John Reardon

Doing a Terry Jones

2012-02-11T19:12:00.001Z

From now on, this blog will use the expression doing a Terry Jones to denote gross and unnecessary financial profligacy with public money in times of austerity.

Mr Jones, you may recall, was one of two Castle ward residents (the other being his wife) who called the completely unnecessary county council by-election for 1st March - despite the fact that local elections take place only weeks later and the two sets of elections could have been held together.

Instead, Mr and Mrs Jones have decided to spend up to £6K of taxpayer's money on the election. Both are Lib Dem supporters and I can only guess that they have decided to do so for political gain. The plan is for Lib Dem activists to pile into Castle for a 1st March poll, something that they will be unable to do when they're all busy trying to save their own council seats elsewhere against the coming tsunami that will deservedly blow them all away. Lib Dem MPs voting against PR. Who'd have thought it?

I'd like to thank Mr and Mrs Jones very much for the following:

1. Wasting public money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

2. Putting the city elections team under even greater pressure ahead of the May elections. These people really do have a lot on their plate.

3. Making my own life and those of my Green Party colleagues (and, for that matter, activists in other parties that aren't Lib Dems) more difficult and busy than it needs to be, with the financial implications that a by-election brings and in the run up to an Ofsted at work.

Thank you again.

Unbelievable.

Sabre rattling in the South Atlantic

2012-02-10T07:59:00.000Z

It increasingly feels like the 1980s all over again.

Large numbers of people losing their jobs, a driving down of living standards and an increase in international tension. I'm almost convinced that the next US president, and it doesn't matter who it is, will launch an attack on Iran killing large numbers of people in the process.

And then there's the Falklands. The Argentine government, headed by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (who took over from her now dead husband in 2007, and please dial down the plastic surgery) is making increasingly noisy demands for the return of the islands. Nothing to do with political problems at home and attempts to distract the population from them then? Good. Just checking.

Historically, the French claim to the islands is as strong as any. Originally uninhabited (and never settled on a significant scale by anyone) the 1690 to 1833 timeframe is the period disputed as to who did what to whom, when and why - and what the consequences are for current claims. Populism, irrationality and politics take over from reasoned debate as far as any claims to the islands go, although it's particularly so on the Argentine side.

Argentina wants the Falkland Islands. That's the bottom line. Any strategy they pursue is clearly to that end. However I'm struggling to see where all of this can go in terms of a resolution. My own view is that there can't be one, for the simple reason that the vast majority of islanders want to remain part of the UK. There's no independence movement or desire for self-determination of any sort, although there is a long running debate about whether the Falklands should send its own MP to Westminster to represent the 2,955 islanders.

This looks set to run. A showdown with Argentina, albeit on a far smaller scale than 1982, would suit the current government here, so we may see the development of an odd parasitic relationship between London and Buenos Aires in the medium term. Can't we make some obscure Lib Dem MP (although is there any other kind?) some sort of viceroy to keep them happy? They seem to go for that sort of thing.

The Castle by-election runners and riders

2012-02-05T09:04:00.000Z

Nominations closed on Friday at noon and there are five candidates in the running to be Castle's next county councillor.

Neil Boothman goes for the Greens, Olwyn Luckley for the Lib Dems, Keith Meller for the Conservatives, Michael Owen for UKIP and Willie Whalen for Labour.

As I've said before this is totally Labour's to lose. There was, apparently, considerable opposition to the idea of Elsie Martlew as the candidate for the by-election with various reasons given, such as not a team player, lack of people skills, high risk and Labour actually want to win. Willie Whalen's candidacy may be a shrewd move as, indeed, is Olwyn Luckley's. If you're in a contest like this you need your high profile names.

The Lib Dems are already on the defensive over the calling of the by-election was attacked by ourselves and Labour. It really is an outrageous waste of public money so close to the May poll and has been done purely for political gain. The Lib Dems will try to flood the area with activists in a way that won't be possible in May when they'll all be holed up in their own parishes trying to swim against the tsunami quite rightly heading their way.

The reality is that there are only two choices on the ballot paper. On the one hand you have the pro-cuts parties. They're all signed up the austerity measures and the only difference is in the presentation. This is a bit like in the former Stalinist states of central and eastern Europe where phantom opposition parties were created in a nod to democratic window dressing, but they were all controlled by the ruling party and accepted their 'leading role' in society. On the other hand you have the Greens who are offering something very different. So two very clear sets of choices here if you're a Castle voter.

UKIP would like to think of themselves as some sort of UK style Tea Party. This is odd because they now find themselves in the position of wanting EU austerity measures to go even further but without supporting the EU itself: in other words the EU is doing what they want. For some reason I'm on their local email list and can't get off it. I now know for a fact that they're even more extreme and mad than I thought they were. Public meetings on hanging anyone?

The justice zone

2012-02-04T14:23:00.000Z

I feel I'm being spoiled.

It's fantastic news that Inspector Knacker has decided to throw the book at the horrendous Chris Huhne and his ghastly ex-wife Vicky Pryce. The comments yesterday from Cameron and Clegg were somewhat less than wholehearted in their support for someone whose name has become a byword for vanity. He's also been pretty useless as a cabinet minister.

Huhne was one of many MPs caught out in the expenses scandal, in his case billing taxpayers for a trouser press, fourteen pence for stationery and a fluffy duster. In the 2007 Lib Dem leadership contest he stated that "relationships, including particularly family relationships, are actually the most important things in making people happy and fulfilled". We know that he meant it too, but seemingly he wasn't speaking about his wife of twenty five years whom he left shortly afterwards, or his three children, all of whom appeared extensively in his general election literature, but a woman he was having an affair with.

I don't buy this nonsense about what people do in their private lives being their own business. If his own family can't trust this bloke, I see no reason why the rest of us should. Adios!

Looking for Transwonderland

2012-01-29T12:00:00.000Z

"Maintaining our balance requires skilful manoeuvring and compromise, something that Nigerian politics - for all its evils - has achieved. On some levels I admired the adeptness with which our society handles its cultural fault lines - especially when compared to the British angst over its tony Muslim minority. Our sporadic flashes of violence don't reflect complete failure, I realised, but instead the occasional spewings of an active volcano that Nigerian society has done remarkably well to contain."

"The seams of our society fray without actually tearing apart."

I've just finished reading Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa.

Nigeria is one of the biggest and most significant countries in Africa and a major oil producer, but like most people it's a place that I know next to nothing about.

Noo Saro-Wiwa is from a prominent Nigerian family. Her father, the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered by the Abacha regime in 1995 along with eight other Ogoni activists. His daughter has a foot in two societies. She was raised in Britain and edcated at King's in London and at New York's Columbia University. The UK is her home, but she's Nigerian as well, with childhood summer holidays mostly spent in that part of the world. I think this is something of a strength that makes her uniquely qualified to produce some interesting insights into Nigerian society.

Saro-Wiwa's book takes us on a Nigerian road trip in which she encounters religious division, communal violence and the corruption and poverty that pervades all aspects of Nigerian society. She describes a total quagmire that it's almost impossible to imagine her nation escaping from. But as always, it's a bit more nuanced than that, with her descriptions of strong family ties and people somehow, almost, just, managing to get by. Highly recommended.

Neil Boothman for Castle ward

2012-01-28T10:04:00.000Z

It turns out that the Castle by-election was called by Terry and Margaret Jones.

Mr and Mrs Jones are, apparently, known Lib Dem supporters. It is unusual for electors to call an election without being asked to do so by one of the political parties. What a complete waste of £6,000.

Millions of people are losing their jobs and having their living standards driven down whilst the likes of failed RBS chief executive (the bank is still 82% owned by the taxpayer) walk away laughing with a bonus of £963,000 in policies enthusiastically supported by the Lib Dems. These guys deserve to be kicked repeatedly and hard all the way up to 1st March and beyond. Castle voters can expect Lib Dem activists from all over to flood into the area ahead of polling day with Tim Farron probably pitching up a couple of times as well as they try to save the seat. Their defeat is by no means a foregone conclusion: far from it.

The Labour Party, meanwhile, is complicit in this as Ed Miliband lines himself up with the coalition government's economic policies. Why anyone feels the need to vote for this crowd is beyond me. Their endorsement of austerity economics calls into question the very reason for the party's existence.

On the county council Labour hold the finance portfolio and are doing the coalition's work for them. Local Greens will be reminding voters of this repeatedly and regularly during the campaign.

My good friend Neil Boothman is the Green Party's candidate in this election. Neil is 35, from Carlisle and works in social care. He contested Castle last time where we polled in the 11% region and does our online campaigning. As a local party we're at the stage where it's possible to see the outline of a future Green group and Neil has a huge part to play in that, although none of us are under any illusions as to the nature of the challenge. You can follow our campaign on this blog, at http://carlislegreens.org.uk/ and on Twitter at CarlisleGreens and johnbreardon. As always, feel free to pitch in as the campaign gets underway.

This is going to be an interesting contest to watch. The result last year was as follows:

Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts Joanne Beaty 90

Green Neil Boothman 135

Liberal Democrat Colin Drew Farmer 438

Labour Willie Whalen 549

BNP Ben Whittingham 84

Electorate 4488 Turnout 29% Spoilt papers 23

Castle was, but is no longer, a safe seat for the Lib Dems and the percentages make for interesting reading. I remember talking to Olwyn Luckley and Paul Atkinson a couple of years ago at one election count about the very low turnout in the ward and the high turnover in at least one polling district. My guess is that in a by-election that will be even lower. The Conservatives will just be looking to hold on to their current percentage and I see no reason why they won't do that. The shake up will be between the other parties, although we'll also see UKIP and the Socialist Party join the contest.

Local round up

2012-01-27T18:26:00.000Z

I enjoy reading The Cumberland News. If you're not familiar with Carlisle's media it's a traditional weekly local paper in the best sense of that tradition.

It's worth highlighting a few of the stories covered this week.

Police minister Nick Herbert (above) is on the front page attacking opponents of elected police commissioners as undemocratic. This isn't really a helpful comment when, as with any new initiative, people really do have their concerns about a range of issues, although one that's not discussed is the role of the police in our society. It turns out that a twelve strong panel of county and district councillors will oversee Cumbria's police commissioner, to be elected in November, and the paper reports that all three parties will field candidates.

This is depressing stuff, and will probably turn out to be a case of the useless overseeing the incompetent. So much for new and original figures coming forward. In an interview on page ten new police authority chairman Ray Cole makes some valid points about the type of candidates who are likely to come forward.

Herbert himself, had he been in any other walk of life, would have been hauled in by Inspector Knacker by now because he's another corrupt MP who's robbed the public. In his case he claimed back £10,000 of the £14,700 stamp duty, as well as £150 of the valuation fee and £675 for a survey of the property. His partner’s name is also on the property’s deeds and Herbert has claimed the entire £1,893.35 monthly interest charge on the house’s £465,000 mortgage according to the Daily Telegraph.

Herbert then rather publicly whinged that he was being picked on by the media in general and the Daily Telegraph in particular because he's gay. Er, no. He fleeced the taxpayer and for some reason refused to see anything wrong with that. I give up.

I'm so sorry to hear about the death of Liz Inch. Her obituary is on page four. I knew Liz only vaguely and whoever wrote the article has done an admirable job of concisely summarising her many contributions to society through local politics, the peace movement, as a bereavement councillor, the local music scene and as a Quaker, a group for which I have the utmost respect.

Further in it's announced that Olwyn Luckley has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Castle by-election on Thursday 1st March. Nominations close one week today and as yet Labour and the Conservatives have yet to announce their respective nominations. I understand that there's been a bit of interest in being the Labour candidate. I'd love Labour to select Elsie Martlew and they'd be spoiling us all if they did, but my guess is that some in the local party may consider this a bit of a high risk strategy in a by-election because this contest is totally theirs to lose.

We selected the Green Party's candidate back in December in case anyone was determined enough to waste taxpayer's money and call an early by-election. Their nomination papers were handed in today and subsequently confirmed. Castle is good territory for us and we polled 11% last time. More tomorrow.

It's hurting and not working

2012-01-25T20:04:00.000Z

It's now official.

The economy has shrunk further and we're now heading into another recession.

Well done y'all! Keep calm and carry on. Iceberg straight ahead. What was it that Einstein said? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes each time.

The unlikely rise of the extreme right

2012-01-24T19:24:00.000Z

Some (unresolved) technical problems with this blog mean that I'm currently unable to reply to comments, but thanks if you've contributed in the last few days. I hope to find a way around this by the weekend.

I don't have a lot of time to read as much as I'd like to, but someone always worth the time is Thomas Frank, an American writer who seems to be increasingly cited in the UK and European media.

Frank is the author of What's the matter with Kansas?, which was published over here as What's the matter with America? It's a provocative book which explores why an increasingly extreme Republican party have, bizarrely, come to be seen as the champion of ordinary working Americans who now clearly vote against their own self interests. That rather brief summary doesn't really do the book justice, but essentially it's about a populist movement that does immense harm to the interests of the populace itself. For example, Frank seeks to explain why so many Americans are driven to campaign against free health care when it would be in their own interests to have it.

Frank's latest work is Pity the Billionaire. As with his previous books the context is American but the lessons can be applied to most societies. Here, he analyses why the far right Tea Party movement have managed to get millions of low and middle income Americans to campaign for a radical extension of the system that caused the economic collapse. It just goes to show how easily people are duped. More political psychology than economy, but there's no understanding of the latter without the former.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the great unravelling continues. Joblessness rises as locally Careline becomes a luxury for those vulnerable people who can afford it. All three main parties are in on this: and that's the message Greens will be campaigning hard on in the Castle by-election on 1st March.

2012-01-19T17:39:00.000Z

The sheer stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me.

I'm not sure who's responsible but a county council by-election has been called for Castle ward on Thursday 1st March. This will take place just weeks before the scheduled May elections. Figures from the Electoral Commission suggest that a poll like this will cost taxpayers something in the region of £6,000. And for what purpose when we're weeks away from polling day anyway? A lot of hassle for a lot of people for no good reason.

Castle can manage without a county councillor for a few more weeks given any sensible cost plus timescale analysis. (Let's face it, places like St Aidan's effectivelt function without a county councillor anyway).

Politically this is an odd decision, although the calling of the election may well, of course, have come from outside the political parties. Indeed, I understand that Labour and the Conservatives have denied calling the election, but if you can shed light on who's responsible please feel free to post here.

Adios

2012-01-17T18:34:00.000Z

Manuel Fraga Iribarne (above far right, appropriately), the last surviving minister from Spain's Fascist France era, has died.

Good.

The most boring politician in the world

2012-01-15T12:52:00.000Z

The most boring priest in the world was a regular character on Channel Four's hit TV series Father Ted. But who's the political equivalent?

That's too easy. Have a look at this. If you get beyond three minutes you've done better than me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9qK_A8dRp4

No wonder Fine Gael kept this guy in the political wilderness for so long. Kenny, moreover, has proven himself to be both spineless and useless as Taoiseach, implementing the biggest cuts programme in the state's history. If he'd been any use as leader of the opposition he'd have exposed the long-running corruption and scams of the previous administration. Fr Jack (above) would do a better job.

Here's a more accurate depiction. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4p-aKVYspk

See you at the airport (but not Carlisle's)

2012-01-14T19:28:00.000Z

It will be interesting to analyse external emigration figures for the last two quarters of 2011.

A number of people that my wife and I have worked with have left the UK recently to take up what appear to be quite lucrative jobs abroad. In all cases this has come as something of a surprise. Clearly, the quality of life in these places will be very good, especially for young families. It's anecdotal of course and not necessarily part of a wider trend, but I can't blame people leaving the current climate of austerity and economic uncertainty for better prospects elsewhere.

If you saw the front page of yesterday's edition of The Cumberland News you'll have noticed that Elsie Martlew has been confirmed as Labour's candidate for Castle. It now looks like we'll have a double poll in May for the county and the city seat.

There are very obvious reasons for Elsie Martlew's candidacy. Clearly, an income is needed to supplement a meagre pension and London property portfolio. Moreover, and as suggested in her comments in yesterday's newspaper interview, Carlisle people cannot do without the benefit of her extensive expertise. They might not know it yet, but fresh faces like hers with new ideas are clearly needed (shurely shome mishtake? Ed). Marks and Spencer's vol-au-vents all round.

Meanwhile, we learn today that Carlisle taxpayers are to be hit with a £76K bill as a result of incompetence and mismanagement over the ongoing farce about the airport. According to Labour's Willie Whalen (above), it's a price worth paying. Which is an interesting take, to say the least, on safeguarding public money.

Government

2012-01-10T19:21:00.000Z

I've just started watching Borgen (Government) which began on BBC4 last Saturday.

If you've not seen it or heard of it I can't recommend Borgen highly enough. Produced by the Danish state broadcaster DR and others it tells the fictional story of Birgitte Nyborg, a complete outsider played superbly by Sidse Babett Knudsen who becomes Denmark's first female prime minister.

The first two episodes from a total of ten have been screened and it's probably the best political drama I've seen. Each episode seems to start with a quote from Machiavelli with an incredible number of twists, turns and sub plots along the way. For those of us familiar with politics at a local level it's all there: the deals, attempted flattery, clash of personalities and attempts to get things done. If like me you enjoyed The Killing there are a few faces that you'll recognise. Denmark is a small country, after all.

So, following yesterday's announcement it's almost certain that there will be a referendum on Scottish independence before the next general election in May 2015.

The polls are all over the place on this issue and it very much depends upon what question is asked. However, I would say that there's an overall trend towards a 30:30:30 split between independence, staying within the UK (however defined) and don't knows.

Ironically independence could mean the end of the SNP as the party splits into its component parts. There's no way that anyone could realistically describe these guys as left of centre. Andrew Welsh, a former MP and MSP, was an ardent campaigner for the return of capital punishment, whilst in rural areas the SNP are far to the right of Cameron's Conservatives. Why else would Salmond and the rest of the SNP have lauded the Icelandic economic model arguing that Scotland could likewise be part of a Nordic 'arc of prosperity'? That's either extreme free-marketeering or crass stupidity. But I'm going for both.

David Cameron's description of UKIP as fruitloops, loonies and closet racists could quite easily be applied to large sections of the SNP. The quality of their MSPs is poor and certainly worse than Labour's uninspiring Holyrood contingent. Indeed, significant numbers of their candidates did not even expect to be elected last May with one bloke elected as an MSP turned up to the count wearing jeans and a T-shirt as he didn't rate his chances at all.

And yet, people actually vote for this lot. In large numbers. It's not some sort of minority pursuit like Morris dancing, watching Scunthorpe or voting Lib Dem. I can only see their support increasing in the short term as people in Scotland react against the UK Government's cuts agenda. It's a simplistic and attractive message, although it will be interesting to see how Scotland copes without large subsidies from Westminster. The SNP's stated aim was always for an independent Scotland to join the euro as quickly as possible but that's off the agenda as well. It's entirely up to them what they do. An independent Scotland would probably end up between Poland and Hungary in European prosperity tables. Emigration would probably be an issue in these times of austerity too.

I can't decide whether Cameron's statement yesterday is a political masterstroke that may keep Scotland in the UK by shrewdly snatching the rug from beneath Salmond or whether it guarantees their exit. My own view is that Cameron and the Conservatives would rather not have Scotland in the union, whatever they may say in public. If they wanted to there would have been a massive pro-union onslaught by now. And why should they fight to keep within the union an opposition voting region that demands huge subsidies from the rest of the country? Scotland's exit, alongside the first past the post voting system, absolutely guarantees permanent Tory rule here. I find it hard to believe that Conservatives would not be tempted by that.

The second biggest robbery in British history

2012-01-07T09:15:00.000Z

According to this morning's headlines on the BBC News website "Ed Miliband has a 'plan' for Labour."

If I was a party member or supporter I'd sincerely hope so. I seriously question Miliband's ability to survive much longer given his both his lamentable record and yesterday's Twitter gaffe. And in the photo above why is he doing an impression of Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back?

The problem for Labour is that the parliamentary party has almost completely cleansed of independent thinkers, dissenting voices, constructive criticism and people with real life experience. This has been going on for the best part of two decades and explains, for example, why the recent Scottish Labour leadership election (a) consisted of dull and uninspiring hacks and (b) Johann Lamont emerged as leader.

In the case of Scotland, as with the rest of the UK, the party leadership from the mid 1990s onwards embarked on a process of filtering out people it rather lazily labelled as troublemakers. There were huge rows about who ended up on the approved list of party candidates for Holyrood, London Assembly and Westminster elections, and what we've seen now is that process play out so that there are hardly any high calibre people left. Local government was always a case of extremes: a number of very talented people and a number of, well, not very talented people.

Moreover, the party failed to attract new recruits at a grassroots level leading to a lack of fresh thinking and new ideas. None of these are meant to be political points: it's all about how any organisation grows and moves forward. I just don't see Labour doing that. The moment has passed as the people who would once have joined the party are now elsewhere, and not necessarily to the Greens or socialists, but to the social movements we see development around us.

On to other things.

In the end , it was a good old fashioned piece of investigative journalism, probably using a FoI request. This week the News and Stra highlighed, once again, what a scam PFI is in the case of our local, The Cumberland Infirmary (above). The full story can be accessed at http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/75-air-freshener-the-pfi-costs-facing-our-hospitals-trust-1.912284?referrerPath=home/2.1962. My personal favourites are £100 to move a leaflet rack, £75 for an air freshener and £450 to install a smoke detector.

The Conservatives have, bizarrely, condemned the costs which is odd because all of this is a consequence of PFI which they support, proving in the process that they're as profligate and off the ball when it comes to money as their Labour predecessors.

The cost of PFI has been described as an outrage and a racket. If a hospital no longer needs the services it is contracted to buy then that's irrelevant. Last year the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary found itself with a shortfall of £70 million. I remember John Metcalfe saying at the general elections hustings in Carlisle that nobody would take a mortgage out on those terms. He's absolutely right.

