Recently, Jeremy Hunt lost his appeal against closing Lewisham Accident and Emergency. The law that protected it would be removed if Clause 118 passes. The Clause will allow the government to close or downgrade any hospital in the country, with barely any consultation of local people, if there is a Trust in financial difficulties anywhere nearby. They will be able to appoint an administrator to one Trust who will be able to take decisions to fast-track the closure of hospitals in another area - no matter how successful or popular those hospitals are - using the 'unsustainable provider' legislation that was designed only for insolvent Trusts. If it becomes law, this Clause means that *no* hospital will be safe, no matter how successful. Check out this link http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/stop-hospital-closure-clause for more information. We will update you on further campaign actions you can get involved in. Please share on Twitter and Facebook.

To prevent the mass hunger strike planned for 7th November. After all haven't they served this country over the years when the British Government has needed to call on their services.

PLEASE SUPPORT THE ENHANCEMENT OF OLD PORTSMOUTH'S HISTORIC ARCHES - SIGN THE PETITION ON THE RIGHT OF THIS PAGE PORTSMOUTH ARTches Arts & Crafts Quarter proposals are under attack from a group of residents who want to protect their own interests. The proposed plans will enhance the area for the common benefit of the people who live in portsmouth with the additional objective of increasing tourism. It will also provide more jobs and other opportunities. SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RodM9qLqA_k Any objection is a prime example of local residents trying to stop anything happening on there own doorstep and treating the surrounding area as their own back garden. Can you not see what a waste of space these arches actually are, at the moment they stink of urine where they are used as unofficial public toilets. Bring them back to life and then regenerate the whole seafront. By all means object to anything tacky going there but don't obstruct the Council every time they try and improve something or you will end up with nothing ! 91% of people (out of 380) citywide who attended the citywide public consultation WANT the ARTches and like the proposals. ENGLISH HERITAGE are really enthusiastic with their support for ARTches quarter proposals. To get the £1.9million (bid to national Coastal Communities Fund) needed they need planning permission. The ARTches arts & crafts project is also already supported by Partnership for South Hampshire 'PUSH' (who have put £40,000 towards it) and the 'Portsmouth Society'. The ARTches is supported by the Uni of Portsmouth Arts Faculty senior lecturer too and will help lots of local artists and innovators.

A levy on Wiltshire Supermarkets could reduce parking charges in our town centres which would be a lifeline to the many small traders.

Currently funding is weighted on a per pupil basis where children identified as socially deprived receive considerably more funding and additional funding benefits (free school dinners & free uniforms). Under proposed changes the minister will reduce the per pupil funding at 81% of schools across Northern Ireland and reallocate the funds to socially deprived children. This will affect the budget schools have to operate with and put more pressures on PTA's and fundraising activities to close the already existing funding gap at schools. There is a lack of evidence to support the assertion that increases to funding of socially deprived children will improve their educational performance.

In 2012 Michael Gove scrapped homework guidelines that laid out how much homework schools should be setting. Let’s ask that we go a step further and scrap homework in primary schools altogether. Schools continue to operate under the false assumption that homework is necessary for children to gain a satisfactory level of academic achievement, and to pander to the pressure from parents who also operate under this misconception. The fact is that there is not a single piece of evidence that can show any correlation between homework and academic achievement, nor that shows any improvement in study habits. Yet many recent studies and reports have raised serious concerns about the well-being of children, their lack of physical activity, excessive time spent in front of screens, increasingly limited time for free play, and lack of time spent outdoors. Homework is an intrusion on family time, on children’s free time, and can be a regular source of conflict in the home. It creates unnecessary anxiety and pressure for children. Young children already spend enough time engaged in formal school work. To expect them to bring more of this home risks overloading them and turning them off learning altogether. They learn and develop in so many other ways. Time for free play, outdoor play, pursuing their own interests, and quality family time is essential for their development and well-being.

