Alan's Green Thoughts

I would firstly like to start on a positive note by saying that I affirm my support for Will Duckworth (first preference) and Amelia Womack (second preference) in the GPEW Deputy Leadership elections. I postitvely believe Will's hard work so far as Green Party Deputy Leader and within Dudley, and Amelia' passion and inspiration to young activists, will all be useful in tandem in the Green Party, especially as the 2015 general election looms ever closer. I also ask you, if you can, in light of the escalating situation and death toll in Gaza, to come to a protest against Israel's attacks on Gaza (especially its massacring of families and shelling of schools and hospitals, which constitutes a war crime), outside the Israeli Embassy in High Street Kensington, London, tomorrow at 5.30 pm. Further details can be found via this link: www.palestinecampaign.org. I also hope you have found and signed a petititon calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be charged wi

It has been 100 years since World War I started, infamously sparked by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist Gavro Princip on 28 July 1914. However, what must also be noted are how the expansionism and greed of the empires of the day-Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and others-led to a build up to the conditions that became a major war waiting to happen. A similar build up in the 1930s led to World War II less than 21 years after the November Armistice was signed-and I believe in the time of the Great Recession we are mired in now, conditions are building up once again in some nations that could eventually lead, one day, to World War Three. The conditions in question in some nations now somewhat resemble those faced by ordinary people in the 1930s after the Great Depression-a significant rise in support for extreme right groups (e.g. FN, Jobbik, PVV) increasing authoritarianism, escalating attacks on vulnerable groups in society, high

In case you missed them, the results of local by-elections from yesterday that featured Green candidates were as follows: Blackpool UA, Clifton: Labour 501 (41.3%), UKIP 362 (23.6%), Conservative 283 (23.3%), Liberal Democrat 33 (2.7%), Green 25 (2.1%), TUSC 10 (0.8%) Doncaster MBC, Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Barnby Dun: UKIP 1203 (40.8%), Labour 1109 (37.6%), Conservative 479 (16.2%), Green 160 (5.4%). Maidstone DC, Staplehurst: Lib Dem 609 (36.2%), Con 603 (35.9%), UKIP 311 (18.5%), Lab 117 (7.0%), Green 41 (2.4%) Reading UA, Southcote: Lab 1019 (59.8%), Con 340 (20.0%), UKIP 226 (13.3%), Green 69 (4.1%), Lib Dem 49 (2.9%). We have at least tried to make a start in Doncaster, a place which is rather unfriendly towards progressive politics-as shown by UKIP's strong showing in Doncaster recently, and in the past the English Democrats had their strongest performance in Doncaster by far, partly due to the personal following of former Mayor of Doncaster Peter Davies. 

Ladies and gentlemen, so far in the recent attacks on Gaza by Israel, 750 people have been killed by Israeli bombs and missiles- these incidents constitute a massacre of innocent people, not a war, and thus a war crime. Despite the many war crimes the state of Israel has committed against not only Palestine but also other nations (notably Lebanon) in its existence, Israel has never been held to account for any war crimes or its many UN Security Council resolution violations. The main reason for this is the influence of the USA on Israel- and the USA, being one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, can veto proposed sanctions on Israel at pretty much any time.   The most recent UN vote on whether Israel should be held to account (aka a resolution on enforcing respect for international law in the Palestinian Territories) shows a major factor in not only the BBC's biased coverage of the events in Gaza but also Europe's attitude to this issue-not only did

Earlier this year, an online poll showed that many residents of the small town of Yarm, historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire but now part of the unitary authority of Stockton-on-Tees (which really should be part of County Durham and in fact was before former Prime Minister Edward Heath's local government reforms came into force in 1973) want to move back into North Yorkshire, and within Hambleton District Council. Within the north of England, two other relatively small towns also want to secede from larger authorities: Morley from Leeds Metropolitan Borough Council (which covers quite a few other towns that are not really in Leeds, like Pudsey and Otley) and also Chorley from Lancashire County Council. These three northern towns have good reason to secede-neglect by the larger boroughs they were forced to be part of. The imposition of the main local government act of recent times was undemocratic and culturally disrespectful-even after many of those merged authorities we

