I got this petition yesterday, and have very definitely signed it.
‘David, it’s just been revealed that the Government has slipped out plans to introduce TOUGHER Voter ID rules around elections, requiring certain ID to vote by post and by proxy. [1] Only last month voter ID blocked THOUSANDS of us from voting in local elections. [2] And now they want to go further, just in time for a General Election.
Conservative MP Jacob Rees Mogg recently admitted – on TV – that the Conservatives introduced Voter ID to try to sway the elections. [3]
It’s a stitch up but it’s not a done deal.
Today, together, we can show that we, the British public, have noticed this power grab – and we won’t accept it. We can create a huge people powered backlash with one simple message: DITCH VOTER ID BEFORE THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION.
David, it’s going to take a huge outcry to stop them in their tracks, so will you add your name to the petition right now? The moment 100,000 of us add our names, we will take it to Downing Street with a camera crew so they can’t help but notice us.
I got this message from the internet petitioning organisation yesterday. As you can see, they’re hoping to organise a massive petition against Sajid Javid’s noxious proposal to start charging patients for NHS care. I think they organised a similar petition a little while ago, but they seem particularly alarmed after Gordon Brown denounced it. I’ve signed it, and I’ve put it up here in the hope that others may wish to sign it too. The NHS really is under threat from the Tory goons.
‘David, this is shocking.
Former Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, has suggested patients should be charged a £20 fee if they ask for NHS treatment without seeing a GP first. [1]
David – there’s no sugar coating it. Charging sick people for being sick would end the NHS as we know it. And only this week, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised the alarm – now we’re doing the same. [2]
This isn’t the first time something so dangerous has been floated. Rishi Sunak said patients should be charged £10 for missing appointments, and some Conservative grandees have suggested the same. [3] But, every time, public pressure forced them to back down. [4]
David, this is a dangerous moment – our NHS needs us. We are in a fight to defend its very existence. And it’s going to take our biggest NHS campaign ever. Today, we take the first step of the Great British backlash with a huge petition. Together, we could get ONE MILLION PEOPLE to add their name, to show those in power that the British public will NEVER stand for the sick being charged for being sick.
David, this fight starts with you. Will you add your name to the petition and tell the Government: charging the sick for being sick? Don’t you dare. And then share it with 5 friends? If each of us reading this email added their name, and passed it on, we’d make it to a million. And fast. Clicking the button below will add your name automatically with one click:
Make no mistake, this is an attempt by the same people who have spent a decade underfunding and understaffing the NHS, bringing it to its knees, to make paying for healthcare seem a normal way out of this crisis.
We’re planning this huge campaign right now, but it starts – today – with you.
Ben, one of the many great commenters on this blog, asked why the various pro-democracy organisations criticising the way the Voter ID laws have resulted in very many ordinary, decent people being turned away from the polling stations, simply don’t use the raw statistics to make their case. The message from the internet petitioning organisation 38 Degrees answers this question: they feel people’s personal stories have more impact. They are therefore asking people to share theirs by answering this survey. The Voter ID laws didn’t affect me, as we didn’t have an election in our area. But if they have affected you, then please feel free to answer the questionnaire.
‘David, yesterday’s local elections across much of the country were the first test for the Government’s new voting rules, which require voters to bring specific photo ID to vote in person. [1] And already we’re hearing reports of people turned away from polling stations or finding it more difficult to vote than in previous years. [2]
Official figures of how many people were denied their vote could take weeks to come back but, even then, many think they may massively underestimate the problem. After all, those turned away will only be counted if they’ve made it past the warning signs outside, queued up, and got to the polling station desk! [3]
That’s why we think stories will be more impactful than stats in showing what a disaster the Government’s voter ID scheme is for democracy over the coming days.
So, David, we want to hear from you. Will you answer a few quick questions about your voting experience yesterday?It will only take a couple of minutes and here’s the first question to get you started. Hitting ‘yes’ will take you to the survey, ‘no’ will take you to a share page:
Were there local elections in your area on Thursday 4th May? YES
The 38 Degrees community votes for all parties and none, but we’re united in our belief that every eligible voter should be able to make their voice heard.Even one person denied their vote is one person too many – and a system that also disproportionately affects already marginalised groups needs to be challenged! [4]
We sounded the alarm back when the Government first announced their voter ID plans. [5] But when it became law, thousands of us – including individuals, campaigning organisations, charities and local councils – did our best to make it a success. [6] Even Conservative Party candidates were confused about their own party’s voting rule change, so is it any wonder that we just couldn’t make the new rules work? [7]
Now we need your help in exposing what happened at polling stations across the country yesterday and shining a light on the Government’s failed scheme.
