Earlsdon Greens 2006

Where To Find Us Between Elections

2006-09-18T23:12:00.000+01:00

In between elections, the Coventry Green Party is continuing to post, on a weekly basis, at Coventry Green Voice. You can always contact me on the phone number and email address below.

The End of the Beginning

2006-05-05T13:48:00.000+01:00

Well, it’s over.

The Green Party received 15.88% of the vote in Earlsdon (270 votes shy of overtaking Labour for 2nd place).

It was fascinating being at the election count. Each ballot box (from the 8 polling stations) gets emptied onto a big table, and vote counters bundle up the papers into packs of 25. While they are doing that, you try and spot how many, on average, are marked “Green,” so you can gauge which areas of the ward are strong in support, and which need work.

After the count, they invite you to inspect the spoiled ballot papers (BNP scrawled across some, “wish there were Socialists running” on others) and which ones have been awarded to candidates (those with check marks rather than x’s).

Then, a few minutes later, they gather the candidates and agents together again and tell you what the final vote is. I suppose, if there was 20 votes between 1st and 2nd, this is the time to request a recount.

15 minutes after that (i.e. giving the winner enough time to compose a speech), the results are announced from the podium and put up on a computer screen with a percentage breakdown.
Andy Matchet for the Conservatives, the winner, nearly received an absolute majority (49.7%). He approached me right after the “spoiled papers” stage, and basically said, hey, you aren’t going to win the ward anytime soon, why are you so against incineration, why not sit down with us and talk about recycling?

The Greens are a separate political party, not only a lobby force for the three “real” parties, and we have a much wider agenda than just recycling.

So, sure, we’ll engage with the council and pressure them, though I sincerely doubt we’ll buy into incineration of plastic and aluminium, but we aim to run again and again in Coventry and build up a base of voters for the Green cause.

It’s time for some time off, so I can stop being so election-focused. All the walking and walking and walking of streets has left me, well, not exhausted, but pretty tired.

I’ve got a wedding to co-organise for early August, and suddenly, that’s only 13 weeks away! We’re off to do rings in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham tomorrow, then wedding list in Solihull on Sunday.

If anyone wants to contact me in the future about Green activity in Coventry, please do so on 07906 316 726, or, sgredding2003@yahoo.co.uk.

Voting For Policies You Believe In

2006-05-03T11:11:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair is asking us to judge Labour on “the big picture” …but that’s the problem, isn’t it?

From the “big picture” perspective:

- How has Iraq turned out?
- After 8 years of Labour, why did Jamie Oliver find such unhealthy food in schools?
- The long term impact of tuition fees will be more student debt, less savings, and less ability for people to get on the property ladder
- Labour’s policy on city academies will lead to exclusive access to curriculum and admissions being the preserve of wealth donors

Why vote for a party that is carrying out not just one policy, but many policies, that you disagree with?

In Earlsdon, I've tried to use this blog to outline how we would use our first seat on Coventry City Council to show that we can introduce different policies, put new issues on the agenda, and propose resolutions that other parties would not.

Vote for a party whose policies you believe in. Vote for a party whose policies you want to see extended and deepened.

Vote in a positive way on Thursday, whether you are voting for the Green Party, or for the Tories, Labour or the Lib Dems.

Two Nights To Go!

2006-05-02T08:02:00.000+01:00

On the long weekend, we received a canvassing boost from the Leamington Green Party (thanks again to Ian, Jenny and Nick). We managed to cover Winnifred, Broadway, Spencer, Newcombe, Poplar, Berkeley Road N and S, Avondale, and the 2nd half of Styvechale.

Yesterday, Tom and I went to the Earlsdon Festival on Hearsall Common (very rainy off and on).

On the way back to Mayfield Road, we dropped into the Church Hall of the Earlsdon Methodist Church for a plate of May Day food. I had the good luck to take a seat across from their vicar, and we had an amicable chat about how campaigning was going. I floated the idea of having an all-candidates meeting next year during the council elections, since as a first-time candidate, it seems very odd not to have one.

There are 4-5 streets left in the north part of the ward that we want to cover, plus we want to take a stab at the streets south of War Memorial Park.

I've also received this fancy dan letter from my agent, Clive, from the council, authorising my entry into all eight polling stations on Thursday. I plan to vote in the morning before work, then we'll take a drive around to the other seven on Thursday evening.