It's funny how those who profess the need for careful spending and austerity lack common sense when it comes to public money. And also how rabid free marketeers turn into statists when the banks end up in trouble entirely through their own fault. Then there are tears and demands for a bailout for some sort of common economic good otherwise we'll all go down together. Indeed, after the bailout of the banks (the reason why spending is so high) PFI is the second biggest robbery in British history.

Attack of the hypocrites

2012-01-06T07:01:00.000Z

Is there a more irritating, self-satisfied or hypocritical figure in British public life than Diane Abbott?

The short answer is probably yes, as there are plenty of contenders for that title.

The likes of George Monbiot (above) and Laurie Penny (below) each do a nice line in hypocrisy.

Last January Penny posted an advert on her blog to recruit an intern in which she offered a salary below the minimum wage. Both her and Monbiot, who quite rightly say that people should not fly at all, have in recent years jetted off to a public meeting in Toronto and the Occupy Wall Street protests respectively for no reason other than their own vanity (in Penny's case after writing an article in the New Statesman the week before about collapsing ice shelves in the Arctic). Sorry folks, but you lead by example and shouldn't be preaching to the rest of us not to do things you do yourselves.

Monbiot said that voters should back Lib Dem rather than Green and other candidates from the smaller party's in the 2010 general election in order to secure action on social justice, climate change and electoral reform. To be fair to Monbiot in particular, he writes well and I agree with much of what he says, which is what makes his actions all the more irritating because in both cases their credibility is undermined. Penny and Monbiot are completely different cases to Abbott.

Abbott, of course, preached to the rest of us the virtues of the comprehensive schools in her Hackney constituency whilst sending her own so to a £12,700 a year private school elsewhere. Always quick to attack others, Abbott is another corrupt MP that the voters decided to keep on, in her case netting a staggering additional £142,000 from taxpayers in expenses of which £1,100 was for taxis alone. Odd given that Abbott represents a London constituency on a few miles from Westminster.

It was heartening that Labour Party members had the good sense to ensure that she was well down the rankings in last year's leadership election.

Meanwhile, Jim Murphy (above), who is something in the shadow cabinet (and the apparatchik's apparatchik who also lacks real life experience away from Westminster), has said that Labour needs to be more pro-cuts and needs to press for an extra £5 billion to be slashed from the public finances. I wonder how Labour voters in his Scottish constituency feel about that? No wonder the party continues to collapse north of the border.

The Euro ballot

2012-01-03T18:59:00.001Z

Stephen Lawrence was the same age as me. Perhaps he would have gone on to become an architect, as was his longstanding ambition?

I was doing my A Levels when he was murdered. I remember the shock of the killing very clearly. Worse, of course, was to follow as the police were found to be institutionally racist. Two decades on and my Year 10 RE students have just finished looking at the case in passing as part of a section on prejudice and discrimination in society, and two people have finally been convicted of his murder. Many disparate groups came together to ensure justice for Stephen Lawrence, including MPs, community figures and the Daily Mail. It will, of course, be no consolation for his family.

Anyway, back in the world of party politics...

If you're a Green Party member in the North West you'll have received the latest regional newsletter and a ballot paper to determine who will lead the party list in the European elections just over two years from now. There's a huge amount of work being done across the region and consequently the party is stronger than in 2009. Therefore we're in a good position to take a seat that we missed by 0.5% three years ago. Our aim must be to increase local party coverage and get more people elected onto local councils outside the current areas of strength. I see no reason why we shouldn't be in a position to do both between now and 2014.

I've already expressed my views on who I think should be lead candidate in a previous post. Reading through the statements shows that we'll have a very strong and experienced list however it pans out in terms of final numbers. I just wish that it wasn't so incredibly difficult to get good people like these elected to national office, but that's politics. If you're reading this in Ireland as a few people seem to, there's none of that PR-STV here. The likes of Luke 'Ming' Flanagan wouldn't get a look in here on a local council, never mind the national parliament.

As I've said before I very seriously considered a European run this time but in the end things have worked out differently, and actually for the best. Had I ended up as lead candidate I would have gone full guns for it, but it's quite tody that Peter Cranie has decided to have another go. He'll be an excellent MEP and I think we'll do it next time.

Over the last few months I've been thinking very carefully about my current commitments and overall workload. It's impossible for me to continue to do what I'm presently doing on top of a full time, demanding but ultimately enjoyable job alongside everything else. My political priority is very much here in Carlisle, where we have an absolutely fantastic local party with inspiring people. We're very active and our medium term target is to snatch our first council seat.

I'll be contesting St Aidan's again in May and I'm conscious that I'll be unable to stand in 2013 as I'm a county council employee, so the aim is obviously to either take it or to get us into a position where we can make a gain next year. For that reason I'll be stepping from doing Local Party Support in the NW at January's AGM so I can focus more on Carlisle, and I won't be seeking a Euro list position, but will be doing everything I can to ensure that we make the breakthrough in 2014. Moreover, I'm very conscious that my personal circumstances may well change in the very near future and I'll be less inclined generally to go tearing around doing what I'm doing at the moment.

If you're a Green Party member and haven't yet voted, please do so. Our internal party democracy is one of the things that Greens should be most proud of. The Tories don't seem to give members any say at all in local candidate selections here in Carlisle whilst Labour nationally imposes parliamentary candidates (no one else seems to do this). Have your say.

2012

2012-01-01T12:32:00.000Z

Happy New Year.

It looks like we'll see quite a few films with a political theme this year. One in particular looks set for success in the summer, and you can view the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYplvwBvGA4

It's too easy to fall into the trap of making predictions, but nonetheless trends for the year ahead can be identified as we start off 2012. I am, by nature, an optimist, however guarded or disguised that can sometimes be. However I have never been so pessimistic about the future as the economy crumbles around us, millions have their living standards driven down and countless numbers join the ranks of the unemployed as the planet's life support systems fray around us. And most of what I've just mentioned refers only to Britain. That said, I'm a big believer in getting on with things and doing what you can, where you are with what you have.

Economic meltdown looks set to continue on the back of the chancellor's November admission that nothing the government has done so far is working. The January/February figures always make for interesting reading post-Christmas. I think we'll continue to see sporadic industrial action and there's a danger that more people will buy into the 'no alternative' narrative as it becomes a highly personalised (and understandable) battle to keep your own job. I'm very cautious about any of this going anywhere. More people have wised up to the nonsense of 'there is no alternative' but those people are still a minority. Legislation to restrict industrial action will now move into open and mainstream discussion.

Recent polls show the Conservatives comfortably pulling ahead as post-general election politics starts to become pre-general election politics. If there was a parliamentary by-election in a Conservatve held marginal seat the Tories would win it. The Lib Dem collapse will continue in 2012. The voters seem to have already decided that the Lib Dem role in any election from now on is to have its backside kicked. Repeatedly. And hard.

It's hard not to see dissent about Ed Miliband's leadership becoming louder at every level of the party - not that the views of ordinary party members have ever counted for anything. I think we'll also see a small but steady growth in the 'Others' category in national opinion polls. That's doesn't necessarily mean either a Green or UKIP surge, but the presence of others should become more noticeable and commented upon.

I think the Labour will win control of Carlisle City Council in May although that doesn't mean fresh new faces with different ideas; more Back to the Future style politics, I think. That's when the difficulties will begin for Labour locally as they start to implement cuts and the bunfight for portfolios kicks off. There are a number of extremely difficult characters floating around who will be a nightmare to keep in line. To say that Joe will have his work cut out is the understatement of the year.

Part of me thinks that whilst the euro will probably hold together, the debate about British withdrawal from the EU will move mainstream as an increasingly disparate but not coherent group of forces argues for a national debate. There's a good chance we'll have a summer of discontent again around the time of the London Olympics and perhaps a couple of occupations thrown in for good measure. I see no reason why either should enjoy wider public sympathy or support and a tough response from the authorities towards both is guaranteed.

"May you live in interesting times." Was that a Chinese curse or a blessing?

The Lady

2011-12-31T11:10:00.000Z

I went to see The Lady yesterday, a new film about Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi. You can watch a trailer here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMYAzQC3UjI

It's told as a love story: Aung San Suu Kyi's love for Burma, her husband, the Oxford academic Michael Aris and the impossible choices she has to face as Aris lies dying from prostate cancer in 1999. Sentimental it's not: this is a hard hitting film about a number of topics. Moreover, it graphically portrays the brutality of the Generals rule in Burma. You know a regime is pretty bad when even successive British Governments speak out against it, given our tendency to flog arms and offer diplomatic support to the world's assorted nasties.

Aung San Suu Kyi very suddenly went from being a mother, wife and academic in a quiet Oxford suburb to political leader and nemesis of the regime, yet the film never portrays her as an unlikely leader. It emphasises her origins as the daughter of Burma's independence leader and as a member of that country's elite. The unspoken agreement between Suu Kyi and Aris is that she will return to Burma "if my people ever need me".

As the film progresses Aris is shown doing the shopping and struggling with the ironing at home as his wife attends rallies and faces down troops in Burma; their teenage sons, meanwhile, study for GCSEs and A Levels. Her boys were stripped of their Burmese citizenship by the Generals and were banned from returning to Burma. General Ne Win is shown several times consulting fortune tellers, reading tarot cards and basing his decisions on the outcome of these, which is how I imagine Reg Watson ran the Labour Group in his brief period as leader before his own coup earlier this year. In 1988 Burmese people's savings were wiped out when all currency notes were ordered to be denominated in multiples of nine, Ne Win's favourite number. Bizarre stuff.

Aung San Suu Kyi herself was under house arrest for years but was always allowed to lead Burma, although the regime would never have allowed her to return and wanted her gone. The Generals refused a visa for Aris in his final weeks, claiming that it did not have the medical facilities to cope with his condition (the Norwegian Government said to the regime that they would fly him there and back in a dedicated plane with medical staff but this offer was turned down). The scenes of her playing the piano her particularly powerful as she attempt to communicate to the outside world that she's still alive.

All of this made me think about what happens next in Burma. The situation is far from being resolved and the violence and repression very much continues. There's no obvious reason at all as to why the regime should fall. Aung San Suu Kyi's words were projected at the end of the film: "Please use your freedom to help us secure ours."

Sarkozy's secret weapon?

2011-12-27T11:55:00.000Z

Christmas is now, sadly, a byword for frenzied consumerism even though there's a severe recession with no likelihood of an improvement any time soon.

I find it depressing how so many places are now open on Boxing Day, with increasing numbers of local shops open on Christmas Day as well. People are absolutely entitled to some time off. The queues for the Next sale at 6am on Boxing Day (above) are indeed a sad reflection on the state of affairs: a fine example of the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The disparate groups who campaigned against changes to the Sunday trading laws twenty years ago who stated it would lead to a slippery slope have now been completely vindicated. One of the charges successfully mounted against them at the time was that they were against free choice. There's not much choice though for the many people who can't enjoy Christmas with their families when they have to be up at the crack of dawn for work on Boxing Day to feed the machine. That's if they have jobs.

All of this underlines that an economy based on never ending growth and expansion is ultimately unsustainable. Nor is a continual cycle of shopping the road to a good society as many economists, the Labour Party and dissident Lib Dems would have us believe. It never fails to entertain me when economics is described as a science. What complete nonsense.

This leads me to A Christmas Carol which I read a few days ago for the first time. Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well on Britain's high streets. The stereotype of Victorian society is one of piety and extremism, perhaps fuelled by the likes of Dickens' idiosyncratic characters inhabiting extreme circumstances. The reality is that society then was becoming enlightened across a range of areas as people pushed the boundaries of what was accepted in religion, science, technology, engineering and social attitudes. It's probably my favourite period to teach.

Anyway, on to more global issues. France goes to the polls early next year and polls show that Sarkozy is still the favourite to win, not least because the French Socialist Party, in particular, just love to fight amongst themselves. At least people there care enough to regard them as relevant, unlike Ed Miliband's increasingly tenuous position.

A few weeks ago the French government announced that the 2.5 million French citizens living abroad will be represented by eleven MPs in the National Assembly as of next year's elections. My understanding of this is that the world will be divided into eleven constituencies which will mean one MP for the USA and Canada, one for Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Monaco, one for North Africa and so on. The Socialist Party candidate for the Northern Europe constituency, which consists of the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, works for a Labour MP whilst the UMP's Emmanuelle Savarit runs a London consultancy firm. How these contests will go is anyone's guess.

France isn't the first country to give its expats the vote. Italy has long had a similar system, which resulted a couple of years ago in the Glasgow Herald's restaurant critic narrowly missing election to the Italian lower house, the chamber of deputies.

France has a number of overseas territories like French Guiana, Reunion, New Caledonia and Tahiti (above). These places have always been regarded on every level as an integral part of France. They have always sent MPs to the French National Assembly, there are no local laws (other than minor differences between the equivalent of local authorities) and the people there are without question regarded as French citizens. That's an interesting contrast with British colonial policy where people were quite literally and legally categorised as second class citizens with different passports and no right of UK residency, with local parliaments controlled by corrupt local oligarchies whilst London let them get on with it (and from which tax havens were spawned).

London has a French population of 300,000 (with another 100,000 French citizens elsewhere in the UK) and was visited by Sarkozy in the last presidential election. Commentators suggest it will be a key battleground next year and a turnout across the world of around 50% of eligible electors is expected.

This begs an interesting question: if you don't live in your country of citizenship, and therefore don't pay taxes there, should you be allowed to vote in national elections? Exceptions can always be made, such as diplomatic staff, but it's a moot point. EU citizens can, of course, vote in the local and European elections of another member state. Irish citizens can vote for and stand in all UK elections. British citizens in Ireland can do the same, but only citizens can contest national elections. My mother in law lives in Malawi and doesn't exercise her UK vote on principle as she feels she's not entitled to despite being legally allowed. She did consider this carefully because the counter-argument was to that she's paid UK taxes all her working life and is now above the state retirement age and has only lived abroad after that time.

I'm surprised that the Conservatives haven't pushed for something similar here. The party has historically been well organised in areas where there are large numbers of British expatriates, especially Spain. Some years ago there were cross-party demands for the Falkland Islands (above) and Gibraltar to have the right to send their own MPs (one each) to Westminster. With Gibraltar voting as part of the South West region in European elections and an unpopular Argentine government once again sabre-rattling over the Falklands to distract attention from domestic economic problems, this may yet go somewhere.

The year's most pointless election?

2011-12-21T09:30:00.000Z

The first rule of electoral politics is that decisions are made by those who turn up. In order to effectively represent people and wider causes this is surely an obvious point to make.

During my time in the Labour Party even the laziest of councillors more or less managed to do this, even though one of them infamously absented himself for the entirety of his own election campaign for a holiday in Los Angeles.

No names, obviously, but he was a county councillor who looked like he came about fifth in the All Yewdale Kenny Everett Lookalike Contest.

I've mentioned before about how parliamentary by-elections used to be major national news stories, although that is no longer the case. However for an anorak like me to completely miss one is worrying. On 9th June this year the good people of Belfast West went to the polls to elect a new MP in advance of the election of Gerry Adams to Dail Eireann as one of the Louth TDs.

To be fair with the by-election being in Northern Ireland it doesn't really count. The balance of power in the House of Commons wasn't going to shift nor were there ever going to be implications for UK politics as a whole. If you live in Northern Ireland, of course, you're not allowed to vote Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem because those parties have a policy of not standing.

I remember coming across a piece of research some years ago which projected which of the main UK parties would win which constituencies there in the absence of any constitutional issues and it made for interesting reading. Essentially Labour would mop up in Belfast (although one seat would be Lib Dem) with the Conservatives taking the rural vote.

Sinn Fein obviously have a policy of not taking their seats at Westminster because it involves, amongst other things, taking an oath of allegiance to Mrs Windsor and her dysfunctional family (although plenty of other MPs seem to get around this both at Westminster and in the devolved assemblies). Their policy of absenteeism meant that they were unable to fully access all of the resources that all MPs rightly expect to have at their disposal, although in times past not having assorted terrorists floating around central London was a good thing.

Sinn Fein was probably the best financed of all the Northern Ireland parties due to an odd arrangement whereby turbo-capitalist bankers in the US ended up financing a self-proclaimed Marxist party as well as the terrorism of the IRA via Noraid. These days, of course, Sinn Fein likes to use terms like fiscal responsibility and talk economic orthodoxy. They still have plenty of dubious people in their ranks. The common consensus is that they'll be in government in Ireland in the next six to seven years.

Still, polling 70% of the vote is impressive. Adams and the rest always had excellent reputations when it came to casework. New MP Paul Maskey, who was fined 500 Euros following a brawl in a Dublin kebab shop after Gardai nabbed him for calling another customer a Free State Scumbag, sits in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The results of the by-election are below.

Sinn Féin Paul Maskey 16,211 70.6 -0.5

SDLP Alex Attwood 3,088 13.5 -2.9

People Before Profit Gerry Carroll 1,751 7.6 N/A

Democratic Unionist Brian Kingston 1,393 6.1 -1.5

Ulster Unionist Bill Manwaring 386 1.7 -1.4

Alliance Aaron McIntyre 122 0.5 -1.4

Majority 13,123 57.1 +2.4

Turnout 22,951 37.5 -16.5

As the SDLP heads towards irrelevance and ultimate oblivion, the really interesting feature of the result of the strong showing of People Before Profit.

They have two TDs in Dail Eireann and are part of a larger left bloc in Ireland who believe it's a bit off that people are being asked to pay for the mistakes of greedy bankers. Now that Labour have gone the way of the Greens and ended up selling out completely and supporting a centre right coalition doing nasty things, it's these guys who are providing the real opposition in the north and south. Good luck to them.

Vaclav Havel

2011-12-19T14:21:00.000Z

I don't really have political heroes, but if I did, Vaclav Havel would certainly fall into that category.

The various obituaries that have appeared over the last couple of days make for fascinating reading. He was, without doubt, an extraordinarily courageous man who, with a small number of others, stood up to a brutal and violent totalitarian system - a system that, let's not forget, had plenty of apologists here in Britain and elsewhere. Czechoslovakia wasn't the worst of the European totalitarian regimes, but it life there must have been horrendous, with enforced disappearances, torture, harassment and executions part of the regime of daily life. In 1990 Havel warned about the dangers of relentless economic growth breaching ecological limits, and here we are.

A few years ago I went to see Tom Stoppard's play Rock 'n' Roll (above). Set in Cambridge and Prague it tells the story of the underground movement in Czechoslovakia between the events of the 1968 Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which finally toppled the regime.

The main two characters are a Czech student living in Britain, doing various odd jobs over the years, and his relationship with an affluent English Cambridge professor and Communist Party member who continues to believe in the Soviet model and idolises Lenin and Stalin, from the safety of his agreeable and pleasant college surroundings.

The underground Czech rock group (hence the title) The Plastic People of the Universe (above) are held up as a model of resistance to the brutality of the regime throughout the play, and those dissident forces eventually become Civic Forum and Public Against Violence as the regime is challenged and then falls. It's a brilliant satire and a timely reminder of how asylum seekers were once openly paraded as evidence of the West's political superiority.

Havel was, of course, an accomplished playwright himself. However there are relatively few venues that have staged his productions in Britain, with the exception of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, Surrey, who have taken the lead in translating and producing his work and which Havel visited in 2009 (above). It would be a fitting tribute to a gifted writer, dedicated European and brave political activist for his work to now reach a wider audience.

A Just Church?

2011-12-18T11:00:00.000Z

In this week's New Statesman there's a very timely and quite interesting interview of Christopher Hitchens (below) who died this week.

It's very sad that someone of his intelligence effectively ended up drinking and smoking himself to death. The interview was conducted by Richard Dawkins, who to me has always ended up showing elements of the fanaticism that he tried to expose in others.

Unlike Tony Blair, at least David Cameron doesn't believe that he's been sent by God, although a recent interview suggests that he's heading in a dangerous direction. Cameron's latest outburst on how Britain needs to become a Christian country again, whilst his government displays little Christianity as countless millions are thrown out of work, should be seen as the shallow outburst of opportunism that it is. Yep, it's time for a good old culture war to distract everyone from the collapsing economy.

The latest ICM/Telegraph opinion poll shows the Conservatives six points ahead. So comments like these, along with Cameron fighting EU attempts to modestly crack down on city fraud and tax evasion and dressing it up as standing up for Britain, always go down well.

Organised religion and adherence to dogma is always something that I've struggled with. Everyone claims to be right whilst arguing that everyone else is wrong. I include within that anyone who rigidly and slavishly adheres to any political ideology, all of which are deeply flawed for various reasons, not least because they get human nature very wrong by assuming that everyone is rational (and therefore making the very term social science a complete nonsense). This approaches misses the point of politics (and religion) where the ultimate focus should be the character of society.

To some extent it's natural that as human beings we seek a framework within which to live our lives and which also explains the world around us. Often though that can mean we lose our critical faculties in the process.

One of the best books I've read this year is Chris Howson's A Just Church. He makes a good stab at tackling some of these issues and it no doubt makes for uncomfortable reading for any hierarchy.

Institutional religion just ends up creating mammoth self-serving bureaucracies populated by people with their own agendas. They emphasise rituals and language as part of the architecture and throw in devices like purgatory and papal infallibility to keep the peasants in line, rather than focus on their core message which would genuinely create a better society. When we went to Rome a few years ago I struggled to understand why the Church didn't flog off half of what it had and give the money to deserving causes. None of the institutions or religions do anywhere near enough.

The recent reaction of the institutional Church of England to the Occupy London SX campaign completely exposed all of this. No other institutional religion as far as I know supported the principles behind the protests because they've lost touch with their core purpose. For me no other issue was such a clear example of what institutional religion in this country should support. All of this is, of course, very generalised and there are plenty of exceptions, but depressingly I feel that my comments do end up applying in most situations most of the time. As Tony Benn once said, you sometimes get socialists in the Labour Party in the way you sometimes get Christians in the organised churches.