So, David, will you take our short survey and share it with others to make sure we capture people’s election day stories?Here’s the first question to get you started. Hitting ‘yes’ will take you to the survey, ‘no’ will take you to a share page:
Were there local elections in your area on Thursday 4th May?
This is extremely funny. Or at least it is to my twisted sense of humour. Sky News reported yesterday that a terrible act of philistine artistic vandalism had occurred. You may remember the controversy some time ago when a very modern artist exhibited his latest installation, which was a banana taped to the gallery wall. Now some amateur art critic has defaced it by taking of the tape and eating the banana. Apparently it was an art student, who said he felt hungry. Afterwards he said that he always felt that the works of the Italian artist responsible for the installation represented rebellion, but that there could also be a rebellion against the rebellion. Oh, the horror! Actually, I think it’s brilliant and exactly what this type of pretentious pseudery needs. It needs to be mocked and ridiculed, and if people deface it like that, then it only exposes even further its threadbare and specious nature. Some of us can remember the outcry from Tracey Emin back in the ’90s or Noughties when a couple of young Chinese chaps climbed on her bed at the Tate and bounced around on it. I also heard that they were arrested before they could get Francis Picabia’s urinal and use it for the purpose it was originally intended. Well, that urinal has been around since 1919 and was a caustic joke at the expense of the artistic establishment. It was a Dadaist comment on European culture, which in the view of the Dadaists, had been responsible for the terrible war that had just been fought. It was anti-art, but it’s been celebrated ever since as some kind of deep, incisive comment about art. I suppose it’s funny if you’re young and fancy yourself as a bit of an iconoclast mocking the sensibilities and artistic orthodoxies of your elders. But it’s now become something of an artistic icon itself, and seems to me to be just puerile instead of anything deeper or more significant. It was a joke, and not a very good one, but is now held up as an important piece of 20th century art by an artistic establishment that doesn’t have much of a sense of humour when its sensibilities are lampooned. I think the Russian Futurist poet Mayakovsky gave the game away when he titled a volume of his poems A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. Such avant-garde works were all about shocking popular taste. Sometimes there really is a point to such challenging works, and the artistic experiments of the avant-garde produce genuinely interesting and stimulating art. But not always. And much avant-garde contemporary art just strikes me as banal. What seems to sustain it is the conservatism of parts of the artistic establishment and the ingenuity of the artists and critics in providing justifications for these pieces, in which they give reasons why the most unlikely object or installation is somehow a piece of staggering genius.
In fact, I think there are some really interesting and really skilful artistic works being produced, but they’re by people away from the artistic establishment, by amateur artists, commercial illustrators and the designers of computer games and films. I think the works of these artists deserve greater appreciation, rather than the exhibits of modern official art.
But she does recognise they were victims of prejudice.
I’ve just seen the headline for a video put up by Sky News, stating that Diane Abbott has had the Labour whip withdrawn. This looks like it’s connected to a story that broke this morning, that Grant Shapps was demanding Starmer take action about her because of a letter she wrote to the Independent. She claimed that although Irish, Jews and Travellers suffered prejudice, they didn’t suffer racism. They were no laws in America demanding that they sit in back of buses, like there were Blacks during segregation. This has caused upset, with Lord Wolfson stating that his ancestors weren’t forced to sit at the back of the bus, but in cattle trucks.
The problem here is that Abbott has made the same mistake Whoopi Goldberg did on the American tv programme, The View, which got her suspended for a couple of weeks. Goldberg confused ‘race’ with ‘colour’, and so asserted that the Holocaust wasn’t racist, as both Jews and Germans were White. In fact, the term ‘race’ has a number of meanings regarding ethnicity, of which skin colour is only one. At one time it also meant lineage and biological sex. Thus, 18th and 19th century genealogists talked about the noble race of such and such aristo, meaning his ancestors. It could also mean a specific nation. One of the great 19th century poets – it could have been Tennyson – talked about the superiority of the ‘Anglo-Norman’ race, presumably meaning English-speaking British. When Count Gobineau founded modern scientific racism in the 19th century, he also talked about what he saw as differences between European races, meaning different European nations.
The Nazi persecution of the Jews was based on race, even though its victims were White. Whereas the Medieval persecution of the Jews was largely based on their religion, the Nazis defined Jewishness in terms of race, so that secular Jews and Christians of Jewish heritage were also persecuted. Karaite Jews were spared, not because they rejected the Talmud, Judaism’s second holy book along with the Bible, but because they were viewed as descending from the Khazars and so racially not Jews.
