Some good news. We’ve just got the results for our people-powered bid to get cheaper gas and electricity prices. The Co-op has come forward with the cheapest offer. And it looks like those of us taking part could save a grand total of £25 million.

The winning tariffs from Co-operative Energy will be £1,048 a year for the average household if they pay by Direct Debit, and £1,144 a year if they pay by cash or cheque. This means that on average people who have signed up could save £119 if they pay by Direct Debit, or £182 for those who pay by cash or cheque.

200,000 households will be offered an average saving of £123 a year. An estimated 35,000 households, currently on the worst value tariffs, could reduce their bills by over £200.

This proves our plan to use our shared buying power to drive a harder bargain can work. But it’s also great news that Co-operative Energy – a newer, smaller and more ethical supplier – managed to offer the cheapest deal.

The Co-op offered us a better price than giants like British Gas. Maybe that’s got something to do with their different business model – they don’t pay their bosses whopping bonuses, and they’re keener on green energy. When thousands of us switch over, we’ll send a signal to the huge, profit-hungry companies: gas and electricity customers are taking their power back!

This all started last autumn, when 38 Degrees members first voted to challenge spiraling gas and electricity bills. Thousands of us discussed what we should do. Together we came up with the idea of using our power as customers to try to get a cheaper deal. So we teamed up with consumer experts Which? and “The Big Switch” was born!

Since then we’ve worked together to build momentum. We’ve signed petitions. We’ve forwarded e-mails to our friends. We wrote to our MPs and local papers. And thousands of us signed up to take part and switch supplier. [4] It looks like all this hard work has paid off.

This is a great step forward – and a real challenge to the power of the gas and electricity giants. But let’s hope it’s just the start. This is about more than some of us saving money – it’s about making sure that everyone can afford to heat their homes. For now the weather might be getting (at least a little bit) warmer. But there’s still a risk that too many families will struggle next winter.

So next time someone tries to tell us there is nothing we can do about gas and electricity prices, we’ve got a very convincing answer! We know that by working together in the last few months we’ve saved UK energy customers up to £25 million. And we know that if we keep working together, we can do much more in the future.

Do you have any ideas about what we should be doing next to help bring down gas and electricity bills? Share your ideas and see what other members are suggesting below.

Yesterday, the government set out its new plans for the year ahead in the Queen’s Speech. It’s just what we feared: they want new powers to invade our privacy. They plan to collect and keep information on all of us about who we call, text and email, and which websites we visit. And they won’t need a warrant or reason.

There’s still time to stop them. If enough of us work together, we can get these plans scrapped. We can build a huge movement to stand up for our freedom and our right to privacy as law-abiding British citizens.

Last year, hundreds of thousands of people worked together until we stopped the government’s plan to sell off England’s woodlands. We can do it again – but we need big numbers. Can you sign the petition?

Last week, David Cameron and Nick Clegg took a real pounding in local elections up and down the country. Now lots of their MPs are squabbling about what the government should do to try to win back voters.

Our civil liberties have taken a battering in recent years from politicians of all backgrounds. Now it’s time to for us to push back. If hundreds of thousands of us demand that politicians protect our freedoms instead of grabbing more power, they’ll see the tide is turning. It’s time to tear up the Big Brother plans – let’s get started today!

Help build a massive people-powered petition to protect our freedoms by adding your name then sharing it on Facebook and Twitter

Philippa Newis the Policy Officer at Gingerbread, a national charity for single parent families, gives us an update on Legal Aid changes: 

The Legal Aid, Punishment and Sentencing of Offenders Bill (LAPSO) received Royal Assent on 1st May. The Bill, now Act, courted controversy from the start; taking an axe to the pot of money available for legal aid and restricting the issues that are eligible for funding.

Legal aid has now been removed from private family law. This means that people on low incomes can no longer receive legal aid to get help from a lawyer if they are separating from their spouse or partner and have been unable to agree arrangements for their children. Without access to legal aid, parental disputes can go unresolved for years, leaving kids trapped between warring parents and exposed to ongoing conflict and acrimony.