I Will If You Will

2006-05-02T07:51:00.000+01:00

The Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (part of the Sustainable Development Commission) has released an interesting report called, "I Will If You Will." How we travel, what kind of electricity provider we have, where we holiday, and what we eat matter.

Consumers need to be able to buy green products and services as second nature. It’s time to start a new British love affair with sustainable fish and chips, to offer air travellers automatic carbon offset from their flights, and to make schools and hospitals carbon neutral. Consumers are ready & willing to act on climate change and the environment, but can’t see the point, because they feel their efforts would be isolated and in vain.

The report specifies that Government should:

- Unite with business to get the most damaging products out of the shops, and replace them with environmental products, e.g.
- TV and set-top boxes which use massively less power when on standby
- Affordable hybrid cars
- Alternative fish species to Britain’s much-loved, but hugely over-fished, cod
- Take the lead and make all schools and hospitals carbon-neutral by 2015
- Automatically give travellers the option to carbon offset their flights, to demonstrate the environmental impact of flying
- Develop a working economic model to track the links between national income, consumption growth and resources, by 2008

Being A "One Issue" Party

2006-05-01T20:40:00.000+01:00

It's the biggest perception that the Green Party needs to overcome to make Britain a four-party system.

We are a party that will put the environment first. Other parties (the Lib Dems, Labour, the Conservatives) will put profit and private interests first.

Ecology and sustainability are the guiding principles by which Greens make policy decisions.

But, we do have a constellation of other policies:

i) same-sex rights: I lived in Bonn from September 1998 to August 1999, and I arrived in the city in the midst of a national election campaign. Gerhard Schroeder was about to become Chancellor for the first time, Helmut Kohl came to give one of his final campaign speeches on the Marketplatz in Bonn, it was a great time to arrive. The German Green Party posters had same-sex couples doing the tango, and their poster slogan was, "We Bring Spice to the Dance."

ii) the euro: The euro represents a centralisation of economic controls. The Green Party believes that economic decisions should be made at a local level. We don't want monetarist decisions in the hands of unaccountable bankers. People should elect those who raise taxes and set interest rates.

iii) pensions: The spring Green Party conference voted to promote party support for the nine trade unions that voted to strike to protect the local government pension scheme for existing members.

iv) crime: again, our conferences have called for a ban on imitation weapons, and we strongly support more vigorous efforts to prosecute rape.

v) anti-war, pro-peace: As part of a 4-week radio license, I did an interview with Carol Rank of Coventry University's Peace and Reconciliation Department. One thing she highlighted was a need for more secondary school projects on conflict resolution: teaching youth how to solve problems and work together, not resorting to fist-fights or using knives. The Green Party has been part of the Stop The War Coalition, and we are against any future military adventure/strikes on Iran. It's madness that the US spends $400 billion a year on its military (when they are only 5% of the world's population). We also need an international treaty on the sale of light weapons (machine guns), similar to the campaign for the treaty on landmines.

A Carbon Budget for Coventry

2006-05-01T09:30:00.000+01:00

75% of people in an online poll wanted governments to tackle climate change by making a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 3 percent each year.

This is the position of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, and it will be highlighted by a few rock concerts this weekend (as Thom Yorke, of Radiohead, is a lead supporter of the coalition).

Governments are being urged to "employ all policy tools at its disposal, that emissions are controlled in all sectors of the economy, and that governments take into account the carbon-creating effects of non-environmental policies."

What I would like at the Coventry level is a system of scrutiny and reporting on carbon emissions by the council itself. We can't expect the rest of Coventry to practice what we would preach if the council doesn't lead the process.

Compulsory Voting?

2006-05-01T09:21:00.000+01:00

I would be against any system of compulsory voting.

The radical solution was backed by Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary Peter Hain and Commons Leader Geoff Hoon. Mr Hoon said it was "disturbing" that young people and those from deprived communities were "falling out of the habit of voting".

I think the real problem, at least in Earlsdon, is that the other parties don't campaign. Too many voters have congratulated me on being the first to canvass them.

If council meetings are held during the day, if there are no scheduled month-on-month surgeries for councillors, if there are hardly any updates on council decisions between elections, why is it surprising that people are abstaining from the political process?

Small Business and Earlsdon High Street

2006-04-30T10:39:00.001+01:00

Again, I want people to vote Green in a positive way, so we can have a campaigning voice on the city council, but this poll spells the problems out for Labour.