The persecution of the Gypsies by the Nazis was also racist, and a very strong case could be made out that so is the traditional hostility to the Romany. The Romanies entered Britain in the 15th century. According to the stereotype, they had dark complexions. Romany is one of the Indian languages, and the Romanies’ are believed to have their origins in India’s Rajasthan, from where they moved westward over the centuries.
As for the Irish, they were placed well below Germanic northern Europeans in the 19th century racial hierarchies. I think that Gaels like Gaelic-speaking Irish and Scots were viewed as the most primitive of the Celtic peoples. I did hear that one particular 19th century British racial fanatic even claimed that they were lower than negroes. And Irish people could also be subject to the same prejudices and restrictions as Blacks, as shown in the signs ‘No dogs, no Blacks, no Irish’.
Abbott is certainly wrong to claim that the Jews, Travellers and the Irish weren’t victims of racism, simply because they were White. Her statement that they were comes from the attitude, shared with Goldberg, that only Blacks and people of colour can suffer racism. She and Goldberg nevertheless acknowledge that the Jews, Irish and Gypsies were victims of prejudice and whatever else may be said about the two, they definitely have not denied the Holocaust. Part of the problem is that by defining the hostility Jews and the others faced as prejudice, but not racism, she appears to be denying that it could be as severe as that inflicted on Blacks. This is clearly wrong, as shown through the long history of discrimination, pogroms and expulsions against the Jews, culminating in the Shoah.
But I don’t think that’s the real reason the Tories wanted Labour to suspend her, or Starmer’s willingness to do so. Some of it may be because the Tories are still smarting about the sacking of Dominic Raab, and wanted to take a head of their own. There were several videos posted yesterday by butthurt right-wingers moaning that Raab had been brought down by ‘snowflake’ civil servants and the bar for anti-bullying had been set too low and so on. But to me the main reason is that she’s a prominent left-winger and a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn.
This is about purging the Labour left until the Labour party is as right-wing and neoliberal as the Tories themselves. Abbott’s ignorance and tactlessness over the issue of race merely provided an excuse.
Here’s a very telling, incisive short put up on YouTube by the TUC. It’s of one of their officials telling a Sky News presenter very clearly that Sunak and the Tories are lying about the strikes. She says the Tories have lied about a number of issues, citing two particular. These were the lie that the striking ambulance workers weren’t providing minimum coverage when they were; and the gross falsehood that they are in talks with the unions when they aren’t. She states that it seems that the government aren’t interested in negotiations or finding a solution to the strikes.
I am not remotely surprised. During one set of elections few years ago, one of the watchdogs checking the claims made in the Tories’ election literature and broadcasts found hundreds, if not over a thousand lies. Labour, however, had only made five false statements. Yet the Tories were claiming to be telling the truth and it was Labour who were the horrible liars with their pants on fire. And I can see how Sunak would want the strikes to continue so that the unions become unpopular because of their actions and he can pose as the defender of the ordinary Brit against the union barons, just like Thatcher.
Here’s another internet petition about the scandal of Rishi Sunak not disclosing that his wife has a financial interest in a childcare company that may benefit from government spending in this year’s budget. I’ve had no problem signing it because I’m sick of ministers and government officials breaking these regulations about conflicts of interest again and again, particularly under the present succession of Tory prime ministers. Although Major’s and Blair’s administrations were also mired in copious amounts of sleaze.
‘BREAKING NEWS: Rishi Sunak is under investigation, after it emerged his wife holds shares in a childcare agency that could benefit from a spending pledge in last month’s budget. [1]
Authorities are looking into whether the PM’s declaration of interest was “open and frank”, after he failed to disclose it to a parliamentary committee. [2] Instead, he sent a letter afterwards, saying his wife’s interest was declared and the register of Ministers’ Interests would be out ‘shortly’. But shockingly it’s almost a year (and three Prime Ministers) since the last register was published. [3]
David, it’s time we sent a clear message: the British public demands transparency from our leaders. If thousands of us reading this add our names to a giant petition, we can show the PM we’re all watching and waiting – and that we’ll keep the pressure on until the updated register of Ministers’ Interests is finally published.
So David, will you sign the petition demanding the Prime Minister urgently publishes the register of Ministers’ Interests?It only takes 30 seconds to sign and for every 500 signatures we’ll send a message to Rishi Sunak’s inbox!
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.