A resounding nothing

2011-12-16T08:23:00.001Z

Unsurprisingly Labour have held the Feltham and Heston constituency in a by-election caused by the death of crooked Alan Keen.

Nice to see the total collapse of the Lib Dem vote.

Labour's newest MP, Seema Malhotra (above), yet another hack who's never had a proper job, declared the result a resounding vote of confidence in her party and in Ed Miliband's leadership.

By any measure that's a bit far-fetched considering that 72% of people didn't bother voting. Malhotra's silly and deluded statement underlines yet again how (a) out of touch the ruling elite really is and (b) how this country is dangerously close to lacking any meaningful sort of functioning political community.

She should have ended her speech by saying that grain production in Haringey had increased by 1,300% since Miliband's election as Labour leader. What a load of nonsense.

The exam standards debate

2011-12-14T14:50:00.000Z

I'm currently reading The Social Animal: a story of how success happens by David Brooks.

Brooks is perhaps better known in the US as a political commentator. His recent book departs from this and discusses how we're influenced by unconscious instincts rather than rational thoughts, and rather nicely summarises the latest cognitive research, bringing together a number of different pieces of otherwise scattered research. I'm unsure as to some of the conclusions he draws, but what's the point in only reading stuff you agree with and that doesn't challenge your views?

Leading on from that I've been watching the recent debate surrounding exam standards with more than a little interest.

If you haven't followed the story the Education Secretary Michael Gove has now ordered a (rather belated) enquiry into inconsistencies between exam boards after content was supposedly revealed to teaching staff at a recent meeting for GCSE History. My understanding is that they didn't say anything that couldn't be found online or in one of the specification documents, or that people couldn't have taken an educated guess on.

None of this debate, of course, is new. All sorts of people have raised concerns about the differences in standards between exam boards for years.

Here are my immediate and rather random thoughts on the matter as someone who has dealt with these issues for more than a decade.

1. We've had a privatised education system for years. The different exam boards tout for business with schools and individual teachers and this is done quite openly. Some have an inappropriate indirect sales pitch which teachers would do well to ignore. Of course standards will be affected to some degree.

2. Some boards, in my experience, are as institutions badly run despite having in their ranks some good people. Edexcel, for example, has been responsible for some horrendous administrative errors over the years and you never get to speak to the same person twice in the unfortunate case of having to contact them directly. AQA, whilst having some strengths, seems to have become little more than a massive self-serving bureaucracy. I dread contact with either and last year ended up changing two GCSE courses because I couldn't trust them to deliver or not to play fast and loose with students' chances of gaining qualifications.

3. BTEC courses and other courses with a large coursework component are wide open to cheating. I have never come across this directly in any school that I've worked in, but, well, you do hear stories which may or may not end up being formally investigated.

4. I cannot speak highly enough of the WJEC board, which at my current school I use for the two subject areas I have responsibility for. It is still a relatively small organisation and manages to be both personal and responsive in a way that I feel the bigger boards no longer do. The recent unfortunate publicity they have received does not fit with my own experiences of working with them. Standards are high.

5. There are undoubtedly major inconsistencies between subjects at GCSE. Some are extremely chanllenging in terms of what they ask students to do, and that is as it should be. Others are not.

6. I can't help but think that much valid research into cognitive ability and learning styles is ignored by schools as institutions generally. The context of league tables and targets means that we teach students to pass exams, but perhaps neglect the sort of higher order skills that are required for success in today's economy and society, which exams cannot and do not cover. Schools who seek to subert the current system are playing a very risky game. But nonetheless our education system continues to appeal to a narrow set of intelligences and possibly limits full cognitive development.

Nationalising the exam boards is fraught with problems, not least the issue of creating even bigger bureaucracies, but it would ensure a consistent overall national standard. I'm not necessarily advocating that as a solution but it is a debate that's worth having because standards are so central.

However as a good friend and a colleague of mine pointed out yesterday, what percentage of students nationally would act on such direct tip offs from examiners if that is what has happened? Probably not many, but that's another story.

The return of Captain Ludd

2011-12-12T15:37:00.000Z

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/carlisle-woman-hopeful-of-victory-in-marks-spencer-checkout-battle-1.905687?referrerPath=news

All very odd.

As a pro-cuts party it's the first example I've seen of a locally promiment party figure trying to save jobs given what her comrades are doing on the county council.

Let them eat (Mark's and Spencer's Finest carrot) cake.

Forward to the New Generation for Change!

2011-12-08T08:08:00.000Z

It's unclear whether a by-election will be held in Castle following Jim Tootle's sad death.

Any poll is complicated by the fact that Jim held the dual mandate as a city and county councillor. His city seat is up for election in May anyway, although the next county elections are not until 2013. It's possible that the vacancy falls just outside the six month rule. Electors do, of course, have the right to request a by-election, so one possible scenario is that the city election will be carried over until May and the county seat will be subject to a by-election in the New Year.

Any local by-election will be keenly fought, and in the bad weather would to some extent just end up being a numbers game. The Conservatives didn't contest Castle recently but that's no longer an option for them now that they hold the parliamentary seat. They won't win the ward, but they do need to maintain their profile and keep their general election vote ticking over.

One of the jobs of political parties should be to encourage and nurture new talent. With that thought in mind I'm reliably told that Labour will be fielding Elsie Martlew in any Castle poll, clearly part of Ed Miliband's New Generation for Change. Elsie was a prominent local politician for many years in her own right on the city council, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Any by-election in Castle will, of course, be Labour's to lose. It would be a high risk campaign for them and several in the local party will be pushing hard for a win. Watch this space.

Cha-ching!

2011-12-07T17:01:00.001Z

The Conservative Party's links with dubious donors are so well known that I can't even be bothered to go through the latest listings provided by the Electoral Commission.

The Labour Party, however, also has its fair share of dodgy donors.

This shouldn't come as a surprise as polling takes place next week in the Feltham and Heston by-election caused by the death of Alan Keen, a crook who faced no disciplinary measures from his own party. Hazel Blears is still there whilst Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell (see previous posts) doesn't even bother to visit his own constituency.

Why some trade unions continue to give money to these chancers and charlatans is beyond me. The following figures make interesting reading.

French waste management firm Sita gave Labour £8,730. They're currently involved in trying to build a massive incinerator in Cornwall against the wishes of local people. Tesco gave the party £10,200 (so we'll presumably hear no more about its predatory behaviour). Tax dodgers KPMG pitched in £17,625 and PWC handed over £81,215.

A poor investment, I would have thought, even if you do leave aside all the ethical issues that such donations raise. One of my GCSE classes at the moment is looking at the Ohio Gang and the Tea Pot Dome Scandal. It's depressing to think that things haven't changed. None of this is healthy.

Don't panic!

2011-12-04T13:08:00.000Z

With everything else going on this week I didn't pay very much attention to George Osborne's statement until this weekend.

When you read what he had to stay it is quite unbelievably staggering: the Chancellor stood up in front of parliament and admitted that every economic calculation and prediction that he has made, and upon which his policies are predicated, have been wrong.

The original plan to cut the deficit, which is now higher rather than lower, in time for the 2015 general election is fantasy politics, because the Chancellor has said so. Indeed, whichever party is in charge then (and I see no reason why it should not be a majority Conservative government) austerity will continue for well into the next decade, should they choose that course of action, and clearly they will

This now makes for an interesting dynamic within the coalition. Lib Dem support was, to some extent, based on massive cuts in a short space of time with light at the end of the tunnel. That was never likely to happen and after Tuesday's statement we know that it won't. That means more tension between the Tories and the orange 'uns who, previous form suggests, are likely to become a bit nasty when cornered.

Alice in Wonderland economics

2011-12-03T14:45:00.000Z

The Labour Party in Carlisle, and elsewhere, appear to be emphasising five key policies, as if the current economic mess was nothing to do with their incompetence, mismanagement and an economy built on consumerism and debt.

It hardly matters but the pledges are:

1. A £2 billion tax on banks to fund 100,000 jobs for young people.
2. Bringing forward long term investment projects.
3. Reversing the VAT rise temporarily.
4. A one year only cut in VAT to 5% on home repairs and improvements.
5. A one year only national insurance tax break for small firms.

Nothing too radical, then.

The sheer inadequacy of these proposals are staggering as youth unemployment heads towards 25%, the OBR downgrades growth forecasts, 710,000 public sector jobs face the axe, private sector job creation fails and national debt is forecast to creep higher (78% of GDP) in 2014 and 2015.

In short, Alice in Wonderland economic. My guess is that there are plenty of Labour Party members who feel that this doesn't even begin to tackle the economic collapse and gross inequalities in British society, and my bet is that they're about as enthusiastic as these meaningless proposals as I am.

Talk about a complete lack of ambition.

Labour locally hold the finance portfolio on the county council and they continue to enthusiastically embark on a war against the low paid, teaching assistants and all who use public services with a slash and burn approach and a complete lack of resistance to the austerity programme. What hypocrites. Indeed, tackling the mess that was largely of their own making is the last thing on their mind.

They just don't get it. Miliband, moreover, continues to do a nice line in dead man walking, and there has to be a limit as to how long he can go on for.

A minute is a long time in politics

2011-12-02T08:03:00.000Z

I take no pleasure in the misfortunes of other people.

However I make exceptions for fruitloop fundamentalist American Republicans who just love executing people. Here's Texas Governor Rick Perry (above) crashing and burning in a recent debate.

Helmets on and hold tight y'all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTNjhcyx7dM

And here's some follow up political analysis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50gXtmMxr84&feature=related

Enjoy.

Post-capitalism discussion

2011-12-01T17:30:00.000Z

The media often portray protestors in Egypt and at Occupy London SX as being against everything when the reality is rather different. There are plenty of alternative policy paths.

Here's a really interesting event worth flagging up in light of everything that's happened nationally and globally over the last few years. Hopefully this poster should reproduce on my blog without any problems, but if not, the discussion on post-capitalism is at 7.30pm next Tuesday, 6th December, at Foxes on Abbey Street. All welcome.

N30

2011-11-30T17:41:00.000Z

There was a good turnout today in the city centre for the pensions rally.

Border News said that 1,500 marched today in Carlisle. The county council has stated that 19% of unionised staff were on strike today although I have it from a more reliable source who has investigated that it was aroud the 32%.

A lot of people put in a lot of work to make today possible. The PSA and local trade union representatives were at the forefront of this and deserve full credit for their efforts. The likes of David Niven have been particularly tireless in the organisational work required.

The most amusing part of today for me was seeing Labour councillors in the city centre. To be honest, it angers more than amuses me that people like Reg Watson, Steven Bowditch and various fringe characters pitch up to these events and then enthusiastically support the Government's cuts agenda. Labour, remember, hold the finance portfolio on the county council and were all for single status and cutting the wages of the lowest paid staff. They didn't even bother to put up a fight. I'm very proud of the Green Party locally and nationally for being the only party in parliament opposed to the cuts agenda.

There will be other Labour Party members who must be extremely disappointed in both this and the cowardice of their national leadership. All I can say is that there is a place for you in the Green Party. Life's too short for the sort of clocking in and clocking out approach to politics that comes with Labour Party membership.

If I see these or other Labour councillors respomsible for such decisions at any similar event in the future I'll probably end up throwing my Tullie Card at them and giving them a piece of my mind.

Why I'm striking tomorrow

2011-11-29T19:02:00.000Z

I could make this into quite a lengthy post but I think it's important to stick to the basic details.

I take no pleasure in striking but quite frankly I see no reason why people should have to pay more, work longer and get less. This really is a last resort, but with a Government that does not genuinely enter into negotiations, fails to undertake an agreed valuation of the scheme and which has unilaterally made changes to the pension scheme there's not much room for movement. The truth about pension changes can be found at www.teachers.org.uk/node/14331truthonpensions

The reality is that this is about fair pensions for all. This strike is nothing to do with the lazy tabloid caricature of 'militants' but everything to do with ordinary people who do not believe the Government is being either fair or reasonable. The Government instead looks for ways of passing measures that will make strikes illegal if less than 60% of a membership turn out to vote. How about applying the same measure to MPs and councillors?

Here are some interesting figures. The figures listed are the name of the government minister followed by their current salary, their pension and their pension pot.
David Cameron

£142,500

£32,978

£550,725
Francis Maude

£134,565

£43,825

£731,883
George Osborne

£134,565

£32,978

£550,725

Nick Clegg (Lib Dem lied about tuition fees)

£134,565

£28,404

£440,000
Eric Pickles

£134,565

£43,825

£731,883
Vince Cable (Lib Dem lied about tuition fees)

£134,565

£39,551

£660,507
Andrew Lansley

£134,565

£39,551

£660,507
Danny Alexander (Lib Dem lied about tuition fees)

£134,565

£26,404

£440,942

Why is Francis Maude on a pension of £43K and Danny Alexander on a pension of £26K making others pay less? The Tories and the Lib Dems know that if they succeed in their plans they will have broken the opposition and will be in a stronger position to impose yet further draconian cuts as the economy weakens and youth unemployment hits the million plus mark and stands at 21.9%.

I worry for the long term impact on public services. The Government sees austerity as the only way forward, but why is this being doled out to public sector workers, low income groups and people who use public servivces? There is no austerity for for the FTSE 100 bosses who had pay rises of 50%.

Why is the pension plan being implemented now, but the Vicker's Commission banking reforms are being shelved until 2019?

The Green Party is the only party in parliament opposed to the cuts agenda and supporting tomorrow's strike. All along the line the Government have made media announcements about a fifteen minute stoppage and only applying the pension changes to people over fifty, but thes compromises have not come out of negotiations which we want to see. This is the Government playing politics and throwing bits of PR to the media rather than acting as serious negotiators.

The Government's economic policy is predicated on passivity and the notion of the public as disengaged, fatalistic zombies who believe their voodoo economics. This is also about the very existence of functioning public services run for people and not profit. See you in the city centre at 12 tomorrow for the march and rally.

Enough.

Blog changes

2011-11-28T18:37:00.000Z

I'm happy for people to post comments on here using the label Anonymous when it is appropriate to do so.

Examples may include some comments on local politics, and in particular inside information on what's happening on the city and county council. Those are always appreciated as they provide a different angle on things and that's healthy.

Beyond that, though, it's probably quite difficult to justify randomly anonymous comments when nobody is compromised by openly expressing their political views.Soit could be said that if people aren't prepared to stand by their views on the political issues of the day then it's difficult to justify anonymity. That said, and in the interests of free expression, I will not decline such posts. It's up to the poster themselves to decide what they feel is appropriate.

I enjoy writing this blog and it's a useful outlet. However, I think it's perhaps time to make a decision as to whether this blog has, after two years, run its natural course. I'll be taking soundings on that in the next couple of weeks. Perhaps two years is long enough?

New Zealand votes 2011

2011-11-27T19:58:00.000Z

Congratulations to the New Zealand Green Party.

In Saturday's general election the party gained three seats to net thirteen MPs, over 10% of the vote and third party status. The Greens there are far more radical than their sister party across the Tasman and it's encouraging to see years of campaigning and hard work pay off.

The National Party, led by the unpleasant John Key (above), was re-elected under a PR system similar to the one used for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. They are likely to have an overall majority. Labour, led by Phil Goff, whom funnily enough I interviewed for some postgraduate research when he was foreign minister under Helen Clark more than ten years ago, saw their vote collapse.

Goff (above) is a far more capable politician than Ed Miliband and an effective communicator, but he's clearly a dead man walking and his resignation has just been announced. Labour should have been the beneficiary of the economic downturn, but they completely failed to capitalise on this. I think the party's performance in New Zealand shows that parties like Labour and other social democratic groups (who are now centre right rather than social democratic) are in terminal decline with nothing to offer.

New Zealand First, who just won't go away, re-entered parliament and ACT, the avowedly neo-liberal free market Association of Citizens and Taxpayers won one, down from five. Elections there are held every three years.

However it's not over yet. New Zealand has an odd system of counting absentee (usually overseas) votes up to two weeks after the election, so things may yet change. More than one candidate over the years thought they were elected only to find that in the end they weren't.

Perhaps one of the strangest results in any election is that in Christchurch Central, which should be a safe Labour seat. Absentee ballots will determine the outcome, but as of yesterday it was a dead heat between Labour and National: each candidate polled 10,493 votes each. What are the statistical chances of that?

Escaping justice

2011-11-26T14:33:00.000Z

I always watch Russia Today (channel 85) with a large pinch of salt.

Their international coverage is undoubtedly comprehensive and Dan Keisner's (above) economic commentary is always worth watching. However the irony is that they dare not criticise the Putin regime.

So on the one hand whilst Keisner and others (rightly) go on the offensive against tax evasion and the violent reaction of, for example, the US police against domestic protesters, they don't have the courage to take on what's happening right underneath their noses with the Putin-Medvedev kleptocracy and killing of political opponents which Luke Harding discusses so eloquently in his book Mafia State.

The Feltham and Heston by-election is due to take place on Thursday 15th December following the recent death of its Labour MP Alan Keen.

Keen (above) was another crooked and corrupt MP against whom no action was taken following the parliamentary expenses scandal. In his case, and with his wife and fellow Labour MP Ann Keen, they used their combined second home allowances to buy an upmarket development near the Thames and claimed £175,000 over five years.

They claimed interest payments and the cost of remortgaging their Brentford home, which was eventually occupied by squatters. Between them they only paid back £1,500 in money stolen from the taxpayer.

What a disgrace. In the end, though, he couldn't take it with him.

I'm just about old enough to remember a time when parliamentary by-elections were major national events with attendant massive media coverage. They could be make or break events. That's no longer the case, however, and I think that there are two reasons for this.

First, the main media channels and outlets prefer to focus more on celebrity gossip rather than coverage of current affairs. Second, parliamentary politics has almost become irrelevant, a trend that has accelerated in recent months. Labour locally, for example, may well be engaged in internal discussions about whether they can win Stanwix Urban (no) but the real politics takes place on the streets.

In Egypt people are dying in large numbers because they share a vision of a better society. Internationally and here in Britain the debate has moved on because of mass action that has been inspired by the events in Egypt and elsewhere. This time last year the focus of the debate was on the necessity of austerity with no alternative entertained. Now the discussion is about economic and social justice.

So with that in mind it perhaps doesn't really matter who becomes MP for Felthan and Heston two weeks from now. But electoral politics is part of the mix like it or not. And I do hope that local Greens with the excellent Elizabeth Anstis, a longstanding local campaigner, put in a good show on 15th December in a constituency whose name rather unfortunately conjures up images of a young offender's institution. Good luck to her.

Island of Wings

2011-11-24T16:17:00.000Z

"The St Kildans live in oval-shaped houses which are more like hovels than human dwellings. The houses are covered in grass and rubbish and can from afar be mistaken for burrows... The only source of light is a hole where the straw roof meets the wall, which also serves as a smoke outlet".

In the worringly almost non-existent free time I have these days I've started reading Karin Alteberg's (first) novel Island of Wings, set on the remote and later evacuated island of St Kilda in the 1830s.

One of my first blog posts was about the St Kilda Tapes that my wife and I went to see when we stayed in Inverness in late 2009. It told the story of the island and its evacuation through old film and music, with the final section telling the story of the one remaining evacuee, now a man in his late eighties. It was both poignant and haunting.

Island of Dreams tell the story of Lizzie and Neil MacKenzie and the experiences they endured on the island in an age when the only way to reach it was a ten day journey by boat from the Outer Hebrides. They attempt to adjust to live amidst the misery and squalor as Neil MacKenzie tries to convert the islanders to his particularly zealous version of Christianity.

Interestingly, the MacKenzie's were real characters and the novel is based on their journals and other written records. Karin Altenberg (above), who's actually Swedish, brings them to life again in a style that works well. It's a beautifully written and very moving story of two people attempting to keep their family together and marriage alive amidst a backdrop of death, disaster and isolation.

Jim Tootle RIP

2011-11-22T19:40:00.000Z

I'm so sorry to hear about the shocking death of Lib Dem city and county councillor Jim Tootle.

His age wasn't given but he would only be in his early fifties. By all accounts Jim had been suffering ill health that must have taken its toll and was clearly courageously endured.

You never know the moment. I've been putting off making a will for ages for no reason other than life is so busy, but I will prioritise this in the next few days.

Numerous people have described him as plain speaking, and that was very evident in last May's local election hustings when he effectively disowned his own party for its coalition with the Conservatives. I know for a fact that he was a very hardworking local councillor and he always gave the impression of being involved in politics for the right reasons. Being a local councillor is a hard slog, and anyone prepared to do it and balance family and work automatically has my respect.

Jim Tootle's fifteen minutes of fame came in 2005 when he suggested that the cursing stone outside Tullie House was responsible for the ills afflicting the city, including that year's flood. Clearly this sort of utter nonsense suggests that he was some sort of medievalist, and the whole incident made him look barmy and superstitious in an episode that attracted widespread ridicule and was certainly one for the "Only in Carlisle" file. More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2005/mar/09/heritage

The national and international attention it attracted made the rest of us in Carlisle look like a bunch of extras from the 1968 Vincent Price film Witchfinder General. It would be a shame, however, for that bizarre outburst to overshadow his solid community work over many years which is what he'll ultimately be remembered for.

Broken promises

2011-11-20T13:08:00.000Z

I phoned Lib Dem HQ the other day and asked if they had any copies of their last general election manifesto. The guy on the phone told me that he was extremely sorry, but they had completely and utterly sold out. I told them I knew that, but please could I still have a manifesto?

(Don't) read all about it

2011-11-18T19:22:00.003Z

If internal Green Party politics isn't of interest then you may wish to give this post a miss.

During my sixteen years in the Labour Party I never received a regular party newsletter or magazine aimed at members. We really were that expendable under Messrs Smith, Blair and Brown.

There were a number of inoffensive, glossy, hairdressing salon type publications that appeared about once every other year ("David Miliband shows us around his kitchen") but that was about as far as it went.

