Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign/Demo to Attend: NHS Bursary or Bust

While we wait to see how the BMA's 'uphill struggle' to sell the new deal to junior doctors goes, it's worth remembering and acting upon the fact that the government intend to shit on the NHS in other ways.

This petition was set up by nurse Danielle Tiplady to challenge the government's decision to axe the NHS bursary for its students next year. Without that lifeline, syudent nurses, midwives, physios etc will be expected to be lumbered with debts of up to £50,000-£60,000 for their training. The kind of debt that will frankly make it impossible for many to take up their dream careers in the NHS.

The petition currently has over 54,000 signatures. Please, add your name to that list and show your support for the NHS.

You can also show your support by joining the demo outside St Thomas' Hospital which will march to the Dept of Health on the 4th June at 1pm. Y'know, the kind of demo that our completely non-biased BBC news team are bound to cover, right?* Further details of the march can be found on the Bursary or Bust Facebook page


*And yes, that is irony. Of course they won't fucking report on it. If the whole of the country came out in support and brought London to a standstill, the BBC would still ignore it to keep on Cameron's side and Whittingdale at bay.

Fighting Back: Petitions to Sign

A 2013 report highlighted the BBC's danger of slipping towards Tory bias in its reportage. This has to many minds reached its absolute partisan peak under the political editorship of Laura Kuenssberg and most recently their handling of last week's election results does suggest a blindside when it comes to Labour. This petition calls for the BBC to review the position of its current political editor Kuenssberg but, in a time when (no) Culture Secretary John Whittingdale believes demolishing the BBC to be a 'tantalising prospect', such petitions and the reaction to left's claims in this country are viewed negatively and in the sense that they are seeking to do Whittingdale's work for him. Personally, I don't agree; I think it's imperative that 'our' BBC be held to account when it performs badly. To view it as a 'no go' area for criticism at a time when the Tories threaten to close it is helping no one - do we really want to go back to the prejudiced broadcasting of Orgreave? I love the BBC as I think any regular reader of this blog will plainly see, but it needs to be held under scrutiny if it is to ensure its impartial public service foundations are not chipped away any further. Oh and it's got nothing to do with Kuenssberg being a woman either, it is entirely to do with her bias.

**STOP PRESS: A similar petition on 38 Degrees asking for Kuenssberg's sacking has been taken down on account of 'misogyny' See Here Note that the petition starter was NEVER sexist towards Kuenssberg but admits that some traction his petition received did worryingly veer towards it. It seems a twisted minority has scuppered a very topical and important campaign. But equally, it seems to me at least, that there are some very powerful people who refuse to listen to such allegations**

Speaking of the BBC and the government, the Tories are looking to cut funding from BBC Children's Programmes in order to give money-making channels a chance to compete in this arena. This petition asks that CBeebies be protected.

The living wage should not mean a pay cut - yet that's what seems to be happening at everyone's favourite supermarket Tesco, quele surprise. Sign here

In 2015, 6,337 of 20, 736 women looking for protection in Women's Aids refuges were turned away due to this government's funding cuts. Sign here to ask George Osborne to save women's refuges.

Following Channel 4's Dispatches broadcast last month, this petition from Disability Labour calls for an inquiry into the Capita PIP assessment process and its unethical conduct.

Irene Nel is 73. She has six children and eight grandchildren and requires life saving dialysis treatment three times a week. However the government claim she now has no right to live in the UK and must be sent back to South Africa, where such treatment is not available for her on account of her age and her heart condition. This petition asks Theresa May to show compassion and reconsider their calls for deportation.

1st June, 1985 saw Wiltshire police prevent with extreme force the Peace Convoy from setting up their Stonehenge Free Festival. The subsequent violent hours that followed became known as 'The Battle of the Beanfield' and now, this petition asks for an independent inquiry into the actions of the police.