Wye, oh river Wye, Do you gleam ever so brightly? Wye oh river Wye, Does your stream flow so sprightly?  I have looked upon your green waters,  Which flow without fear, Your stream rarely falters, Across Powys and Herefordshire. Wye oh river Wye, Are you so natural and so clear? But Wye oh river Wye, Are the houses near to you so dear? To many small towns Down in that fair valley, You have brought vibrance For which we thank you gladly.  Wye oh river Wye, You are so clear, by and by. But Wye oh river Wye, Do your waters never touch fair Oswestry? Sometimes dear river Wye, Do I have to travel so far upstream, To admire you? Is it because  Your waters are not all what they seem? Wye oh river Wye, Your calm waters bring me a worthy invite, But Wye oh river Wye, Does your gleam not bring watery light?    

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you have not yet heard, the results of local by-elections from yesterday featuring Green candidates were as follows: Herefordshire Council, Ledbury: It's Our County (allied to Greens in Herefordshire): 835 (51.6%), Conservative 618 (38.2%), UKIP 166 (10.3%). Herefordshire Council, Leominster South: Green 384 (37.9%), Conservative 222 (21.9%), Independent 198 (19.5%), UKIP 111 (10.9%), Labour 99 (9.8%). King's Lynn and West Norfolk District Council, Airfield: Conservative 305 (45.7%), UKIP 233 (34.9%), Green 72 (10.8%), Labour 57 (8.5%). Oxford City Council, Cowley: Labour 512 (39.4%), Green 269 (20.7%), Artwell 257 (19.8%), Conservative 152 (11.7%), UKIP 72 (5.5%), Liberal Democrat 39 (3.0%). Redditch District Council, Church Hill: Lab 600 (43.9%), Con 339 (24.8%), UKIP 332 (24.3%), Lib Dem 40 (2.9%), Green 34 (2.5%), Independent A 13 (1.0%), Independent W 9 (0.7%). The most momentous of these local by-elections was in Leominster South-

25 years ago, on 6 July 1989, the death of Janos Kadar, the only (somewhat) admirable Eastern Bloc communist leader, occurred. Realistically I should have posted this 11 days earlier, but I have been preoccupied with other matters. Despite the fact he was still a (somewhat) authoritarian communist, he was more moderate than other Eastern Bloc leaders, and in particular his point of 'he (or she, actually) who is not against us is with us.' rings true today for me. Sadly, this important quote has not been taken on board by left-wing groups in Europe properly, largely because he is little-remembered today, even though the case for united left alliances in Europe and elswhere, especially in Britain where the left has remained badly divided and fragmented over the last few decades, is stronger than ever. Unity of socialist organisations has proven to be very successful in European nations, most recently in Slovenia, and has worked well in Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, and Irel

Amidst the media storm about David Cameron's cabinet reshuffle, which notably saw the departure of Ken Clarke, Michael Gove, William Hague and Owen Paterson from the Cabinet, the three mainstream parties gathered together to rush through the 'emergency' Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, aka the 'snooper's charter', without giving MPs nearly enough time to scrutinise it properly. An earlier attempt at such a law was thankfully blocked by the European Court of Human Rights, which the coalition government (especially the Home Secretary, Theresa May) clearly has no respect for. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, also known as DRIP, will require all telecommunications and internet companies to store all of your data of all types for 12 months, even if it states access to actual content can only be given to authorised people (the security services) by a Secretary of State.  Even though the Liberal Democrats had opposed such an unjust la