When I was a Sixth Former in the early 1990s I subscribed to Tribune and Liberal Democrat News. I guess the latter could feature as the guest publication on Have I Got News For You?, but it was delivered without fail every Friday. Indeed, Liberal Democrat News (was that the best title they could come up with?) turned out to be a pretty good campaigning publication. It listed events like forthcoming council by-elections and other key dates that party activists were encouraged to attend, with details of who to contact for transport and accommodation. That always impressed me and the paper consistently came across as an effective campaigning tool, although I've no idea if it's still on the go.

The Green Party members obviously receive the quarterly Green World.

I never cease to be underwhelmed by this missed opportunity of a publication. The Eurozone is collapsing, there are protests in many western cities, Occupy London continues, we've more councillors and activists than ever before doing increasingly impressive things, we have our first MP and high profile MEPs and GLA members and the best opportunity for radical politics since the late 1960s. And what does GW give us on its cover? A picture of two mystical hands in front of a sunset with the by-line Is God Green? Faith and non-faith perspectives on protecting the planet.

Irrelevant to today;s political debate.

On one level that sort of stuff does have its place and is interesting in its own way. However, a party magazine just isn't the place when all sorts of other things are happening.

On page nine there's a report about some gathering of the European Greens, an outfit that, quite frankly, given the record of the likes of the Irish Greens amongst others, we should withdraw from; as I've said before we should be affiliated to the Nordic United Left. Page five has something on how council cuts affect local festivals whilst the review section is a bit heavy going.

Meanwhile, London Mayoral hopeful Jenny Jones (above), a candidate worth promoting if ever there was one. In the London elections under PR we stand a really good chance of getting more assembly members elected if we can get just more people down there to help out.

Green World just doesn't cut it as presently constituted.

Here's an interesting comparison. The Socialist Worker's Party manages a weekly paper, a monthly review and a quarterly academic journal. Their weekly paper gives briefing notes for activists on what's happening and sets out the party's line on the key issues of the day. This is what we should be doing. How about revamping GP Media Net so that every member who signs up gets a weekly email bulletin with the line of the week as determined by GPEX at a weekly meeting and notes on key events (whether electoral or wider campaigning and movement building). A quarterly party magazine would build on this and include best practice campaigning and other practical and informative features. Let's face it: the party is absolutely not short of talented, intelligent and practical people with experience and ideas.

GW should be a magazine that we should be proud to hand out on stalls and pass on to family members and colleagues in work as a refreshing alternative to other publications. Some good people have just ended up on the editorial board. We've a lot to be proud of. Our members and supporters have a lot to say and ideas to contribute and all party publications should reflect this.

The local party here will be adding to this debate in the months ahead.

Dead Iraqis don't count

2011-11-13T11:41:00.000Z

I can't abide the hypocritical side of Remembrance Sunday.

For me it detracts from what the event should be about and I'm deeply uncomfortable with the undertone of war being glorified, which can be either conscious or subconscious. As part of the establishment the institution of the Church of England does a nice line in this, in stark contrast to many of its members who live out their faith in a rather different way.

When I was small I would always go to the civic ceremony in Carlisle with my Grandad. He fought in the Second World War and lost one of his two brothers, ironically on a training flight in the south of England weeks before the conflict ended. As with many of his generation who fought against the evils of Nazism this was my Grandad's defining experience. He despaired at the Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts, but was certainly not opposed to humanitarian intervention in places like the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone as an absolute last resort. I suppose you could say that he subscribed to St Thomas Aquinas' concept of a Just War.

Looking back on those days in the 1980s the last war seemed to me, and indeed was, a very long time ago. It both shocks and saddens me that we're now marking the deaths of young men and women who were born in the late 1980s as a result of the policies of both this government and its war-mongering Labour predecessor. The photos that litter this blog post are a direct result of the policy decisions made by the current and previous British government.

Every year I find it increasingly difficult to stomach the sight of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem politicians who hypocritically wear poppies and continue to send our young people off to needlessly die in pointless and unwinnable colonial wars. They then abandon ex-servicemen to mass unemployment, mental ill-health and no future. The treatment of those who once served in Britain's armed forces is a national disgrace and is a good example of doublethink on the part of many of our politicians: the ability to hold two contradictory views, in this case claiming that such veterans are well looked after when the reality could not be further from the truth.

Look, moreover, at Afghanistan and Iraq. The situation in both countries is one of appalling violence where, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, life continues to be nasty, brutish and invariably short. Both states are run by criminal gangs and each has an abysmal human rights record: just ask anyone who has signed up to Amnesty International's Urgent Action scheme, where hundreds of people are executed in each country every year. And that's before we get into the fact that over one million Iraqis have been, and continue to be, killed as a result of the fighting.

Is Iran the next colonial adventure? For a Middle Eastern peace envoy Tony Blair takes an unusual line on this issue and has said that military intervention should not be ruled out. Do we honour those killed in the last war by building a global community that looks like this? I don't think we do.

Brussels or bust

2011-11-11T21:10:00.000Z

The next elections to the European Parliament will take place in June 2014.

Nothing stands still in electoral politics. No sooner is one election over then planning for the next cycle begins. That's something that all of us here in Carlisle are familiar with because we have annual elections by thirds plus elections to the county council.

European elections are particularly important for the Green Party. The PR system, which is tough but not as bad as FPTP, increases the chances of us getting our people elected. Anyone who does make it isn't just an obscure backbench MEP but becomes, by definition, one of the party's key national figures with regular media and other campaigning appearances.

In 2009 the Green Party missed winning the final seat here in the North West by just 0.5% or 5,000 votes. Instead we ended up with Nick Griffin, assisted by a relentless campaign of misinformation by the regional Labour Party, amongst other factors, who lied blatantly, claiming that the only way to stop the BNP was to vote Labour. The reality of the arithmetic always put the final seat between ourselves and the BNP. Still, that's what happens in politics, as hard as it is to stomach.

There were plenty of Labour people in this region who openly preferred Griffin ahead of a Green for two reasons. Some openly told me so. First, Labour love an easy neo-Nazi target because it unites them, makes them feel morally superior and prevents distracting conversations about the economy, corrupt MPs and other awkward issues. Secondly, we present a medium to long term threat. The presence of a Green MEP in the region would be a clear message that, actually, progressive Labour voters do have somewhere else to go. That's why they fought so hard and nastily to keep Caroline out of Brighton Pavilion. Such people are a disgrace to their party's noble historic tradition of fighting Fascism.

I should say at this point that there were an equal number of Labour members, especially locally, who found this abhorrent. Party members voting Green in European elections in the region is not unknown. I'll always be grateful to anyone who did that. I'm just sorry that we were unable to make it last time.

In January the Green Party in the NW will select its lead candidate for 2014. The prospects of a win in two and a half years are even better than last time. We have greater local party and council coverage than in the run up to 2009. If a fraction of former Lib Dems to come to us and we hold our support from last time victory is eminently possible. Nationally we continue to grow and having our first MP has made a difference to our overall prospects. The Green Party has always benefitted from having considerable numbers of extremely switched on people in its ranks and that also has grown even more as membership has risen.

So all in all it sounds promising. But it will still be a lot of work and we're not competing on anything approaching a level financial playing field with the other parties, all of whom benefit from having sitting MEPs (and MPs) with the resources those bring. But we can do it.

The lead candidate heads the campaign and has a critically important role to play. Outside London and the South East that person will be the party's best bet for national public office anywhere in Britain in the next few years.

It's no secret that over the last few I've been considering a Euro run for 2014 as lead candidate. This is something I believe I would make a good job of and I believe that I possess the qualities to be an effective MEP representing the region whilst using the role for the wider campaigning platform it offers as well to get our message out there. I've spent enough years as a political anorak to build up a range of experiences that would be useful in the role. I've been hugely touched by the people who have discussed this with me, listened to my thoughts go back and forth in recent months and encouraged me. Thank you.

Therefore, this blog provides me with the extremely useful campaigning platform to announce that I will not be putting my name forward for lead candidate.

I am absolutely delighted that my good friend and colleague Peter Cranie (above) has announced that he would like to run again. Peter stood last time and it still hurts that we didn't get him elected. There's an element of unfinished business about this and I'm enthusiastically and wholeheartedly backing him all the way for 2014. If you're in the NW party please give Peter your first preference in the selection ballot in the New Year.

Have a look at Peter's blog post over at http://petercranie.blogspot.com/2011/11/definitely-maybe.html He's one of the most able people I've ever met in politics and easily the best candidate I've ever campaigned for in a national election, and a stark contrast to the presence of cloned non-entities unable to think for themselves who've emerged on too many occasions as candidates in the three main parties. I'd donate a major organ if it got this guy elected. As an MEP he would, in short, do a huge amount of good. I relish seeing him on Question Time.

For my own part I'm realistic enough to know that there would have been barriers to me doing this anyway, not that that's a bad thing. Campaigning with a demanding full time job would have been almost impossible in such a big region. Moreover, I love my job at Newman Catholic School and the people I work with, both staff and students, are fantastic; that's not something to give up lightly for the business of having my finances, mortgage and family depend upon the fickle business of politics. It would also place a huge strain on any attempt at a personal or private life. That's not something I'm prepared to concede on, either now or in the future.

There's also a political dimension to this, part of which is also personal. I am determined to continue to build our presence here in Carlisle and help in getting our all important first council seat. The local party here consists of really excellent people I consider as family who always inspire me, and the thought of not being a regular part of that would make the whole thing, well, less fun.

I would like to seek a list position further down and use that to support Peter. A strong list will ensure that we push for a win and ease the burden on the lead candidate. Ultimately that will help us to win the seat.

Brussels or bust!

Shock! Horror! The psychology of political outrage

2011-11-10T18:04:00.002Z

One of the things that I certainly don't miss about not being on the council is the mixture of cluelessness, delusion and miniaturism that seems to pass for political debate at gatherings of Carlisle's political class.

There's an article in today's edition of the News and Star which encapsulates this perfectly: the decision to charge £3.00 a year for a Tullie card.

The evil fascist junta, incarnated in the capitalist lapdogs of John Mallinson and Gareth Ellis, outlined the reasons for this at Tuesday evening's gig. Some years ago people were charged (I think it was about £2.50 to £3.00) for a Tullie card so essentially the situation returns to the status quo ante. I remember the possibility of this being mentioned in passing at a city council meeting when I was on, so that's at least four years ago, and no one batted an eyelid.

The response from some Labour councillors was interesting, to say the least. Cue large doses of mock outrage and fury. One seemed to suggest that her and her husband had been subjected to some sort of Department for Homeland Security style interrogation/detention as their Tullie cards were snatched from them by aggressive museum staff (a contradiction in itself, surely?) before their pat down and subsequent placement in a holding cell. Funny, because I would have thought that given their record in office many Labour folk would be in favour of such stern and decisive action. Apparently not. There were a few more too who wanted to throw in their money's worth.

So a decision to charge £3.00 for a Tullie card seems to have turned into the equivalent of a debate on euthanasia or Britain's future relationship with the EU. Why is this?

I think the reasons for the sustained Labour attack on this the other night were not political but psychological.

The Labour Party is in favour of the coalition's cuts agenda. Indeed, as holders of the finance portfolio on the county council they are taking an actively enthusiastic role in implementing it: just ask any of my colleagues who have been affected by single status and how they will have to cope with a dramatic downturn in their standard of living. Nothing like a bit of solidarity with the workers. Although there are some very principled people within the Labour Party, especially amongst Carlisle city councillors, they are isolated voices in the wilderness increasingly at odds with the party as a whole and with about as much enthusiasm for it as Vodafone has for paying its taxes.

Because there are no discernible or meaningful differences between the two main parties, Labour quite enjoy venting a bit of mock outrage on issues that are fairly small scale but which ultimately they'd go along with if they were running the show. This provides a safe environment for them to suggest that we have a genuine two party system with actual, real life differences between the parties. However it's misleading for them to suggest that. They want you to believe that they would be different. And some of them may even be deluded enough to believe it themselves. Anyway, it's a chance to let off a bit of steam in a controlled way that won't upset the leader. What's his name again?

Welcome to Singapore-on-Thames

2011-11-09T19:44:00.000Z

It should come as no surprise for us to learn that the Metropolitan Police are authorised to use rubber bullets and therefore deadly force against any demonstrations, no matter how peaceful, in the capital.

Will the same apply to Cumbria and other areas as well? It can only be a matter of time.

One thing I always respected about the Liberal Democrats, whatever differences I may have had with them, was their consistent and principled support for civil liberties. Their silence is deafening as, like Labour, they long abandoned any principles they once held.

The authorities don't need to be so crude as to pass yet more and clearly obvious draconian laws. They just need to ensure a climate of fear and self-censoring actions. As we know from places like Malaysia and Singapore, it can be highly effective in preventing and deterring protest. Add into the mix a highly reactionary media and bingo, job done.

The Mafia State

2011-11-07T19:38:00.000Z

It is impossible, as Russians often commented to me, for them to live faultless lives in a society with as many rules as the Soviet system imposes. Everyone is guilty of some misdeed, whether political or economic backsliding of some sort or corruption. The authorities use this sense of guilt and vulnerability, my friends said, to keep ordinary people on the defensive.

From 2007 until earlier this year Luke Harding was The Guardian's Moscow correspondent. He was only the paper's eighth correspondent there between 1917 and the present day. Previous notables included Malcolm Muggeridge, who occupied the post in the 1930s, and who did much to expose the tyranny, censorship, violence, poverty and brutality of the Soviet Union, at a time when it had more than its fair share of supporters amongst the western chattering classes who didn't have to endure such inhuman conditions.

Harding's book, Mafia State: how one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia races along like a Cold War thriller and does much to expose Putin's failed state. Whether it's Putin (and Medvedev's) dirty little wars in Chechnya, the murder of journalists or the beating up and torture of those brave enough to confront the Kremlin, Harding writes with experience and insight.

The strand running through the book is the campaign of psychological warfare that Harding, his wife and two children endured during their time in the country, as his articles became more critical of Putin. The FSB, essentially the successor agency to the KGB, broke into their flat, moved objects around and ensured that certain intimidatory things happened, all designed to break their spirit. These tactics were, of course, straight out of the Stasi's manual: they didn't need to br so crude as to lift people of the street and torture them in dungeons. Instead, both regimes embarked upon unseen psychological wars against internal - and external - dissent, who had no idea that it was being waged, and instead thought they were going slowly insane. Harding's interview with an ex-Stasi boss (why aren't these people doing time?) towards the end of the book sheds light on the strategy.

Harding overs a lot of ground, but for me three names stand out. One is Alexander Litvinenko (above), the former FSB spy turned dissident, who was poisoned by the regime in London in November 2006. Some time before his murder Litvinenko converted to Islam and became a British citizen, both sources of great pride for him and his family. The British Government wants a number of people extradited to stand trial for the murder, but needless to say the Russians have refused.

Anna Politkovskaya (above) was Russia's most prominent crusading journalist. The Kremlin previously tried to poision her on a plane coming back from Chechnya, a region she reported from extensively. She too was murdered in November 2006 by the regime, in her case gunned down outside her apartment in Moscow.

The third person is Natalia Estemirova (above), a leading human rights activist in Chechnya who stood up to thuggish intimidation from the FSB, Kremlin and the nasty and increasingly fundamentalist Islamic regime that runs the territory. Estemirova was a former high school teacher who worked for the human rights group Memorial. Her husband was killed in the first Chechen war of the mid 1990s and she left a teenage daughter when she was abducted and murdered by unidentified gunmen in July 2009. It's the little details that stay with you: how her little cat, Vanessa, still waits for her in her book lined apartment in Grozny, and how her daughter tells Harding how she misses her Mum terribly.

Harding reports from the front line in the Russian assault on the independent nation of Georgia and the terrible destruction and loss of life that ensues as that small country seeks to specifically ally itself with the rest of the Europe. He also covers the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently imprisoned in a labour camp on entirely fictitious charges, because he broke the unwritten rule for the oligarchs: make money but don't discuss politics or criticise Putin.

The chaos of the Yeltsin years Russia could genuinely have gone one of two ways: a more open society or a descent into corruption and Mafia rule. Sadly the latter prevailed. Watching Russia Today as I sometimes do is quite interesting. It's international coverage is good for a different perspective, but its coverage of internal Russian politics (and of Putin's power mad bid for the presidency, again, in next year's sham elections) is pure Kremlin propaganda.

In the end Harding was kicked out, the first journalist since the end of the Cold War to be expelled (although as he says others suffered a far worse fate). As he argues, the EU and the UK in particular is by no means powerless to act against the regime, because they have considerable assets over here and that may in the end turn up to be something of a trump card. There's at least one member of my family I'll be buying this book for at Christmas.

Harding (above) concludes by stating that depressingly, the prospects for any sort of change in Russia are negligible.

So farewell then, St Aidan's?

2011-11-05T12:36:00.000Z

Global financiers, the media and politicians in the US and EU are describing the prospect of a Greek referendum as "worrying" and "potentially disastrous".

Could there be any better example of how much these people hold democracy and the views of ordinary people in complete contempt when they come out with statements like that? It's nice for them to remind everyone why the Occupy movement is so strong and successful.

There are some bizarre comments in this week's edition of The Cumberland News from the Diocese of Carlisle who describe Graeme Knowles' resignation as "terribly sad" but who then go on to say that "it would be inappropriate to comment further". In terms of media management this is another PR disaster for the C of E hierarchy as surely nothing is likely to fuel further speculation than ill-judged comments like these?

On to more local matters. I say this every year but it annoys me how much Carlisle City Council are prepared to spend on the annual fireshow when people are facing redundancies and services are being slashed. Taxpayer's money quite literally goes up in smoke. Still, a bit of bread and circuses to entertain the masses. Ironically if ever Guy Fawkes was proven right it's now.

Some of the city's politicians are getting themselves worked into the usual frenzy over proposed county council boundary changes. It's a shame they're not expressing similarly strong opinions on the ongoing culture of bank bonuses, the widening chasm between income groups and political corruption, of whom Liam Fox is the latest example.

These alterations would see some significant changes in the make up for Carlisle's seats although the overall composition of the county council, at a ludicruously high 84 members, would remain the same.

There are some fair points made in The Cumberland News article about how this breaks up communities and is incoherent, which much of it is. Carlisle is a city of natural communities and it's right to say that many of the proposals go against what should be a guiding principle as far as possible. The parliamentary, county and city reviews should have been undertaken at the same time but we're likely to be drip fed more of this mess in the next couple of years. The Conservative view on Dalston is completely confused, for example, although the creation of two new wards will probably help them.

St Aidan's ward, in county elections at least, will cease to exist. Instead it will be split between Botherby, Castle and Currock. Comments from RegWatsonOBE hint at more than a little self-preservation and the less than likely prospect of him being chosen for another ward by the Labour Party. Clearly there's a bit of a panic on. When RegWatsonOBE's county council position is worth £8030.40 a year there's going to be a bit of a fight on to retain the ward's existence and on that I agree with him. To disperse a recognisable community won't be popular and it's a bad move, but still, as I've said before, if you support FPTP as RegWatsonOBE does and I don't, you have to be prepared for consequences such as these. The consultation runs on until 16th January and comments can be submitted to reviews@lgbce.org.uk

A load of hot air

2011-11-03T22:06:00.000Z

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

The News and Star reports that proposals to site solar panels on the roofs of the civic centre and the Sands Centre are likely to be shelved because the government has cut funding for the scheme. Apparently the ruling Conservative-Lib Dem coalition (the local one not the national one) planned to spend up to £200,000 installing photo-voltaic modules to generate electricity to feed into the National Grid.

However Greg Barker (above), a man with links to Russian oil companies and who is apparently some sort of energy minister, has said that the subsidy for solar electricity would be cut by half like pretty much everything else so the whole thing is a likely no go. The paper also reports that councillors thought they had until next spring to install the panels and lock into a guaranteed price for their electricity that would have brought savings of anything up to half a million pounds over two decades.

The usual shambles over there then.

The Tories and Lib Dems have been well and truly rumbled on any claims to be promoting energy efficiency and/or alternative energy. At the end of the day neither party can be bothered.

Will any local Lib Dems or Tories go on record to publicly condemn their government's bizarre decision? As always, this blog will happy to facilitate any public platform to that end.

Second birthday

2011-10-30T10:08:00.000Z

So there you go.

This blog has been running for two years now. Many thanks to all of you who read it and make contributions. When I get some time, perhaps towards Christmas, I do plan at some stage to address some presentational issues and provide more links because I'm more than aware of some shortcomings in that respect.

Since this blog started two years ago a lot has changed and continues to change, whether locally, nationally or internationally. I never planned this as a long term project or to be honest gave it too much thought, but it does seem to fill a gap in the market locally so I'll continue to see how things go.

Anyway, back to work.

The instant message society

2011-10-28T13:10:00.000+01:00

It's almost become a cliche to say that the internet, mobile phones, social media and so on have changed our lives dramatically. But it would also be true.

Later on today I've set aside some time to compare energy prices and change our supplier. I do this sort of thing fairly regularly and I'm always prepared to put time in to comparing, and changing, things like insurance, mortgage deals and the rest because it's absolutely worth it. Doing that would be impossible without the internet. Sometimes though it can be a case of information overload, but it has given consumers more access to information.

Some months ago I had the opportunity of taking up a special offer on a Blackberry through work. The details escape me but it was a good deal. The advantages to having one are obvious in some ways, but I absolutely refuse to get one or buy an i-phone. I don't want to be replying to emails, messages and working all the time, especially when I'm at home. It's a trap that's far too easy to fall into and I don't need one anyway.

Fairly frequently I'll turn my mobile phone off completely (obviously at work) but also if I'm at home and am working there or just want some rare quiet time. Perhaps one of the biggest cultural changes in recent years is the notion of instant messaging: if we don't hear from someone within thirty minutes all sorts of random and incorrect assumptions as to why they haven't replied immediately are made. It can often be a struggle to keep up with emails as well and how to tackle this is something I'm giving some thought to at the moment. Moreover, on the rare occasions I use Facebook I'm always staggered by how some people air all sorts of inappropriate grievances in public. I guess that just underlines how it can be viewed as a virtual worls rather than the reality it is.