The exception to this is when someone has been a victim of domestic violence, an important concession in the Bill.  But when we read the small print in the original draft of the Bill, we realised that the vast majority of domestic violence victims would never be able to provide the evidence required to get legal aid. Why? Because domestic violence is grossly under-reported. Very few victims ever call the police, let alone secure a conviction against their abuser. However, we do know that victims routinely seek help from their GP, social worker or a domestic violence charity.

This aspect of the Bill became the focus for much campaigning by a range of organisations, including Gingerbread. After almost a year of campaigning we now have an Act of Parliament which may be far from perfect, but within which we’ve managed to secure some crucial changes to ensure victims of domestic violence can access legal aid to protect themselves and their children from the risk of ongoing violence and conflict. We’ve got a definition that covers all forms of violence, not just physical. And we’ve got a commitment to broaden the forms of evidence allowed to include a written statement from GPs and other statutory agencies.

Does that signal an end to our campaigning?  Absolutely not. Away from the glare of the media, work on secondary legislation gets underway. This is when the meat gets put on the bones of an Act. Crucially, the regulations will detail the types of evidence victims of domestic violence will need to produce to access legal aid for private family law. These will be tabled in the autumn and will be voted on by MPs. We’ve come a long way, but we need to make sure government stands by its promises when the media circus moves on and that additional forms of evidence are included, such as a supporting statement from a domestic violence charity.

As seasoned campaigners know, change takes time and persistence. Organisations like Gingerbread will continue to need 38 degrees’ members, and your support and committed activism. Next stop: regulations. We’ve got another opportunity to get this right so let’s grab it with both hands.

What do you think about the Legal Aid Bill? Do you want to see further campaigning on this issue? Share your ideas in the comments section below.

Photo by IvanClow (flickr)

We’re so close. This time next week, more than 120,000 members of 38 Degrees and Which? will be offered the chance to save money on our gas and electricity bills. Our people-powered effort to stop the big gas and electricity companies from ripping us off is working.

The good news? There’s still time to join in! Tomorrow, experts from the independent consumer association Which? will hold a ‘reverse auction’ – where the big gas and electricity companies will compete to offer us the cheapest deal. Then, from next weekend, each of us can choose to switch to the winner.

The amount you’ll save should be significant — worth the effort of filling in a quick online form. You just need to go to the 38 Degrees page on the Which? site and fill out your gas and electricity use.

Don’t miss out – sign up by midnight tonight to get the offer:
Sign up to The Big Switch

Here’s the video showing how the event went on the day – look out for the scrolling list of 38 Degrees sponsors in the background:

It’s election day. The polls have opened and they’ll stay open until 10pm tonight. You can vote any time between now and then, and you can still vote even if you don’t have your polling card. Experts have suggested that lots of the races could be close. So every vote could make a difference.

Despite all the campaigning in the last few weeks, there’s still a real risk that thousands of people will simply forget to vote today. In elections that may be close, these votes could make a real difference. Together, we can make sure that everyone who wants to vote, does vote.

If you think any of your friends and family might need a reminder, please forward them this email and use the link below to share the message on Facebook:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/remember-vote-facebook

In just two days, Londoners will have to the chance to vote for their next mayor. Some experts are saying it’s “too close to call”. This election each person could make a big difference to the final result.

Every election, hundreds of thousands of people don’t vote. Some people might have decided they don’t want to. But for tens of thousands of others, it’s because they just forgot.

Together, 38 Degrees members in London can help spread the word and remind friends and neighbours to use their vote. By putting leaflets through our neighbours’ doors and signing up for voting reminders by text message, we can make sure that no one forgets it’s voting day on Thursday.

Here are some leaflets and a template letter you can print out and pop through your neighbours doors.

	Click here to download leaflets
	Click here to download a template letter

Please do not modify the ‘Don’t forget to vote’ leaflet

Darren Shirley, Campaign Manager for Climate and Energy at World Wide Fund for Nature UK (WWF) has written a blog for 38 Degrees members,  as an update on David Cameron’s Cameron’s green speech.  Please share your thoughts and comments in the comments below.

