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Protect the BBC from damaging Government interferenceIn the forthcoming license fee review, the Government will endeavour to impose severe cuts upon the BBC in order to benefit the commercial broadcasters. The Government is too close to commercial broadcasting lobbyists, and is acting in their interests, not in the public interest. In particular, abolishing the BBC Trust would serve to greatly undermine the independence of the BBC from political interference. The BBC is one of the greatest and most valuable assets to the United Kingdom, and forcing cuts for purely political, ideological purposes would represent a terrible act of cultural vandalism. The British people need to show a collective will to resist such damaging changes, and demonstrate to the Government that any actions towards privatizing the BBC would cause severe electoral consequences for the Conservative party in the future.497 of 500 SignaturesCreated by Paul Robertson
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Require CCGs to be transparent and even-handedI have been trying to obtain responses to the following queries from my local East Lancashire CCG for a long time: 1. Will the CCG treat local press and radio as primary routes for keeping the public informed of its activities? 2. Will the CCG require members with links to private sector providers to stand down? 3. Since its inception 01.04.13., what percentage of former in-house provision has the CCG awarded to private contractors? 4. In awarding contracts, what criteria do the CCG apply other than cost? In effect, the answers to '1' and '2', were 'no'. After prevarication, the answer given to '3' is 0%. Working conditions, etc., were not included in answer to '4'. The failure to treat local media as primary routes for keeping the public informed makes a mockery of East Lancashire CCG's commitment to be '... accountable to local people'. Failing to exclude persons with private sector health provision connections brings into question the award of contracts to such organisations. Local GPs have formed a private limited company, and our CCG is 'Led by clinicians ...'. Should a contract be awarded to the GPs' company, no matter how properly, can we imagine the response of the big beasts of private health provision? The CCG could be mired in legal challenges, at enormous cost, and with attendant delays to the provision of medical care. 0% to private contractors is difficult to reconcile with findings obtained under freedom of information legislation for the period April 2013-August 2014: ‘... analysis of the data supplied by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) showed that 1149 contracts (33% of the total) were awarded to private sector providers ...’. BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) ‘A third of NHS contracts have gone to private sector ...’. 10.12.14. Other than emphasising, ‘Quality of service’, the CCG had nothing to add to an earlier response. When awarding contracts, the CCG's omission of criteria re. working conditions, employee rights, wages, zero hours contracts, and materials’ sourcing plays to the advantage of private health providers. (Just type 'private health providers' and 'scandals' into a search engine. I did so, with about 658,000 results in 0.30 seconds.) Incidentally, I put these matters to East Lancashire CCG by email 29.03.15. To date, I have had no reply. Maybe my follow-up letter to our local paper, the Rossendale Free Press, published 01.05.15, will be more successful in prompting a response. It is worth pointing out that I do not raise these concerns as a private individual. I belong to a local Patient Participation Group (PPG) and am charged with handling '... any dealings with, and to do with, the CCG on behalf of the PPG.' Not only does the CCG show itself unaccountable to local people in general, but it doesn't see the need to account to our local Patient Participation Group. I can't imagine that concerns over my local CCG are not reflected across the entire country. Please support this petition if you share those concerns.112 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Peter J D Savage
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Don't let pro-hanging Michael Gove touch our Human RightsIn 1998, around the time the Human Rights Act was enacted in the UK, Michael Gove publicly called for hanging to be brought back. Michael Gove does not represent UK public opinion on justice and should resign as Justice Secretary and not touch our Human Rights.120 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Nick Dugdale
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Proposed abolition of the Human Rights ActThe human rights act protects liberty, freedom of speech and the basic human rights people fought and died for.140 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Geraldine Farrow
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Pro Democracy Electoral PactThe current system of voting for the House of Commons is grossly unfair and clearly unfit for the multi party climate we now have in Britain. People struggle to engage in politics because, very often, they feel unrepresented. This leads to a situation where people become vulnerable to those who have their own vested interests. The current system allows the possibility that extreme political parties can take control of Government despite getting a minority of the popular vote. A proportionally representative voting system was imposed on post war West Germany in order to help ensure that fascists would not retake control.31 of 100 SignaturesCreated by Cliff Grout
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save the UK 1998 Human Rights ActDavid Cameron has just appointed Michael Gove as Justice Secretary and his remit is to abolish the 1998 Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. The legislation will be introduced in the next parliamentary session. Or aim is 10 million signatures by the end of August 2015 and to put voting pressure on those decent-minded Conservatives such as Kenneth Clarke and Dominic Grieve (the latter was forced out over this issue). We can defeat David Cameron and Michael Gove in parliament when the legislation comes to a vote this autumn. If it does pass the House of Commons, we need to ensure it is defeated in the Lords and then keep fighting via legal challenges.131 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Christopher Morton
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Keep A-levels and GCSEs at City College Plymouth (Goschen).This enables people, who perhaps weren't so successful in previous educational facilities, to have a second chance. This would allow people to have the chance to leave their schools and enjoy a new experience in a different learning environment. Signing the petition would ensure job security for teachers, and help students to realise their full potential. Plymouth City Council have just granted a further £4 million funding to the College but despite this, A-Level and GCSE progammes are still being cut and over 200 students that applied to study in the upcoming academic year are left unable to access the subjects they need to get into university and other areas of higher education. This will continue to effect students for years to come if nothing is changed.1,169 of 2,000 SignaturesCreated by Adam Bassett