Kevin Donovan of Defend the NHS says the following: You may have read in the press or online (or more likely may not have heard) about the major health data collection exercise which the government has initiated. Under changes to legislation, your GP can now be required to upload personal and identifiable information from the medical record of every patient in England to central computer servers at the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Once this information leaves your GP practice, your doctor will no longer be in control of what data is passed on or to whom. And private companies will be able to buy your information for just £1 (ONE pound!). This information will include diagnoses, investigations, treatments and referrals as well as other things you may have shared with your doctor including your weight, alcohol consumption, smoking and family history. Each piece of information will made identifiable by uploading it along with your NHS number, date of birth, post code, gender and ethnicity. Health data has always been collected* but this time it’s different. NHS England – the body now in charge of commissioning primary care services across England – will manage and use the information extracted by the Health and Social Care Information Centre for a range of purposes, none of which are to do with your direct medical care. These ‘secondary uses’ include patient-level tracking and monitoring, audit, business planning and contract management. Why should we worry? It seems clear that one hidden purpose of this exercise is to lubricate the galloping ‘marketisation’ of our health service, for example to allow health insurance companies to make huge profits from cherry-picking low risk patients for health cover. Over time, and as in the USA, if we can’t afford a health insurance premium (which is very likely if we are poorer and/or have any condition which may be expensive to treat) we won’t get free access at the point of need to medical care. It’s a nightmare! GPs’ hands are tied. They have been told it’s an offence not to provide the data. But patients can choose not to do so. How? Read these articles. In paragraph 4 you can download an opt-out letter for you to complete and use (template opt out letters for patients to use). http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/it/eight-weeks-to-inform-patients-their-data-is-going-to-be-harvested-gps-warned/20004562.article#.UlF8er5wbmR http://medconfidential.org/how-to-opt-out/ http://opendemocracy.net/ournhs/phil-booth/your-medical-data-on-sale-for-pound http://medconfidential.org/2013/nhs-9-who-gets-to-see-your-information/ We doubt that many people know what’s happening – especially older patients and/or those without Internet access – so please distribute this information widely to your contacts and urge them to take action NOW. It’s OUR NHS not the government’s to sell off to their friends in the City. Thanks

Too many destructive decisions have been taken behind closed doors resulting in a budget deficit largely created by (at best) mismanangement, and the resulting closure or reduction in all the services the citizens value. The recent campaigns to Save The Edgar Street Trees, Libraries & Museums, Customer Services, social and health care, and other current campaigns we have also supported in the last year, have highlighted the items that the public consider most important to their society and the unholy debacle caused by a small cabal of councillors refusing to listen has resulted in a huge amount of anger and frustration. This campaign continues .... so please keep signing and sharing.

Portsmouth City Council has submitted a planning application to redevelop the historic Point Battery Area of Old Portsmouth. It is almost inevitable that the area will lose its historic ambience and become just another café and retail outlet location. The heritage statement for the ARTches details that: “The primary objective for this development is to provide an artist's quarter and creative centre in the vacant arches and ancillary buildings that make up Point Battery.” Portsmouth City Council has not made the business case for changing this place of national, historic value into a low-rent market type venue with cafes and a brasserie. Therefore, the suggestion that the profits from low rent/subsidised units can go towards the upkeep of this heritage area, has no foundation beyond wishful thinking. This is an area with immense history and of international repute and interest. Once it has been tampered with, it will be gone forever. Local people are deeply concerned that there will be lasting damage to the listed buildings and their setting. Old Portsmouth is an area already well served by pubs/bars and cafes. If the proposed new cafes and brasserie were paying less rent and business rates then it would be unfair on existing businesses who work hard to survive especially during these difficult economic times. Please sign our petition and help stop the desecration of these historic listed buildings and their setting in the misguided pursuit of wildly optimistic commercial gain. PLEASE, ALSO OBJECT TO THE PLANNING APPLICATION: Use this link: http://idox.portsmouth.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=MTA36TMO5G000 to register and make an objection.

The Isle of Coll has some of the cleanest seas in the world and is one of if not the most important basking shark breeding grounds in the world. Fish farms are pollution on an industrial scale and we need to stop polluting the sea. This is all for profit to produce salmon for the developing market in China. Why should we pollute our waters to provide a luxury to wealthy chinese and kill our sea life for profit.