Myself and two party members (Cathy and Clive) covered five more streets yesterday (St Andrews, Shaftesbury, Stanley, Arden, Palmerston). Clive and Tom (our local party co-ordinator) were able to print up strips of paper to say "sorry we missed you" -- these could prove to be a real help.

I also talked with small business owners on Earlsdon High St. I talked with Kendall's, Tim's Joint, and Gibberds. The butcher who runs Tim's Joint had very strong feelings about his council tax, farmer's markets drawing business away, the lack of local parking, a strong bias towards the city centre, and the decline of independent fishmongers and butchers.

The Final Weekend

2006-04-29T09:06:00.000+01:00

So far, we've canvassed most of Mickleton, Stanway and Huntingdon, and half of Styvechale, Mayfield and Earlsdon Avenue South. We're excited going into the final weekend. We figure we can canvass 15 streets over the three days, and we're printing 50 posters for people to put up in their windows. We'll begin canvassing today after a meeting at 1030am at a colleague's house on Beechwood, followed by a 12noon start tomorrow (with hopefully some Green colleagues from Leamington). The Earlsdon Festival will be on May Day, and one resident suggested that, since Earlsdon was a "drinking village," to try and visit the pubs as well.

Again, if people want posters for their window, give us a call: 07906 316 726, or email earlsdongreens@yahoo.co.uk.

20 Years Since Chernobyl

2006-04-27T22:35:00.000+01:00

In 1986, my secondary school had an exchange with a school in the Arctic circle. The arctic kids came down for a week, saw Niagara Falls, et cetera, and then my school-mates went up to see how the other half lived. When they returned, they naturally asked, "what world events did we miss when we were up north," and we replied, "oh, not much, a nuclear reactor only burnt for days and days in the Ukraine."

20 years, and our memories have faded so much that there is this push for a nuclear revival ... even though it will cost £70 billion to clean up the nuclear waste that we do have ... even though Sellafield is already a terrorist target twice as big as we could imagine.

A great book is "Voices from Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexievich.

The wife of a Chernobyl firefighter:

We were newlyweds. We still walked around holding hands, even if we were just going to the store. I would say to him, "I love you." But I didn't know then how much ... One night I heard a noise. I looked out the window. He saw me. "Close the window and go back to sleep. There's a fire at the reactor. I'll be back soon"... I didn't see the explosion itself. Just the flames. Everything was radiant. The whole sky. A tall flame. And smoke. The heat was awful. And he's still not back ... The smoke was from the burning bitumen, which had covered the roof. He said later it was like walking on tar. They tried to beat down the flames. They kicked at the burning graphite with their feet ... They weren't wearing their canvas gear. They went off just as they were, in their shirt sleeves. No one told them.

Public Transit and Women

2006-04-27T12:45:00.000+01:00

It's important to have a transit strategy that takes into account the different needs of the population. For example, women make 61% of shopping trips and 71% of escort trips to school. Women are more likely to feel unsafe travelling at night (especially those 60 years and over).

We should have better facilities to be provided at taxi ranks, with information on fares, contact numbers for taxi companies, shelters and seating. Buses should have adequate space for prams. Displays that give real-time information on bus arrivals would also help if people are waiting for buses in Earlsdon.

Young Greens in 2006

2006-04-27T12:36:00.000+01:00

There are nearly 80 Green Party candidates who are 27 years of age and under running for us in the local election campaigns this year. It's important not just to advocate on issues relevant to young people, but also to involve them and interest them in the political process. Public transit, fair trade, crime, councillors sitting as governors of local schools, health inspections of takeaway restaurants, taxi ranks with information on competing companies and fares, library facilities ... all of these are determined by local councils, and all of our votes count.

The Perfect Storm for Labour

2006-04-26T23:28:00.000+01:00

It was going to be hard in any case, with the traditional vote against an incumbent government in local elections, but the amount of recent scandal engulfing Labour is astonishing:

- Patricia Hewitt getting slow-handclapped every few days over her claim that the NHS has had its "best year"
- Police investigations rumbling on about donations to Labour and appointments to the Lords
- Cherie Blair's hairdressing costs
- The release of foreign inmates and the Home Office simply losing track of hundreds of offenders
- New revelations over John Prescott and an affair

Not to mention policies on Iraq, PFI, railway privatisation, city academies, tuition fees, and foundation hospitals that have alienated segments of the trade union movement and Labour itself.

