norris explains that they are already considering the franchise system, but this on its own is only part of the solution. The services also need much more funding.
‘Dear David,
Thank you for your email asking the councils in the Combined Authority to discuss introducing bus franchising into the region. I have a great deal of sympathy with what people are saying in the videos the campaign is sending me every day.
People rely on buses to get to work, school, social events and for shopping, and the bus service is not working as well as it needs to. I completely understand that. You are asking for the idea of franchising to be on the table at the next West of England Combined Authority meeting on March 17th. I have said publicly quite clearly that franchising is already on the table and remains under ongoing review. But it’s not a silver bullet, nor is it public ownership.
Franchising campaigners refer to other Combined Authorities like Greater Manchester, which has franchising but also has a tram system which offsets some of the more immediate problems that their bus services are facing. They too are experiencing an acute bus driver shortage, reduced passenger use post-Covid and increased costs of running the services. I am watching closely to see how my good friend and colleague Andy Burnham is addressing these issues in his region. But you will also no doubt have heard recent news reports that the situation with bus services is a nationwide one.
Less money has been invested in West of England bus services than elsewhere. It works out at £20 per head here but £36 in Manchester and £63 in Liverpool.
I am enormously proud to have secured the highest amount of cash nationwide – half a billion – for transport services more widely. I have repeatedly been told by Government that that funding can not be spent shoring up existing services, though, but must be spent on new ideas.
We need innovative thinking to look at the problem and I am confident that between us we can work towards providing the kind of bus service the region needs and deserves.
I understand the goal of your campaign and will continue to consider franchising along with all other suggestions that come forward, because franchising itself would take years to put in place and we need solutions now. Once again thank you for contacting me,
Yours sincerely,
Dan Norris Metro Mayor for the West of England
I don’t know what kind of innovative thinking is required, nor how this can improve services. It looks to me that the government’s strings against using it to shore up existing services prevents their improvement and will prevent the creation of new bus routes. At the same time, it seems that any support for bus franchising or nationalisation is quite tepid. But hopefully I’m wrong and something can be done about this.
A few days ago I got another email from the internet democracy organisation 38 Degrees calling on their members and supporters to make and post to them their videos telling how terrible the bus services are in the area. 38 Degrees are pushing for the introduction of franchising to stop the endless cuts to bus services. I posted the video below to them, which I’ve also uploaded on my YouTube channel.
In the video I explain how the cuts to the bus services in my part of Bristol has meant that local people are no longer able to travel to the centre of town, nor to the city’s hospitals. We also cannot easily travel to the neighbouring towns of Keynsham and Bath, where many people from Bristol go to work. The changes have also had an impact on local businesses. Since the services were changed a few years ago, the buses have gone past local shops and shopping centres but do not stop at them. This has very obviously hit them, especially at a time when many small businesses have been struggling due to the lockdown and the increase in people shopping on line.
Not everybody has a car, and taxis are expensive. This is why we really need a bus franchising system and proper funding to support it.
The Tories really are slave-driving sadists. Apart from the unemployed, there’s a real hatred of the sick and disabled, who they also consider to be workshy scroungers. I got this message the other day from the internet petitioning organisation 38 Degrees, asking me to sign a petition against their latest wheeze. There’s a bill going through parliament at the moment that’s gone under the radar, but if passed would force doctors to find suitable work to do for sick people rather than signing them off. I think they’ve tried something like that ages ago. I remember them trying to pass some kind of law to prevent doctors signing people off work. Anyway, it seems they’re going back to it with a vengeance. However, this mentality is actually crippling industry as well as workers. Presenteeism is the state where unwell employees nevertheless have to, or feel they have to come into work. This obviously spreads the disease and doesn’t contribute to efficiency. I can remember reading a piece about it a few years ago, which demolished the Tory policy of forcing people to work even so unwell that they really need time off. But the Tory party is so thick and vindictive that this has obviously gone way over their Eton-educated bonces. Here’s the message
‘David, this new plan from the Government to interfere when we’re sick is unbelievable. GPs would be told not to sign people off sick from work, and instead tell them to find ways to work through illness. [1]
The Government says it’s to help boost the economy, but targeting sick people – instead of corporations like BP and Centrica that have made billions in profit – is cruel and short-sighted. [2]
Luckily we have a chance to stop it. It’s one of many ideas being considered ahead of next month’s budget. And the Government will be watching closely to see how people react. So we have a chance to shoot it down before it becomes anything worse than a bad idea thrown around in a cabinet meeting.
