By ANN FOTHERINGHAM

AS a campaigning newspaper, the Evening Times fights hard for the people of Glasgow.

Our long and successful list of hard-hitting crusades demonstrates we never shy away from the tough issues.

Thanks to our pioneering Opt for Life initiative, we are putting real pressure on the Scottish Government to switch to an opt-out transplant system.

Our Hands off Our Jobcentres campaign, launched in the light of plans to close many around the city, has been backed by politicians, charities, community groups and celebrities including I, Daniel Blake director Ken Loach.

And our battle to tackle Glasgow’s pothole crisis prompted the city council to spend more cash on improving the roads.

The Evening Times is proud of its role at the heart of its community, and our ongoing Community Champions and Streets Ahead Awards demonstrate our passion for rewarding the unsung heroes who work hard to improve the city for all.

These are just the latest in a long line of successful and award-winning campaigns, which include Hands Off Yorkhill, our drive to save the Queen Mother’s Maternity Hospital, which persuaded the then Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm to overrule city health bosses, and helped secure an extra £100million funding for a new hospital to be built in the city.

Our Factors Campaign hit out at rogue property management companies who made life a misery for city tenants and one of our most ambitious campaigns, Glas-goals, aimed to tackle the city’s poor health record, by encouraging readers to reach a series of fitness goals. It was backed by MPs, who called for Glas-goals to be used as a model for tackling poor health.

In 2004, the first Commissioner for Children and Young People was appointed in Scotland thanks to another award-winning initiative by the Evening Times, backed by many leading children’s charities.

The Evening Times is equally proud of its charity campaigns. We rallied our readers to raise £1m for the city’s first MRI scanner and our generous supporters also dug deep to fund Glasgow’s first Maggie’s cancer caring centre. We smashed our original target of £500,000 by more than £700,000, raising £1.2m for the groundbreaking facility.

The Magic Million campaign raised £1m for a new intensive care unit at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and we continue to support the £21m appeal to build a new Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, due to open its doors in 2018.

Through its campaigns, the Evening Times is privileged to play a key part in the civic life of Glasgow.