Here’s a letter David sent to The Independent newspaper last week. They wrote a great article about us recently, which you can read here.

David’s letter was to clarfiy that 38 Degrees is independent of any political party, because there was a sentence or two in the article that might have made that slightly unclear.  You can see the letter we sent in below.

Sir,

Your article ‘New media give popular protest a fresh voice’ (Tue 5thJan) about 38 Degrees  Artful Dodger adverts highlighting tax-dodging was a great boost to our members’ campaign. But there was one thing we’d like to clarify.

Your article said that “Tory advisers [...] could be forgiven for thinking that the advert was the latest attack from the Labour Party”. 38 Degrees is independent of all political parties. Our members support different political parties including, in some cases, none at all.

Many of our members were disappointed with last Labour government’s record on tax dodging too. The Artful Dodger adverts focused on George Osborne because as Chancellor he could something about tax dodging but, at the moment, he’s choosing the avoid the issue.

Yours faithfully, David Babbs, Executive Director, 38 Degrees

George Osborne has been splashed across the papers the past couple of days in his new starring role as the Artful Dodger. Together, we came up with the idea for a cheeky ad to get people talking about tax dodging and we’ve done just that. We’re exposing the scandal of tax dodging and making sure we all know the truth about how much we really lose each year to super-rich tax cheats. We always said we wanted to get everyone talking: politicians, journalists and members of the public.

Photograph by 38 Degrees

The past few days have been really exciting: the phones in the 38 Degrees office haven’t stopped ringing. On Tuesday morning, you might have seen David on Sky News or BBC News talking about our ads. In fact our ads put a government minister right on the spot in a Sky News interview. Our advert was held up to challenge them directly with the presenter asking “why are you fiddling about with VAT when tax dodging costs us £120 billion?”

Together, we’ve pushed the issue of tax dodging up the agenda and the media and blog coverage over the past few days proves it. Here are some of the highlights:

Daily Mirror: “George Osborne branded the Artful Dodger”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/01/05/george-osborne-branded-the-artful-dodger-115875-22826906/

Independent: “New media give popular protest a fresh voice”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-media-give-popular-protest-a-fresh-voice-2176107.html

Guardian Politics Live Blog: 12.12pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jan/04/politics-live-blog

Irish Times: “Billboard campaign to target avoiders and evaders of tax”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0105/1224286779740.html

Media Week: “Newspapers spike ad targeting Osborne’s tax record”
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/rss/1047846/Newspapers-spike-ad-targeting-Osbornes-tax-record/

Left Foot Forward: “Mail and Telegraph pull anti-tax-dodger ads”
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/mail-and-telegraph-pull-anti-tax-dodging-ads

If you spot any interesting blog posts or articles post them in the comments below so that we can all read them.

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:

Photograph by 38 Degrees

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

Photograph by 38 Degrees

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.”

Here’s a blast about tax dodging we sent out to our members today:

Photograph by altogetherfool (Flickr)

Dear friend,

George Osborne is a pretty convincing Artful Dodger! He’s certainly good at dodging the issue of tax cheats. 38 Degrees members have helped come up with an eye-catching advert to put our Chancellor on the spot, and face the question he’s been trying to avoid: why won’t he get tough on tax dodging?

VAT goes up on the 4th of January. That day, George Osborne will be doing the media rounds, claiming there’s no alternative to a VAT hike and cuts to our schools and hospitals. He’ll claim “we’re all in this together” – but the truth is that some of the richest currently pay far less tax than the rest of us.

We can break through his spin and change the debate with attention-grabbing ads on the same day. Instead of his carefully rehearsed spin, we’ll ensure that everywhere George Osborne goes he’ll be asked tough questions about tax dodging.

George Osborne keeps telling us that our national debt is all down to benefit cheats and bloated public services. But that’s not the whole story. Up to £120bn is lost to tax cheats every year. That’s 15 times more than benefit cheats cost us! It’s more than the entire NHS budget and over three times the amount we spend on schools. If money is so tight, why doesn’t George Osbourne want to tackle tax cheats?

George Osborne seems to think tax dodging is okay. He does it, as do senior Tories like Sir Philip Green and Lord Ashcroft. He made a secret deal with Vodafone to write off £6bn in tax. He stays silent whilst businesses like Kraft announce new plans to dodge tax. And now he wants to give massive tax breaks to corporate giants. He says ‘we’re all in this together’. But the reality is he is refusing to make the super-rich pay their fair share.

If we raise enough money to get these ads all over the papers, it will create a media stir and help expose ‘we’re all in this together’ as a hollow soundbite. We’ll put the issue of tax dodging where George Osborne can’t avoid it – in our national press on the day of the VAT tax hike.

We’ll need to raise £20,000 to get our ads in all the papers.

Thanks for getting involved,

David, Hannah, Johnny, Charlotte and the 38 Degrees team

PS. Since 38 Degrees members voted to launch a campaign on tax dodging, we’ve really started a debate! One writer in The Observer got so fired up that he wrote a whole comment piece about us, the most viewed article on the whole website! And only this week, ActionAid and The Guardian exposed the company behind Grolsch and Peroni beer as tax dodgers. We’re proving that when we work together we can force tax dodging up the agenda. Please donate now to put George Osborne on the spot on the day that VAT goes up: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/artful-dodger.

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.

38 Degrees volunteers Eleanor and Rob visited the Treasury today and handed in the Crack Down On Tax Cheats petition.

Over 13,000 members signed the petition and now your signatures and comments are sitting on George Osborne’s desk. We’re calling on him to protect the resources of the men and women who are trying to catch the super-rich bankers and billionaires that cost us £42 billion in lost tax.

Thousands of 38 Degrees members discussed and voted on what we should do about the cuts. Together we chose to campaign on super-rich tax dodgers who have avoided paying billions.

Now, when Osborne is finishing making his final decisions about the Comprehensive Spending Review, he and his team will know about our campaign and that we won’t stand for him making life easier for rich tax dodgers.

How can we influence George Osborne and the rest of the government?

In October, the government will be publishing plans to massively cut public spending. Many 38 Degrees members have been in touch expressing concern about the government’s plans and with ideas for ways in which we could work together to influence the debate.

38 Degrees has a huge impact because thousands of us work together. That includes deciding what we do together. What do you think we should do together as the new government prepares to slash spending? Please leave your suggestions and comments here.

Over the last few days, thousands of us have signed the petition asking George Osborne to stand firm on his commitment to raise Capital Gains Tax. At the same time, a huge number of us also emailed him asking directly for him to stick to his promises.

With just hours to go before the emergency budget, we’ve made sure that Osbourne knows how many people want him to stick to his promises. 38 Degrees volunteers went to the Treasury yesterday to drop off the petition, so that George Osborne knows just how many of us want Capital Gains Tax brought into line with income tax.

We’ll be keeping a watch to see what happens when the budget is annouced. In the meantime, click here to donate to our campaign against unfair spending cuts the government is planning: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/fight-unfair-cuts/