Bike To School Week

2006-04-26T23:21:00.000+01:00

Matt Seaton in the Guardian highlights that only 2% of children in Britain cycle to school. It's Bike To School week this week but, he points out that:

What we really need are more bike lanes, bus lanes, and strictly enforced 20mph zones within two miles of every school. Until then, what sane parent is going to let their child cycle to school?

Door To Door Canvassing

2006-04-25T23:58:00.000+01:00

Door-to-door canvassing is fun. I mean it. For the most part, people are polite and engage with you. It's a real buzz to hear the phrase, "I'm going to vote for you."

People seem fed up with "the main parties" or with a particular one (left-wing Labour voters, especially). There are folks who say, "I know what my politics are, goodbye," or "I'm going to be boring and vote Labour," but there are a surprising number of maybes.

Thatcher succeeded in moving the centre of politics to the right in a durable, medium-to-long term, way, and the Green Party needs to move the centre of politics towards our point of view. What we would like to create, and it won't obviously happen overnight, is more a situation where people are voting Green because they like our policies, rather than "we'll try you lot since we've got no use for the rest." Even if we maintain only 10-15% of the vote, but 3 years from now, the electoral debate in Earlsdon is centred on key environmental issues, that's an achievement.

Jane Jacobs Passes Away

2006-04-25T23:49:00.000+01:00

Jane Jacobs died this morning in Toronto. She was key, throughout the 60's, 70's and 80's, in redefining how people perceive cities, and what urban planners prioritise within city planning. She was 89. From the Toronto Star:

Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities,
published in 1961, became a bible for neighbourhood organizers and what she termed the "foot people". It made the case against the utopian planning culture of the times -- residential high-rise development, expressways through city hearts, slum clearances, and desolate downtowns. She believed that residential and commercial activity should be in the same place, that the safest neighbourhoods teem with life, short winding streets are better than long straight ones, low-rise housing is better than impersonal towers, that a neighbourhood is where people talk to one another.

Peak Oil and Earlsdon

2006-04-25T08:08:00.000+01:00

We could be seeing the end of the era of cheap oil. That is, half of the world's oil has been extracted, and the remaining half will be harder/more environmentally damaging/more expensive to extract. As well, world demand, rising year on year, may not match up with month-to-month supply.

We should start preparing for an era that is profoundly and intensely local.

- We'll do more walking, or take more public transport, since we will see less car use.
- We'll have less food distribution centred on driving to-and-from supermarkets. Supermarkets themselves may face challenges (finding petrol for all those lorries of refrigerated fruit and veg).
- Consumers should be able to choose food produced closest to their home, and to know the “energy content” of the food (was it flown, was it sent by rail, was it sent by boat, were alternative energy sources used at the source farm?).
- We need more food preparation skills (to avoid processed food) on a mass level. This will mean more classes in school on food preparation and nutrition, and incorporating food gardens into the design of new schools.
- Greens in Coventry would work towards an expansion of urban space for allotments.

Changing Our Carbon-Crunching Lifestyle

2006-04-24T20:47:00.000+01:00

Andrew Rawnsley is always worth a read in the Observer.

You would not know it from the huge amount of attention that has recently been lavished on the BNP and the virtually non-existent coverage of the Green party, but the Greens will win many more seats in the local elections than the BNP.

The environment is rarely at the top of pollsters' lists of what is bothering voters, but it does feature strongly in the concerns of women and the liberal middle classes, constituencies that the Tory leader is most actively seeking to woo.

Both [Gordon Brown and David Cameron] are trying to argue that we can have a healthier planet without making any sacrifices to carbon-crunching lifestyles. The two aspirant Prime Ministers only differ about what label they apply to their attempt to find a new Third Way. Mr Cameron calls it 'green growth'; Mr Brown talks about 'the new synthesis'.

I am sure they are right when they contend that technology can help to make growth less harmful to the planet. I am even more certain that they must be wrong if they are arguing that there is a cure for global warming which is entirely painless.

The politician who is really serious about saving the planet is not the one who promises that you won't have to make any sacrifices. The politician who means it is the one who tells you where and how much it is going to hurt. David Cameron and Gordon Brown are both still suggesting that we can have our planet and eat it.