And lastly, a word about the growing trend to ridicule or slur the intentions of the left in this country. I have lost count of the amount of times anyone who believes in grass roots political activities from the left of centre has been called something like a 'Corbynite clicktivist' It shows to me a particular degree of arrogance that suggests that politics is no longer personal and that the fight can only be conducted in our name behind the walls of Westminster by people who understand and appreciate the system. What rot! That is not democracy and it is dangerously close to creating a subservient state in which we are expected to hand over all responsibility to 'our betters'. That this kind of guff comes not from the Tories but from the middle ground of the Labour party, the Blairites, is particularly damning. Grass roots politics got justice for the 96, it was not the successive governments of Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron. Left to them, the families would never have seen the day they so richly deserved the other week. It was the families who kept the faith and took the fight to the highest office - just one of several examples of positive campaigning. 'Clicktivism' is not something to deride, ridicule or be ashamed of. If you are political but your only course to having your voice heard is signing petitions and becoming part of campaigns such as those listed above, then keep on doing it.

Wear Your NHS: Support Junior Doctors

Junior doctors need our support. The NHS needs to be protected. If you feel passionate about this and fancy a bargain then this Bank Holiday weekend you can bag yourself a Vivienne Westwood designed T-Shirt pledging your support for the Junior Doctors Strike and get free postage and packaging! 

Click here to shop Go on, it's a good cause and I can testify the tees are fab!

Justice Comes To Liverpool

In the many news reports aired today, the same sentiment was repeated over and over; that Liverpool felt like a different city today, a city that could breathe again now that justice has been granted for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

I had the privilege of being in the crowds this afternoon outside St George's Hall to pay my respects. It was a deeply moving sight, seeing the floral tributes and people laying bouquets, scarves, and T-shirts on the steps before the chimes of the town hall bells echoed across the city 96 times in commemoration not just of those who lost their lives, but those who campaigned long and hard for 27 years for this day. But it was an uplifting experience too, as we realised we had come together, no longer just in grief, but in triumph that justice had finally won out. 

I'd been at a picket line for striking junior doctors in the city earlier in the day too and found that to be a great experience of people coming together and uniting in a common cause too, so it really was something of a double whammy for me to experience today.

Unfortunately I couldn't hang around all day and so I was not one of the approximate 30,000 that lines the pavements from Lime Street Station to St George's Hall this evening. A shame, as it looked like a night to remember.

But, do I think Liverpool feels different? I think that, whilst we would all give anything for Hillsborough not to have happened (and by the same token for the NHS not to be in the crippling state it is currently in) it is nice to be in a position to reacquaint ourselves with a sense of solidarity, support and community spirit. To rub shoulders with people, chat and smile and feel for once like we're all part of something, and that things can change if we all stand together. 

If you ask me, Liverpool carries on, just like it always has, but perhaps with its head held a little higher and with less woes upon its shoulders after today.

It will never walk alone.

Wordless Wednesday: Not Fair, Not Safe

Protect the NHS

Today marks the start of the BMA's 48 hour industrial action which will see all junior doctors from all areas of the NHS walk out and protest against Jeremy Hunt's imposed new contract. I wish the doctors all the very best today and tomorrow and pledge them my undying support in standing up for what they believe in and fighting this government's harsh anti-NHS regime. It's not safe and it's not fair. 

Tell Obama We Don't Want TTIP

Sign here

Vanessa Redgrave: Still Fighting The Good Fight

She may be 79, but it's admirable to see that age has not mellowed or softened Vanessa Redgrave who still passionately believes in addressing social injustice as her appearance on the junior doctors picket lines proved yesterday

Wearing a Support Junior Doctors T Shirt (which you can, like me, buy here) she showed solidarity with the junior doctors, addressing them to denouncing the Tory government who had treated them 'like dirt' by imposing this contract upon them. It was like rolling back the years to the '70s when Redgrave and her late brother Corin were mainstays of The Workers Revolutionary Party

Redgrave addressing the crowds in 1974

Here she is with Corin meeting Pilkingtons Glass worker and union rep Gerry Caughey in 1971, a man who my dad worked alongside for many years.(above pictures from the World Socialist Website)

It's truly great to see the left figuring so prominently in politics once more, even though it's clear that this resurgence is sadly because people's liberties are being slowly and cruelly eroded by this corrupt Tory government. Redgrave had also visited the Doctors Without Borders base at the Piraeus refugee camp last week - proving that her politics still mean much to her.