So far it’s not made many headlines or gotten much attention so the Government might think they can get away with it. A huge petition signed by over 49,000 people, is calling out this terrible idea to be dropped before the budget. But we’ll need more people to add their name if we are going to get them to listen.
So David, if you think doctors, not ministers, should make decisions about what happens when we’re sick, sign the petition today. It takes just 30 seconds and we’ll make sure it gets on the radar of Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt:
This is another petition from the internet democracy organisation I’ve got absolutely no problem signing. People are succumbing to addiction and suicide because of the industry. And I also remember how, back during Blair’s tenure of No. 10, there were briefly plans for gambling megacentres. One of them was going to be Blackpool, which was going to be Britain’s Las Vegas. These were mercifully dropped. Nevertheless, television and the internet are saturated with adverts for online gambling, there have been concerns about a specific type of one-armed bandit or something like it in betting shops and documentaries about the toll gambling addiction has taken in broken lives.
Content warning: this email contains mentions of suicide and addiction.
Dear David,
Four years. Five different ministers. And an estimated 1,600 deaths. [1] That’s how long it’s been since the Government announced they’d be drawing up plans to reform the gambling industry and make it safer. But delay after delay has stopped those plans being published – and with every delay comes real danger. [2]
But during these years of waiting Annie, who lost her husband to gambling related suicide, has worked tirelessly to ensure the Government publishes these plans. [3] They’re long overdue. In fact, the rules regulating the gambling industry haven’t been properly updated since before the smartphone was invented. [4]
There’s rumours that the report could finally be released early next month, but we’ve heard that before. This time, Annie is determined to make sure it happens. So she’s travelling to 10 Downing Street to hand in her petition calling on the Government to finally set out the action it’ll take to protect people affected by gambling.
Over 83,000 of us have already signed Annie’s petition. Will you sign the petition today and help Annie get to 100,000 signatures by Monday? We can’t all be with Annie in person, but we can lend her our names – and our support:
“The idea that he was being encouraged and rewarded for doing something that would potentially kill him is hard to swallow. If there had been interventions on the gambling sites, rather than incentives, then perhaps he would still be here… I don’t want what happened to Luke to happen to anyone else…The delays to the white paper mean there will be plenty more people suffering.” [5] – Annie
After struggling with gambling for years, Annie’s husband Luke was given “free bets” to encourage him to gamble during the pandemic. [6] If these gambling laws had been updated sooner – to stop inducements like free bets, to curb relentless advertising and ensure people don’t bet more than they can afford – hundreds of lives could’ve been saved.
Public Health England estimates there are more than 400 gambling-related suicides every year. [7] Every day another life is lost, another family is torn apart – and still the Government is delaying action to stop gambling suicides.
38 Degrees supporters – that’s people like you, reading this email – have forced the Government to clamp down on gambling giantsbefore. In 2018, we convinced the Government to reduce the maximum stake on betting machines in bookmakers from £100 to £2. [8] Together we can make them take action again.
So, will you sign Annie’s petition today and support her as she travels to Downing Street to deliver it in just a few days time?
P.S.: If you or anyone you know are struggling with gambling, you can get support at Gamcare or by calling 0808 8020 133.
P.P.S: Annie originally started her petition on the Government website but after 6 months all petitions there are shut down, unlike 38 Degrees. 38 Degrees petitions will remain active for as long as you need them. If you wish to start a petition today, please click here.
A few days ago I signed a 38 Degrees petition, as this says, sending a message to Sunak about the number of people on NHS waiting lists. They sent me this follow up message asking me to get on various other social media platforms, which I’m not on. However, I’m putting this up for anyone who is on them to send their personal message to our farcical Prime Minister.
‘David, you’re one of more than 33,000 of us who said you’re up for holding Rishi Sunak to account for delivering on his pledge to bring down NHS waiting times. [1] Thank you!