Renewable Heat and Earlsdon

2006-04-24T17:56:00.000+01:00

I’d like to see a lot more discussion in Coventry about renewable forms of heat.

Worcestershire County Hall is powered by a wood-fuelled boiler. This carbon neutral process saves around 250 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Gloucestershire’s police headquarters has a geothermal heat pump. Heat pumps move heat from a low-temperature source to a high-temperature space for heating. With geothermal, the heat source is the warmth of the earth, through a series of trenches and piping. One of the industry leaders in the UK is right here in Earlsdon (along Albany Road).

We need to concentrate more on how our homes are powered, not just switching off the TV from standby or recycling.

A Green Group for Coventry City Council

2006-04-23T19:55:00.000+01:00

A city council with 54 councillors should have at least one Green.

Where Greens hold the balance of power on a council (in Norwich, in Oxford), Green councillors have been able to secure funding for:

hiring sustainable planning officers,

bringing empty homes back into use,

extending energy efficiency measures,

implanting anti-litter campaigns,

planting more city-centre trees, and,

expanding door-step recycling programmes.

Electing a Green in Earlsdon would be the first step towards showing what the influence of Green party policies can do at the council level in Coventry.

Leafletting Complete / Phase 2 to Begin!

2006-04-23T19:38:00.000+01:00

So, we've distributed leaflets to 6000 of the 6300 households in the ward. The remaining leaflets will be done by Monday/Tuesday.

In the 10 days remaining in the election, we're going to try and visit as much of the ward as we can for a 2nd time to find out what people think about the election and the choices facing Coventry. If anyone reading this would like a poster for their window, just give me a call, 07906 316 726, or email earlsdongreens@yahoo.co.uk.

In contrast, after 9 days of our campaign, I saw the first other campaigners for any other political party today, two Labour canvassers on Rochester Road. We swapped leaflets in a friendly way with the Labour people. I haven't, however, seen any Conservatives or Lib Dems. It's kind of like a western ... it's quiet ... too quiet. I'd rather have a street-to-street struggle and be constantly running into rival party canvassers.

Decentralised Public Services

2006-04-22T21:52:00.000+01:00

Coventry is broken down into 18 wards, and Earlsdon has 8 areas (all the DCs and DAs) where people have polling booths ... why don't we have a city where there are 18 x 8 depots for recycling glass? I had problems with my right knee between late August and March, and I was able to have community physiotherapy at the Govind clinic on Moor Street.

Other NHS and government services need to be decentralised to the community level (mental health care, eldercare for the NHS; the city council is planning for a bus, equipped with service information, to visit communities).

What Those Funny DC, DB and DA codes mean

2006-04-22T21:45:00.000+01:00

On your electoral card, the one where it tells you your polling station, etc:

Each of the 18 wards in Coventry get assigned a letter. In Earlsdon's case, it's "D", and then, the ward is split into smaller geographic areas, "DA", "DB", etc.

DA, DB, and DC are near the high street of Earlsdon, DD, DE and DF are in Stivichall, DG and DH are on the other side of Canley overland (DG is Canley Road and DH is along Broad Lane).

So, that's what DC 1002 means.

Personally, I have no idea why the ward is shaped this way. People who live north of the railway bridge on Earlsdon Avenue North consider themselves in Earlsdon, but they aren't. People along Broad Lane probably would self-define as being in Whoberley.

Perhaps it would make more sense, instead of having 54 councilors for 18 wards, to have 54 councillors for 27 wards, to make them more geographically-defined by community.

Tories and the Environment

2006-04-21T17:53:00.000+01:00

A poll for the BBC's Daily Politics show revealed that 62% think David Cameron was only talking about the environment because he thinks it will make people more positive about his party, not because he really cares about it.

Caroline Jackson, chair of the European Parliament's Environment Ctee for 5 years and a Tory MEP, has said:

"I think from the point of view of the Conservative party pursuing the green line is all talk and no action at the moment ... It's part of the current process in the Conservative party of giving green issues prominence and taking up some pretty strange positions on some things I think ... When push comes to shove in the general election I suspect we will roll back from some of this."

What does Earlsdon need? The real Green Party, or blue wolves in green clothes?

Iran and Coventry Stop The War

2006-04-21T08:03:00.000+01:00

A productive meeting last night at Coventry Stop The War.

The focus was on military families' protests against UK action, as well as the possibility of strikes against Iran and any planned response to it.