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Newspaper corrections should be the same size as the mistake!We saw lots of tiny corrections following big (and incorrect!) headlines during this election campaign. The changes to the way corrections are published was a key recommendation from the Leveson Inquiry that both the Conservatives and Labour agreed to adopt. It's time for Ofcom to make sure corrections are the proper size and place. The Times front page from 24th April 2015 had the headline 'Labour's £1000 tax on families' - it was completely inaccurate. The Times published a correction on the 2nd May, but it was buried deep in the paper. If they had to publish their correction on the front page - where the original article sat - it would have been a prominent and therefore just correction. The front page would have looked like this: 'Our headline about Labour's tax on families was inaccurate: Some of these taxes and levies will only apply to companies, and the others will affect a small minority of families, not “every working family” as we reported.' It would be a just and fair way to report corrections that would have a deterrent effect on mistakes, media bias and failure to check facts.510 of 600 SignaturesCreated by Lisa Whalley
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the homeless periodThe main cause of vaginal infection is poor hygiene for homeless woman this is not an option they either eat or buy Tampax or sanitary towels food being the main priority for some otherwise the hunger pains are terrible. But which is less dignified? Stealing tampons and towels or not having one at all? Why should homeless woman have to rip clothes etc to stick between their legs because they have nothing? Something needs to be done and so I'm raising awareness @i have a name project and @the homeless period.330 of 400 SignaturesCreated by amber childs
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Demand Secret Tory donations list.Who aided the Tories in gaining votes in swing vote areas. Well we don't know because a section of the Torys campaign fund comes from a club who's donors do not have to declare their donations by keeping them small. However small these donations may be at the end of last year the United and Cecil club donated £67,500 pounds to the The Conservative Party and since the previous election have donated around half a million. As our Prime Minister David Cameron should declare who these people are. I want to know whom our government is influenced by and seeing as some of the registered donors include rapists, tax avoiders and importers of companies goods who's long list of human rights abuses could make a person weep, I am very worried as to why the Tories would take such evasive action for these particular donations. Join me in uncovering more Tory secrets.141 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Majik Williams
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An alliance on the leftWith the conservatives now given free reign to make boundary changes, and with the left split between at least three parties, it will be even more difficult to defeat them at the next election. Between the three parties, it is clear that there is more support for a left of centre government, but the electoral system prevents this from being expressed. The three parties need to come together (at least temporarily) to defeat the conservatives and to lay the foundations for fair elections in the future. By standing a single or combined candidate, and by encouraging cross party support on the ground from activists, seats that no single party can win will instead fall to at least one of the parties of the left. Ask yourselves which is more important? To each stand candidates that are highly likely to lose, or to cooperate to throw out the conservatives.27 of 100 SignaturesCreated by Kevin Stevenson
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Make Politics a Compulsory Part of Education.This campaign is very basic: teach children about politics. Politics is arguably one of the most important things in this modern society, yet a lot of people don't seem to have a real understanding of politics and how our system works. The media is dominated by the likes of big boss Rupert Murdoch, making most of the places people look to for information incredibly, biased with no other real, credible alternative available. If the only place you can muster up an opinion on politics is from places that class all people on benefits as "scroungers" and ridicule politicians on the way they eat a sandwich - can you really create a valid opinion on politics? At the minute, Citizenship is compulsory in state schools. This is a subject not entirely based on politics, meaning the information gained in some places can be limited. Also, as this is only made compulsory in state schools, it means that 56% of schools do not have to teach Citizenship. And with the amount of schools converting into academies, it will only be a matter of time before this is number is increased. Teaching Citizenship to less than half of the teenagers in the UK is not enough. Everyone needs to have a strong understanding of how our government works and basic ideas of each political party in order to make an informed decision on who to vote for. Do you really want people voting blindly? What I’m proposing is that the basics of politics i.e. types of government, different voting systems, differences in political parties and a history of what those parties have done in government be taught to children. Whether that be making a completely separate subject for politics which teenagers have to learn from year seven to year nine or having one lesson of politics a week for a year is irrelevant - all I’m after is an opportunity for young people to learn about politics. By having politics a compulsory part of education, it can have so many benefits. Obviously, with more people aware of party policies, it's likely more people would vote, meaning a fairer representation in parliament of what everyone wants and people will not be following ill-informed information from bias newspapers. On top of this, if more young people are exposed to politics, it can increase an interest in politics for young people which could potentially lead to working class people developing careers in politics, meaning people would be better represented in parliament. Politics is vital to all of our lives. We need to be more aware of what we're voting for and have access to unbiased information about politics.279 of 300 SignaturesCreated by Emily Pilbeam
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