Many 38 Degrees members thought the BBC should be defended.

38 Degrees members have been defending the BBC ever since James Murdoch’s attack on it in August 2009. The reports that the government was pushing the BBC to accept “a license fee raid” triggered a discussion about what we should do on our facebook page, and thousands of 38 Degrees members quickly contacted their MPs speaking out against these deep cuts being forced through behind closed doors.

We were worried about what this would mean for BBC programmes we all enjoy – cuts of over 20% could mean whole channels closing down. Secondly, members were worried about the long term future of the BBC. Many members believed that this decision to raid the BBC was influenced by Rupert Murdoch. Decisions about the licence fee were meant to be taken until next year, and there was a process that was meant to be followed. This deal was forced through behind closed doors and in less than 24 hours.

We’ll have to wait to see what the full effects of these cuts will be, and if they lead to specific issues we will want to campaign about. It it is clear though that the  and this probably isn’t the last time we’ll see politicians attacking. 38 Degrees members don’t think the BBC is perfect, but we do think it’s worth standing up for.

We will also need to keep up the pressure on Vince Cable to call a review of Rupert Murdoch’s plans to seize full control of BSkyB.

On Friday 15 October, Leeds 38 Degrees Volunteer Stephen, and Eleanor from the London office headed to the Department for Transport to hand in our petition to Philip Hammond and Danny Alexander, backing the Leeds Trolleybus.

Photograph by 38 Degrees

Almost 1,000 of us have now signed the petition – pushing the government to commit funding for the trolleybus. 100s of us have described how the trolleybus would reduce congestion, generate new jobs and boost the economy, improve local air quality – and just make getting around easier.

This has been combined with over 60 letters to Leeds MPs backing the trolleybus. We hope that these letters and the petition give both ministers some serious food for thought.

It looks like we should get a decision on whether or not the trolleybus will go ahead on the 20^th, but the Spending Review may not go down to that level of detail….we may have to wait a little longer.

Earlier this week we asked all 175,000 38 Degrees members to come to the blog and the Facebook page to suggest ideas for what 38 Degrees should do about the cuts. We saw a huge response. It was our most commented blog ever and the Facebook page was deluged with suggestions, comments and “likes”.

Some issues, like Trident, bankers bonuses, cracking down on tax dodgers and making sure the cuts don’t hit the poorest hardest came up a lot.

There were lots of comments about Trident. Christopher. W said “completely with you on Trident. We are cutting all our government departments but loading more money into nuclear weapons. It’s just ridiculous.” The planned spending cuts directed at the NHS and frontline services will hit all sectors hard which lots of us disagree with, as Anthony. M puts it: “As for Trident, I can’t perceive a scenario when I would like my government to use it.”

Another idea that was very popular was making sure that bankers pay their fair share.  Tina. C wants to see the government “Firstly get the money back from the bankers that we paid out of our taxes to bail them out.” The Robin Hood Tax was supported by Vicky. R who thinks we should “have a Robin Hood Tax and no bonuses for bankers and ensure the rich pay the tax they should be paying.”

Many of us gave examples of how potential cuts will end up hurting the poorest most  as Helen. L said “Min wage needs to be bigger in both sectors; a pluralist society is where all sectors work together.” Many of us are angry that the curts will end up hitting the most vulnerable hard,  Rebecca. A said “unless prices are allowed to drop or social housing is reinstated accommodation is going to remain a big problem for the poor.”

Cracking down on tax dodgers created lots of interest too, Peter. W said “I would increase HMRCs powers to detect tax dodgers.” Along with Aaron. M who thinks the government should “clamp down hard on tax dodgers, and privatise the benefit fraud agencies – that way more people will be caught and for less cost to the public.”

It’s been fantastic to see such a lively debate. Now we need to decide what we should campaign on. We’ve tallied up the most popular suggestions so now you can vote on what you think 38 Degrees should campaign on. Click here to place your vote now.

Update: We’ve made a wordle of all the comments we received on the blog and Facebook. It’s quite interesting and shows what most of us were talking about. The more times a word is mentioned in the comments and suggestions the bigger the word shows in the wordle.  Here it is:

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.

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.

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/

Over the last three weeks, a massive 32,851 of us have signed our petition against the BBC cuts, and 17,817 have also emailed the BBC Trust with a formal response to the official consultation. This is a fantastic response, and if we keep up this kind of pressure we’ve got a real chance of forcing the BBC Trust to drop the proposals.

If you haven’t added your name to the petition, or emailed the BBC trustees, please do so now, and ask your family and friends to do the same.

We will be sitting down with the other key players in the campaign next week, such as the National Union of Journalists and other petition sites. Together we’ll need to make sure we have plans to keep the pressure on right up to May 25th, when the consultation ends.

It is important that we work together to think of creative and intelligent ways to keep up momentum over the next ten weeks. Please share your ideas of how we can keep the pressure on.

On Thursday evening Hannah, one of our members of staff, attended the Asian Music Awards. She was there to chat to the stars of Asian music and film and distribute orange bands showing support for the Asian Network and BBC 6Music campaign.

A range of stars, including Jay Sean, the first British Asian musician to reach number 1 in the US charts, and film director Gurinder Chadha, were keen to wear an orange band and speak in support of our campaign.

Support the Asian Network and BBC 6Music and join the stars in signing our petition here http://38degrees.org.uk/stop-the-BBC-cuts

You can also email the BBC trustees directly to tell them to stop the cuts.  Click here to contact the BBC directly in 1 minute http://www.38degrees.org.uk/email-the-BBC-Trust

38 Degrees at the Asian Music Awards – stop the cuts to the BBC from 38 Degrees on Vimeo.