If you believe in the NHS and hate what this government are doing with it, then please show your support with the junior doctors. Buy a T-shirt, honk your car horn if you pass a picket line, or even visit a picket yourself. I did the other month and, believe me, they want to know that we are on their side. It makes their day.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

In a week which saw the horrendous terrorist attacks on Belgium and the UK on high alert it might surprise you to learn (if you're not a cynical so-and-so like me) that our Prime Minister is on holiday in Lanzarote. So hey, if we all die at least he'll be spared.

These two petitions are hilarious - they're asking that he banned from re-entering the UK. Sign here and here

On a more serious note, 14 year old Christine Mustapha has shown she has more maturity and respect than our chancellor by asking that he apologise for his laughing at the disabled and checking Michael Gove's phone in the House last week. Disgraceful behaviour that should bot go unpunished.

Lots of anger at Osborne actually, with many petitions demanding his resignation. Sign here, here, here and here

IDS resigning was probably the best news to come from the Tory party since Thatcher's death, but we need to remember that resignation is not justice - IDS has blood on his hands

This petition calls for Labour to table a vote of no confidence in the Tory government, a sentiment shared by Disabled UK in the light of their horrendous abhorrent policies against the weak and vulnerable with this petition here

And why should we have confidence when MP's are repeatedly shown to be fast asleep whilst 'at work' ? Sign here to get these dozing MP's fined

This asks that the reassessment of young people with lifelong disabilities from DLA to PIP be stopped

A petition calling for three hours feminist education to be introduced to the school curriculum annually. Sign here

Whilst this petition demands that a teacher who used the N word to a black pupil be dismissed.

This calls for the protection of disabled people at work

Save Short Break Services at Autism Together - sign here

Save Manchester's Brian Hore Unit, Alcohol and Mental Health service, from being closed - sign here

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Two petitions against the cunt destroying the NHS

Sign to say you have No Confidence in Jeremy Hunt

Sign to demand Hunt resumes meaningful negotiations with the BMA

Fighting Back : Tories Failing Mental Health - More Petitions to Sign

It wasn't so long back that Cameron, placed on the spot at long last, had to acknowledge that not enough was being down regarding mental health in the country. He claimed the Tories had ploughed millions into mental health services for young people. 

But it's too little too late for Natasha Wise, the 22-year old daughter of Manchester music promoter and co-founder of Factory Records Alan Wise, who committed suicide by jumping from Whalley Bridge in the early hours of Tuesday morning. She had been waiting 18 months for a counselling appointment.

You can read the full story here, it is utterly heartbreaking that this young lady received no help. The system, poorly funded by this government, let her down.

Wise, pictured here with promoter Roger Eagle, is famed for bringing Nico (also pictured) to Manchester in the 1980s. Hopefully, the powers that be will listen to Wise and realise that things cannout go on like this and we cannot just accept the flannel from the Tories as they continue to impose cuts that impact upon the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society.

Please sign the following petitions. Let's force this government's hand for Natasha's sake and to help others so they do not suffer the same fate, before it's too late.

Here, here, here and here - these are just the tip of the iceberg on change.org, there are many more calling for the same thing.

Tender Loving Care (1993)

"Only those there's no hope for. Those who cause too many problems for everyone else. Those with no close family...When they've been in for over the twenty-four hours and there won't be a routine PM. It doesn't hurt. I make sure it's quick, and the bed's freed up for someone else"

The 1993 Screen One drama Tender Loving Care was a major departure Dawn French, then at the height of her fame as one half of the hit comedy duo French and Saunders and one of the Comic Strip Presents ensemble. In this unsettling drama from the pen of Lucy Gannon, French stars as Elaine, a lowly SEN (State Enrolled Nurse) who effectively runs the night-shift on an increasingly under-staffed geriatric ward with none of the perks of promotion or an increase in wage. Regardless of being overworked and underpaid, Elaine gets by with a bubbly demeanour and a pragmatic air. She's a diligent, caring professional, a good friend to her elderly, ailing neighbour (Joan Sims) and a wife and mother whose marriage to her endlessly chipper husband (Robert Pugh) is hitting the domestic doldrums - she's pretty much an everywoman then, and certainly any character in a generic medical soap you could care to name. But these qualities mask a dark secret: Elaine is murdering her patients.

