NHS: huge billboard ads

David Cameron is trying to ride it out. He knows his plans for the NHS are a disaster. But after more than a year of phoney listening exercises, aggressive spin and backroom deals, he thinks abandoning the plan now would simply be too embarrassing.

But there’s one thing that politicians care about more than saving face: saving their jobs. At the moment, Cameron is gambling that it’s best to force through the changes – then hope that it doesn’t cost him too many votes later on. We can shift this calculation by proving to Cameron that the NHS is already an election issue, and a losing one for his party if they refuse to listen.

Elections for the Mayor of London are fast approaching. Cameron desperately wants the Conservatives to win. Together, we can buy billboards all over the city, on the very streets where Cameron bought billboards promising the NHS would be safe with him. The adverts can warn potential Conservative voters that most doctors and nurses think the changes will make our NHS worse.

Click here to preview the powerful advert and chip in to take it to the streets.

We’ve tried everything else. Now we have to bring it back to something we know Cameron will understand – winning over undecided voters. He knows that a big national issue like the NHS could play strongly in a major local election. And that if it does, it will set the tone for a long time to come.

If Cameron sees thousands of us donating to put up adverts, it might make him finally decide the game is up. The adverts carry a simple message certain to grab the attention of the kind of voters Cameron wants to keep on board: doctors and nurses are begging him to drop the dangerous NHS plans.

If 5,000 of us chip in over the next 48 hours, we can get these adverts up next Monday. So please donate now.

Cameron knows that losing the trust of voters on the NHS is bad news. Opposition to the plans is already overwhelming among health professionals — including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of GPs. Last month, 38 Degrees commissioned an independent opinion poll of NHS staff which found that 66 per cent think these plans will make the NHS worse.

So we’ve brought in a top advertising agency to make sure local voters get the message. If we raise enough money, we can target these ads to prospective Conservative voters, and place them in high-profile, prominent locations across the capital. Best of all, our campaign won’t star an actor, but a real-life London GP and 38 Degrees member.

Imagine the stir on Downing Street when these people-powered billboards appear across the capital. Please chip in now to make it happen.

Sometimes 38 Degrees members come together to pay for things which otherwise only big companies and political parties can afford. Thousands of us chipped in to hire a crack legal team: their report made the front page of The Observer. This helped force Lansley to back away from plans to scrap his legal duty to provide our health service. Now we can take one big, bold message to the voters Cameron cares about most.

Earlier this month, thousands of 38 Degrees members voted to choose things we could do to help save the NHS. Raising money for billboard adverts, and sounding the alarm in London in the run-up to the mayoral election, were both voted into our top 5 tactics. So let’s make them happen! Chip in now.