The US was fine in the 1970's with extensive Iranian plans for nuclear power generation, but that was when Iran had a leader allied with the West and buying Western arms.

Here's a great article by Michael Klare who points out that it probably isn't oil that the West wants with Iran, it's natural gas.

According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has an estimated 940 trillion cubic feet of gas, or approximately 16% of total world reserves. (Only Russia, with 1,680 trillion cubic feet, has a larger supply.) As it takes approximately 6,000 cubic feet of gas to equal the energy content of 1 barrel of oil, Iran's gas reserves represent the equivalent of about 155 billion barrels of oil. This, in turn, means that its combined hydrocarbon reserves are the equivalent of some 280 billion barrels of oil, just slightly behind Saudi Arabia's combined supply. At present, Iran is producing only a small share of its gas reserves, about 2.7 trillion cubic feet per year. This means that Iran is one of the few countries capable of supplying much larger amounts of natural gas in the future. What all this means is that Iran will play a critical role in the world's future energy equation.

This is especially true because the global demand for natural gas is growing faster than that for any other source of energy, including oil. While the world currently consumes more oil than gas, the supply of petroleum is expected to contract in the not-too-distant future as global production approaches its peak sustainable level -- perhaps as soon as 2010 -- and then begins a gradual but irreversible decline. The production of natural gas, on the other hand, is not likely to peak until several decades from now, and so is expected to take up much of the slack when oil supplies become less abundant. Natural gas is also considered a more attractive fuel than oil in many applications, especially because when consumed it releases less carbon dioxide (a major contributor to the greenhouse effect).

Cherie Blair's Hair

2006-04-21T07:47:00.000+01:00

Tonic, Grants and Robert Carl need to target a new client. Cherie Blair spent over £7000 during the last national election on hairdressing. A Labour spokesperson, when the figure was put to her, said, and you can't make this up, "So what? ... We won the election."

Seattle's city government has a series of interesting tips on how to save energy in the home.

Small Business and the High Street

2006-04-20T08:19:00.000+01:00

- Independent shops are vital in Coventry. You can walk to them, and you meet people you know in them. Local shops sponsor and promote community events.
- People drive to out-of-town retail parks, and people drive to huge supermarkets, but people can walk/cycle to their local high street
- The Green Party favours abolishing council tax and replacing it with a Land Value Tax (a yearly assessment of rental value). In the meantime, Coventry tax rates should encourage investment by small businesses in environmental improvements (rebates for insulation, use of renewable energy).
- Coventry City Council should use its planning powers more effectively to safeguard local post offices and pharmacies by refusing planning permission for these services to large retailers
- Improved public transport will encourage shoppers back to high streets

In terms of beautifying the high street, Transport 2000 has promoted the use of Community Street Audits:

"On a street audit, small groups of local people examine the street in detail and their findings are written up into a report. Problems identified include broken pavements, redundant guard rails, a lack of trees, illegal parking, traffic speeds and poor lighting for pedestrians. These problems are fed into the redesign of the road to ensure they are resolved as far as possible and previous mistakes are not repeated in the new design. Community street audits have already been carried out in Bradford, Bakewell, Evesham, Hull and Southwark and have received enthusiastic support from local people."

Amnesty International on Arms Trade/Executions

2006-04-20T07:28:00.000+01:00

In the cinemas, I still haven't seen this ad for Teleshop.

Amnesty International also has a new report out today on the use of the death penalty. In 2005, at least 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries, 94 percent of them in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Reminder: Coventry Stop The War meeting, 730pm tonight, upstairs at Methodist Central Hall, New Union Street.

Deepening Democracy in Coventry

2006-04-19T13:38:00.000+01:00

If society is apathetic and depoliticised, it gives more scope for corruption and exploitation of the system, as well as creating more room for extreme parties.

That’s why:

- At 16, you can get married, pay taxes and join the army. The Green Party supports the campaign to lower the voting age to 16.
- We would bring in “Citizen Initiatives” – a petition from 20% of the electors in a council ward could place a proposition on the ballot for the coming year
- If elected, I would voluntarily subject myself to recall, that is, if 40% of Earlsdon ward would sign a petition calling for my recall, I would resign to fight a by-election
- I would send updates six times per year to all dwellings in the Earlsdon ward on recent city council decisions
- With local election turnout so low, the Greens would push to get as many people as possible on the electoral roll

Peugeot Closing Plant At Ryton

2006-04-19T13:02:00.000+01:00

Workers shouldn’t find out they have been sacked through the media, end of. But what bothers me about cases like Ryton is that local Labour MPs start clamouring for mass retraining packages, “just as we did for Rover,” as Mike O’Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire) has said.

