All people contribute towards the National Insurance scheme under exactly the same rules.

All people qualify for their state pension under exactly the same rules, based on years of NI contributions.

When it comes time to pay the state pension different rules are applied depending on where you happen to live.

If you live in the UK and in 40 overseas countries, your state pension is uprated for inflation each year.

If you live in mainly Commonwealth countries your state pension is frozen at the rate at which it is first paid, or as at the date of migration. This means that over time the real purchasing power of the state pension in Commonwealth countries declines over the years, so that after, say, 25 years, it may be about a quarter of the current pension level.

To rectify this problem it would cost less than 1% of the total state pension bill.

Apparently there is an unwritten cross political party agreement not to fix this problem.

Pensioners who have chosen to go overseas to be with their children and grand children in retirement in Commonwealth countries are penalised for doing so, or disouraged from seeing their children and grand children again.

Overseas pensioners have been fighting this discrimination, based on country of residence, for over 25 years.

They could really do with a hand from people living in the UK to help them, to lobby on their behalf and to try to over turn this unfair, injust and inequal practice, which is based on historical accident and which even government ministers have admitted, has no logic to it.

On March 26th 138 UKuncut activists were charged with aggravated tresspass after staging an entirely peaceful protest in Fortnum & Mason. At the very least this has huge significance for the future of peaceful direct action and at it's worst is political policing. UKuncut has played a prominent role in bringing corporate tax avoidance into mainstream political debate and has embarressed the government as well as the powerful corporations they've targeted. The arrest of UKuncut members is an attempt to associate them with the "violence" that occured and to vilify the group in the minds of the general public, and in so doing destroy the movement. These were, as all UKuncut actions have been, entirely peaceful. Please, please give this campaign your support.

'The oil and gas industry is seeking to exploit UK onshore gas reserves trapped in shale rock and coal beds requiring environmentally damaging and risky techniques, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We, the signatories of this petition, call on the coalition government in Westminster, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Parliament to impose a moratorium, demanded by environmental groups and geology experts in the field, on shale gas, and on the related coal bed methane extraction industry, at least until the results of studies here, in other countries in Europe and in the US have been properly evaluated. Such moratoria are already in place in France, North Rhine Westphalia (Germany), New York State, New Jersey.'

On 13th of July 2011, the government published a consultation paper:"Options
for dealing with Squatting". The consultation period ends on 5th October
2011 so we need to act NOW to be heard.

The proposals outlined would affect a much wider community than those who
identify as squatters;

- tenants would be at risk from unscrupulous landlords,

- worker and student occupations would be illegal, as would peace and climate camps.

- Police discretion is considered as a way of determining who is or is not a squatter

- violent and forcible eviction of squatters would be legal

- Anyone who used a squatted social centre or venue could be labelled a squatter, regardless of whether they actually lived there.

And this is the last of our ancestral rights to go.

For hundreds of years, we have had the right to live in abandoned buildings. Just as the government took away our land and rights to use common land in the past, now they are attacking our right to shelter.

In 2009 there were 725,000 empty homes – the government estimate the number of squatters in England and Wales at 20,000: squatting is not the problem, it is part of the solution.

We have a problem fighting this. The consultation paper pretends to be
speaking for the normal, respectable person although it is clear enough that
the interests being promoted are those of big developers and property
speculators.

The negative images of squatters spread in the media in recent months make
it hard for us to convince people that this is not a 'squatter' consultation
but an attack on the human right to shelter that will impact most heavily on
the most vulnerable people in society. These are standard divide and rule
tactics.

please see:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/dealing-with-squatters.htm
www.squashcampaign.org
www.squattastic.blogspot.com

Freegle is an online network of 1.1million people giving away their unwanted goods to people in their local area who can make use of that stuff. Keeps usable items from going to landfill. Lowers pointless consumerism. Builds community spirit. Everything given away or received via Freegle is FREE. There are 280 Freegle groups across the UK run by local volunteers. Freegling encourages waste reduction; benefits time and money poor individuals, organisations and businesses; lowers local authorities expenditure and helps save the planet all at the same time :-)
Everything from unwanted furniture, office supplies, DIY materials, books, IT equipment, sports goods, electrical items, clothes...actually anything you can think of that is legal CAN BE FREEGLED and reused by someone else, instead of just going to skips, tips, landfill and incinerators. Fantastic grass roots initiative that facilitates easy small actions that all add up to have a huge positive environmental impact across the UK.

Vast swathes of the British countryside are set to be blighted by hundred's of super-pylons needed to carry electricity from offshore windfarms to the National Grid.

Cherished views of outstanding national beauty from the Lake District to Snowdonia to Suffolk and Somerset will be scarred by National Grid's intention to build nearly 1000 of the 160ft pylons.

Pylons are technology that dates from the 1960's and should be obsolete like typewriters. The UK is changing to renewable electricity generation but has no plans to change transmission technology. This is madness. All new power lines should go underground. The extra cost is very small about £10 per household for all the new power lines planned. We must protect our countryside for future generations and avoid the health risks of electromagnetic radiation.

Vote to put power lines underground.

From 1st January 2012, it will be illegal to keep hens in battery cages anywhere in the European Union. However, despite having had 12 years to implement the regulations laid down by the Laying Hens Directive 1999, some EU member states will fail to reach the deadline and are seeking an extension for their farmers. This could result in millions of hens being kept in battery cages illegally, and millions of battery eggs entering the UK illegally, potentially hidden in processed foods such as ready meals, pasta, cakes etc.

British farmers have invested £400m to comply with this legislation. However, they now face unfair competition, not only from egg producers outside the EU who do not need to comply with EU legislation, but also from non-compliant EU farmers.

We are asking you to sign our petition to tell David Cameron and his Government that we want to food labelling which clearly states if egg-based ingredients are sourced from caged hens. Improved food labelling will allow consumers to make an informed choice to help protect higher welfare production and to support British egg producers – good for both the welfare of hens, and our British egg producers.

The coalition's trial culls have been given the go-ahead, in the face of scientific evidence and public opinion.

Bovine TB is a terrible disease, but badgers are more likely to be its victims rather than its cause.

The Coalition's plans allow for "free shooting" of badgers, will result in 70% of badgers in a 150 sq km area being killed, will damage local ecosystems and - given those numbers - possibly make badgers extinct in these areas.

Even if the cull is "successful" it will only result in between a 12 and 16% reduction in Bovine TB (average scientific figures) or approx 27% (Government cherry-picked "best" scientific figure) - and there is the well-documented phenomena of perterbation, where infected badgers flee the killing grounds, thereby spreading TB to non-infected areas.

Badgers can easily catch TB from cattle. It's much harder for cattle to catch TB from badgers. So who is at fault?

This madness must stop.