On 22 May 2014 GP's are to vote on whether to introduce appointment charges (estimated £10 - £25 per visit). If this vote is passed it could mean the end of our NHS, free at the point of use. The NHS is currently being dismantled under the guise of an ineffective system and more consumer choice. Increased GP workload and patient demand driving this issue is largely as a result of government policy, hospital closures and privatisation. GP income has fallen by design and patient charges are not the answer. "How many times are we going to fall into the traps set by our political masters?" asks Gurdave Gill, GP Partner writing on the Pulse Today website. "Patient charges are NOT the answer. User charges deter the sick and poor as much as the 'worried well'. Expensive and bureaucratic to collect, evidence shows patients delay seeking medical advice when user charges are introduced. Delay in diagnosis can cause significant harm. If we know this to be fact, to introduce charges appears to suggest that our incomes are more important than any potential harm to the patients. Is this ethical? "The current crisis in Primary care has been manufactured to create a pressure from GPs for charges. [...] We should be demanding increased resources from Government and not our patients. The NHS returned £5bn underspend to the treasury in the last 3 years. The cost of the purchaser-provider split exceeds £10bn pa yet delivers absolutely no patient gain at roughly the entire cost of primary care! {...] We need to identify the correct target and demand our representative bodies are more effective rather than the incompetence/collusion with Government we have seen in recent past. The minority of pro-privatisation GPs leading the call for charges need to be recognised for what they are. We must not be persuaded by the 'greedy and dims' amongst us.” And how about that consumer choice? Right now we have the best of both, individual private healthcare and tax-payer funded. Both are a form of 'paid for' healthcare, one is paid for by the individual, the other paid for and negotiated collectively. If the asset strip continues we will only have the most expensive poorly-negotiated option open to any of us. That is no choice at all. UPDATE The BMA's current position on this motion as outlined to one of our members, obviously, it would be naive to rest on these laurels: "The BMA's current position is not in favour of charging patients for GP appointments. Introducing charging would undermine the basis of the NHS; that healthcare is free at the point of use, and patients receive care based on their clinical need. A fee charging system could require an expensive bureaucracy to collect money from patients. It is also possible that the charges may deter vulnerable patients from seeing their GP which could lead to delays in treatment. However, there will be a motion debated at the Local Medical Committee (LMC) conference in York later this month. If the motion is carried, this does not mean it will become BMA policy. BMA Policy is decided at our Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in July [ed- It's actually Sunday 22 - Thursday 26 June 2014] and motions are proposed by individual branch of practice conferences (e.g. GPs, consultants, junior doctors etc) and submitted for debate by geographical divisions. It would require further consideration by the BMA's leadership and the BMA's Annual Representative Meeting in July. It is understandable that GPs are looking at raising these kind of ideas, given the enormous pressure on GP services. Many GP practices are struggling from a combination of rising patient demand and falling funding that ministers have failed to recognise. However, the BMA feels that we don't need a complicated and unfair charging system to be introduced for GP appointments. We need the government to provide the resources to enable GPs to deliver the care that their patients need. I hope this is helpful and that it clarifies the BMA position for you." Links: Facebook page that inspired this petition: https://www.facebook.com/healthcharge Pulse Today - GP leaders to vote on whether to support patient charges for appointments: http://bit.ly/1lrI1gg LMC Conference - Full Agenda: http://bit.ly/fullagenda BMC/GPC: http://bit.ly/bmcandgpc BMC Annual Meeting: http://bma.org.uk/working-for-change/arm-2014-info Wessex LMC: http://bit.ly/aboutWessex

MP's appear to work very hard to get elected and then they go off the boil - let's turn that on it's head and make them work equally hard once the dust settles.

MI6 is alleged to have "organised" two high-profile murders in 1961: Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in January and UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in September. Together with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), MI6 is also alleged to have targeted UN Assistant Secretary-General Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 which was sabotaged over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. In 2014, because incriminating evidence has recently come to light, the United Nations is expected to launch an inquiry into these state sponsored murders. (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/The_How,_Why_and_Who_of_Pan_Am_Flight_103#Naming_names)

This is the petition that the Boatyard Inn has been asking its customers to sign: Your Voice Counts! Following the recent notice served by local courts, requesting that The Boatyard Inn alters it’s licensing hours due to public nuisance and child protection issues, we ask you to sign the following petition and Make Your Voice Heard! Here at The Boatyard Inn we pride ourselves on providing efficient, friendly service to every single customer. As you can probably see as you look around our pub, a warm friendly attitude is focal to our success, and we give the utmost respect to our customers. We have hosted numerous charity events, only a couple weeks ago we raised £1000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. We pride ourselves on our true sense of community. If you feel that the Boatyard Inn is a safe, relaxed, comfortable environment for both adults and children; a welcoming, homely pub serving the local clientele and tourists; a hive of community and charity based events, with hardworking staff, please sign and make your voice heard. Thank you, Everyone here at The Boatyard Inn. ########################################## The Boatyard Inn website here: http://www.theboatyardinn.org.uk/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/theboatyardbangor ########################################## You can contact the Council here: Licensing Section Council Offices Llangefni Anglesey LL54 6LE Tel: 01248 752847 E-mail licensing@anglesey.gov.uk