Britain needs a far better retraining/reskilling system, 52 weeks a year, not just when a Ryton or a Longbridge happens.

Take Denmark:

- an unemployment rate of 5%
- for the first four years after being fired, your unemployment benefit can be as high as 90% of your current wage, plus extra training
- however, you risk losing your benefit if you refuse a job within two hours' travel from home … and on the first day after you are fired, you have to register with an employment office

How does Denmark do it? Income taxes as high as 60%.

It works so well that “when the centre-right government tried to cut unemployment benefits for highly skilled workers, it was employers who protested that the plan would upset the social balance that keeps Denmark competitive. So it was quietly shelved.”

Britain has emphasised flexibility and a lower-wage economy … at the expense of security for workers. That’s what leads to Rytons and Longbridges.

Oh, and the number of Danes employed, both directly and indirectly, in wind turbine manufacture increased from 2 900 in 1991 to 21 000 by 2002.

Coventry was the leader in watch making, in bicycle making, then in car manufacture. Why haven’t we become part of the next manufacturing revolution?

Until We Get Plastic Recycling in Earlsdon ...

2006-04-18T08:16:00.000+01:00

Here are some neat ideas for reusing plastic bottles in your garden.

Other tips on how to reuse plastic:

- Take a reusable shopping bag to the supermarket or corner shop, or re-use the bags you were given last time. Don't accept a bag if you don't need one.
- Use plastic yoghurt pots to grow seedlings.
- Buy products that are refillable.
- Don't add extra packaging -- do grapefruits and bananas (which already have natural packaging) need a separate plastic bag from the dispensers in the produce section?

Road Building and the Conservatives

2006-04-18T07:42:00.000+01:00

Chris Grayling is the Tory Shadow Environment Secretary. Whilst loading his party conference speech in Manchester this year with rhetoric, he also said that he wanted to get "rid of the bottlenecks that snarl up our roads" and "I want us to continue to champion the freedom of the motorist."

David Cameron, Mr. Wind Turbine on my house, Mr. Arctic Circle trip to see a glacier later this week, has dismissed the Climate Change Levy (an extra tax on greenhouse emissions of big business) as "red tape." In his first speech as party leader, he declared, "I want to build more roads ... we need a concerted programme of road building."

In February 2006, the Department of Transport published statistics showing that road traffic has risen 11% since 1997 in England. And the Conservatives want even more? And they're environmental?

What we need, at the city level, are strategies for year-on-year traffic reduction. Less traffic on the roads means less congestion and safer walks to school for children.

Easter and Recycling

2006-04-17T10:37:00.000+01:00

Recycle for Warwickshire is calling on people to remember to think of the environment when disposing of the packaging from Easter eggs. 80 million chocolate eggs will be sold in the UK this year, generating around 4,370 tonnes of card and 160 tonnes of foil waste. An average 200g chocolate egg comes with 54g card and 2g of foil – both of which can be recycled.

Coventry and Health

2006-04-17T10:14:00.000+01:00

In the West Midlands:

- 23% of men and 29% of women are obese. A further 43% of men and 31% of women are overweight.
- Eating at least five portions of fruit and veg per day is recommended, but less than a quarter of men and women meet this recommendation. On average, men in the West Midlands eat only 3.2 portions per day and women 3.4 portions.
- Only 40% of people are moderately physically active (equivalent to brisk walking) for at least 30 minutes, five days a week.

A Green group on Coventry City Council would lobby for more public education campaigns on healthy eating and exercise. Last September, the Lady Godiva Half Marathon was a great event. We would also expand fruit and veg programmes in local schools.

Green Policies on Schools

2006-04-16T11:54:00.000+01:00

When schools, in this case, or libraries, or other public buildings in Coventry, undergo renovations, this is the kind of modification that we need to put into place. Moseley Primary School in Coundon has been rebuilt with a sedum roof (a green, grass-type plant, which will provide a habitat for local insects and birds, whilst absorbing rainwater), as well as harvesting rainwater for flushing the school toilets.

