Right-wing media scaremongering about a hung parliament is dominating the airwaves. But we know that millions of us want to cast our votes with hope – of a better politics and more balanced parliament. A massive outcry by tens of thousands of us will help shift the debate. You can join the campaign here.

But before you do here is some bank holiday fun. Don’t let Murdoch be the only one writing the headlines this election. Use our new (and experimental) “Tabloid-hung-parliament-scare-story-headline-generator” to create your own hung parliament scary story.

Post the link to your own headline below when you’re done and we’ll update this post with our favourites.

Here’s one to get you started:

So don’t delay – create your headline today: http://labs.38degrees.org.uk/headline/

Note: This tool was cobbled together in a few hours today by the fantastic team at Rechord. If you have any problems or suggestions to improve it do let us know in the comments below.

Here are some more we’ve just received:

Holy crap! See the image here and: http://bit.ly/9IuCFR

and another:

Hung Parliaments Cause Volcanic Eruptions http://bit.ly/adQdYJ

and another:

and another:

Back in July, the Wright Committee was set up to suggest reforms for the House of Commons. Now MPs are being given the chance to vote on these reforms.

At the moment, the government has too much control in Parliament and the MPs – the people who directly represent us – don’t have enough.  If the Committee’s reforms are adopted, this will change: MPs will get more power to set the agenda of the Commons, and to vote for chairs of select committees.

These sound like small changes, but it’s crucial that they happen. Many good ideas don’t come from in government: for example, the 10:10 climate promise was debated on one of the rare days when an opposition party gets to set the agenda and the protection for tenants from repossessions came in an individual MP’s bill, or Private Member’s Bill.

We’ve been working together to get the Wright Committee reforms adopted by Parliament. Lots of MPs have been supporting us along the way, and some of them have made a video for us, explaining why they think the reforms are important. You can watch it at the top of this post.

Get your MP to support the Wright Committee reforms, here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/fix-Parliament

Here’s a breakdown of how MP’s voted on the Emissions Performance Standard amendment yesterday evening. If four more Labour MPs had rebelled, we’d have won - so if your MP voted the wrong way, please do get in touch and ask them why.

If your MP is not listed, that means they didn’t turn up to vote at all

With thanks for the data to Public Whip

Happy that your MP voted the right way? Or need to challenge them on why they didn’t? Click here to send them a quick message.

Party leaders will debate before the election

With the 38 Degrees’ general election consultation in its final phase, one of the ideas that has emerged has already become a campaign. Several people suggested that the TV leadership debates in the run-up to the general election would be a good way for us to get involved: it’s a chance to make sure that ordinary voters get heard, rather than just the usual suspects.

So, we were concerned when we saw the news that politicians and their spin doctors are already squabbling about how to make the debates work. There’s a danger that it will become another opportunity for polished political performances, without putting our would-be leaders on the spot about the issues that we care about.

At first, these debates seemed like a step in the right direction. But there can’t be open debate if the people that count – the voters – are left out. The party leaders and their teams want to control everything about the debates, so that nothing will be able to spoil their image. That means no questions from the audience and no real debate.

Now, we’re taking action to call on the party leaders to let voters choose and ask the majority of questions during the TV debates. We want to quiz the party leaders directly on the issues that matter to us, like climate change, public services and bankers’ bonuses.

Click here to join the campaign for real debates between the party leaders at election time, so we can get the answers we need to decide who to vote for on polling day: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/open-up-election-debates

A seasonal postbox

It’s been quite a year. I’ve been so inspired to see so many people getting involved with 38 Degrees since we launched in June. In the last 6 months 60,000 of us have taken action a huge 177,695 times. It’s fantastic to see that people right across the country have joined in our movement – see our action map here

We’ve been working hard on issues from climate change to cleaning up politics, from tackling poverty and sticking up for public services to speaking up for human rights and civil liberties.

But this is just the beginning. What do you think we should be working on next year? How do you think we should campaign in the election? Are there issues you really think we should campaign on? Let us know in the comments below.

A few minutes ago Gordon Brown announced that the he intends to “give constituents the right to recall their Member of Parliament.”

This is great news – we’ve been campaigning for a Recall Law since we launched in May.

I wanted to share this email which David just sent out to all our members.

Dear Johnny,

We wanted to tell you about what we think is probably 38 Degrees’ biggest success to date. We’re excited about it!

We’ve been campaigning together for a Recall Law since we launched back in May. A Recall Law would give us new powers to hold our MPs to account. It would mean local voters would be able to come together to call a fresh vote where an MP has lost their trust. At the moment local voters are stuck with their MPs until the next General Election no matter what they do.

Today, Gordon Brown announced plans for a Recall Law. [1] We still don’t know all the details, but clearly this is huge progress. As more details do emerge we’ll need to analyse them and think together what more we need to do to make sure we really do get new powers to hold MPs to account.

There’ll probably be more for us to do together on this campaign, but today it’s worth celebrating the impact we’ve had together. When we started campaigning on Recall it was not really on the agenda at all. Within hours of launching our campaign, 1000s of us had signed the petition.

The first time Justice Minister Jack Straw accepted that Recall “should be looked at”, it was in response to us appearing on BBC News. By the time we handed the first 6,000 signatures to party leaders at the end of June, we’d forced Recall up the political agenda.[2] There’s no doubt that all the campaigning we’ve done together – the petition, the emails to MPs, and the media coverage – have helped push Brown to make today’s announcement.