So what about the political dimension to this?

Social media and e-technology is absolutely critical for those of us in the Green Party. We're not funded by big business, wealthy donors or union hierarchies bunging us cash. Besides, the party has a policy of not accepoting such dodgy donations anyway. Therefore the importance of blogs, Twitter, websites and Facebook pages cannot be emphasised enough.

Locally, we have our local party website which is regularly updated along with a local Facebook page and then individual but party connected items such as this blog and my own Twitter account. We have some very savvy people in the local party with an excellent understanding of these issues that other parties or organisations would give their collective left arms for.

What of the other parties locally? Surprisingly, and compared to some other constituencies, there isn't a lot happening in terms of dedicated websites. This is odd when you consider that the first place more people will go to for information is the internet.

John Stevenson has a well maintained website which focusses on his work as Carlisle's MP. It's not overtly party political and it's highly localised as these things should be. Strangely, neither the Conservatives in Carlisle nor Labour have a dedicated party website, or at least not one that I could find. Michael Boaden's website is still live but hasn't been updated in about a year. When Carlisle Labour Party had a go at a website many years ago the email contact address was always wrong because someone had typed it in incorrectly. That said, the party had a good website for a few years but it seems to have disappeared. It places alot of pressure on one person if they have to do it themselves.

Conservative councillor James Bainbridge used to have a blog that was always an interesting read, but as with many blogs the pressures of work and daily life mean they can fall into abeyance. I'd like to think that James will restart it at some point.

The Liberal Democrats locally? Absolutely nothing, and they never have as far as I'm aware. UKIP did have a blog that was maintained by Michael Owen, their Carlisle candidate last year, but it had some very long winded Euro-rants and wasn't updated anyway. Nothing for TUSC or the Communists either.

One of the ironies of the Occupy London protest is that the campaigners and those joining them are using the free wifi provided by the City of London Corporation. A lot has been written about the use of the internet and social media in the revolutions in the Middle East which I would suggest certainly haven't been a cause but more a tool of protest. Wikileaks probably ended up confirming what the populations of those countries had long suspected anyway and created a climate where it became possible to mobilise. In some countries, like Iran, the tole of social media has been overstretched, to say the least. Iran only had less than 20,000 Twitter users and the network collapsed in the middle of the attempted uprising there as it became jammed with messages from sympathisers abroad.

All very important stuff for engaging people and critical for those of us in the Greens. Here's a thought to end with. The other day someone suggested to me that joining a Facebook group could become a substitute for real life action or involevement in a cause or a campaign. By clicking a mouse, it was suggested, people then feel that they've done something when in reality they haven't. An interesting thought, but one I feel will be vastly outweighed by everything else that happens via the internet.

No cats were harmed in the composition of this post.

Moneychangers in the temple

2011-10-27T17:30:00.000+01:00

What a disgraceful and shabby set up the authorities at St Paul's Cathedral have proven themselves to be.

Top of the list is Cathedral Dean Graeme Knowles (above), who was Dean of Carlisle from 1999 until 2003. He's one of a number of people there who seem intent on removing dissent by any means possible. My colleague Stuart Jeffery from Maidstone Green Party has exposed the dubious links of the cathedral authorities over on his blog at http://stuartjeffery.blogspot.com/2011/10/st-paul-patron-saint-of-1.html.

I can't abide their hypocrisy.

I was down there briefly on Tuesday morning. The health and safety excuse being used by the authorities and the sinister City of London Corporation, a state within a state that does as it pleases, is just a load of nonsense.

It's also £14.50 to get into the cathedral. Moneychangers in the temple anyone?

Whether you buy into any sort of religious belief or not, the one thing that the Bible very clearly rails against more than anything else from beginning to end is poverty. The teachings on this are many, varied but entirely consistent. And the actions of those in authority at St Paul's Cathedral go comprehensively against those teachings.

The historical figure who probably inspires me the most is Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador, who was murdered by a death squad in 1980 that was trained and in the pay of the CIA. The Violence of Love is a collection of his writings that was published a few years ago. In stark contrast to the social climbers and apologists for greed at St Paul's Cathedral, Romero would have been outside with the people.

Romero wrote this just before he was murdered.

“When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.”

The EU referendum vote

2011-10-26T18:09:00.000+01:00

So in Monday's EU vote Carlisle MP John Stevenson rebelled against the government, joining Caroline Lucas and a tiny number of independent minded Labour MPs in demanding that the people have a say on this issue.

Defying the whips cannot be easy. No doubt huge pressure was applied to John, his Labour colleagues and the sole Lib Dem, Torbay's Adrian Sanders. Former Carlisle MP Eric Martlew once said that he wasn't elected to vote against his own party (what, never?!). However I very firmly believe that they all did the right thing and showed courage in doing so. Democracy needs people who are prepared to stand up for it, challenge the executive and speak their minds. Contrast that with the spineless drones in the Lib Dems, Labour and Conservative parties who clearly think by their actions that the people should have no say on this issue.

Adrian Sanders (above) summed it up when he said, "I was probably the only MP voting for a referendum while hoping to stay in the EU - it is a liberal principle to trust the people".

Britain's relationship with the EU is a major constitutional issue that is deserving of a referendum because the wider context has changed.

This is no longer the preserve of a hard right nationalist fringe. On one level individual MPs may have had different reasons for supporting a referendum but let's just recap on what has changed. The collapse of the eurozone, bailouts, an inability to reform as well as sclerotic, unaccountable and increasingly unrepresentative institutions suggest that this is more visibly an elite project with little relevance to improving peoples' quality of life or life chances.

However the drones who voted against a referendum justify their actions they have shown that they are comprehensively out of touch with reality on this issue. It's probably at the stage now where the EU is beyond reform, and whilst its implosion would have been unthinkable only a few months ago, it's now something that can't be ruled out in the current climate.

Whatever your views on the EU, this is a debate that we need to have. And that's why people like Caroline Lucas, Adrian Sanders, John Stevenson and Labour's thoughtful Jon Cruddas were absolutely right to vote for one on Monday evening.

Ireland's presidential election

2011-10-23T09:23:00.000+01:00

Politics in the Republic of Ireland is odd by conventional standards.

Instead of being based on a recognisable left-right continuum as it is in every other western democracy the divides are based on attitudes towards a constitutional treaty nearly one hundred years ago.

When the Fianna Fail-Green coalition was booted out at th last general election because of its mishandling of corruption and economic austerity, it was immediately replaced by a Fine Gael-Labour team who continued with precisely the same thing. To be fair, if we were to elect a Labour Government in Britain we know that they would continue on the same path because they've very clearly said so. Redundancies and high youth unemployment all round.

Ireland is certainly one place where people have been out on the streets protesting about austerity measures. The prospects there are certainly bleak. However my view is that the longstanding Irish tradition of emigration to other countries (especially by younger and highly skilled workers) probably acts as a brake on open revolt.

I find Ireland's STV multi-member voting system very attractive. It maximises voter choice and throws up intra-party compteition with the punters left to decide who prevails rather than the party machines. There's also a strong tradition of electing independent and radical voices.

On Thursday Irish voters elect a new president. There are seven candidates and AV will be used.

The contest has attracted minimal attention here other than the publicity given to Martin McGuinness (above) who according to polls is in third place. The other notable candidate is former singer Dana Rosemary Scanlon (below) who seems to have more in common with elements of the far right US Tea Party than anything offered up by European politics.

Scanlon has thrown the rattle out of the pram a few times in the campaign and it was revealed that she concealed her dual US citizenship from voters and actually took an oath renouncing allegiance to Ireland. Not someone the punters should trust, I think.

Labour have selected the interesting and cultured Michael D Higgins (above) but sadly he falls into the trap of supporting cuts and other nasty things. Also in the line up is Sean Gallagher from the local version of Dragon's Den. One poll puts him in the lead but Higgins seems to be the favourite overall. You get the feeling that all of this is a media dream in terms of the personalities put forward and that seems to have been reflected in the coverage over there.

The most interesting candidate is David Norris (above) a Senator, civil society activist and James Joyce scholar. His website is at http://norrisforpresident.ie/ and to me he has the most to say. A Google search of key words will, as always, provide you with links to the candidates and the contest. The result is expected late on Friday.

Arise Sir Graham

2011-10-21T17:09:00.000+01:00

There's an extremely good chance that you don't know who this bloke is.

If so, there are two reasons for that. First, Graham Watson is an MEP. Secondly, he's a Liberal Democrat MEP. That means beyond his own family and a few hard core party activists nobody else is likely to know who he is. In fact by writing a post on this blog, which is probably just read by a handful of people anyway, I'm probably boosting his profile significantly.

Graham Watson, or rather Sir Graham Watson as he now is, made the news this week (well, not really) because as a longstanding republican he accepted a knighthood. You may wish to read that again.

Ever since his days as a Young Liberal in the 1970s Watson has been a consistent and committed republican.

Watson's knighthood, bestowed this week, was given for political service. However, as a republican surely Watson should have refused it? Not at all. He explained away this howling inconsistency by saying that he probably wasn't the first republican to accept a knighthood. Well, actually I'd dispute that. As is increasingly typical for his party, Watson wants to have his cake and eat it - and can't understand why the rest of us think that's a bit off.

What's worse is that Watson sees nothing wrong with this obvious hypocrisy because he probably wants his fifteen minutes of fame and ego massaged. This has nothing to do with whether you are monarchist or republican and everything to do with ditching your beliefs when it suits you.

Watson was the idiot that gave us the European Arrest Warrant or EAW (above). This is one of the most ill-conceived pieces of legislation ever to emanate from the sorry mess that is the EU. This essentially allows British citizens and EU citizens elsewhere to be automatically extradited to another EU country without evidence. The horrors of this system are well documented, breach natural justice and basic legals norms and mean that any of us could be shipped off to a Bulgarian or Spanish prison on the whim of an unacountable official elsewhere in Europe.

Along with punitive post-riot sentencing, the news this week about police infiltration of protest groups and the assault on civil liberties, the EAW nails the myth that the Lib Dems as a party are bothered about civil liberties and basic freedoms that have evolved and been fought for over hundreds of years.

Believe it or not but some still vote for people like this.

Save BBC Radio Cumbria

2011-10-19T18:17:00.000+01:00

I've returned home from work to find our new TV licence arrive through the post.

"Switch on, sit back, tune in, wind down, curl up and enjoy a year's worth of TV" says the heading at the top of the letter. Hmmm.

It's beyond me why we have this archaic system in Britain. The BBC really should be funding itself through other means, perhaps a levy on the Murdoch empire, advertising or similar. However the organisation's hierarchy and government are so spineless and precious they're not prepared to do what the vast majority of other national broadcasters do and explore other funding options. Instead they rely on what is essentially a regressive and unfair system. I object to this money going to the BBC hierarchy when it should really be going to local stations which are such an integral part of communities across the country.

So what follows makes me even more angry.

BBC Cumbria is facing significant cuts and staff redundancies. I'd rather not have this key component of the local media, which does such a fantastic job, on the road to being closed down. The excellent Julie Clayton, a journalist at the station and the NUJ representative there, has made the following points in a briefing paper sent out this week.

Please do read Julie's points, which I've reprinted below in full, and fire off an email and get everyone you know to do the same if you feel as hacked off about this as I do. If it goes, it's gone for good.

They have the full support of Carlisle and Eden Green Party and we'll do what we can to help.

• Cumbria is not like the rest of the UK – we believe we deserve to be made a special case. Not all local radio stations have been asked to save the 20% being imposed on us. Local radio connects with an audience that isn’t served well by other areas of the BBC output.
• We are the only local broadcaster or media outlet which covers the whole of the county. In terms of area, we work in a county that would cover the south of England from northeast London to the Isle Of Wight.
• Cumbria is the county furthest from the BBC’s hub in London. It is essential the licence fee payers of Cumbria have a meaningful point of contact with the BBC in the heart of their community.
• We were first on scene for Lockerbie, Grayrigg, Derrick Bird, the floods, and the Keswick bus crash. We ensure the BBC nationally knows what’s happening when big stories break here in Cumbria, and we flag up other major news stories for the national audience – such as the breast cancer scandal in Carlisle. The number of network northern correspondents is also being drastically cut meaning a reduced BBC Cumbria staff will have to pick up the slack.
• BBC Radio Cumbria will lose 9.4 FTE (full time equivalent) posts. Because of the budget saving this represents, the NUJ at BBC Cumbria believes we’re looking at the likelihood of 12 or 13 (possibly more) members of staff losing their jobs. We believe we will lose a third of the workforce.
• We will only be broadcasting locally between 6am and 7pm weekdays. Saturday from 6am to 6pm and Sundays from 6am to 1pm. This means the rest of the output will be shared regional or national programming. We expect to lose at least 50 hours of BBC Radio Cumbria’s local programmes.
• A concession has been that we can retain our afternoon programmes where other stations will share a regional programme. However given the financial savings that must be made this may be impossible, a further fifteen hours may be lost.
• Our ability to respond to news events (ie, Floods, Derrick Bird / Grayrigg / the Keswick school bus crash) will be severely affected by a reduction in staff numbers and it is unclear if we would be able to stay on air through the night for the audience.
• It will also be impossible to offer the support to our community we’ve shown in times of crisis such as Foot and Mouth or the floods that have blighted the county in recent years.
• In addition to news BBC Radio Cumbria has many other strengths not least the weather, sport, drama, documentaries, features, traffic and travel, community interaction, outside broadcasts, local knowledge and the relationship with our listeners. The breadth and quality of what we do can only be diminished by the scale of these cuts.
• BBC Radio Cumbria is the most listened to BBC local radio station in the country and has won numerous national awards and plaudits from politicians and the public.
• Around 150,000 Cumbrians a week listen to us compared to the 88,000 who listen to Radio 4. We have a reach of 36.4 per cent which is higher than all other local or national radio services in the county.
• The savings we have to make in Cumbria are just a TINY fraction of the BBC’s overall budget, but they will have a disproportionately negative effect on the BBC’s overall output here.
• There are also plans to switch off medium wave frequencies which would put an end to our AM broadcasts.
We would appreciate any support you can offer.

The BBC Trust is starting a period of public consultation. The contact details are below….

BBC Trust Unit
180 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5QZ

Email: trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

The consultation details can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/index.shtml

Call the information line on 03700 103 100 or textphone on 03700 100 212.

Lines are open from Monday to Friday, between 9.30am and 5.30pm.
You may also wish to share your views with the Director General Mark Thompson, the Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson and the Head of News Helen Boaden by writing to BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London.

You may also wish to share any correspondence with Nigel Dyson the editor of BBC Radio Cumbria, Phil Roberts the Head of Regional and Local Programming based at BBC Newcastle and your local MP.

Julie Clayton can be contacted at savebbccumbria@gmail.com

Cumbria County Council also has a voting section at the bottom of its homepage www.cumbria.gov.uk

Rules of engagement

2011-10-18T18:08:00.000+01:00

If you logged on to this blog in the last couple of days you will have seen a series of comments placed under The new politics? post.

I accept that one of the comments crossed the line because it was placed anonymously and due to the unfortunate language used by the poster (I've no idea who it was, by the way). Those were the only reasons why I decided to delete it, not because of the substance of what was said.

A point worth making is this. If people choose to publicly involve themselves in any campaign through the media with the attendant publicity that brings, then that's great. I respect people taking a stand, especially on the major economic issues kicking around at the moment. However, it is perfectly legitimate for questions to then be directed towards those individuals and for them to be challenged and questioned. Elected representatives are subjected to this all the time. That's accountability. It's also politics and that's the way it works.

Snouts in the trough exposed by Green councillor

2011-10-18T09:10:00.001+01:00

I had this today from the Green Party's media list. This item published below is taken from the latest edition of Private Eye.

Well done to Green councillor Duncan Kerr (above) who is succeeding in trying to introduce accountability to what does a very good impression of being a one party state.

THE cuts are bitting hard in Labour controlled Bolsover, Derbyshire, with redundancies and cuts in services in the pipeline. Councillors are even having to close public lavatories in order to make ends meet. One area where further savings could be made, according to the district council's independent remuneration panel, is in councillors' allowances.

Bolsover councillors pay themselves more than £10,000 a year for telling people how to cope with the cuts - compared with the average basic allowance of just £5,354. The panel suggested a cut to bring Bolsover more into line with other councils, yet only one of 37 councillors - a Green - thinks this is a good idea. Just fancy that!

The new politics?

2011-10-16T12:29:00.001+01:00

For the first time in decades significant numbers of people in western societies, and especially in Britain, face a significant and continuing decline in their living standards and future employment, housing and general economic prospects.

Combined with the continuing domestic and international economic meltdown, climate breakdown and peak oil the future ranges from uncertain to dangerous. We continue to pursue ecological overshoot whereby our economic system is dependent upon highly aggressive and continued expansion on a planet of finite and dwindling resources.

Mainstream electoral politics has nothing to say about this. Whilst Labour supporters returning from the recent Manchester March for the Alternative discuss whether they can win Stanwix in next year's city council elections, the real politics is happening on the streets aided by social media. It's no longer possible to dismiss such occurrences as isolated and the preserve of some sort of revolutionary or sectarian minority.

The most recent examples have been in New York and other US cities. Here the occupation of the area around St Paul's Cathedral in London started this weekend. Elsewhere in Europe this sort of thing is now almost routine. The more of a threat such peaceful protests become, the more brutal the police response will be, which is ironic given Inspector Knacker's own funding and forthcoming job cuts.

On Wednesday 30th November there could be anything up to three million public sector workers on strike with the likelihood of more to follow. All three main parties oppose this action and are in favour of the cutting of public services, so the notion of one of the main parties gaining as a result of this simply does not exist. Several countries are on the verge of debt default and the possibility of the Euro's collapse - and that of the EU itself - is probably now ranging from fair to middling. Where all of this is going to lead as increasing numbers of people become angryand are prepared to do something about it is anybody's guess.

Malcolm Tucker: a tribute

2011-10-14T18:13:00.000+01:00

When it comes to catching up with TV series I'm usually a few years behind everyone else.

I watched In The Loop a couple of years ago and I'm currently in the middle of The Thick of It, the BBC's fly on the wall satire about daily life in the fictional Department of Social Affairs. It is, quite simply a brilliant satire not just of the New Labour years but of high level politics more generally.

Peter Capaldi is outstanding as Malcolm Tucker (above), the government's foul mouthed, high octane, aggressive and cutting director of communications.

Was it really like this? Well, according to various inside accounts of the Blair and Brown years, yes it was.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXmcGdGe6ak&feature=related

The disappearing voters

2011-10-09T19:19:00.000+01:00

Reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 MPs to 600 MPs has always seemed a bit random to me and there's no discernible reason for it.

Why not reduce it to 575, 500 or 400 members? It's a bit like New Labour's random target of 50% of 18 year olds going into higher education by 2010. Why not 70% or 45%?

If the House of Commons was to be in proportion with the US House of Representatives it would have about 220 members, or remain the same or slightly higher in proportion to other legislatures like the German Bundestag.

The whole business just shows how ridiculous FPTP is, as random lines are drawn on maps and people at Blackwell and Durdar become part of Workington. There is, of course, no ideal system, and this certainly isn't it. Ah well.

If I'm honest I'm probably in favour of voting being compulsory (with provisos like a fair system) as it is in about fifty other countries around the world. This would go some way to tackling access and social exclusion but I also believe that people have a duty to vote. I guess this is down to my experience of doing casework as a local councillor when those who were prickliest and most demanding (which is fine) were invariably those who never bothered to vote for anyone. And yes, it does go back to the suffragettes and others too.

I increasingly feel that there's a significant and growing number of people in recent years, however, who don't vote because it's a direct withdrawl of consent directed towards a pretty useless system. And I fully understand that.

There's been a lot of focus on boundary changes and their likely effect, although not as much as I'd have predicted. As supporters of FPTP the Labour Party in Carlisle, and presumably elsewhere, realises that it can't object to the local changes of equalising the size of constituencies. However one radical change that has been ignored is the switch from a system of compulsory household registration of voters to one of individual registration.

Evidence from Northern Ireland ten years ago suggests that the move from household to individual registration, with a consequent lack of enforcement, means the number of registered voters goes down. In short, voters disappear. And these are disproportionately more likely to be non-Conservative voters.

This situation has, in a manner, happened before, just after the poll tax when in the 1992 general election research suggests that Labour lost seats because of missing voters. Either way, we're now heading towards the sort of situation that exists in the US where a large part of campaigning time is spent actually getting voters onto the roll within a given timespace. So even more work for those of us in all parties on the ground. Thanks very much.

Friday night out

2011-10-08T10:36:00.000+01:00

About thirty people turned up to yesterday evening's sustainability debate at the University of Cumbria's Learning Gateway (below).

The event was organised by the Carlisle One World Centre to mark the launch of the university People and Planet group, a welcome development. Two students identified themselves in the audience at the start when this was mentioned. Perhaps the rest were enjoying the delights of Carlisle's Golden Mile on a Friday night?

At least it meant that Carlisle's Lib Dem general election candidate Neil Hughes (above), who was in the audience, had no need to fear for his personal wellbeing.

Lib Dems are probably safer on the streets of Baghdad than they are within a five mile radius of a university following their about turn on tuition fees.

Martin Dyer-Smith was a courteous and capable chair with a light touch who was in a different league to his counterpart at the general election hustings held in the same venue, who shouted down, interrupted and cut across all of the candidates to the detriment of the whole thing. If people have three minutes to answer a question, how they use it is up to them, and it was nice to have the basic rules of debate restored last night along with audience engagement.

There's probably an interesting piece of research to be done on public attitudes to tackling climate change. Remember the Stern Report which was quickly forgotten about? It's such a big issue that psychologically as a society we fail to confront. There are other reasons as well, of course, such as vested interests. I said last night that this is really all about economics: you simply can't have an acquisitive, expansionist system on a planet of finite resources.