As well, Stoke Park Secondary was part of a project for cycle safety training, traffic calming, and a new set of bike sheds, designed by local artist Jon Ford. Ford worked with the pupils to design the sheds (capacity for 80 bikes). Notably, the sheds were made possible through funding from the Government's Cycle Projects Fund, Cyclic, the New Opportunities Fund, and the City Council. The public sector has to take the initiative to spur this kind of change onwards.

Parliamentary Committee Says No to Nuclear

2006-04-16T11:48:00.000+01:00

The all-party Environment Audit Committee has released a new report, Keeping the Lights On: Nuclear, Renewables and Climate Change, that states:

"Over the next 10 years, nuclear power cannot contribute either to the need for more generating capacity or to carbon reductions as it simply could not be built in time ... Nuclear power raises a variety of issues which would need to be satisfactorily resolved before any decision to go ahead is taken."

It highlights problems such as: terrorism, nuclear proliferation risks, safety, public acceptability, long-term waste disposal, and the availability of uranium.

At present, coal and nuclear supplies about 60 percent of Britain's electricity. We need to flip that around, i.e. 60% decentarlised renewables, and Coventry could be a lead council in that process.

Recycling Petition / Greens Election Broadcast

2006-04-15T10:18:00.000+01:00

An online petition, started by Coventry Friends of the Earth, can be found here.

The local election broadcast for the Green Party will be aired on Monday 24th April on the following channels:

- BBC2 17.55
- ITV 18.25
- BBC1 18.45

Very productive day yesterday, 11 streets leafletted!

Watching: saw The Constant Gardener at the Warwick Arts Centre last night

Listening: Fergal Keane interviewed the peace activist Norman Kember on Radio 4 this morning, his first broadcast interview at length, about his work, his capture, and the smears against him not thanking the SAS enough on his release.

Stop The War Meeting - 20th April

2006-04-15T10:15:00.000+01:00

The next meeting of "Coventry Stop the War" will be on Thursday, 20th April, at 7.30 pm, upstairs at the Methodist Central Hall, New Union Street. The agenda will be:

- What response if or when the US/Israel mount an attack on Iran
- Public meeting in Coventry, possibly with Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo prison camp inmate
- Stop the War coalition national conference in June
- Activities that can help to gain publicity and public awareness for the anti-war movement

Prof Sir David King and Climate Change

2006-04-14T11:24:00.000+01:00

Prof David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser, now says that a 3 degrees Celsius global rise in temperature, caused by 550 parts per million of CO2, would lead to:

- a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops, leaving 400 million more people at risk of hunger
- between 1.2bn and 3bn more people at risk of water stress
- few ecosystems (like natural forests) could adapt
- half of nature reserves would cease to be worthwhile
- a fifth of coastal wetlands would be lost.

What’s important is that King added that “it was essential that people did not fall into despair about climate change, because the worst effects could be still avoided with action.”

The bright side is that if we can hold the line at 400 ppm of CO2, we can keep the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

Does this sound like a situation where half-stepping will work, where Labour’s drip-feeding of renewable energy technologies fits?

Campaigning Begins!

2006-04-13T23:04:00.000+01:00

Our leaflets come back from the printer tonight, and we'll be out on the streets of Earlsdon tomorrow from 1230pm onwards. We've managed to get 7000 A5 leaflets printed!

Fascinating interview on Channel 4 News tonight. Jon Snow behaving like Paxman, as he tried to get some straight answers out of Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister. The door is still wide open for nuclear, and renewable energy sources (such as geothermal heat pump, wind or solar PV) are receiving a tenth of the funding when you compare the UK with other countries.

Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is one of the world's experts on renewable energy vs nuclear:

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid1151.php

Lovins: "Private investors have flatly rejected nuclear power but enthusiastically bought its main supply-side competitors—decentralized cogeneration and renewables. Worldwide, by the end of 2004, these supposedly inadequate alternatives had more installed capacity than nuclear, produced 92% as much electricity, and were growing 5.9 times faster and accelerating, while nuclear was fading."

Kirklees council in Yorkshire has pledged that, by 2011, at least 30% of energy consumption will be through renewable sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and biomass boiler plants that run off non-fossil fuel such as wood pellets and vegetable oil. New residential homes and schools now under construction or in the design stage are already incorporating wind turbines and solar panels.

We'd like to see that replicated in Coventry.