Several 38 Degrees members have been in touch to say that their MP has replied to them about the forest sell-off – not only saying they do support selling the forests but also describing 38 Degrees as “the Labour campaign website 38 Degrees”.  So I am pasting below a copy of an email I just sent to Charlotte Leslie MP, one of the MPs to make this allegation.

It’s worrying that this seems to bepart of a firm response used by several different Conservative MPs – does that mean it’s a coordinated smear? Or do some MPs just seriously believe that the only reason to oppose forest selloffs is being part of the Labour Party? In any case, just to be clear – 38 Degrees is independent of all political parties.

If your MP has been in touch to claim that 38 Degrees is part of the Labour Party, please let us know and please get back to them to set them straight.

Dear Charlotte,

Several 38 Degrees members have forwarded emails from you in which you describe 38 Degrees as an “Labour campaign website”.

38 Degrees is independent of all political parties. 38 Degrees members are supporters of many different political parties, or none at all. The reason we are running a campaign against the government’s proposals to sell off public forests is because 38 Degrees members asked us to when we consulted them.  You can read a lot more about 38 Degrees here: http://38degrees.org.uk/pages/about/

I understand that you strongly disagree with our stance on the issue of forests office, but I hope you will accept that it is possible to disagree with government policy without being part of the Labour Party. 38 Degrees has in the past campaigned against plenty of Labour Party policies – for example, when the Conservatives were in opposition, 38 Degrees members contacted their MPs asking them to vote in favour of a Conservative Opposition Day Motion calling for Parliament to support the 10:10 campaign. On that occasion, a couple Labour MPs accused 38 Degrees of being a Conservative organisation – I sent those MPs a message rather similar to this one!

I hope now I’ve been in touch to explain you will avoid sending inaccurate information about 38 Degrees to your constituents in the future. I’d be very happy to chat further about 38 Degrees if you would like to do so — my number is below.

Yours sincerely,

David Babbs

Last week we discovered that Jeremy Hunt had entered into confidential meetings with Rupert Murdoch over the future of Murdoch’s BSkyB bid.

In November 38 Degrees handed in 60,000 messages to Ofcom asking them to get the bid in front of the Competition Commission. At Christmas an Emergency Petition was put forward pointing out that Jeremy Hunt would not make an impartial judge. On New Year’s Eve Hunt got Ofcom’s report and has been sitting on it ever since.

Murdoch in meetings with Hunt

It has now emerged that Hunt has been having meetings with Murdoch’s people. He could be trying to find ways to make a deal with Murdoch’s advisers.

Now it’s our turn to get involved. Together we can get in touch with our MPs and ask them to put pressure on Hunt to ensure the report goes public and into the hands of the Competition Commission. But we don’t have long.

This is a fast moving campaign that needs quick responses. We’ve already had success in standing up to Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB power grab and now we need to do it again. To take action click here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/hunts-secret-meetings

Here’s Robert Peston’s blog outlining more of the details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/01/ofcom_says_news_corps_sky_bid.html

Over the last few days lots of people have asked if they can download and use the “Crack down on Tax Dodgers” ad. That is of course absolutely fine!

If you want to download it and use it on your blog, facebook, twitter or something else just click here to download it then let us know how you use in the comments below.

Here’s how the ad looks:

This morning our “George Osborne The Artful Dodger” tax dodger ad was meant to run in the Metro, Guardian, Indepdendent and the i.

It has become clear that the Daily Mail group of newspapers (which includes the Metro) pulled out of running our ads at the last minute – they were meant to appear in the Metro this morning but there was no sign of them. We’re trying to find out what their excuses are and will update this blog post with the latest developments.

The Telegraph also refused to run the ad.

You can view the ad here: on page 28 of the i, page 18 of the Independent and page 14 of the Guardian.

Update 1: Left Foot Forward have more details here

Update 2: Here’s the ad

Update 3: If you want to complain about our ads being pulled you can email the editors at the papers that didn’t run the ads here: managingeditor@dailymail.co.uk (Daily Mail); telegraphenquiries@telegraph.co.uk (Daily Telegraph); news.london@ukmetro.co.uk (Metro)

Update 4: We’ve just heard from the Metro why they refused to print our ad. Here’s a copy of the email they sent:
“I gave it the OK before Christmas, but said it would have to be pulled if there was any controversy, and now Conservative HQ are on the attack over the ‘tax dodger’ claims.
“I don’t have a problem with the group advertising with us but obviously we don’t want to run anything that could be viewed as libellous.”
And here’s David’s response:
“It’s a bit implausible that they were genuinely worried about libel – we had been told that the adverts had been looked at and approved by their libel lawyers several days earlier, they’d been looked at and approved by 38 Degrees libel lawyers several days before that, and several other papers felt comfortable running them.”