It's a bold bit of casting. One of the joys of stand alone drama from the '80s and '90s was its refusal to pigeon-hole performers. As such actors who were normally associated with comedy often appeared in a Screen One, Screen Two, The Play on One or Screenplay in heavy dramatic roles; Ade Edmondson (Honest, Decent and True, News Hounds) Lenny Henry and Robbie Coltrane (Alive and Kicking) Alexei Sayle (Night Voice) Tony Robinson (The Silent Twins) Griff Rhys Jones (Ex and A View of Harry Clark - which also starred Elaine Paige!) and David Jason (Amongst Barbarians) For many, this was just the start of an impressive secondary career as a straight actor - just look at Edmondson's recent turn in War and Peace and Jason's many years on A Touch of Frost for proof. Nowadays they wouldn't gamble on such interesting choices, they'd just cast some former soap star or the current 'flavour-of-the-month' to ensure the production scored the biggest ratings possible. 

Elaine's criminal actions were not born of malice or revenge (though Gannon's script repeatedly makes much of her constantly being passed over for courses that could help see her get a foot on the career ladder) they were - as the quote at the start of this review explains  - 'nursing decisions', borne out of a skewed belief that she was providing a merciful release and always mindful of the fact that the extra-work required to maintain these patients in palliative terms would impact on how they could treat and help the others in her care who stood a greater chance of recovery. In French's performance and Gannon's script, Elaine is the archetypal Angel of Death figure; capable of tenderly combing the hair of a sleeping homeless patient she had just administered a lethal dosage of medication to. She's a particularly good, dedicated and caring nurse, extremely capable of doing her job...despite her unsettling desire to play God.

This chilling nature is revealed and subsequently threatened when Elaine takes co-worker, Mary (Rosemary Leach) into her confidence - or rather, when Mary reveals that she had known about Elaine's activities for some time, thereby forcing her into taking the older woman into her confidence. Despite clearly laying down the rules as she saw them (again, the above quote), Mary soon goes decidedly off-piste. She claims she has started receiving messages from God and uses this excuse to enter the business of mercy-killing with a tendency to bend and break the rules and 'nursing decisions' that Elaine has carefully adhered to. When she kills a suicidal rent-boy in retribution for what she sees as his 'sins', Elaine is naturally aghast at the actions of her 'apprentice' and fears the perils of any subsequent investigation which would threaten to uncover her activities and have justice come crashing down upon her head. She needs to act, fast, and in the meantime her neighbour isn't getting any better...

Inspired by a real-life Austrian case in which 42 patients died, Tender Loving Care has taken on greater resonance since its initial broadcast in 1993 when Britain has revealed itself to have its own Angels of Death working away within the NHS; the crimes of Beverly Allitt came to light around time of transmission, with Harold Shipman in 2000 and, just last year, Victorino Chua. Watching it again now, for the first time in probably over twenty years, these real-life, close to home incidents, make Gannon's drama all the more disturbing.

To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic plays please sign the petition I started here

The National Health (1973)

I first caught The National Health on TV around seven years ago (a channel that showed near forgotten 'classics' not too dissimilar to Talking Pictures TV which we currently have on Sky/Freeview) Despite the cast and the premise I found it a little disappointing first time around.

Second time around, and I'm afraid to say my thoughts haven't changed all that much.

Placed both literally (in terms of period) and figuratively (in terms of style) between the medically themed Carry On films and Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital, The National Health is a film version of Peter Nichols' acclaimed stage play and is described as a black comedy about the inadequacies of the NHS as Nichols saw it some thirty or so years after its inception. Thematically he explores his satire by presenting us with two scenarios; the grim reality of an underfunded male ward in a London hospital, and a film-within-a-film, entitled Nurse Norton's Affair, a spoof of the then glitzy Dr Kildare style medical soap operas imported from the US. Both scenarios are played out by the same cast, with wildly different performing styles to denote the difference between 'reality' and the 'fiction'.

