As you guys are busy beavering away writing to your parliamentary candidates, I thought I would let you know about the fantastic help that we are continuing to receive from a number of ‘old’ friends, and also support from some recent acquaintances. Julie Butterworth is a lovely lady that writes for a number of police federation magazines and has made us a very generous offer in a recent email: ‘Kate The next round of Federation magazines do not come out until the end of May/early June. So I have sent the current news item to the following Federations for adding to their websites or circulation in other ways to members: Beds, Cambs, Derbyshire, Durham, Dyfed Powys, Leics, North Wales, South Wales, Staffs and West Mids. I will then seek an update from you mid-May so that we can include something in the next magazines (conference editions). At conference I generally work for a few more Federations too so maybe we can push it out even further………..’ This is the article Julie has circulated: Sign widows' pensions petition Almost 74,000 people have now signed a petition calling for police widows' pensions to be paid for life - even if they remarry or co-habit. A total of 100,000 signatures are required for the campaign to be considered for debate in the House of Commons. Although serving and retired officers have been signing the petition it would appear that there are still thousands who are not aware of the campaign. It is hoped that more people will sign and share the petition: https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-grant-police-widows-pensions-for-life-don-t-make-them-choose-between-future-happiness-and-pensions Change.org Police Widows’ Pension Campaign entered into Google will also take you to the petition if you are having problems with the link. West Midlands Police widow Kate Hall has already achieved considerable success with her campaign, with the Chancellor's Budget statement outlining plans to change the pension rules. “I am delighted with the breakthrough that we have made with our campaign. Comparatively few widows and widowers will benefit from the changes this time around, but for those who will benefit it could be life-changing,” she says. “They will be free to choose a family life and retain the pension that is rightfully theirs; many children will experience for the first time a family home with two resident adults who love and care for them – it seems bizarre that anyone would wish to deny them that. We will, of course, continue to campaign for parity with the RUC widows in Northern Ireland and lifelong pensions for all police survivors. In the run-up to the General Election supporters of the campaign are writing to their local Parliamentary candidates to ask for their support should they be successful in their bid to be elected MP. We would appreciate it if anyone reading this would do the same. When we know the combination of Government we will be dealing with post-election, we will tailor our approach accordingly and updates will continue to go out to signatories of the petition.” A statement from the Police Federation has explained: "The view from the Home Office is that irrespective of who wins the election the detail will be forthcoming. There will need to be a change of legislation to implement the change and this will be laid by the new administration post-election." Julie’s email continued: ‘……Also, on the subject of conference, have you considered asking the Federation if you could have a leaflet or advert inserted into the conference agenda? This is used by everyone at conference. I would be happy to support this by writing and designing the advert and printing the flyers for nothing for you. Or we could ask a couple of the companies having stands in the exhibition hall if they would mind having the leaflets on their stands? Let me know what you think? x Julie’ Alex Duncan of PFEW has agreed to get Julie’s leaflets distributed at the conference. The good news and spirit of co-operation does not end there; I have been contacted by Gillian Blythe of Friends of War Widows 2015 - Gillian is part of a group of armed forces widows that have remarried or cohabited and as a result have lost their pensions; they are the widows that were left out of the changes announced by the PM in November. They have been writing to their MPs regarding our campaign for a while now, and are spreading word of our petition on fb and Twitter. This is the link to their petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/discrimination-against-war-widows-the-wrong-time-to-die We managed to bring the survivors of fire fighters along with us without being aware that we were doing so, and this small group of ladies will hopefully also benefit via our campaign; conversely success for their campaign in the near future could benefit ours in the longer term. It occurred to me that in the spirit of Quid pro quo - if we could get fire fighters to sign our petition we would stand a better chance of meeting the 100,000 signatures target, and this is another area that I and some of our supporters have been working on; so far Fire Brigades’ Union London Division has agreed to include our petition link in their bulletin. The Commutations Campaign Group is also spreading word of our campaign as they have police officers, fire fighters and police widows amongst their membership. We are still the Police Widows/Widowers' Pension campaign seeking parity with the RUC widows in Northern Ireland, so from that point of view nothing has changed – we have just added to our friends and supporters and that can only be a good thing. Please be reassured that though there may be seemingly long periods between updates - our campaign can always be compared to a swan; calm and serene on the surface whilst we all paddle furiously underneath. Keep paddling folks and keep the faith. Cathryn