We are frighteningly dependent on oil and I do wonder if our future will be some sort of variant on Cormac McCarthy's dystopian novel The Road (above). The effects of climate breakdown, of course, are more social than environmental as society returns to a state of nature in Thomas Hobbes war or all against all. Yep, I'm a fun person to spend a Friday evening with, but I do believe we can tackle these issues to an extent, especially at a local level.

The localism debate is an interesting one and presents a way forward, but I don't believe for a moment that despite a genuine passion for it from many quarters the government will allow it to develop in anything like the direction it needs to. It's just warm words.

Sonny Khan from South Lakes Action on Climate Change was very effective and passionate in communicating the scale of the problem. Sonny does an excellent couple of talks which are worth listening to if you get the chance. One is called Collapse! the other Civilisation! and I think that exclamation marks are necessary for each. He's done both in Carlisle in recent years and if you're an organisation looking for a thought provoking talk I'd recommend the Civilisation! talk.

Carlisle MP John Stevenson played a straight bat and I thought made some good points on the question about personal lifestyle change. It was a surprisingly challenging audience for him but he didn't shy away from that and I agree with all the many people afterwards who expressed their respect for John arguing his corner, listening and engaging with the event. His predecessor wouldn't have bothered, and especially not on a Friday evening. I do believe that future Green councillors would be able to have an honest and open political dialogue with our MP.

Newman's Year 11 History students are currently looking at the Clinton years and have also been discussing and watching clips of presidential election debates. Bill Clinton was a liar, a cheat and a fraud who took time out from the 1992 campaign to personally ensure that the state of Arkansas executed a mentally ill prisoner who was later found to be innocent. However, while we're on the subject of debates, for political theatre, this is worth a watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ffbFvKlWqE

Stringing them up

2011-10-04T20:45:00.000+01:00

Labour MP, shadow justice spokesperson and Miliband pal Sadiq Khan (above) has praised the repulsive David Maxwell Fyfe, the Home Secretary responsible for the hanging of Derek Bentley in 1953, as one of the people he most admires in an interview in this week's New Statesman magazine. Few Conservative MPs will share Khan's enthusiasm for a man who sent numerous innocents to their deaths.

This is unfortunate, to say the least, as Khan always comes across to me as being quite a thoughtful and considered bloke whose heart is in the right place.

I know Labour has stampeded to the right and abandoned everything it ever believed in but this is ridiculous. A bit insensitive too considering Bentley's niece, Maria Dingwall Bentley, was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Merton and worked for the party in the run up to the 1997 general election.

Khan was one of the MP's caught out in the expenses scandal and in April 2010 it was revealed in the Daily Telegraph that he had repaid wrongly claimed expenses on two occasions. As always, this blog is open to any Labour supporter who wishes to denounce these extraordinary views.

The Audit Commission Report, Manchester and Preston

2011-10-03T20:06:00.002+01:00

We've posted the Carlisle City Council Audit Commission report in full over on the local party website which you can read at http://carlislegreens.org.uk/dump/audit-comm.pdf

I want to say that I have the highest regard for Maggie Mooney who has personal integrity in spades, and see this issue as a failure of political leadership amongst elected members. Indeed, the real issue here is one of the close relationship between big business and some elected members which is an institutional problem in British politics generally. That's the nub of it. I'll post further commentary when I have the time.

I wasn't able to make the Manchester March for the Alternative on Sunday (above) but friends of mine went down along with 35,000 other people and I think we can expect more of this in the next few months. The Labour Party in Carlisle seem to be fixated by their local election prospects while the real, grown up politics is taking place on the streets, with echoes of Cairo and Athens in the air.

Saturday was a very, very good day.

A few of us from Carlisle made the trip to the NW regional Green Party meeting at the impressively Victorian County Hall in Preston (above), a stone's throw from the railway station. The event was held in the council chamber, and I imagined it filled with nineteenth century mill owners opposing restrictions on child labour and limits to the working week. The morning session on Is capitalism ruining the planet? was excellent and started a thoughtful debate about economic policy and whether we can realistically have yet more economic growth. It's always interesting to hear what's happening elsewhere in the region, including the anti-fracking campaigns in Blackpool, which is certainly a post for another day.

When I joined the Green Party in 2008 we had just over six thousand members. Now we're over the fourteen thousand mark and that's certainly reflected in growing regional strength which bodes very well for the future. We have some exceptionally talented local councillors who prove that once we break through we build on that. It was good to see Liverpool's excellent John Coyne as well (who polls 60%+ in his ward), and I'll always appreciate the time he spent with me when I attended the national conference in Liverpool whilst still technically a Labour councillor to tell me about his own journey to the Greens (John was a Lib Dem councillor). Our task over the next few years is to break onto new local authorities, especially here in Carlisle.

As for Preston itself, now there's a place with possibly one of the most fascinating local political scenes in Britain. But again, a post for another day.

Sustainability event, 7.30pm Friday 7th October, Learning Gateway, Fusehill Street, University of Cumbria

2011-10-02T12:10:00.000+01:00

When I was first elected to the city council in 1999 Carlisle had a three party scene with individuals or tiny groups running campaigns by themselves, often in isolation.

That has now broken down. We now have a couple of independents on the city council, active Greens, socialists and even the occasional event organised by UKIP.

Moreover, there's a strong and flourishing civic society network in Carlisle with the Carlisle One World Centre (COWC) acting as the hub for many groups like Amnesty International, Sustainable Carlisle and many others. Some groups, such as the Public Services Alliance, reflect the current economic and political climate, and then there are the regular critical mass bike rides organised by Cycle Carlisle. All are here to stay in some form. Our community is the better for all of this.

People and Planet (http://peopleandplanet.org/) are a campus based organisation who campaign on global poverty and environmental issues. To mark their local launch at the University of Cumbria COWC have co-organised a forum on sustainability issues at the Learning Gateway this coming Friday, 7th October, at 7.30pm. I'll be there with Sonny Khan from South Lakes Action on Climate Change, and city MP John Stevenson, two people I've known for longer than they care to remember. If you're launching a new organisation or a new campaign then having some sort of event is critical to engaging people, and it's a pleasure to be able to take part. I think it's really good that COWC and others organise events like this otherwise the only opportunity for political meetings are in election campaigns when we all have other agendas.

I go to the university through work a couple of times a year. They've made a good job of the Fusehill Street campus and it's a very pleasant environment. Like a lot of locals I was born there when it was the old city maternity hospital. The building does have a very dark past as the original workhouse in Carlisle, and the central section still looks the part. Anyway, all are welcome at Friday's event.

The Labour Party's cognitive dissonance: coming soon to a demonstration near you

2011-09-26T19:16:00.001+01:00

A bit of a focus on the Labour Party again as it's their annual conference in Liverpool this week and they are after all trying to draw attention to themselves.

It was my wife's birthday at the weekend so we were out of town. Therefore I didn't make it to the demonstration in the city centre on Saturday morning opposing the transfer of services from The Cumberland Infirmary to elsewhere.

I haven't yet seen any coverage of who attended this event, whether from the unions, parties other than the Greens or from the local Labour Party. But I will say this: all the Labour people in Carlisle that I know are passionate supporters of the NHS. It is, however, extremely difficult to take their party seriously on this issue given their record in government and current policies. Their local activists in Carlisle must feel terribly let down by Labour.

It is, however, worth recording the comments of a couple of decidedly non-Labour people who were at this event.

"Labour managed to hijack the NHS demo yesterday, turning up fifteen minutes before everyone else and making sure they were front and centre for the photo opportunity, despite not attending any of the meetings where we organised it. Not to mention the irony when one of the main things crippling The Cumberland Infirmary, as I understand it, is the huge PFI bill which is a legacy of the last Labour Government who enthusiastically introduced and supported such policies."

And on other issues.

"If the party's decision to advocate tuition fees of £6,000 a year is to mark some kind of alternative, then it is a bit like option for the sixth circle of Dante's hell instead of the 7th circle."

And this in response to the bizarre and hysterical attack by two London Labour councillors who called the Greens 'dangerous cranks who will seriously damage your local council and local economy.'

"Oh yes - because illegal wars, casino finance, tuition fees, ID cards and opposing electoral reform is oh so benevolent, while campaigning for 20mph speed limits in built up areas, supporting local credit unions, raising awareness of vegetarianism, seeking to revitalise town centres by making the case against out-of-town retail parks and for local businesses while acknowledging the benefits of pluralism in local politics, is really hazardous and misanthropic isn't it?"

I look forward to Ed Miliband's unconditional support for those seeking to defend their pensions and standards of living on Wednesday 30th November. But I won't hold my breath.

Clocking in and clocking out

2011-09-25T17:31:00.000+01:00

Various media outlets have reported that Labour is considering placing a cap of £6,000 on student tuition fees ahead of the party's annual conference in Liverpool this week.

Perhaps someone can email Coalition of Resistance and others immediately to tell them to call everything off? In fact with such inspired and lofty thinking as this we should all join Labour right away.

The issue of tuition fees encapsulates Labour's problem.

Everything that the coalition government is doing was started by the last Labour Government. Whether it's PFI, cuts, academies, selling of national assets or whatever, Labour got their first. All three parties have been in government over the last fifteen months and they have far more in common than they would care to admit. We would be fighting similar battles if Brown had won in May 2010. Real politics and opposition, meanwhile, is happening elsewhere. And it's getting angrier.

The Labour Party conference in Liverpool this week will be the usual rubber stamp assembly and cheerleading convention that it has been for many years now. The workshop being held this week on how Labour should fight the Greens will underline how many elements of the party will continue to fight more viciously against opponents on the left rather than the right. Tribalism and sectarianism are indeed alive and well.

What really annoys Labour is that the Greens get the best activists, and that without a base to carry out their campaigns, the Labour Party could erode from the base up. For example, the age profile of Labour councillors veers towards the retired, activists are not coming through, and the Greens, UK Uncut, Anarchism and the SWP are far more attractive in speaking to the experiences of many).

Locally, despite some minor success as a result of pendulum politics and a lot of very decent individuals, Labour in Carlisle no longer have a group of activists who match the Greens and similar groups. Nobody seems enthusiastic in the slightest about the Labour Party any more. A friend of mine described the people they have as either there through loyalty or people who clock in and out as if they are arriving for work. That's not for me. Life's too short.

Mrs Kinnock the Prime Minister

2011-09-18T18:35:00.000+01:00

Denmark has its first female Prime Minister, and one of the nation's youngest, in Helle Thorning-Schmidt (above), who becomes that rarity: a centre left European leader. She is likely to lead a coalition, in which her Social Democrats are the largest party, that will also consist of the Social People's Party, the Social Liberals and the Red Green Alliance (not the Greens' sister party in Denmark as the name suggests, that's De Gronne, who were kicked out of the perenially wet European Greens in 2008 and now sit with the Nordic Green Left where UK Greens should be).

Interestingly, Thorning-Schmidt, a former MEP, is married to Stephen Kinnock, son of the former Labour leader Neil and his wife Glenys, another ex-MEP and Foreign Office minister in the last Labour Government. Opinions of her abilities seem to be quite sharply divided and the strong personal links to the UK and Kinnock family make this quite an interesting development. As a friend of mine remarked, let's just hope she doesn't fall on a beach.

The clique

2011-09-16T20:13:00.002+01:00

Details of the Boundary Commission's proposals for reducing the number of Cumbrian constituencies from six to five are starting to receive coverage and comment in the local media.

As I've said before, if you support FPTP, as Labour so enthusiastically does, you're on thin ice trying to argue against the recommendations made for Carlisle to include Longtown, Brampton and other areas. If we're going to have this flawed system let's at least try and do it properly. In any event, Labour will be able to count on support in both towns in 2015 and I would imagine that the local party will focus upon trying to ensure active branches in both places in the next couple of years.

The one anomaly that stands out is the placing of Dalston ward into Workington and Keswick. This makes no sense at all. Dalston should be added to Carlisle, in my view. Moreover, Workington does not begin at the dip beside Hammond's Pond on Durdar Road, which itself does manifestly not belong to Workington either. Hands off. This is ludicrous and should be corrected.

I'll blog in a bit more detail about the proposed changes and the Carlisle dimension in a future post. Thanks for all the threads on this so far.

I've subscribed to the New Statesman magazine for many years. When I come in from work every Friday it sort of marks the beginning of the weekend. That said, I don't necessarily agree with its editorial line which, nonetheless, always succeeds in making me think. I think I gain more from reading stuff I disagree with than otherwise. I do feel that some of the columnists, however, are a waste of space: Hunter Davies with his pseudo-Cumbrian weekly yawnathon, and the boringly self-indulgent Nicholas Lezard, who in a future Reardon's Britain will be sharing a truck to the salt mines on Bitts Park with Ann Leslie, Toby Young, Hazel Blears and anyone who talks loudly on a mobile phone about their private life on a train in the quiet zone.

This week's cover story is entitled Meet the next Prime Minister: the 20 MPs under 40 who have what it takes. It's an interesting piece in its own way, complete with pouting photoshoot, but falls completely into the trap of being of interest only to those in the Westminster village. Indeed, I've emailed the NS about it this evening. Suffice to say that it plays to one of my bugbears: I couldn't find a single MP whose life experience (a) makes them representative of society or who (b) had what could be described as a proper job before entering parliament.

Just flicking through the list of interviewees proves my point: special advisor, researcher, political journalist, policy officer and so forth. Some of the pen portraits contain real corkers:

"I wanted a proper job so I worked for the Bank of England and then became a journalist on the FT"

"He may lack experience outside politics..."

"Her romantic attachments are said to include Euan Blair, the former MP Sion Simon and fellow star Chuka Umunna"

"She went straight from university into the Conservative Research Department"

"On election day, rather than tear around his constituency trying to get out the vote, he stood on a tractor trailer with a megaphone and quoted TS Eliot"

I'm struggling to find people who have served as local councillors (an excellent way of keeping people grounded in reality) or had successful careers elsewhere before making the move to parliament. My guess is that most of these people mix in the same social circle (two are married to each other) and many share schools and universities. It's hardly surprising that people then end up voting for the likes of Doncaster Mayor Peter Davies.

Then outside Westminster we have people like Labour's Jonathan Todd, who published an article on the Labour Uncut website (for which he is apparently economics correspondent) entitled Banking Commission: Only Labour Can Save Capitalism which a friend of mine directed me to this week. Todd's article includes unbelievable statements like "the left’s explanation, therefore, shouldn’t be the banker’s greed". Yep, Labour has well and truly lost its soul with nonsense like this. They all think the same now, too. He'll go far.

All of this has serious implications for the quality of decision making in parliament. I really do despair.

Our third birthday

2011-09-12T19:54:00.000+01:00

Carlisle and Eden Green Party celebrates its third birthday this month.

We've come a long way since our launch meeting in The Source back in September 2008.

Our presence on the local political scene is now established. We're fielding increasing numbers of candidates, we get regular media coverage and have a strong, hugely talented and growing membership. In Castle we poll a regular 10% and in St Aidan's we secure around 25%. The party has built links with community, pressure group and union activists. Carlisle will have its first Green councillor in the next few years. We've undertaken some deep and serious thinking on the many issues that affect our community and this month's meeting will focus on finalising our manifesto for Carlisle to be launched ahead of next May's elections.

It's been a very exciting Big Political Adventure and I feel privileged to share this experience with amazing and inspiring people who have become close friends. It's also a huge amount of fun. Our door is always open for anyone looking to (confidentially or otherwise) discuss what we stand for. Thanks so much to everyone who has, over the last three years, given generously of time, money and support to bring us to here. We build on firm foundations.

The road to 2015

2011-09-11T09:19:00.000+01:00

I was supposed to be in Sheffield yesterday for the Green Party's annual conference held in the heart of Nick Clegg's constituency at Sheffield Hallam University.

However, if you were to make a sentence out of the following words: train, cancellations, bus, replacements, chaos, fiasco, ticketing, you'll get the idea why I didn't make it. Very disappointing, but there you go.

I think that it's really important to remember that when you're politically active you are part of a wider movement and I've hugely enjoyed the two conferences I attended (one of which was towards the end of my time as a Labour councillor). However, it was useful to get some work done and good to catch up with friends.

Reading Friday's edition of The Cumberland News it struck me that post-election politics has now turned into pre-election politics and there's a feeling that the 2015 campaign outline is beginning to take shape. Watch for the telltale signs. Labour's Kevin Parker has coverage for starting a petition opposing cuts to hospital services. John Stevenson is developing very strong incumbency with coverage of his school vists and planned education summit later this month.

There's even a shocking picture of me on page five that makes me look like I came about seventh in the All Currock Harry Hill Lookalike Contest. Bizarrely, the words 'gangsta rap' are headlined underneath, which will surely cause confusion if people aren't looking closely.

But there is clearly a very long way to go. It struck me that the Year 7 students who started Newman last week will be doing their GCSEs and preparing for Sixth Form by the time Thursday 7th May 2015 comes round. So in this first post that looks specifically at that date, where could the parties be by then?

Possible context

I dislike the FPTP voting system for all the usual reasons. My personal view is that a proportional system would be better and it's essential that the constituency link remains strong. The MMP systems used in Scotland, New Zealand and Germany allow for this. However, after the AV referendum earlier this year electoral reform for the House of Commons is likely to be off the agenda for years t come. Therefore, if we're using FPTP let's at least do it properly. The Carlisle constituency is too small and the case for a boundary change is overwhelming. That should happen ahead of 2015. It's ludicrous to make a distorted system even worse.

Labour

The most likely scenario is that Kevin Parker will be Labour's candidate in 2015. However, there is the possibility that some people regionally and nationally will push for an All Women Shortlist (why not just support PR?) and if handled badly (a possibility) resolving this could be messy and protracted. Some constituency parties had very public rows about All Women Shortlists in the run up to the 1997 general election played out on the front pages of their local press, which in normal circumstances would have seriously damaged the prospects of winning the seat, but the party's landslide that year ensured they were carried in its wake.

My guess is that the local Constituency Labour Party want to select as soon as possible but they are being or will be held up by the perenially useless Labour North. They can probably expect some union money but resources will, I guess, be very tight.

It doesn't particularly mean anything for a party's general election prospects but there's a strong possibility that Labour will have overall control of Carlisle City Council by then. The Labour Group is very fractious and certainly not the effective political unit it was in Heather Bradley's day. Labour will, of course, be implementing the coalition's austerity agenda and this could cause problems with the union relationship. If Kevin Parker is a city councillor by then this would automatically provide a useful publicity platform. The party will certainly have a stronger candidate than 2010 who will be able to unite the local party around a big push for 2015.

Conservatives

Incumbency is not to be underestimated and John Stevenson is doing this very effectively,especially the coverage he gets in places like Upperby and Harraby. An interesting campaign theme may run along the lines of: are you happy with John Stevenson as your MP? You might call this the Tim Farron approach to re-election.

If the Conservatives do lose control of the city council I think there's a lot to be said for having the political target of a Labour run council. A Labour council in Carlisle will contain some able people, but there will be some who are not up to it, and a Labour council implementing cuts will be extremely unpopular. The Conservatives in Carlisle are well organised and well funded and can pull in major resources. Expect more high profile visits.

Liberal Democrats

They may well be wiped off the city council by then or down to their last councillor depending on the election cycle. Losing a councillor has major implication for any party, especially smaller ones. Activism can collapse completely if there isn't the focus of getting someone elected. Moreover, I don't see many new people coming through. Combine that with the national context and we're on track a big reduction in their vote in the years ahead. Like last time there's the possibility that the Lib Dems will select their parliamentary candidate very late (maybe at the last minute) and that it will be an outsider going through the motions.

Greens

We should have a growing number of local election candidates between now and 2015. It's for the local party to determine any timetable but my guess is that the parliamentary candidate selection will be at the back end of next year or, more likely, in 2013. There's a possibility that Carlisle will have a Green councillor by 2015 but the biggest prize would be a Green MEP in the North West in the preceding year's European elections. That will considerably raise the party's profile in the region and the selection process for that takes place in the New Year.

Others

Certainly UKIP and some sort of socialist/trade union candidate I would imagine, but these will probably be last minute selections. Neither will have local government representation. The BNP may also appear in some form.

1,334 days (or 3 years, 7 months, 26 days) to polling day.

The honourable member for Paris North and Neiully-sur-Seine

2011-09-07T21:11:00.000+01:00

This is from From Politics Home News.

The Labour Party has said it was "totally unacceptable" that one if its senior backbenchers cannot be reached by the public and has failed to hold a surgery for 14 years.
Sir Stuart Bell faces questions from his constituents after his local paper alleged he never holds meetings with residents and that his office failed to answer 100 calls between May and June.

More at http://order-order.com/2011/09/07/the-honourable-member-for-paris/

The vast majority of MPs are very hardworking people. It's a job that must play havoc with family life involving difficult balancing acts and mega-high stress levels.

Middlesbrough's pompous MP Sir Stuart Bell, of whom there is more than a whiff of corruption (just Google his name), is undoubtedly the laziest MP around. I was a student in Middlesbrough from 1993 until 1996 and never met the guy once. The university Labour Party invited him to speak on several occasions and he never even bothered to reply. Bell hadn't held surgeries in living memory back then either, and had no constituency office.

The above media statement is crocodile tears from Labour, who as a regional and national party have never bothered to address Bell's inactivity before. They will not seriously start doing so now.

David Bowe, MEP for Cleveland and Richmond from 1989 until 1999, more or less did all the constituency work in Middlesbrough when I was there. In 1994 his local party tried to deselect Bell but he simply weighed in with the union heavies who saw off the challenge.

This bone idle man and corrupt man, who represents one of the most deprived communities in Britain, is a disgrace. He'll probably stand down in 2015, and his years in parliament since 1983 will ensure that he receives a nice fat pension on top of his other earnings, then it will be off to his French chauteau.