Unfortunately the film is a rather toothless experiment in satire which makes me think something got lost in translation from stage to screen - or maybe it wouldn't be to my taste in the theatre either? It's possible I guess, but I'm not convinced that is the case. Past experience tells me it is the film adaptations of Peter Nichols' work that is the issue here; 1972's A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg starring Alan Bates and Janet Suzman for example is - to me - considerably inferior to the 2002 film recording of a performance at the Comedy Theatre of the play with Eddie Izzard and Victoria Hamilton. For me, Nichols just seems to work far better on the stage.

Colin Blakely is on fine form as a combative alcoholic admitted to the Princess Maria of Battenberg Hospital after losing his memory. Initially suspicious and hostile of his environs, he slowly thaws to his fellow ward mates; socialist and family man Foster (a young Bob Hoskins), Ash (Clive Swift), a former teacher who appears to have too much of an interest in young boys, old timer Flegg (Bert Palmer), the former physician but now incontinent senile Rees (Mervyn Johns) and the terminally-ill and deeply cynical cancer patient Mackie (David Hutcheson) Each of them are cared for by mousy, bespectacled Nurse Sweet (Lynn Redgrave), Sister McFee (Eleanor Bron), Nurse Powell (Shelia Scott-Wilkenson), absent minded, overworked junior medic Dr Bird (Gillian Barge) and Jim Dale as the roguish orderly Barnet, trading on his experiences in the Carry On's. Sweeping in and out of the ward is Donald Sinden's urbane surgeon Mr Carr. It is the cast who portray the medics who get to go full-on camp for the soap opera spoof, set in the slick and ultra modern Mount Verdant Hospital where the main issue seems to be who Cupid's arrow is striking for rather than who is being put under the scalpel.

Unfortunately, the melodrama spoof is now incredibly dated stalling what one presumes was the film-maker's hope for the biggest laughs. As a parody it rarely moves beyond each actor enjoying themselves by adopting the performing style of those bereft of the talent they themselves normally possess. The barbs on offer are too unfocused and seem to fall in the usual camp for early '70s humour; race. But perhaps most frustratingly of all, these spoof interludes monopolise the talents of Redgrave, Bron and Sinden, whose appearances in the 'realistic' sequences are far too fleeting. In the end, I just don't see the appeal of these great actors deliberately acting badly for laughs that don't really come.

The real interest here lies in the human drama and the black comedy in the ward, where no one ever seems to truly listen to or appreciate what anyone is saying and the notion that we have come to rely on others who are frankly unconcerned (or just too damn exhausted to be concerned) with our preservation, remains a contemporary issue.

I guess there are a few parallels to be made also with Paddy Chayefsky's The Hospital, which came out just two years earlier, but this film doesn't seem to want to condemn the NHS in the same way that Chayefsky attacked the US medical system, instead it seems more interested in pointing out the inadequacies. There are some interesting contentious issues raised that are still controversial to this day, but Nichols never really addresses where he stands with them - witness the scene in which Mackie tries to convince the optimist Foster the merits of euthanasia, not just for the sufferer but for society as a whole. Mackie dreams of a welfare state that would have clinics available to euthanise the terminally ill such as himself. But the argument goes no further when Mackie succumbs to a fit that  commences a rapid decline in his condition. Thirty-three years later, there's still no answer to be had to that argument that we can all accept or agree upon. 

So as a satire, The National Health is something of a non-starter, both in comparison to its contemporary across the pond (The Hospital) but also to its peers too; O Lucky Man! the second in the Mick Travis trilogy also released that year would better dissect modern life in the 1970s, whilst the final instalment in that loose trilogy, Britannia Hospital, would nine years later wield the scalpel on both the NHS and societies expectations when it came to care and medicine in a more scathing manner. Instead, The National Health perhaps works better as a more gritty, darkly comic reaction to the enjoyable but much more light-weight medical comedies of the previous decade, the likes of the Doctor and Carry On series.

