Outrage at 999 trust’s old ambos
FINALLY BEATING THE BOOKIES
IT’S been a long and hard fight, but after four years the Sunday People has won its campaign against FOBT stakes.
We told how the money-grabbing betting shop devices triggered a catalogue of misery and violence from gamblers able to splurge up to £100 a spin.
Working with the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, Labour MP Carolyn Harris and people affected by the machines, we vowed to help put a stop to them.
And last week we finally achieved our aim when the Tories’ Tracey Crouch announced that the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals would be slashed to £2.
Delight
It caused consternation among some in the gambling industry who claim jobs will be lost, shops will close and profits will fall.
But it was greeted with delight by campaigners and the crossparty group of MPS who have fought for it.
Ms Harris said: “This is great news. It has been a long fight but worth it for what it will do for people’s lives.”
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “It is SOMETIMES you just know that a cause is worth the battle. FOBTS was one of those causes.
To lose your self-respect, dignity and sanity to an electronic demon is too dreadful to think about. But this week we saw the most morally victorious decision in modern history. To cut stakes to £2 will neutralise their impact on society.
No more will the bookies profit on the misery of FOBTS. It’s been a long fight but thanks to the hard work of campaigners and the Sunday People, we won.
We beat the bookies – and pulled the plug on the electronic demon. A SCANDAL-HIT ambulance trust has been slammed for buying a fleet of “clapped out” secondhand ambulances – while splashing cash on top-ofthe-range cars for bosses.
East of England has taken delivery of 32 fiveyear-old vehicles decommissioned by another trust.
Workers claim they will put staff and patient safety at risk. One paramedic said: “It’s really worrying our staff are being asked to drive them at speed with patients in the back.
“Staff are really cheesed off because they have been given clapped out vehicles which colleagues in other trusts would have sent to the scrapyard.
Luxury
“Most trusts don’t keep their vehicles for more than four or five years because they travel hundreds of thousands of miles.”
It is the latest in a series of rows over alleged mismanagement at the trust, which serves Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
The Sunday People last year revealed how executives were given luxury cars costing more than £800,000, including Jaguars and Toyota Landcruisers.
Lib Dem North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said: “This raises serious concerns about safety.”
The trust said: “Like all the other vehicles we have, these are fit for purpose and safe for patients.”