The Final Call

2011-09-03T11:06:00.000+01:00

Remember this?

One was a power crazed warmongerer who believed that God was telling him what to do and the other used to run Libya. Let's not forget that the last Labour Government armed Gadaffi's regime (essentially why Blair went to visit him) which as we subsequently know used these weapons against their own people. And all three parties enthusiastically supported the bombing, maiming and killing of civilians in Libya in recent weeks.

http://www.enjoyengland.com/ is a fantastic website. There are so many amazing things on our doorstep or within a short travelling distance, especially for those of us living here in Cumbria. Often we simply overlook it. Somebody once said to me years ago that everyone should be a tourist in their own town for a day.

A couple of years ago journalist Leo Hickman published a book called Final Call: in search of the true cost of our holidays. He reminds us that tourism employs one in every eleven people on the planet and visits twelve tourist hotspots to find out the impact of the industry on local people, the economy and the environment. These range from Dubai to Kerala and Benidorm to Tallinn. His evidence and conclusion suggests that tourism is not the golden elephant we automatically assume it is.

Hickman highlights water rationing imposed on Ibizans, slave labour in Dubai, the carnage caused by stag weekend in Estonia and the impact of the growth of aviation. For me, these aren't environmental issues, but very much ones of social justice. How many people look behind the skyscrapers of Dubai, for example? Or do people suspect but choose not to notice?

One thing that Hickman doesn't do enough of is expose the nonsense of eco-tourism, which is usually the most damaging of all. Moreover, he shies away from drawing the obvious conclusions about frequent flying. In my view a fair amount of damage is done by groups such as Tourism Concern, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides who want to have their cake and eat it. If you believe that climate breakdown is a major problem then you can't encourage people to take six return flights a year.

The book does a good job though of exposing the sheer nonsense of carbon offset schemes, comparable to the sale of indulgences by the medieval church. Hickman takes us back to basics by pointing out that perhaps the motivation of many holidays are dubious as a result of rampant consumerism: are they, for example, to do more with social climbing and status rather than enjoying specific experiences? He argues that when away from our routines we do psychologically switch off and become desensitised to issues we may care passionately about at home, such as the treatment of others or conservation issues.

Most international travel is still the preserve of a privileged few. Whereas an annual holiday abroad was once recognised as a luxury, many people now have an expectation of jetting off several times a year on a budget airline. Hickman's conclusion is funny without meaning to be. He suggests that people use a three year cycle in planning their holidays. Year one could be a long haul destination, year two a European short haul and year three a holiday somewhere within their own country. But that 'solution' will only ever be the preserve of a wealthy few.

Dental treatment without anaesthetic

2011-09-02T20:26:00.000+01:00

Alistair Campbell has published three volumes of diaries covering the New Labour years.

Why anyone would want to buy this self-indulgent nonsense is completely beyond me. The standard is nowhere near the diaries of Tony Benn or Alan Clark. Some close friends bought me Peter Mandelson's memoirs last year, which to be fair to the man are both fascinating and well written in terms of how the media and modern politics operates. A good friend of mine bought me The Thick of It some weeks ago which is brilliant. Malcolm Tucker (above) is just hilarious and I can't separate him from Campbell.

I've blogged before about Chris Mullin's excellent diaries, which interestingly have been adapted for the stage by Michael Chaplin at the Live Theatre in Newcastle in October and November. See http://www.live.org.uk/whatson/mainhouseproduction.noscroll.php?production=0010 for more details. Looks like it might be worth checking out if you're over there.

We're getting to the point now where a few more memoirs of the New Labour years are trickling out. The most high profile of the next lot will be Alistair Darling's Back from the Brink (an unusual choice of title I feel) due to be published next week.

In "leaked" extracts Darling comments that Blair compared dealing with Brown to "having dental treatment with no anaesthetic". Ouch.

Before proceeding any further let's be clear about one thing: there were absolutely no ideological differences between supporters of Blair and supporters of Brown.

The turf wars of New Labour were, unlike Gaitskell and Bevan or Foot and Healey, never about the direction of the party. Indeed, both sides were enthusiastic supporters of privatisation, the database state, legalised tax fraud, invading and bombing other countries back to the stone age and policies that continued to widen the gap between rich and poor. It was simply about personalities. Before journalists take any cheap shots about this being typical of politicians, it's worth mentioning that this sort of thing is probably (sadly) pretty typical of many workplaces.

This behaviour undoubtedly destabilised the last Labour government for several years. There was absolutely no reason at all why Labour could not have gone on to win a fourth term in 2010 had the drip feed of egos, poison and vanity not got in the way. I imagine that ordinary Labour Party members must have got pretty fed up of this by the time the party lost what should have been an eminently winnable election last year.

Sadly, because the Labour Party is more fixed and tightly controlled than Enver Hoxha's Communist Party of Albania, the checks and balances that every organisation needs to prevent this sort of thing simply did not exist. Why the Labour hierarchy feel the need to micromanage and control is beyond me. As my Green Party colleague Jim Jepps once mentioned on his blog, nobody else does this. It's odd and self-destructive.

For those of us in active electoral politics I guess that the really interesting studies to come will be those analysing in detail why Labour lost. That sort of work can only be produced from a slightly longer perspective with greater hindsight. The A Level History course I teach ends in 2007, but I'm certain that before the next general election there will be a 45 mark exam question along the lines of "To what extent were personal rivalries the main cause of Labour's defeat in the British general election of May 2010?"

The Killing

2011-09-01T22:01:00.000+01:00

I don't really watch much TV apart from the occasional edition of Newsnight on BBC2, Russia Today in the background when I'm working at home and Dr Who on i-player.

I follow our local media avidly, which I think is really good, and I like to balance that with the international stuff. I guess that in local politics you can end up being focused on some parochial stuff without always realising how it connects to global issues.

I love BBC4 and am a huge Wallander fan. I missed the outstanding French series Spiral first time round but some close friends lent us the DVD of the first series last Christmas and we've now watched all three seasons. Absolutely fantastic stuff. It's only in the last couple of years that I've really got into crime drama. I've seen the first season of The Wire and plan to get hold of the rest when time allows.

The main TV event for me this summer though has been The Killing/Forbrydelsen, the much publicised Danish TV series originally shown some months ago and now being repeated on BBC4. It was produced by the national broadcaster Danmarks Radio.

It's completely gripping and in the way that it shows the different strands of the story: the police under pressure trying to solve a horrific crime and juggling this with their personal lives, the grieving parents, the ambitious politician. I always thought it was in danger of being hugely overrated but far from it. Who says nothing ever happens in Denmark? My main memory of the place is visiting with my brother in 2003, arriving and paying £12 for two Carlsbergs when the factory was all of 100 metres across the way. How does that work?

Anyway, all highly recommended if, like me, you're a bit of a political anorak.

The danger of moralising

2011-08-31T14:49:00.000+01:00

I have a huge amount of respect for campaigner and Green Party activist Peter Tatchell (below).

He's recently made himself unpopular in some quarters by quite rightly pointing out Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's authoritarian streak. Peter Tatchell is someone of tremendous courage and it was a shame that he had to stand down as Oxford East PPC before last year's general election for health reasons (largely injuries brought about following his assault by Moscow police and Mugabe henchmen as he tried a citizen's arrest of that evil dictator).

I think his recent comments on British society are worth re-posting.

The UK establishment is quick to condemn rioters. But the police took bribes & failed to investigate phone hacking. No officers were jailed. Cash for knighthoods & peerages? No one jailed. MPs abused expenses syste?. Only a few jailed. Editors bribed police: none jailed. Priests raped kids: no jail for most. Army killed and tortured civilians in Iraq: soldiers not jailed. British elite = hypocrites. No right to moralise.

The Big Money Test

2011-08-28T16:19:00.000+01:00

I never thought highly of former Carlisle Renaissance director Ian McNichol's (below) people skills given the key strategic role that he used to occupy, and always felt that at times he was a little out of his depth. That said he wasn't the only one, but his fall was always going to be, undeservedly, more public than others.

This week's edition of The Cumberland News carries a letter from him describing how this week he signed on as newly unemployed. Writing something like this and sharing what must be a a terribly traumatic experience for Ian personally and his family takes tremendous courage. His letter manages to be witty and poignant, and I hope he succeeds in finding something soon.

Unemployment, and its bedfellow underemployment, are social evils. Several colleagues and close friends of mine have faced or are facing redundancy or significant wage cuts. I study the economic indices carefully: instability, rising unemployment, the falling of the Nationwide Consumer Confidence Index to 49% and no real wage growth, and it's that final point that's worth considering. Many people today are experiencing and continue to face a serious decline in their living standards.

Leaving aside the wider politics of the cuts, one of my favourite websites is http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ by TV presenter Martin Lewis (above). I use it regularly.

There's a desperate need for better financial education in schools. Millions of people fall victim to all kinds of misselling and financial illiteracy is a major national problem as research shows. Indeed, financial education should be made compulsory. Interestingly, the BBC is currently conducting a major piece of national research on spending and attitudes to money called The Big Money Test.

I did it yesterday and if you have a spare twenty minutes it can be very revealing, encompassing psychology as well as more general money issues. You're also making an important contribution to a major project. Go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/money/ Financial education is something that we're looking at developing further where I work, but it needs to be statutory and consistent in all schools. Please do read and sign the e-petition which you can find to that end at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/8903

Gridlock

2011-08-27T19:09:00.000+01:00

The gridlock in Carlisle yesterday just served to underline the massive traffic problems that we have here, and was the lead story in this weekend's Cumberland News.

That said, Carlisle is no better or no worse than anywhere else. However, when things occasionally go wrong or combine to do so as they have this week (roadworks + accidents), most movement comes to a standstill. And roadbuilding, like a vacuum in nature, ultimately isn't a long term solution because it merely serves to fill the available space and create yet more traffic problems.

Many people complain that they can't drive around Carlisle without experiencing delays, especially at peak times. But they forget that as a medieval city with Georgian and Victorian add-ons Carlisle simply wasn't designed for an era of mass car ownership. The same applies to parking, a problem that I'm sure all local councillors have to deal with in some form on a regular basis.

Walking back from work yesterday afternoon as problems eased a little I couldn't help but think, yet again, of what a complete hash the city council made of the Sustrans Connect 2 project. Everything was there but too many people are still in denial about it. But it's not just to do with this project: think of the huge amounts of public money frittered away on the Renaissance with little, if anything, to show for it. And Labour, as the official opposition, have completely failed to hold the ruling coalition to account on these and other issues, with the honourable exceptions of a some individual councillors.

Connect 2 was largely presented as improving cycling provision in the city, but that's not the case at all. It would also have allowed better pedestrian access around Carlisle and given people more choice in areas where incomes are lower than the national average. There should be an enquiry into the reasons why this was allowed to happen. Traffic problems will only get worse and we need to be serious in looking for solutions. The Sustrans debacle is certainly one for Private Eye's Lord Gnome.

Derek Wall for Green Party Chair and Geoff Smith for Elections Co-ordinator

2011-08-25T15:04:00.001+01:00

I've justed voted in the GPEX elections and would urge you to support both Derek Wall and Geoff Smith for party chair and elections co-ordinator respectively.

Derek (above) will be an outstanding party chair and is one of the people who inspires me. He has a vast amount of campaigning experience to draw upon and will be strongly supported by Carlisle and Eden members. Derek is precisely what the party needs and the final paragraph of his nomination statement sums up exactly what I believe we should be doing:

In an economy faced with inflation, financial risk and potential recession the party should put its economic and social justice agenda at the heart of campaigning.

Amen to that. Give the man your vote. More at www.derekwallforchair.org.uk/

I have a huge amount of respect for Allerdale's Geoff Smith, who is currently the NW elections co-ordinator. He's a great guy.

Geoff is standing for this role nationally and I'm honoured to be one of his nominees. It's a sometimes thankless task and we're extremely lucky to have him do this for our region. I think it's one of those roles where the huge amount of work undertaken behind the scenes isn't always appreciated or realised. Geoff is methodical, dedicated with endless good humour. He has a lot to offer the party nationally.

After fifteen years in the Labour Party the novelty of the Green Party's genuine internal democracy with one member one vote and a good natured conference where all members can have their say still hasn't worn off. Unlike the Labour Party the person with the most preference votes wins - there will be no adding of trade union block votes, Andorran Eurovision televotes or whatever other methods Labour uses to fix its internal contests.

Happy voting y'all.

Azerbaijan Watch (2)

2011-08-24T17:07:00.000+01:00

A quick recap.

Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf last May so they host next year. It's a dubious and authoritarian regime with a dreadful human rights record that plans to use the event for propaganda purposes whilst the crackdowns continue. It is being supported in this by all manner of corrupt western PR people, like Matthew Freud.

Azerbaijan is oil rich and appears to be promoting itself as the new Dubai, another authoritarian regime, but most people tend not to bother with these things as long as they get a bit of sun (see Franco's Spain in the 1960s and 1970s, for example, where tourism was originally developed to shore up a fascist regime). With Azerbaijan getting more attention than usual this is an ideal moment to publicise what actually goes on there.

A local human rights activist who spoke out against illegal house demolitions has had her office razed to the ground in Baku (below) in what Amnesty International has labelled a "retaliatory attack" by the authorities.

The building owned by activist Leyla Yunus (below) and her husband were destroyed by bulldozers last night, the day after she gave an interview to the New York Times criticizing a "beautification" project in the capital Baku which aims to spruce the place up ahead of next May's Eurovision Song Contest.

"Leyla Yunus is the latest victim of a series of evictions and home demolitions taking place in Baku that the authorities are carrying out without respect for international standards," said Natalia Nozadze, Azerbaijan researcher at Amnesty International.

Hundreds of residents have already had their homes demolished without any sort of compensation. The removals look set to continue and indeed accelerate in the months ahead, and especially the closer we get to May. There are certainly echoes here of the final years of the Ceaucescu regime.

Azerbaijan are the only country ever to have lost to Liechtenstein in a World Cup qualifier.

A Labour party worth voting for

2011-08-23T17:39:00.001+01:00

I know he'd been suffering from cancer for the second time but I'm quite shocked and very sorry to hear about the death of Jack Layton (below), the leader of the Canadian New Democratic Party.

The NDP have until recently been the third party in Canadian politics, way behind the Conservatives and Liberals. However in May this year Layton led the NDP from 37 seats in the House of Commons to 103. No party leader had ever done this before, and Layton became leader of the opposition as the aloof Michael Ignatieff's Liberals collapsed along with the Bloc Quebecois.

Layton was a talented politician and a highly effective communicator. Interestingly he was Quebecois, and the NDP swept the board there in May's federal election. In the election leadership debates he completely ripped into the ineffective Ignatieff and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper which made for brilliant political theatre.

Layton leads a recognisably left of centre party that has a strong track record on economic and social justice issues - and that's why the party won so much support last May. Indeed, the contrast with New Labour on this side of the Atlantic could not be greater. If Labour Party members are serious about rebuilding their party, and there are still so many good and decent people in Labour, they might find the example of Jack Layton's NDP an interesting one to study more closely.

Cage these hooligans

2011-08-22T13:37:00.000+01:00

People in glass houses, and all that.

Let's have a look at the more formal criminal activity of some of our leading politicians, and based on recent events, what sentence they would have been given had they undertaken their actions in the recent rioting.

Nick Clegg. With the A Level results just out let's not forget that Clegg lied and/or led his party in breaking his and their solemn promise on tuition fees. At the age of sixteen Clegg destroyed property and was convicted of arson in Germany. All of this happened whilst he was drunk and disorderly.

Likely riot sentence: 5 years.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Johnson was arrested at the age of nineteen for drunk and disorderly behaviour just after he joined the exclusive Bullingdon Club. (To reflect the new mood of the times we'll not bother with a trial although Johnson admitted his behaviour anyway).

Likely riot sentence: 2 years.

Richard Littlejohn, tabloid hack and Daily Mail columnist. Leading a drunken affray in the early 1970s at a local college, whilst a journalist on the Peterborough Standard, Littlejohn was fined a paltry £40.

Likely riot sentence: 3 years.

String 'em up guv. It's the only language they understand.

Incidentally, a nice attempted citizen's arrest of Tony Blair in Auckland a couple of days ago by veteran campaigner John Minto at http://www.3news.co.nz/Group-protest-Tony-Blairs-Eden-Park-visit/tabid/309/articleID/220350/Default.aspx Loved the bit about people originally being charged NZ$1500 for a ticket to hear The Man speak but this was later discounted to NZ$500 when there were few takers.

The court is now adjourned.

Ready for take off?

2011-08-21T10:54:00.000+01:00

In the not too distant future people will be amazed that those of us living now were able, if we had the spare money and time, to relatively cheaply jet off to any number of interesting and exotic destinations for the weekend.

Take a look at the destinations list of any budget airline: Oslo, Marrakech, Tallinn (above) and Lisbon, are just a few examples. Talking about this at a family event last night really brought it home to me how incredible, on one level, this is.

However, there's ultimately no getting away from the fact that flying is deeply damaging to the environment. This is one of the many things that as a society we simply don't want to face up to. Hence all the deluded nonsense about more fuel efficient planes and other techno-fixes being part of the solution. They aren't. Not when we need something in the region of 95% efficiencies. Carbon offsets meanwhile are scams, equivalent to the sale of indulgences in the medieval Catholic church. And strangely I'd prefer Ryanair's Michael O'Leary over Easyjet or the others any day: at least they're not even pretending to be green.

It's worth mentioning at this point that as a cabinet minister Ed Miliband (seen here directing a plane?) fully supported the building of a third runway at Heathrow, even though in the Labour leadership contest he then said that he personally knew it was wrong. What's all that about? One of many reasons highlighting how his principles are clearly Clegg-lite and why I can't take the guy seriously.

Although there are more people flying now than ever before, the growth in airline travel has not been popularised as the owners of some budget airlines would have us believe: the reality is that top income groups are simply flying more. Nearly all flights originating in the UK are taken by the wealthiest 20% of the British population. Interestingly, 3.4 million flights covered distances of less than 400km.

Aviation is a declining industry because of peak oil. So do people pile on planes now and see as much as they can in a wave of mad hedonism or accept that we need to fly less?

One of my favourite websites is http://www.seat61.com/ which comprehensively appeals to the anorak in me on so many levels. We've used it loads in recent years.

It's almost six years since I've taken a flight and it's not something I plan to do ever again.

If I'm honest environmental reasons are only part of it, but nonetheless an important one at that. Essentially I don't need to fly because we don't have family living permanently abroad. The last occasion the plane dropped several hundred metres which doesn't sound like much but it was a scary experience. Moreover, flying is always something I've been a bit wary of and I guess that the longer you're out the harder it is to go back to it. And then there's the hassle. When we last flew it was some months before the liquids scare so I imagine that the potential for delays, stress and generally putting up with conditions you wouldn't otherwise endure elsewhere is now so much greater. I can't be bothered with that, and especially with the notion of having to do it all over again on the return leg.

Swastika embossed handbags at dawn

2011-08-20T14:17:00.000+01:00

The recent leadership tiff in the BNP is probably the death knell of that party. However it by no means spells the end of neo-Nazi politics in Britain given the concurrent rise of the EDL.

Indeed, neo-Nazi politics is no longer about electoral strategy, as it was, especially here in Carlisle, between 2006 and 2009. Instead, the focus is upon an array of violent groups that undoubtedly pose a threat of sorts to national security particularly given recent events in Norway and their track record so far.

Nick Griffin has retained the chairmanship, or leadership, of the BNP over fellow MEP Andrew Brons by just nine votes in a ballot of party members. "Probably, this was the worst mandate the chairman could win," commented Brons after the result was announced. Ouch! He went on to say that "the party is effectively split from head to toe." It remains to be seen whether Brons will take his supporters off somewhere to establish a new party.

The Daily Telepgraph said of Brons after his election as a Yorkshireand the Humber MEP in June 2009 that "Rarely could a man with a less palatable CV than Andrew Brons be the subject of British political success."

Even though the far right hasn't gone away, the rest of us in the democratic parties should enjoy this moment.

It's easy to forget how neo-Nazism was a presence in Carlisle politics for the best part of three years. We should be grateful that the odious Clive Jefferson, Cumbria's answer to Herr Flick, was as organisationally incompetent as he was, and that there was such a concerted attempt to stop these people. Nor should we forget how close the BNP came to winning council seats not only here, but in west Cumbria too, where they nearly won a county council by-election in Copeland ahead of the 2009 European elections. Yet their organisational implosion is quite staggering, even by the standards of how these things tend to play out in extremist politics.

The BNP is effectively defending a seat on the Greater London Assembly next May and we're getting into the period when post-Euro election campaigning becomes pre-Euro election campaigning. And yet in recent by-elections, notably Barnsley Central back in March caused by the imprisonment of a corrupt Labour MP, the BNP still managed despite everything to pull in fourth place and 6%. These elections are still a long way off, and as far as the North West is concerned in June 2014, the last seat will be between Griffin and the Greens.

Through a glass darkly

2011-08-19T12:44:00.000+01:00

Society is made deeply uncomfortable by seeing itself reflected. That's why we've had such a severe reaction to the riots, with most politicians protesting a bit too much.

My mother in law was caught up in the riots in Manchester and said that it was, unsurprisingly, a frightening experience. The rioting here was fuelled by greed and opportunism. However, society shys away from asking itself if the behaviour of rioters is any different from the greed and corruption exhibited by seriously dishonest MPs like Hazel Blears, officers in the Metropolitan Police who kill with impunity or the mega rich in the city and elsewhere who rob the British public of billions in taxes. Or the air strike in Libya by NATO last week that killed nearly ninety civilians. You reap what you sow.

The authors of this malaise are the three main parties, all of whom have been in government in the last fifteen months. They have all conspired and encouraged the mega rich and their friends in the media to destroy the British economy and ensure that it continues now more than ever to be run in the interests of a few rich people.

In a recent article journalist John Pilger quotes Malcolm X whose words apply to British society over the last thirty years.