“Almost six years ago to the day, WWF took David Cameron to Svalbard in the Arctic to see the impacts of climate change first hand, including a trip to the Scott Turner glacier. The trip was to be a turning point for Cameron and his party. At the time he said: “I believe that tackling climate change is a key part of my ambition for the Conservative Party to lead a new green revolution”.

The message from Cameron was clear: the Conservatives had changed; a commitment to tackling environmental problems was at the core of what he wanted to do. Pictures of him hugging a husky came to be seen as a symbolic moment in the detoxification of the party’s brand. They were no longer the ‘nasty party’.

With David Cameron having been in Downing Street for nearly two years, it was widely touted that this week he would make his first green speech since becoming PM. With ministers from around the world in London for the third Clean Energy Ministerial this was an opportunity for Cameron to live up to those promises from the days in opposition and take the lead on a global stage.

Over 15,000 supporters of 38 Degrees, and charities such as WWF and RSPB, joined forces to call on Cameron to make explicit his support on the EU increasing its ambition for reducing carbon emissions, as part of a package for decarbonising the UK and EU, and moving towards a clean energy system based on renewables.

News started seeping out on Twitter early in the week that the speech wasn’t going to happen. It became clear that Cameron had downgraded the speech. In the end, he gave a few remarks to a roundtable of Ministers. It wasn’t the strong speech or ‘major policy intervention’ that had been expected. With the spotlight on the government’s record on tackling climate change and promoting renewable energy, what we ended up with was deeply worrying and more of a damp squib than a keynote speech.

Given the PM has often seemed reluctant to intervene in an increasingly negative debate among members of the cabinet and his backbenchers (over 100 Conservative backbenchers wrote to him attacking wind power, and recent comments from other ministers have suggested that Britain does not need any more onshore wind farms) the lack of a proper speech is not a good signal on his support for an important part of the UK economy – an area that has the potential for massive growth and job creation.

The mixed messages from government of late is hitting business and investor confidence at a time when we need them to be investing in the UK’s much needed transition to renewable energy whilst cutting carbon emissions.

Given David Cameron’s personal commitment to lead the “greenest government ever” we believe his green speech is overdue. We need David Cameron to take control of his party, Cabinet, and government on climate change and energy. It’s time he showed leadership to the country that will give businesses the confidence to invest in the future of energy and cutting carbon.”

Darren Shirley, Campaign Manager (Climate & Energy), WWF UK

Thanks Darren!

What do you think? What should we do next? Should we make Cameron stand up and lead on climate change and energy?

Here are some more photos from the event:

Brilliant news – it’s just been announced that Eddy Cosmas is to be granted asylum in Britain. Thanks to the efforts of various campaigning groups, including Movement for Justice, and 38 Degrees members.

Some 38 Degrees members may remember Eddy’s story from just under a year ago. Eddy was a gay rights activist from Tanzania, who was seeking asylum in Britain as he faced life imprisonment in Tanzania for being gay.

At the time the Home Office was looking to fast-track Eddy’s deportation on the grounds that he had no legitimate grounds for claiming asylum, ignoring the complex nature of his case.

‘Fast-tracking’ was a practise set in place by the Home Office more than a decade ago to deal more quickly with asylum seekers whom it was judged, had no legitimate grounds for seeking asylum. Despite evidence to suggest that it was not safe for Eddy to be returned to Tanzania, the Home Office was insisting that he had no case.

38 Degrees members played a key role. Thousands of  us emailed Theresa May asking her to reconsider the case however, the Home Office was recently forced to reassess Eddy’s case, deciding in favour of his asylum request.

By working together with campaigners such as, LGBT Asylum News and our friends at AllOut.org, we were able to prevent Eddy’s rushed deportation. This gave the Home Office time to consider his case properly – and ultimately to decide to grant him asylum.