Leeds Trinity Uni Hustings

This was a really enjoyable event - thanks to LTU for hosting it.  The Green vote jumped from 5th to 2nd place (a before and after vote was held) so that was great.  However, I would have thought a room full of young people couldn't fail to vote Green since it's the only party which fights for genuine fairness, for the common good ( not the good of the few), and is firmly on the side of people and planet instead of profit for mega-business.  I think I took too much for granted and didn't spell out the the fact that social justice is fundamental to Green policy,  so Labour retained their first place even though they support the TTIP, neoliberalism, infinite growth on a finite planet, fracking, and Trident!!

ERYC should go - NOT the trees

My letter published in Beverley Guardian today:

 The felling of the trees on New Walkergate is one of the latest in the long list of crimes against nature brazenly committed  by ERYC (East Riding of Yorkshire Council) in our name and with our money.   Why?  Perhaps they have a contract with a company which fells trees so they have to find jobs to keep them busy? Is someone profiting from the wood?    Or is it simply a corporate mechanistic  mindset which wants everything - including nature - to be ‘tidy’?   The unevenness in the ground made by the tree roots was not a hazard to the footpath and it could have been  made into an attractive feature.  The wall could have been strengthened.  Does London remove its fantastic old plane trees which have grown  through and around the railings in the parks?  No.  

Saying they will replace the trees with ones 'specially chosen and sourced for the site'  is the newspeak we have come to expect from ERYC meaning 'you know nothing: we ‘experts’ know best'.   Most people instinctively protect trees - and they are right because the older a tree is the more biodiversity it hosts,  the more carbon it sequesters and the more beautiful it becomes. 

Nature thrives on diversity. It is beautiful because it is NOT tidy.  Beverley is an ancient town which should not look like a Milton Keynes.  ERYC has a biodiversity action plan, but does ERYC itself take any notice of it?  What ERYC  displays is a complete lack of understanding of nature, heritage, beauty, and people - in fact most things which matter.  Machine- chemical- newbuild - and road-obsessed ERYC is the thing which should go, not the trees.

Cacophony send-off for Lib Dems today in York

I  took an orange tin tray and big wooden spoon and joined the group of 'musicians' outside the Barbican Centre  today to play the LDs off the premises.  I was there particularly on behalf of the  thousands of people with disabilities who have died due to the inhuman 'assessments' done by ATOS.  Privatization of this kind of activity is utterly wrong. One delegate tried to explain to me that the staff running the ATOS operation had got the wrong idea about what they were supposed to be doing and were too draconian.  I pointed out that it's government's job to lead and set the tone...and anyway I had important tray-bashing work to do,  thanks very much.  

 

The LD delegates had little choice but to file past us.  Some of them looked suitably embarrassed.  Others didn't seem to have a clue what the problem was.

 

The guy lying on the ground is packing up his STOP HS2 white blow-up elephant.  There was a dog with a stylish NO NUKES coat on.  A helpful police liaison officer took the photo with me in it.   Apparently the protesters were much nicer than the lot inside the conference!

Video: Greens in York - 25 January

A day of campaigning:  Keep East Coast mainline rail in public hands where it's doing fine; Frack off; let's have electric vehicles in our cities...and Vote Green in the European elections on May 22

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2HFftUEu33w

All is Lost

With a title like ‘All is lost’, one might expect a story about the big issues facing us now,  and this is what it is – in sharp and ironic contrast to the preceding inane ads for cars,  hair products and the like.

This new film  is written and directed by J C Chandor, writer of the screenplay and director  of the Wall Street thriller  ‘Margin Call’.  ‘ All is Lost’ is  set in a very different context: it’s about a lone yachtsman, brilliantly played by Robert Redford, and it has you clutching your seat all the way through.  You live the terrifying and extremely challenging experience resulting from  your boat being holed by a stray container in the middle of the vast horizons of the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from land.

It seems to me significant that the offending container is spewing out  trainers – a symbol of  globalized addictive materialism - and, later on, the crippled yacht is almost run down by a container ship with its mountainous cargo of ‘goods’.

Without revealing the ending, the story can certainly be seen as  a metaphor for the plight of mankind, struggling against incredible odds to get planet Earth back on course to a sustainable future.  In fact the ending can be interpreted differently depending on your worldview: are you hopeful or hopeless? 

As a Green, I’m hopeful that we could eventually pull things round.  If there was no hope, why would I bother?  Am I  being unrealistically optimistic in the face of very high odds against, considering the monumental mess we continue to make of our planet?  All I know is that if we don’t have hope that we can  get back on course,  we won’t make it.  But it will need us all to do our bit - even if that’s only in how we vote.  It’s clear from various polls that more and more people now support green policy,  and businesses are vying to become more ethical due to public demand,   so the arguments have largely been won - but we need to put our votes where our hearts are if we are to get the policies in place which will rescue us from the increasingly likely world shipwreck.

There are European elections in May, so I’m hoping that 2014 is the year the boat will finally swing round to get the wind in the sails of public opinion to take us  in the direction of hope and away from fear, greed and rampant materialism. 

Green Tories ? - an oxymoron

Letter to Beverley Guardian

 

Dear sir

I wonder if our local Tory MP, Graham Stuart, was  one of the group questioning the Prime Minister on his lack of commitment to green policies?  I have asked him, but somehow I doubt it.  Perhaps he would like to let the readers of this paper know where he stands on this crucial issue.

Whether David Cameron actually used the words ‘green crap’ or not,  that phrase sums up  what is now quite clear:  his complete U-turn on aspiring to be ‘the greenest government ever’.  He is utterly dismissive about real green issues and the radical agenda that is so desperately needed now.   In the face of climate change, and devastation of nature and communities on an unparalleled global scale, he can think only in terms of what suits the corporations which fund the Tories (and cause the devastation) – resulting in our being stuck in the same old  paradigm of fossil fuels, fracking, more and more cars on more and bigger roads,   stupidly fast  trains cutting swathes through the countryside for a few minutes’ saving on journey time (does the frantic rat-race really need yet more speed?), factory-style agriculture which kills the soil and  soaks the land and water supplies with chemicals which end up in our bodies, selling off our public services like the NHS and schools,  blaming the poor and vulnerable for the crimes of City bankers and corporate tax dodgers - not to mention promoting sales of arms worldwide  - often  to regimes which use them on their own citizens.

The only way out of this economic , social and environmental mess is through REAL progress:  a transformation of the economy through a transformation of our values - and that needs political leadership.   The Greens work for this on a European and global level.  We need modernisation and sustainability in the best sense:  millions of new jobs improving all our buildings to  insulate them properly against the cold,  a determined  push for all  the varieties of renewable energy, better integrated public transport and  urban cycling strategies ( like they have in places like Copenhagen), promotion of local foods and local communities and excellent public services. 

This, though, takes vision and political courage – something which is in very short supply in all  the (almost indistinguishable)  puppet political parties who  dance to the corporate tune of ‘growth’ on our small and finite planet.

Green European Candidates - York

Yorks and the Humber candidates Denise Craghill and Shan Oakes speaking at the People's Assembly day of action against austerity.