"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing."

No chance of Vodafone paying that outstanding £2 billion tax bill then.

The fall out

2011-08-18T14:05:00.000+01:00

The fall out from the riots continues.

Inappropriate sentencing is now the norm and we have the usual crowd of Conservative and Labour politicians trying to outdo each other in being increasingly knee-jerk in their responses, not to mention the response from the judiciary and magistrates (below), more than a few of whom are out of their depth anyway.

I've noticed these last few days a number of Facebook groups with titles like "Burn in hell UK rioters". Shouldn't these be reported to the police as well and appropriate action taken?

The most considered statement I've seen so far is from Haringey Green Party and can be found at http://haringeygreens.blogspot.com/2011/08/solutions-after-riots-what-now.html

The Prime Minister was in Carlisle today, an indication of how critically important this seat is to the Conservatives. I'm sure we can expect more high profile visits over the next four years.

The silly season

2011-08-15T22:03:00.000+01:00

First things first.

I have a lot of time for Labour's Kevin Parker. He's clearly a very intelligent and decent guy who is in politics for the right reasons.

I'm not a betting man but I'd happily place my mortgage on him being the party's parliamentary candidate here in Carlisle at the next general election, unless Mandelson Towers (or whatever it's called these days) forces an all women shortlist on the CLP which has to be a strong possibility huge gender imbalances.

Being PPC in 2015 is clearly Kevin's strategy, which is fine. In any event he's a prominent Labour figure in the city in his own right and will probably be a councillor after next May's elections. Therefore Kevin Parker and John Stevenson as MP each now have their own labels on this blog. Yay.

For an outsider to come from nowhere to within a whisker of being Labour's candidate here last year shows shrewdness, savvy and impressive organisational abilities (even if Labour's membership list in Carlisle at the time of the selection bore all the accuracy of a voters roll in a Nigerian presidential election). Kevin also ran an excellent campaign in Stanwix Urban which reinforced my view of him as being a smart and media aware political operator.

It's a bit academic, but had I still been in the Labour Party he would have had my full support to be Labour's candidate in 2010 as the person most likely to hold the seat. I think he would still have lost though and I think that Carlisle is now beyond Labour's grasp for reasons outlined before on this blog.

This is why Kevin's call for city MP John Stevenson to repay just under £1,200 in councillor allowances from his election as MP in May to his standing down from the council in September last year is both odd and beneath him. This is a phenomenal error of judgement and looks like the cheap shot that it is. And that's how people will see it. Not. A. Story.

To state or insinuate that John was not serving the people of Stanwix Urban during this time verges from being blatantly untrue to...well, let's not go there. And let's face it, if you want to attack the Conservatives there are plenty of issues you can get them on. That in itself just underlines the point that Labour have nothing to say on the economy because they support the cuts agenda.

From time to time all of us in politics are guilty of yielding to temptation and saying things that are inappropriate, to varying degrees. However, to seek to make something like this a news story does show a lack of substance and bad judgement.

What does Kevin think about Salford MP and fraudster Hazel Blears (above and below) who (a) swindled £13,000 in taxpayer's money in the last parliament through lies and (b) whose ludicrous outburst in the run up to polling day in the last European elections cost Labour MEP Richard Corbett his seat and led to the election of Nazi Andrew Brons?

The silly season indeed.

From one extreme to the other

2011-08-13T08:41:00.001+01:00

What a terrible sight. Running riot and stealing with impunity.

But enough of MP's expenses in the last parliament. Other than to say how hypocritical it was of disgraced Labour MP Hazel Blears (above) to say how the her constituents had lost confidence in Salford police considering that, as their representative, she swindled £13,000 from taxpayers by criminally claiming false expenses.

One of the advantages of being out of the country these last few days is being spared listening to the self-righteous pseudo-outraged ramblings of Johnson, Miliband and others like Jack Straw, whose knee jerk reactions are as tedious as they are predictable. It's also been nice not having to listen to Clegg pretending to be a grown up politician. Unlike MPs, there was no compensation for any of the police and other public sector workers, currently being cut, who had to return from holiday or who never ended up going in the first place.

My favourite Boris Johnson (above) story about the riots is of how he turned up in Clapham to congratulate the local community on their hard work in clearing up the debris, to be greeted with shouts of "this is your fault", "stop the cuts" and "have a nice holiday Boris?". He then posed for the media with broom in hand before making good his escape. Unlike many people I think Johnson is a nasty piece of work, as evidenced by the Stuart Collier, Darious Guppy and a myriad of other issues surrounding him. That said I still expect him to win next year.

The riots are truly frightening and a tragedy for those caught up in them who have lost homes and businesses. Most of the disorder is down to criminality. If you're going to smash something up, and happen to live in London, there are probably a few more obvious targets that the community in which you live. Interestingly, the disturbances saw things like local Jewish and Muslim groups meeting to protect a synagogue from looting and when the EDL showed up communities standing together.

In Tottenham, where the unrest started, there appears to have been a clear spark, with the local police hierarchy refusing to meet community leaders and relatives of Mark Duggan over several hours. This was entirely preventable but clearly there was a tremendous amount of pent up anger waiting to explode. In any event, and as the excellent David Harvey has pointed out over on Derek Wall's blog ( http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-they-learnt-to-riot-and-burn.html) in the current hang 'em and flog 'em atmosphere we're unlikely to have considered (or even the most tokenistic of) enquiries into the underlying reasons for the riots.

And considered responses are what's needed. But as ever, they're in short supply.

Courts in Manchester and Birmingham have been sitting through the night to deal with the backlog of cases in what looks like a UK version of summary sharia justice. Both CPS and defence solicitors report of being exhausted at eighteen hour shifts. Am I the only person who is troubled by this? The effects of exhaustion mirror those of drink driving. Is this really the way to be running a justice system? District judge Khalid Qureshi who presides over one of the courts (token ethnic minority?) has said that he'll send down anyone convicted of being anywhere near the riots at all, including a seventeen year old snatched by Inspector Knacker with a bottle of water whilst protesting her innocence.

Will we see wrongful convictions coming to light in the next few months and years? Moreover, it's unclear what good locking large numbers of people up for comparatively minor offences will be done other than more expense, when community payback sentences would be completely appropriate. Still, that's not the point in the present climate.

The political class (and our increasingly political courts) no longer have the excuse, publicly at least, of pandering to the Murdoch press in undertaking some of these knee jerk decisions. There's probably also an underlying panic in the run up to the Olympics about (a) what this does for international perceptions and (b) worries about this kicking off again in 2012, hence the need for draconian measures now.

With increasing cuts to public services and community projects we're probably going to have an increase in likely catalysts for things like this happening in the years ahead. Still, a few rubber bullets and water cannons should help to keep them all in the ghetto.

Cutting the wires

2011-08-07T17:36:00.000+01:00

I'll be taking a break from blogging as we're away, so no emails or mobile phone either this week.

There was a (hardly earth shattering) report published some days ago about how increasing numbers of people are addicted to use of their i-phones. The same can no doubt be said for mobiles and the internet as well.

Some weeks ago at work I was forwarded details of a special offer on Blackberries which I nearly took up, but then I gave it some consideration and thought: why should I be able to check my emails whenever I want/respond to people immediately? All this technology is marvellous, but you do have to draw a line in the sand.

A few months ago I had a call from a journalist, outside the election cycle as it happened, asking for my comments on a particular issue. He tried to get hold of of me two or three times during the course of the working day, and had a good natured go at me for not having an answering message on my mobile. I told him that when I'm at work I never check my mobile during the usual office hours. I was, however, too polite to tell him that the lack of an answering message was deliberate. In the end, it didn't matter at all, as we still chatted and I was able to give the interview on schedule.

We live in a society that demands instant responses. If someone doesn't text us back within, say, one hour, our default position is to ask questions. From my own point of view all of that is perfectly legitimate in election campaigns, but should it really form part of everyday life, where the mundane suddenly becomes urgent? It's worth stopping for a moment to ask ourselves these questions.

I've blogged before about my mixed feelings on Facebook, which I rarely use. I worry that as a society we retreat into creating a virtual world (what's all this Farmville stuff about?) rather than positively engaging with the one we really do inhabit and trying to make it better, whilst enjoying the good company family and friends. The silliest of all has got to be Twitter. I've been sucked into this as well, but is it essential outside electioon campaigns? And even then, does it matter.

Using Twitter and blogging is, I think, partly a means of ensuring that the small (but growing) party I'm a member of makes up for in a new media presence what we can sometimes lack in terms of the resources and money of the big three. When I get back I plan to revamp this blog a bit, something I haven't yet made the time for. I need to set up links and perhaps change the design. Any suggestions of feedback on anything at all very welcome. Post your thoughts or send me an email or text. Just don't expect a response until next weekend!

Meltdown Iceland

2011-08-05T13:52:00.000+01:00

Roget Boyes (below) has been a foreign correspondent on The Times for many years and has been covering Iceland since the Cod Wars of the 1970s.

His book Meltdown Iceland is gripping, and tells the inside story of how Iceland bankrupted itself in 2009.

Let's not forget that Iceland was lauded by many politicians here who were completely carried away with their enthusiasm, from Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan to Alex Salmond (remember his Arc of Prosperity talk?).

Iceland only has a population of 300,000 people, and Reykjavik, where one third of Icelanders live, isn't much bigger than Carlisle. It's worth pausing to reflect on that for a moment. Many people know each other or will, at least, be able to establish some sort of connection. It's the sort of society where Carlisle Living magazine would be a national publication. Boyes points out that the entire political and financial elite of Iceland would fit comfortably onto a single decker bus, with room to spare.

At the height of the crsis in 2009 about two thousand Icelanders regularly gathered outside the national parliament in Reykjavik. Boyes points out that's the equivalent of two million Americans marching on Washington DC. I particularly liked the part when he points out that protesters were the cousins of riot police who in turn were related to the deputies inside parliament. Boyes argues that in that sort of context personal feuds and individual personalities become so much more pronounced than would otherwise be the case. Add to that a media that fails to seek out a counternarrative to events and you have a system with, in reality, few real checks and balances. Moreover, structural interdependency between business, financial and political elites becomes then threatens to undermine everything.

The scale of cronyism, corruption and greed in Iceland that preceded the crash is quite astonishing. Most of the players were at school with each other. How they ever thought such a small society would be able to clock up such monumental debts without it all crashing down is indicative of the mindset that prevailed at the time. Whilst Iceland is, obviously, similar to other places in microcosm, when they feel they feel much harder than any other western society.

The Icelandic krona is the smallest independent currency in the world and there have to be questions about how sustainable it is in the long run. It will be interesting in the next few years to see where Iceland's relationship with the EU goes. Issues around fisheries have understandably kept Iceland out, but it's not as if they can now seek solace within the EU or via security of a single currency as originally suggested when the crisis was at its worst.

Got any spare ideas for government, guv?

2011-08-04T10:26:00.000+01:00

If you're anywhere near Tullie House in the near future visit the Roman Gallery. It's absolutely fantastic and emphasises the sheer scale of the Roman Empire with a fascinating local dimension. There's also a very poignant and timely display on modern day frontiers as part of the exhibition.

Tullie House is currently looking to appoint a number of additional trustees. I just hope they don't feel the need to appoint any former local councillors to this critically important body...

The picture below appeared on Derek Wall's blog (http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/) the other day with the caption "Who is the real leader of the opposition?"

Incidentally, if you still haven't looked at http://awkwardedmilibandmoments.tumblr.com/ do so soon and regularly.

According to the Liverpool Daily Post's political correspondent David Bartlett (see the full article at http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/08/debating-whether-the-greens-ca.html) this year's Labour Party conference in Liverpool will host a fringe meeting entitled "Green to Red: how can Labour stop the Greens spreading?" I know that my good friend Peter Cranie will have something to say about this on his blog at http://petercranie.blogspot.com/ in due course and it's nice that the comrades have decided to see us as a threat. My own advice, for what it's worth, is simple: stop abandoning a belief in social justice and running the organisation as if it was the Romanian Communist Party c. 1978. Still, they've had one hundred years so I reckon it's time for some new people and ideas.

When a party goes into opposition in a democracy, or loses another nation al election, they broadly have two options.

First, they can carry on as before with the expectation that the electoral tide will swing their way in due course. This is the "one more heave" school of thought can sometimes be grounded in reality and an appropriate response to a given set of circumstances. Sometimes, however, it can have disastrous consequences.

Second, they can carry out a fundamental internal debate about their priorities and purpose. In Britain with the Labour Party in the 1990s this was all about jettisoning principles and abandoning traditional values, but this is only the case if a party decides it should be so (the New Zealand Labour Party went in a very different direction at the same time). Going back to first principles is a healthy thing and can be an exercise in engaging more people, building wider links and binding existing members and activists together. It can also be uncomfortable.

The Labour Party under Ed Miliband seems to have fallen into the comfort zone of the first and that's dangerous for them in the long term. In many parts of the country Labour simply does not exist as an organisation is any meaningful way, and I'd include parts of Cumbria (Penrith and the Border, Westmorland and Lonsdale) in that category. There are no councillors and no campaigning in these areas. In the European elections in the South West in 2009 Labour ended up fourth behind the Greens, which appears to indicate that voters on the left are open to persuasion - as we know they are in Carlisle - when offered a credible alternative.

The reverse is also true, although it's not just exclusive to Labour. There are a number of very unhealthy one party states that are, however, disproportionately Labour. On 18th August there will be a by-election in Knowsley's Page Moss ward. Greens are running local campaigner Marie Rea who used to work for former Merseyside MP Bob Wareing. We're establishing a local party down there on a local authority where there are 58 Labour councillors and 4 Lib Dems, whose vote is collapsing in the area. That sort of political environment breeds a certain mindset, with the best will in the world.

There are some very switched on and thinking people inside the Labour Party like Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas and the Compass group. I don't necessarily agree with everything they have to say but they nonetheless have some interesting thoughts on a number of issues and the party would do well to pay closer attention to what they have to say.

Labour is not recovering in the way they should be. They are starting from such a low base that any move forward looks as if they are, such was the scale of their collapse. They have to win the London mayoral election next year. I can't help but feel that their lead is built on sand.

The end of Belgium?

2011-08-02T15:06:00.001+01:00

Reading back the title of this piece suggests the most boring post I've ever written. But if you do feel compelled to carry on reading...

I hardly watch any TV at all, but when I'm working at home I sometimes have Russia Today on in the background because it's different and I like its international content. However, it's still not a patch on (the soon to be dismembered) BBC or Al-Jazeera.

The other day there was an item on about the potential break-up of Belgium, more likely now than ever before, but almost unreported elsewhere. Belgium has, of course, been without a government for fourteen months and separatist pressures are building ever further and are increasingly likely to come to a head.

To say that Belgium does not have a government, however, needs to be carefully qualified. This isn't a failed state like Somalia, Pakistan or even Italy. The federal government in Belgium is very weak with nearly all power devolved to the regions and communities as the state practices the principle of subsidiarity: devolving power to the lowest practical level, something that we could learn much from in Britain. Speaking of which, I could never understand the falsehood of a federal superstate that some people use when describing the EU. How can a federation be a superstate?

As far as the two main component parts of Belgium are concerned it's a case of never the twain shall meet. Children in Wallonia, the French area, don't learn Flemish in schools and usually the reverse is true. Institutions are completely separate so there's no real sense of national identity. There are separate TV channels, separate legal and education systems and separate political parties. For example, there isn't a Belgian Green Party.

In Flanders there's Groen and in Wallonia Ecolo.

Each of these Belgian parties are entirely separate and have as much contact with each other as the party here has with our Swedish counterparts Miljopartiet de Grona. In a single state, surely that's an odd situation? Not even Canada is like that. The Belgian conservatives, socialists and liberals are the same, and then you have strongly supported separatist parties as well. Incidentally, don't underestimate the cohesiveness that something like a single national broadcaster can bring to a nation.

In a sense Belgium doesn't need such federal institutions or organisations because of the significant power of local communities. And let's not forget either that there's a Belgian German minority comprising 73,000 people with their own parliament and institutions within the province of Liege in Wallonia. Someone once told me that the safest language to speak in Brussels is English.

Belgium's problems have possibly been masked by its involvemen in the EU since it was founded as the Common Market in 1957. Moreover, the only collective national experience and trauma of World War Two, when Belgium was occupied by the Nazis, has more or less fallen out of living memory. With a single currency and freedom of movement separation would to some extent merely formalise the existing arrangements but there could be major problems.

The general consensus is that Wallonia will join France, which has political parties that are more or less branches of what you'll find there. Flanders would become independent and I've no idea what will happen to the German minority who are located inside an enclave in Wallonia itself. That could get very messy. Presumably the break-up of Belgium would have implications for countries that have separatist movements within their own borders, with Britain, Spain and Italy as obvious examples.

If this does become headline news we all may be able to name ten famous Belgians by the end of the year.

Selling ourselves short

2011-08-01T13:52:00.000+01:00

Does anywhere else in Britain so comprehensively undersell itself than Carlisle?

I've blogged about this before because it's an issue that I feel very strongly about. Carlisle, in short, significantly undersells itself. This city is a fantastic place to live, work and bring up a family. The quality of life here in environmental terms particularly is very good compared to many other places. This is also a city with a very strong sense of identity and a fascinating past.

This is, fundamentally, about three things: promoting the city as a tourist destination in its own right, developing a sustainable local economy and consolidating our own identity. They're all connected, of course. So what's stopping us from doing this effectively? Well...

1. Ineffective local political leadership on the city council over the long term. This isn't meant to be a party political pop but despite some very honourable individual exceptions across the board there's a lethargy, lack of ambition, no vision and general defensiveness when it comes to promoting Carlisle. That's not to question individual committment though, but let's face it, sacking the tourism, conference and other officers speaks volumes.

As wider evidence of a vacuum in this area we have the disgrace of the Renaissance project, lack of movement on the Lonsdale and the complete hash they made of Sustrans, which to say the least sends all the wrong signals and were three missed opportunities. This also, of course, makes it more difficult to promote similar projects in the future as there will be an understandable popular cynicism about their worth. In short, unless the political leadership is there nothing else will happen.

2. A focus on white elephant 'prestige' projects like the airport and an ice rink (what's all that about?) which are ultimately irrelevant. A strong local infrastructure and existing facilities are what counts. For example, when you leave Carlisle railway station is there any sense of connection with the Lake District, Hadrian's Wall or southern Scotland? Why do the undercroft and court house tours only happen sporadically and outside any current semblance of a tourism strategy? Does this happen in York, Chester or Edinburgh? I don't think so.

3. Poor marketing. Cumbria is so much more than the stunning scenery of the Lake District. It's about Carlisle's rich past and west Cumbria's industrial and maritime heritage as well. Individual sites such as the castle, where displays don't seem to have changed since I first went as a boy in the early 1980s, need a revamp, and that means close partnership with English Heritage and others. But again, it all comes back to the first point.

Now is the time to be starting these dicussions, and to be fair there are more reasons for optimism than perhaps a year ago. Next year's Olympics will seen a huge increase in both domestic and international tourism with great potential for Carlisle. We should be looking to capitalise on that fantastic opportunity.

Electorally weak, politically strong?

2011-07-31T09:53:00.000+01:00

Let's be absolutely clear: there are no ideological or other political differences between Anders Behring Breivik who carried the Norway killings and the BNP/EDL cohorts like MEPs Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons (below).

London nail bomber David Copeland, who killed three and injured 139, many horrifically, eleven years ago, can also be added to this list because this is where the far right's espousal of violence, hatred and the cult of death ends. Brons, for example, was a member of the National Socialist Movement which instigated an arson campaign against Jewish properties and businesses in the 1960s. And now he represents the people of Yorkshire and the Humber in the European Parliament. Indeed, Breivik himself has links with the UK far right. Incidentally, I'm very proud of the Green Party's no platform policy when it comes to the BNP. After all, you wouldn't share a platform to debate with the likes of Breivik and Copeland, would you?

Following the collapse of the BNP from 2009 onwards it's easy to forget just how strong they once were in Carlisle. In Currock, where I live, they came incredibly close to winning a council seat in 2006 and performed strongly in Morton particularly and elsewhere across the city.

One point worth noting about Currock, for those not familiar with Carlisle, is that the ward in no way resembles what may be considered at first glance fertile BNP territory. It's very mixed and doesn't particularly conform to the stereotype of an area where they're likely to do well, especially if you look at who actually turns out to vote here. The Green Party has deliberately not fielded a candidate in Currock despite us having a few members in this part of town partly because of the residual BNP threat.

The current paradox of far right politics in Britain is that they are electorally weak but politically strong. Whilst the BNP has collapsed (this may be cyclical) the language they use and some of the ideas they espouse are adopted by mainstream politicians.

One recent example amongst many is that of Labour advisor Maurice Glasman (above). Glasman is associated with the increasingly irrelevant, vacuous and faddish Blue Labour concept, and earlier this month he called for all immigration to be stopped. He also called on Labour to establish a dialogue with the EDL. Glasman is Jewish. He's written a piece for this week's New Statesman magazine (which has a series of features on the European far right) apologising for these comments but given it's beyond parody it should really be in Private Eye. It's unforgivable that mainstream parties feel they can tackle the continuing growth of extremism by using the same language and ideas.

The narrow elite

2011-07-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

Credit should be given to former Prime Minister John Major who earlier on this month made a speech in which he attacked the increasingly narrow occupational background of MPs.

In a speech that covered a number of constitutional issues (you can read it in full by following the links at http://www.greenfeed.org.uk/feeds/?p=636686) Major stated that "Fundamental policy choices are made by men and women who, apart from the legitimacy of election and a native intellect, have no qualifications at all to make them."

Given his own background and professional experiences this is not something that Major can be accused of, in contrast to his successor as party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron. Sadly, I think that this professionalisation of politics, for want of a better expression, is a trend that will become increasingly pronounced in all three main parties with dire consequences for the quality of decision making.