Get Well Soon

This was a blast from the past - Get Well Soon, up and about again from the BBC vaults!

Get Well Soon was a BBC1 sitcom that I recall from Sunday evening in the winter of 1997. It was written by sitcom screenwriting legend Ray Galton and John Antrobus, a one time collaborator of Spike Milligan, and was based on the circumstances of how Galton met his long term scriptwriting partner Alan Simpson whilst patients at a tuberculosis sanatorium. From these beginnings Galton and Simpson would go on to write such sitcom greats as Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son.

Get Well Soon however does not reach these lofty heights, but it did deserve more than just one series.

This is a much gentler style of comedy than the likes of Steptoe and put me in mind of the 1962 film Twice Round The Daffodils which was also set in a TB sanatorium. Set in 1947, it focuses on the comic everyday lives of the mismatched group of patients, specifically Roy Osborne and Brian Clapton played by Matthew Cottle and Eddie Marsan respectively. The character of Osborne, naive and newly admitted to the ward, is based on Galton, whilst the scrounging old hand Clapton takes inspiration from Simpson. Poor Roy arrives at the sanatorium with his flirty, chain smoking mother played by ex-EastEnders star Anita Dobson thinking he'll only be there for a few weeks, but soon finds out from room mate Brian that it could be several months or even years before he can be considered fit enough to leave. The pair become firm friends an across the 6 episodes get up to various japes upon the ward.

Matthew Cottle is a great comic actor who came to prominence in the brilliant 90s sitcom Game On. This was his next big role after that BBC2 sitcom came to an end and it's a great shame that this was effectively the only breakout role his talents ultimately afforded him when you compare him to the steadily prominent and successful post Game On careers of his co-stars Samantha Womack (nee Janus), Ben Chaplin and Neil Stuke. I believe he is mainly known for stage work these days (Alan Ayckbourn) but he has popped up at a regular rate once more this past year with guest roles in shows as diverse as the daytime soap Doctors and the Greg Davies sitcom Man Down, as well as a regular role in BBC3 sitcom Fried. He's very good here as Roy, displaying the kind of laconic delivery Nicholas Lyndhurst was known for in Only Fools and Horses.

I'm a big fan of Eddie Marsan an actor who is know very much in demand in everything from roles in Hollywood blockbusters and US series like Ray Donovan to the films of Mike Leigh and other socially aware British indie projects. I think Get Well Soon was the first or one of the first things I ever saw him in and he's a lugubrious charm as cockney Brian, playing very well off Carry On legend Patsy Rowlands as his glum mother.

Other roles in the series are taken by Samantha Beckinsale (daughter of the late Richard Beckinsale) as an slightly older and very glamourous woman who sets her cap at young Roy when he takes the bed of her late husband, Three Up, Two Down's Neil Stacy as Roy's mother's latest love interest, Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville as Tucker, a posh know-all with unnervingly fascist leanings who shares a room with Roy and Brian much to his disgust, and Cold Feet and Toast of London star Robert Bathurst as a patient who is a former RAF officer and who still believes the war is on - he even has to an imaginary black labrador called, what else?, Blackie!

The series is made of six half hour episodes and whilst it's true you won't be rolling around the floor or laughing until you cry each episode has enough to raise a smile and even the odd chuckle. Like I say, it's light, gentle fare in keeping with the era it is set in. The nostalgia value is very good too and the production detail of the late 1940s is, as you expect with the BBC, superlative. Each episode is largely studio based, relying on just one or two sets (the boys' room and the odd corridor or two) but you do often get a glimpse of outside and the surrounding areas, especially in the very weird title sequence which consists of a patients dancing on the lawn, a revolving shelter and our two leads looking direct to camera, to the left and right, all to a catchy old time tune provided by former Snowman chorister Aled Jones. If you can make sense of that opening sequence, please write to me!

