PIP update: 48 hours

A lot has happened in 24 hours. Yesterday, 38 Degrees members leapt into action to help stop cuts to support for disabled people, called Personal Independence Payment. Iain Duncan Smith, the minister in charge of welfare, has now resigned and the government has said they may delay the decision on cuts.

Talk of a delay isn’t the same as this cruel cut being cancelled. We’ve still got more to do to stop it altogether. So here’s the plan:

David Cameron has already announced the name of the new welfare minister – Stephen Crabb MP. [2] We now need to work together to show Stephen Crabb that he has to stop cuts to Personal Independence Payment for good.

Stephen Crabb’s getting ready for his first week in his new job. We can make sure that the first thing he has to deal with is continued public pressure to protect payments to disabled people.

One of the things any new minister does is sit down with their team of advisors to look through the newspapers. If enough of us chip in, we can buy full page adverts. Imagine Stephen Crabb leafing through the Telegraph or the Sun to find huge adverts paid for by 38 Degrees members, all telling him to stop the cuts to disabled people. That would definitely put our campaign near the top of his list of things to worry about!

But to get adverts in papers at the beginning of this week, we need to buy them ASAP. We don’t have a moment to lose! Please can you chip in now to make it happen?

Here’s an example of the advert we could get in the papers:

Chip in now

Newspaper adverts are a great way to pile pressure on Stephen Crabb to do the right thing. Politicians are obsessed with newspaper coverage. Buying full page adverts gets our message right where they fear it most.

So please help get this message splashed across newspapers next week: “Dear Stephen Crabb, Please protect Personal Independence Payments, from thousands and thousands of 38 Degrees members”. Can you chip in a few pounds to make it happen?

When the plans to slash Personal Independence Payments were announced a few days ago, it looked like stopping them might be an uphill struggle. But now the tide is turning, and we’ve been part of that. So let’s keep on the pressure until this threat to people living with disabilities has gone altogether, for good.

Newspaper adverts aren’t cheap. But if they help stop hundreds of millions of pounds being taken from disabled people, they could be one of the best investments we ever make. So please chip in now.