The current uncontrolled and incoherent construction of high-rise buildings dominating the London skyline to the detriment of both local areas and the city's general appearance needs to be brought under control. According to the Evening Standard, planning permission has been given for a further 288 high-rises, with who knows how many more to come? A coherent, effective and independent process (including proper consultation with those who will be most affected by the new buildings) that takes into account the visual, social and economic impact on those who have to live and work in their shadows needs to be established, preventing the permanent destruction of the city for the benefit of a few property developers and absentee owners. London desperately needs both affordable and social housing for those of us who work and try to live in the city, but these towers are no answer to that, and instead replace much-loved and familiar streetscapes that can offer the high-density, low-rise accommodation that most people want. Their architecture is all too often either mediocre or the result of famous architects exercising their egos at our expense; in addition to which too many are built and bought by overseas purchasers seeking to secure their wealth in empty properties in London, bringing no tax benefits to the city itself and exacerbating the lack of affordable housing for the rest of us. At the moment great stretches of the Thames are being walled-off by dismal glass towers for the private enjoyment of their occupants (to the extent that they are occupied) and the exclusion of all others. Even the status of Houses of Parliament as a Unesco World Heritage site is threatened by these invasive monsters. Offering £5000 in compensation to people whose houses would be permanently deprived of direct sunlight (as was recently offered by property developers on the Mount Pleasant site) is not only insulting but an admission of the deleterious effect these buildings can have on their neighbours. We need all those, including the millions of tourists who visit us every year, who love the chaotic, multitudinous, living creature that is London, to make known their rejection of these tacky gleaming stakes through its heart.

To the residents of Exeter, people who work in Exeter and visit Exeter, together with those who love Exeter… In an increasingly commercialised world, people should have the freedom to choose when they are exposed to advertising. In public open spaces we should be free from private and commercial interest and advertising should not be allowed to disfigure our city. We are Citizens not Consumers. Imaging how much more beautiful our city could be if it were not covered up by ugly advertising hoardings. Sao Paulo, Auckland, Bergen, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and 1,500 towns throughout the world have already banned external advertising. In the UK, Bristol has a campaign to ban outdoor adverts. Plymouth has already banned adverts for pay-day loan companies, whilst Leeds, Newcastle and Bristol are considering it. We should add our wonderful city to the growing movement to reclaim our open spaces. CONSUMER PRESSURE: Excessive advertising encourages us to run ever faster on the treadmill of modern consumer life with damaging consequences. It contributes to growing consumer debt and to the consumption of ever increasing amounts of the earth’s finite resources. Additionally advertising is increasingly sowing the seeds of unhappiness by persuading the consumer to be dissatisfied with what they have got, and so creating an artificial need to buy the next thing. Evidence from the Good Childhood Inquiry indicates that the most vulnerable groups to commercial pressures - children and young people - show higher rates of mental health problems. Removing advertising in public spaces, such as billboards, would free us in our outdoor environment from the pressure to consume and allow us to see previously obscured parts of our city. Any remaining empty spaces can be reclaimed for the purpose of art, poetry and inspiring social campaigns (e.g. volunteering, encouraging recycling). VISUAL POLLUTION: Currently there are laws on air pollution, noise pollution and light pollution - now is the time to take back our city from this visual pollution so that we can be citizens rather than just consumers. There is no doubt that the removal of advertising can change the appearance of our city enormously and allow us to see parts of the city previously hidden to us, opening up new exciting vistas. For more information see – “The Advertising Effect” http://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/the-advertising-effect-how-do-we-get-the-balance-of-advertising-right/ Joint campaign by Exeter Friends of the Earth and Steady State Devon

To save people on using these from having to go on extremely busy roads risking life and limb https://vimeo.com/94511111

It is completely immoral and unscrupulous to declare only 0.1% of your profit for tax when Amazon UK made over £4bn in sales last year. Other major retailers pay their fair share and this represents a completely unequal situation which is unethical and unfair. Just by claiming it is acceptable under EU tax law is no defence. By basing the business in Luxembourg allows amazon to pay a fraction of the tax it should pay as all of its turnover is generated in the UK. Starbucks did the same thing and they were shamed into action, largely thanks to public pressure.

As someone who has had to put up with noise I have been horrified by the apathy of the authorities. despite being able to hear noise from a household that was not my direct neighbor the police could not act. If you contact the council department responsible for dealing with the problem you find that you have to make a formal complaint during normal working hours which means that the culprits are notified of YOUR complaint even before the local authority bothers to collect evidence which they will then want to do. A much simpler solution is that the police are called and that they witness and deal with the problem on the spot and perhaps leave until later a return to the property to confiscate equipment used to make excessive noise. In every neighborhood there are people who have to go to work and it is unacceptable that they should have to put up with excessive noise. I personally have witnessed where a noise complaint has been made it has resulted in retaliation from the perpetrators in the form of damage to property resulting in £1000's of damage done and the victim has had to move with the police unwilling or unable to intervene and the local authority uninterested and other neighbors too worried of retaliation to offer supporting evidence. Many people do not report noise problems and suffer in silence because they FEAR retaliation which is a highly realistic risk.

Southsea seafront is at a tipping point. After years of neglect symbolised by the deterioration of South Parade Pier the people of Portsmouth have a decision to make. Should they give up and allow Southsea to become a home for bland flats, or should they at least attempt to bring back vibrancy, money and life to what is one of the most spectacular seafronts on the south coast of England? You can see the proposals here: http://www.mccarthyandstone-consultation.co.uk/southsea

Portsmouth's seafront is a jewel in the crown of the south coast. The people of Portsmouth deserve a say in what they think its future should be. This will simply let McCarthy and Stone know that the people of Portsmouth approve of it and believe McCarthy and Stone have done the best for the people of Portsmouth by building a block of assisted living flats in a prime location on Southsea seafront.. To see the plans more fully, please go to McCarthy and Stone's website, here: http://www.mccarthyandstone-consultation.co.uk/southsea

Full stripes have been an Albion tradition for over 100 years but the apparent design will render them almost invisible. The change of design has been introduced witjhout consultation with supporters, most of whom seem to be opposed to the new look. Football support should be about heritage and identity not just marketing gimmicks to try to make new merchandising opportunities. * Petitioners will refuse to buy new shirt designs and associated merchandise.