A few weeks ago 38 Degrees members voted in their thousands for us to work together to push the government to do more to crack down on tax dodgers.

But in the Comprehensive Spending Review, George Osborne failed to do this. He announced lots of cuts but no real new plans to deal with tax dodging. In fact, the cuts included cuts to tax inspectors who should be tackling tax dodging.

Meanwhile it has been revealed in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, also reported in the Daily Mail and The Telegraph, that three cabinet ministers including Osborne use loopholes to avoid paying tax. Many 38 Degrees members have asked: how we can trust our Chancellor to be doing all he can to close tax loopholes, when he’s profiting from the loopholes staying open?

Our campaign against tax dodging is likely to be a long one. We are going to have to keep the pressure on for some time to turn the tide on the government’s relaxed attitude to tax avoidance. Thousands of 38 Degrees Members emailed their MP to tell them that the Treasury should crackdown. Hundreds have suggested their ideas for our own tax cheats advert campaign spoofing the government’s own benefit cheats adverts. And our petition telling George Osborne it’s time he started paying his own tax is growing really fast.

Campaigning against tax dodging is not going to be an easy win, but we definitely can’t rely on the politicians to do it without us. People power is our best bet for winning this campaign.

Tens of thousands of 38 Degrees members emailed their MPs after the Conservative Minister, Jeremy Hunt, launched an attack on the BBC by announcing plans to cut the licence fee in 2012.

38 Degrees members have been adding their MPs’ replies to this page on our website, and we’ve now got replies from most MPs. Quite a few MPs have also sent their constituents a reply they received from the Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, after writing to him about the BBC.

Here’s the letter the Minister, Ed Vaizey has been sending to MPs:

On Friday, Jeremy Hunt announced that he plans to cut the BBC’s licence fee. This new attack comes just a few days we won the campaign we fought together to save 6Music.

The new Culture Minister is keen to make a start on weakning the BBC, however. This weekend, he said he was thinking about plans to cut the license fee. The new government are dipping their toes in the water, to see what sort of reaction they get. They’re under pressure to start weakening the BBC from all sides: media billionaires like Rupert Murdoch can’t wait to see the end of proper public broadcasting in the UK.

Today, there’s been a massive, people-powered response to the Culture Minister’s comments. Thousands of us have already written to our MPs, asking them to contact Jeremy Hunt and stop him going ahead with the plans – click  here to join in. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow #proudoftheBBC trending right now.

With 6 Music, we’ve proved once that when we work together we can defend the BBC from its enemies. Now we need to come together again to make sure this new threat to the BBC doesn’t go ahead.

Tonight in Camborne, 38 Degrees members will challenge the Conservative candidate, George Eustice to back a ban of secret lobbying of politicians.

I’m on the train on the way down to see meet everyone that has been campaigning hard over the last few months to ban secret lobbying. The campaign has been a huge success, thanks to local pressure now the Labour, Lib Dem, Mebyon Kernow, Green and UKIP candidates have all pledged to back a ban on secret lobbying – only George has refused. Instead he tried to use spin to attack the campaign of being a “lib dem slur”. A ridiculous accusation since it’s a grass roots campaign that has successfully persuaded 5 candidates from different parties to back a ban on secret lobbying.

In response to Eustice’s spin 38 Degrees members have started a “back the ban” petition at http://www.38degrees.org.uk/george-sign-the-pledge urging George, who used to be Cameron’s spin-doctor and recently left his job at a top London lobbying firm, to join his local rivals and support the ban on secret lobbying.

It’s such an important campaign because today big businesses can pay lobbyists millions of pounds to get their views represented and to secure influence of politicians. Today we have no right to know who is meeting who. If we’re to regain trust

in politics we need to stamp out back room secret meetings and bring transparency to Westminster.

Tonight, I’ll be at the hustings where Eustice will come face to face with all his local rivals and hundreds of members of the public keen to find out why he won’t support a ban on secret lobbying.

I’ll be blogging, tweeting (twitter.come/38_degrees) and updating the Facebook page www.facebook.com/peoplepowerchange throughout the day.