Back in June, 38 Degrees members took part in a poll on reforming politics. We agreed that new rules tomake MPs more transparent about their activities and more accountable to their voters were key. We made a Recall Law and Lobbying Transparency our key campaigns in response to the MP expenses scandal. Together we’re having an impact, on political reform but also on other important issues like Public Services and the BBC. As MPs return to parliament in a couple of weeks we’ll need to work together to maintain the pressure.

People power is working, together we made this happen. As we grow bigger over time we’ll have more and more impact.

Thanks for all that you do,

David, Hannah, Johnny, Nina and the 38 Degrees Team

PS:

A few other exciting things that have happened this week:

Two former cabinet ministers have echoed our calls for the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system to be scrapped. David Blunkett and Alan Milburn made their comments separately at the Labour Party Conference. Over 5,000 of us have now got involved with this campaign. If you’ve not already done so you can add your voice here: http://38degrees.org.uk/halttrident

Our project to find out how MPs spend their Summer Recess from parliament featured in last nights Dispatches on Channel 4. You can watch it here, we’re in the final 10 minutes:http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#2972656

In Scotland, we’ve passed 10,000 signatures for our campaign to stop local families being forced off their homes to make way for a golf course which Donald Trump wants to build. You can get involved with that here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/donaldtrump/

NOTES

[1] Brown said: “And so where there is proven financial corruption by an MP and in cases where wrong-doing has been demonstrated but Parliament fails to act we will give constituents the right to recall their Member of Parliament.”

Speech in full is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/29/gordon-brown-labour-conference-speech-in-full

Article about it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/29/gordon-brown-recall-errant-mps

[2] Here’s the blog post we wrote at the time: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2009/06/18/one-down-two-to-go-%e2%80%93-nick-clegg-accepts-our-call-for-a-right-to-recall-your-mp/

Our survey of MPs’ summer recess plans has got off to a good start. 31 MPs have so far completed the questionnaire giving us an idea of their plans while Parliament is closed (the full list of names can be found at the bottom of this post).

Of the 31 respondents, there are 14 from Labour, nine from the Lib Dems, but so far only five responses from the Conservatives. Among those standing up to be counted are notable names like former Minister Hazel Blears, Shadow Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey (who recommends a trip to watch Didcot Town FC) and Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Jim Knight.

Only four of the MPs who’ve answered so far have second jobs and over half of them, 17 in total, plan to undertake some sort of voluntary work during the recess. This includes Lib Dem Paul Rowen, who’s off to help out at a Catholic mission in Uganda, as well as numerous others who sit as trustees with various British charities.

But so far, we’ve only had responses from about 5% of the Commons – to get a more accurate picture we need more. We’re planning to publish the results in full later in the summer and we can keep on adding results at least until then. Has your MP replied? If not, why not?

It’s not too late – we’ll be collecting their answers all through the recess, so get on to them from our website

They’re your representatives, and they’re answerable to you.

MPs who have responded to date: Laurence Robertson, Evan Harris, Ed Vaizey, Angela C Smith, Martin Horwood, Ian Cawsey, Lynne Featherstone, Jim Knight, Angus Robertson, Sandra Gidley, Caroline Flint, Robert Key, Jo Swinson, Richard Burden, Ronnie Campbell, Susan Kramer, Ashok Kumar, Andrew Selous, Dr Bob Spink, Charlotte Atkins, Martin Linton, John Mason, Des Turner, Paul Rowen, Roger Williams, Alistair Burt, Jim Fitzpatrick.

It feels like politics in the UK has lots its way. The Labour government which inspired such hope twelve years ago is no longer trusted and torn by conflict. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have also had their share of scandal. Last week most of us chose not to vote for any of them, whilst the BNP profited from the crisis to make alarming gains including two MEPs. Right now we can’t rely on the Westminster parties to sort this crisis out on their own. But People Power can force their hand. There’s never been more need for us to come together to demand politicians properly sort out our political system.

In two weeks almost 6000 people have got involved with 38 Degrees. Our campaign for a recall law has moved the issue right up the agenda, with party leaders now agreeing to “look into” the idea. This isn’t yet a victory, but it is progress – recall started being talked about seriously as people started signing our petition. This shows that we do care about sorting politics out, and that by working together we can force politicians to respond. What should we do next? We were planning to hand our recall petition in this week, but events have moved fast and we feel we should decide together what our next steps are.

Our Recall petition, now over 4000 names strong, is definitely something we need to build on.  My view is that the best time to deliver it is when the Party Leaders meet to discuss reforms. This meeting has been promised, but a date hasn’t be confirmed yet. After that I think we should probably turn up the heat on individual MPs, and make sure they’re sending a clear message up to their leaders that a real recall law, that puts power to hold our local MP to account firmly in the hands of the people, is an important part of the solution.  It feels like this campaign is still building momentum – what we’ve done so far has put the issue on the agenda, but more pressure is needed to make sure the positive talk is converted into real action.

Polls tell us that three quarters of us now believe that big changes are needed to the UK political system, more than ever before [1]. The current crisis presents us with an opportunity to demand changes which could make politics better, for good. But what are the most important changes to focus on? Should we keep all our attention on demanding a Recall Law that would mean politicians couldn’t ignore voters between General Elections? Should we campaign for changes to the voting system to ensure parliament better reflects who we voted for? Or should we be doing something else entirely? We’re most powerful when we work together, so we need to decide together what we work on.