We believe that the actions of the current Government to implement very significant changes to the funding of schools by undermining and cutting out Local Authorities are leading to a centralisation of power, an undermining of democratic accountability and will greatly increase the costs of running schools through the lack of economies of scale and the pool of expertise which these Authorities provided. Far from being 'free' from Local Authority control schools are, in reality, in danger of losing Local Authority support - their expertise in finances, HR, legal issues, etc represents support delivered in a cost effective way and timely way. We deplore the Governments ideological approach to the question of education and its attitude towards professionals within the educational field. Above all we denounce the failure of the Secretary of State to listen to the opinions of senior educators, Trade Unions and parents. The Secretary of State for Education fails at every count to listen to others and we deplore the vision he has for education as outdated, undesirable and unworkable. His arrogant attitude has led to the tearing up of a Primary Curriculum agreed by the teaching professions, Government, Locals Authorities and parents and the proposal of a new secondary national curriculum opposed by his own advisers which then had to be completely revised. Furthermore changes mean that some 'state' schools now require a uniform costing over £200 and his proposals regarding free school meals will prejudice some small schools. These concerns are echoed by expert opinions such as those which follow below: The freedoms he claims are available only to free schools actually apply to state schools. But since he hardly ever visits ‘bog standard’ schools, he wouldn’t know that many of them buzz with innovation. The one freedom available to free schools, which no sane school leader would want, is the right to employ unqualified teachers ………It’s time Mr Gove came clean about his real agenda. One he does know is that free schools are ripe for takeover by global businesses seeking to make a profit from education.” (Dr Mary Bousted General Secretary, Assoc. of Teachers and Lecturers) “Gove wants us to believe that he is driven by a desire to get more children “to succeed academically.” I have never met a teacher who did not want children to succeed academically, but teachers know that there is a lot more to education than narrow academic success. The secretary of state has ridden roughshod over the views of parents, the concerns of teachers and the advice of academics.” (Brian Boyd. Emeritus Prof. Of Education) “If free schools are doing well (except for some!) because they are free from local authority control and can decide things for themselves, does that mean that Gove will now introduce a bill bringing the national curriculum to an end, instead of extending it, as he currently proposes, even including pressure on how to teach phonics ? The National Curriculum does not have to be taught in free schools or academies, anyway, so why impose it on local authority schools?” (Prof. Norman Thomas, St Albans)

The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham council are proposing to close Sulivan Primary School in order to provide a site for a Free School.If the Council are successful in their closure the land Sulivan occupies would be given away by the council to a Church of England Free secondary school for 800 boys. Sulivan would then be merged with a primary school who are currently applying to become an academy. If the proposal goes ahead there will be a 20% decline in primary places on offer. This is a political decision not an educational one! Want to tell the Council how you feel about this? Please fill in the lbhf Consultation Form http://buff.ly/1ektOA0 it will only take 5 minutes and is vital to our campaign. The community are proud of Sulivan. It is an all inclusive school, Ofsted awarded good with outstanding features. The children's well being and happiness gained a top score in its last inspection. It is 89% full and its role is ever increasing (76% of parents chose Sulivan reception as their first choice). The nursery and reception are full with a waiting list. This year Sulivan celebrated its best SAT results ever. The one storey building is well maintained and is accessible for children with disabilities. There are nature gardens, a pond, meadow and playgrounds. The children grow food and cook in a special kitchen and outdoor science lessons are taught. Music lessons are provided by a full time music teacher and Spanish is taught in every Key Stage 2 class. There is so much (and more) Sulivan offer to the children who attend. If the council close this unique and wonderful school it will have a devastating effect on 300 children, their parents, carers, teachers and support staff. Please help us in saving Sulivan School. The Consultation deadline is 8th October 2013 and we need lots of support. Thank you! Again, if you feel strongly about what is happening to Sulivan then please complete the Councils Consultation form, http://buff.ly/1ektOA0 it's really important and will only take 5 minutes. Find out more at www.saveoursulivan.org Follow us on Twitter @saveoursulivan & Facebook savesulivanschool