The latest figures – released this morning – revealed that 7.2 million patients are stuck on waiting lists in England alone. [2] It’s a notable INCREASE since the Prime Minister made his pledge a few weeks ago. [3] What’s worse, experts are warning that waiting times are unlikely to fall in 2023. [4]
It’s a step in the wrong direction and now it’s up to us to raise the alarm!
Together, we can make sure he knows we’re watching and demanding urgent action. Getting this message all over social media is a crucial step in piling on the pressure needed to force him into action.
So, David, will you share a message with your friends and family to demand the Prime Minister delivers on his pledge to bring down waiting times? Use the buttons below to spread the word:
I’ve just got this email from 38 Degrees requesting people to writer to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asking him to abandon his opposition to the NHS workers’ demands for a pay rise. I’ve written an email as they’ve requested. If you also feel that our great medical professionals and the other staff deserve their rise, please feel free to do so as well.
David, today and tomorrow, nurses in England will be striking. [1] We know they don’t want to do this – but government inaction, pushing our NHS to breaking point, has left them with little choice.
The good news? Things might be swinging our way! Reports are emerging that the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, is working with NHS unions to try and get more money for NHS staff. [2] But it’s also claimed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt are refusing to budge. [3]
The Chancellor holds a HUGE amount of power over the purse strings. If we want him to stop dragging his heels, thousands of us need to speak up now.
David, you are one of 75,000 of us who signed the open letter in support of striking NHS workers. [4] If all of us bombard the Chancellor with messages telling him to listen to his colleagues, and invest in our nurses and NHS staff, we’ll be impossible to ignore. David, will you email the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, today to demand he ends his holdout and offers NHS workers a proper pay rise? It only takes a couple of minutes and there are some pointers to help you write your message.
Thanks to pressure from hundreds of thousands of 38 Degrees supporters, in 2021 we helped force the Government to triple its pay offer to NHS staff. [5] We can do it again, but only if thousands of us speak up together in support of striking NHS workers.
If you’ve never sent an email to an MP before, don’t worry, it’s easy and even a short message could make all the difference. Here are some tips for what you could say:
Share your story if you are an NHS patient: if you’re waiting for treatment and are happy to talk about this, it will be even more powerful.
If you work in the NHS, you could mention it – personalised stories will go a long away
Talk about why you back our NHS heroes: even if it’s a line or two, the Chancellor needs to know why the public are backing NHS staff
Remember to be polite: There’s a real person at the other end reading your email!
So, David, will you join in and send one of the thousands of emails landing in Jeremy Hunt’s inbox on the day NHS nurses go on strike? It only takes a couple of minutes and there are some pointers one the page to help you write your message
As you can see, I’m clearing the backlog I’ve built up of various emails from the petitioning organisations and activist groups. I got this one on Monday about Lady Michelle Mone, who pocketed a very tidy sum from recommending to the government a company producing faulty PPE. This has caused immense outrage, and people want her out. I concur, and I’ve signed the petition. If you’re as annoyed at this piece of Tory cynicism and venality as I am, I hope you will too.
David, it’s all over the news. Conservative Peer Michelle Mone is under fire for reportedly pocketing £29 million from the taxpayer by supplying dodgy PPE during the pandemic that was deemed totally unfit for purpose. [1]
Ministers are being asked to explain how they let our nurses and NHS staff go without proper PPE, all the while handing over hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money, to a reportedly dodgy company linked to a friendly Conservative Peer. [2]
What’s missing is pressure from us, the British public who want her kicked out of the Lords and taxpayers who want our money back.
Since we launched the petition a few days ago, more than 85,000 of us have added our names calling for Michelle Mone to be kicked out of Parliament and to hand back EVERY PENNY of the £29 million that she reportedly took from the taxpayer, at the very least.
Right now, your name is missing, David.
Will you help make it to 100,000 signatures by the end of today and send a message from the British public that they can’t ignore?Add your name with one click by hitting the button below:
Corruption has no place in politics. Conservative peer Michelle Mone is reported to have secretly pocketed £29 million of public money during the pandemic for unsafe PPE that couldn’t even be used – all while our NHS heroes were putting their lives on the line – including by wearing DIY PPE to protect themselves and the public during the pandemic.
We – the undersigned – are calling on the Lords Conduct Committee to investigate and expel Michelle Mone from the House of Lords and ensure that every penny in profit that she took from the taxpayer is repaid immediately.
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