‘Oh dear. How sad. Never mind’, as Sergeant-Major Shutup from It Ain’t ‘Alf ‘Ot Mum used to say. Mad Brexiteer Mahyar Tousi put up a video yesterday gloating over the continued demise of GB News and boasting about how his own YouTube channel now has more average viewers than the ‘old media’ TV stations. People are continuing to switch off GB News, and so Angela Frangopoulos, the station’s chief Dalek, has ruled that guests will no longer be paid fees for appearances. Regular guests will be paid a flat rate, which sounds like it’s basically just expenses, but it looks like they’re expected to find their own transport and be prompt and prepared for their appearance. Tousi points out that this isn’t a good idea, as guests and contributors should be paid for their expertise and broadcasters are in competition for them. This included GB News, which used to pay them well.
He then talks about the poor average ratings of these channels. The BBC is at the top with 100,000 average views. Next highest is Sky News. GB News is below them, and right at the bottom is Talk TV, which Tousi describes as only half a station that’s only on for part of the day. His channel has 300,000 views or followers, which shows how YouTube channels are eating the old media alive. Which is true, but I wish it didn’t include right-wing channels like Tousi’s.
As for GB News, I think this was supposed to be a rival to the ‘woke, wet BBC’. Their ratings have been steadily going down since they were launched. Many of their programmes have zero people watching. They tried to improve matters by bringing on Farage, and he did boost their rating – but only for his show. Once Farage’s programme had ended, people went back to not watching. This dire situation probably explains why they’ve now hired Lozza Fox and are hiring Jacob Rees-Mogg. Speaking personally, Mogg is one of the last people I want to see on TV, but for some reason the man who comes across very much as wanting to send small children back up chimneys is a great, molten hero of the Tory voters. And I definitely do not want to see any video with Nana Akua complaining about the health service and subtly hinting that it should be privatised.
And this isn’t all of the channel’s problems. Libertarian Islamophobe Mark Steyn left/ was given the heave-ho because of his remarks about the Covid lockdown and vaccination, and the channel is ordering its staff to keep any anti-vaxxer views they may have to themselves. This has outraged all the right-wingers who think that it should have been better to have kept Britain open, risking more people catching the disease and who think that there’s something in the vaccine itself that’s harmful. I think the YouTuber Paz 49 is one of these, as he threw a strop when Reform’s Richard Tice advised people to get the jab.
The internet is taking over, but rather than people watching GB News or Tousi’s right-wing rants, I’d rather people looked at left-wing YouTubers like A Different Bias, Novara Media, Maximilien Robespierre and so many others. As they are presenting a genuinely different view of this country and its politics, which is far more informative than the nonsense spouted by the privileged individuals spouting populist nonsense against the NHS. welfare state and the Channel migrants.
‘We’ve got a plan to ramp up the campaign to stop public money being spent on Boris Johnson’s legal fees. David, you’re one of the 123,000 of us that have signed the petition against this ridiculous decision. Now will you help up the pressure on the Government?
The National Audit Office (NAO) – the body responsible for monitoring the Government’s spending – have said they’ll be speaking to officials to “obtain more information” about these costs. [2] But they’ve not yet committed to a formal investigation. [3]
We need to make it clear to the NAO that taxpayers footing Johnson’s legal fees is something worthy of real investigation. But to do that, we’ll need the voice of the British public to be heard loud and clear. So we’re planning on sending the petition, some punchy polling, and messages from all of us who have joined the campaign to the NAO.
Together we can show them the public wants a proper investigation into whether or not we should foot the bill for Boris Johnson’s legal fees.
David, will you answer 3 quick questions, to let the National Audit Office know what you think? It could help persuade them to launch a formal investigation. It should only take about three minutes and we’ve included the first question below to get you started:
Do you think taxpayers footing the bill for Boris Johnson’s ‘partygate’ legal defence is a sensible use of public money?
Boris Johnson has reportedly earned more than £1 MILLION, since leaving Downing Street, in speaking fees. [4] He made this mess, he can clean it up himself. It’s up to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stop this, and we have seen with the recent case of Nadhim Zahawi, the former Conservative party chair, that a formal investigation condemning this use of public funds could be enough to force him to act. [5]
David, will you answer 3 quick questions, to let the National Audit Office know what you think? It could help persuade them to launch a formal investigation.It should only take about three minutes and we’ve included the first question below to get you started:
Do you think taxpayers footing the bill for Boris Johnson’s ‘partygate’ legal defence is a sensible use of public money?
I definitely do not think that cash-strapped Brits should be expected to have their money wasted on Johnson’s personal expenses. He’s rich enough already, although he whined that the Prime Minister’s salary wasn’t enough to live on. How does he think people on the dole or disability benefit, or the low wages he and his party have pushed for so long survive?
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