Disappointingly this DVD from Simply Media offers absolutely nothing in the way of extras which is a real shame given this brand new release currently retails at a stonking £18! The packaging is also rather misleading, placing Dobson and Stacy on the front cover alongside Marsan and Cottle and giving Dobson (and Beckinsale) star billing when, in actual fact, Dobson, Stacy and Beckinsale are only ever really frequent supporting players and don't even feature in all 6 episodes. You'd think Eddie Marsan's name would be enough of a draw these days to secure top billing for this DVD but the boys and girls at Simply Media don't seem to agree. Equally the back cover and the disc itself features two of the nursing staff, one of whom only features once and very briefly, whilst the other appears more frequently with a few sparse lines.

Overall I'd say if you enjoy traditional Sunday offerings from the BBC (everything from Last of the Summer Wine to Call The Midwife) then you'll likely as not enjoy Get Well Soon. It's a real shame it only lasted a single series as I think it certainly had potential to run for one or two more years. You got a real feeling it would have hit its stride if given another chance, but alas it was not to be.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

First off the bat today, let's tackle the insufficient information regarding your right to appeal against benefit decisions. Sign this petition to get things changed and your rights made clear.

The repugnant, shameless Iain Duncan Smith (the cunt) has announced a further benefits shake up, despite being proven to have blood on his hands and lies on his lips. How this man is still in a job is beyond me. We need to get him out! Sign this petition demanding his removal, and this to get the CPS to investigate him for the manslaughter of benefit claimants.

It's not just the Tories alas who show their disgusting true colours regarding the disabled in our society. Liz Kendall, the prospective Labour leader, made an almighty gaffe on BBC News last week when she said "Yes, we must support the disabled. But we must also support the ordinary people as well" That kind of mindset should nix anyone's dream of high office. Sign here to demand she apologises.

The Labour leadership election is sadly becoming a terrible farce of dishonourable unfair conduct. Several thousand votes have been purged - and we all know who these votes are for - which stinks of corruption within the system by the Blairites. Sign here to demand this stops.

Whatever the outcome next month, Labour needs to unite and realise who its enemy actually is - the Tories. The in-fighting and constant statements of intent to battle within a potential Corbyn led party is despicable. The party needs to unite and this petition asks them to realise this for our sakes. Cos y'know, we're only the electorate after all.

For over a fortnight now, parts of Lancashire have been without safe drinking water thanks to the bug cryptosporidium having been found in the local water supply. Some 300,000 homes have suffered as a result. But how did this parasite get into the water supply? This petition demands an inquiry.

The Tory govt has turned its back on those who helped them fight the war in Afghanistan, namely the hundreds of interpreters who risked their lives to help our forces. Cameron refuses to resettle these interpreters who served our country between 2006 and 2012 unless they can 'prove' their lives are at great risk. They seem to ignore the murdered family members, bullet holes through cars and injuries they have faced. A previous petition gained 50,000 signatures, but still the Tories have done nothing. Sign here to remind them of their responsibility.

It disgusts and astounds me that this government proposes to cut the wages of our firefighters. These people risk life and limb to ensure our safety and they're struggling to make ends meet as it is. Sign here to reverse that decision and ensure their situation improves.

Chichester Ambulance Service is to be closed to make way for a centralised hub which outsources services to private contractors. This is a waste of NHS money and a terrible risk for Chichester itself. Please sign this petition to express your dissatisfaction with the decision.

Lastly, this one doesn't have anything to do with injustice but I would like people to consider signing it. The BBC are terminating its contract with The Met Office, a contract that has seen these professional forecasters broadcast our weather report for over 90 years, to seek another provider of the service. I think this is a really bad move and so do many others. This is just one petition calling for this decision to be overturned.

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

The NHS : Lots to sign to protect and aid this great socialist institution, staring with this demand to cancel the proposed inquiry into whether it should be funded by user charges and insurance rather than tax. Healthcare is a human right and no one should have to lose out on medical help because they cannot afford it. Another petition along similar lines can be found here

This petition calls for the resignation or dismissal of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for his ill informed lies regarding the NHS and its workforce and the breaching of patient confidentiality. As does this one and this

Join the campaign to get the NHS to reverse its decision to remove funding for clinically proven treatment to prevent blindness

Stepping Hill Hospital in Manchester is being considered for 'super hospital' status, which would mean the downgrading of Wythenshawe Hospital and the people of South Manchester disadvantaged.

