Thank you, Mirror readers
We just wanted to say an enormous thank you to all of you who read the Mirror and believe in what the Mirror stands for – decency, fairness and big-heartedness.
Because it is only through a joint effort by our readers and the Mirror that we have been able to fight and win a string of campaigns this year.
Campaigns which make Britain a better place for us all to live.
On Friday MPs gave the final green light to Max’s Law – a law making organs available for transplant unless people opt out. It marks the conclusion of a three year campaign by the Mirror and our readers. And it will mean hundreds of lives of people desperately awaiting transplants could be saved every year.
And today Chancellor Philip Hammond is poised to announce a £1.5billion boost for town centres following the Mirror’s High Street Fightback campaign. Business rates will be cut by a third for 496,000 small retailers, and a £650million fund will be set up to transform town centres.
It is a huge step forward in this campaign... but we still want more. We still want the Government to get tough with online retailers who are doing so much damage to our high streets and to hold landlords to account.
One of our biggest successes this year has been the Mirror’s Lucy’s Law campaign which banned the sale of puppies and kittens supplied by commercial puppy farms and ended unspeakable suffering for innocent animals. Paul O’Grady said: ‘It’s great what happened. All power to you.’
Reader power also came into force when our Can It! Campaign led to a voluntary ban by the big stores on selling energy drinks to under-16s after teachers told us what damage they were doing to kids’ attention levels in class.
The Government then stepped in too, and has now backed a ban on the drinks.
One of our longest campaigns has been to seek justice for the veterans of nuclear tests during the 1950s on Christmas Island.
Former servicemen and their families have suffered premature death and terrible illnesses from the tests but for decades have been ignored by the Ministry of Defence.
But while injustice remains, the Mirror remains campaigning. Then this summer Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a medals review and new health research. Finally, victory for the veterans is in sight.
Together we also continue to campaign for the rollout of universal credit to be stopped.
Our campaign has been backed by politicians from across the parties, celebrities, union and religious leaders. The unfairness and cruelty of universal credit continues to blight lives – and so our campaign will continue.
So thank you. Thank you for buying the Mirror, supporting these campaigns and for helping make Britain a better place.
Sometimes it can feel that there is so much wrong in the world that it’s impossible to make a difference.
But you’ve shown that together we can make a difference.
And together we will continue to do so.