• film viewings

• public meetings and debates

• information stalls

• writing to the local media

• petitions

• lobbying of local MP [in local surgery or at Westminster]

• stunts, street theatre, eye-catching actions

• submitting a paper to your local council on wage ratios

Lobbying your MP

To find your local MP, use http://www.theyworkforyou.com/, where you can also find your MP's voting record and copies of their speeches. Writing a letter to your MP (a letter tends to be more effective than an email) is something that can be done by each member of the group or as a group activity. You can also do this via our website, see http://tinyurl.com/MPequality. It helps to be polite, concise and focused, whether in writing or meeting your MP in person. You could highlight the message of The Spirit Level, ask for the MP to take a stand on voting for/against policies relating to income inequality, ask them to join an Equality all-party parliamentary group (tbc), or discuss wage ratios in the public and private sectors.

Don't forget to lobby your local councillors/politicians/mayors etc too, especially if you have local elections coming up in your area soon...

Letter-writing (to the local media)

For more information on interacting with the media, see appendix one of this guide. A good way of increasing awareness of income inequality and publicising your group is to write to local newspapers, linking your argument to local news stories. For example, if there's been much coverage of local murder rates, obesity or mental heath problems, you might want to point out the connection between income inequality and social problems such as these as set out in The Spirit Level.

Information Stalls

Why not hold a stall at a local conference, fair or library? Take some flyers to give out - maybe some copies of The Spirit Level to sell too - and publicise the work of your group and your upcoming meetings. Try to make the stall attractive and have at least two people on it so that you can engage with as many people as possible.

Petitions

If there's a local issue which you'd like to concentrate your campaigning on, it might be worth setting up a petition for people to sign. This can start with your local group - an example of an easy action to engage all your members - and then be circulated to other local organisations (see page 6). As well as having hard copies, websites such as www.ipetitions.com help to maximise the number of signatories. Having a certain number of people symbolically behind you when making your case to your MP or in writing to a newspaper can help your cause.