The 10% Pay Rise : This disgusting upturn in the fortunes of each member of the Tory government continues to rile and offend at a time when benefits and public services are cut and everyone else's wage is frozen. Sign the following to get Cameron and his cronies to refuse the pay rise, to give it back to the taxpayer and to donate to the 10 poorest families in each constituency, or to increase and backdate public sector workers pay because firemen, nurse, police officers etc really deserve this 10% rise.

Trade Unions : This government's proposed bill to neuter the power of the unions will remove the ordinary worker the right to democracy. It is imperative that we fight for these rights now. A worker without representation is sending us back to the dark ages, where picketing would be illegal. Remember Tolpuddle! And sign this petition

Stop Animal Testing, test a Tory instead!

Demand the Resignation of Cameron!

Homelessness : Just like the Thatcher era, the present govt are happy to see people on the streets. Condemned to a life on the streets for being Gay is all too common a problem that needs rectifying. Meanwhile, Chester has become the latest borough to impose ridiculous fines on people sleeping rough. Sign here and here. This may not be local to you, but it will soon happen in your town, unless we take a stand now. Maybe it already has?

Demand the removal of the US nuclear weapons from British territory Diego Garcia in 2016 in line with the requirements of the ANWFZ treaty. The lease expires next year and we need to comply with the treaty, to aid the advancement of a more peaceful nuke free world and to right the wrongs of the past. 

The CND will be screening the seminal once banned BBC film The War Game in London on 6th Aug, Hiroshima Day.

Save the BBC : The Govt have launched their public consultation on the BBC. Please make your opinion heard to protect this institution. Here

Sky, Home of the Stupid Decision - They've Axed Critical

Sky have announced they will NOT be making a second series of Jed Mercurio's excellent nail bitingly gripping medical drama Critical - one of the best TV shows this year.

Read about the decision here

Fucking idiots!

Please sign this petition I have just started Save Critical

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Inevitably after last week's Budget, much of the petitions are concerning themselves with challenging the heartless decisions from Osborne

National Living Wage: A demand for All Adults to be given it. A specific one to address it for the Under 25's. A demand for Extended Sunday Working Hours to be granted the living wage. Calls for the BBC to stop calling the new Nat Min Wage the Living Wage and lastly, on a similar tack, calls to take the govt to court for the disingenuous use of the phrase Living Wage

Student Maintenance Grants: Please sign the following to stop scraps to this grant - here, here, here and here

1% : Calls to reconsider the 1% pay rise for teachers here, and a campaign to get Cameron to follow his own rules and take a similar paltry increase here

Demands for a referendum here in the UK on the current Austerity Measures

No confidence in Cameron? The man wants to bring back fox hunting amongst other unpopular decisions. Call for him to resign

Excommunicate IDS!

The Opposition are meant to Oppose, right? Harriet Harman doesn't seem to know that, help remind her.

Greece is still the word: Sign these to support our Greek friends - here, here, here, here and here

Calls to close The Mayfair Loophole

Lastly, calls to increase funding for our Ambulance Service

Voice of a (Left Wing) Angel

Fighting Back : Petitions to Sign

Following the IPCC's Verdict Not To Investigate Orgreave announced on Friday, a petition has been started demanding an independent inquiry into the actions of the police during the miners strike of 84/85 which you can sign here. Please support, donate, buy merch to fund the fight from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign site here

Want a man who thinks internal bleeding is caused by a full moon as the chair of the Health Select Committee? Of course you don't, but David Cameron does and that man is David Tredinnick, who also believes homeopathy and astronomy should be paid for by the NHS. Sign here to try and keep Tredinnick and his 'lunatic' views (quoting Prof Sir Robert Winston there) away from this role. Sanity must prevail!

Stoke NHS Join the fight to save beds at Longton Cottage Hospital

Change or expand the criteria for PIP to ensure no one suffers unnecessary hardship.

Welfare is being cut to the bone, and George Osborne wants to cut it even further. £12 billion to be precise.