Yesterday, I watched a live hustings of the candidates for the next Deputy Leaders of the Green Party-four men, one woman. Due to technical issues, the live hustings started 40 minutes late, but luckily, it went well when it did get going. The four men in question were Shahrar Ali of Brent, Councillor William 'Will' Duckworth of Dudley, Councillor Mark Ereira-Guyer of Bury St. Edmunds, and Councillor Robert 'Rob' Telford of Bristol. The lone woman in these hustings was Amelia Womack of Lambeth. In my honest opinion, all of them put up a good performance, especially on the priorities the Green Party should focus on in next year's general election. Many questions were asked by many different Greens, and it did indeed prove to be a rather tough hustings, just like the Green Party leadership candidates' debate of 2012. Here is my opinion of the advantages and disadvantages of each of the candidates who took part, based on the answers they gave to Green Party mem

Ladies and gentlemen, whilst the drama of the 2014 FIFA World Cup final (which Germany won, as I expected) was going on yesterday, the European nation of Slovenia had an early parliamentary election, which produced some interesting results. Firstly, I am impressed with the United Left coalition of Slovenia, as I was worried that given polls from last month they would not secure enough votes to enter the Slovenian National Assembly, which has a 4% threshold for parties. As it turns out, the Slovenian electorate did make some left turns after all- United Left managed to win 6 seats out of 90 with 5.9% of the votes cast, giving the anti-capitalist left representation in Slovenia for the first time in decades. Notably, they also polled more votes than the Social Democrats of Slovenia, who like so many of their counterparts across the world (especially our own Labour Party back home) have just become soft neoliberals rather than actual social democrats. One downside is that the Slovenian

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you did not already know, anti-TTIP protests were staged in many parts of the United Kingdom, most notably in London. And finally, the media has given proper coverage of anti-TTIP arguments- the main anti-TTIP protest featured in 'The Independent' and I am pleased the Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, got to give a good argument against TTIP and all its empty promises on BBC radio today. In my earlier blog posts, I have explained why TTIP is so dangerous for people in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, because of the harmonisation of standards that will follow which will have severe environmental and health consequences for all EU citizens. But TTIP, like TPP, is bad for the USA as well-and we already have an example to prove this. This example is NAFTA-the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both TTIP and the TPP simply plan to extend NAFTA and all its pro-corporate dangers- this time on a near-global level (more than half of global GDP will

Ladies and gentlemen, there were several local by-elections from yesterday featuring Green candidates, including the last of the deferred elections from May 2014. Their results were as follows: Cheshire West & Chester, Broughton: Labour 614 (44.8%), Conservative 469 (34.2%), UKIP 131 (9.6%), Green 86 (6.3%), Liberal Democrat 70 (5.1%). Cornwall, Illogan: Lib Dem 277 (23.8%), Mebyon Kernow 217 (18.6%), Conservative 215 (18.5%), UKIP 156 (13.4%), Labour 129 (11.1%), Liberal 121 (10.4%), Green 50 (4.3%). Torridge, Kenwith: Con 136 (29.8%), UKIP 99 (21.7%), Independent G 98 (21.5%), Independent B 69 (15.1%), Green 28 (6.1%), Labour 26 (5.7%). North Hertfordshire, Hitchwood, Offa and Hoo (deferred election): Conservative 734 (62.0%), UKIP 203 (17.1%), Labour 116 (9.8%), Green 74 (6.3%), Lib Dem 57 (4.8%). I am pleased that in all those by-elections but one, we finished above a major party. In Cornwall, it would have been wiser tactically for us to endorse Mebyon Kernow, given

Tomorrow, millions of public sector workers will be striking across Britain, particularly in London. Major players include NUT (whose secretary, Christine Blower, appeared on Question Time last week), PCS, Unison, Unite, and many other unions.  Although I am not in work at this time of writing (the new job I have does not start until September), and in particular do not work for the public sector, I, like many Green Party members support this strike in solidarity with these people, and against the wider austerity agenda that has been hurting us so much in the last 4 years, just so the rich can get even richer and escape the consequences of a recession that was entirely their fault-not ours. Worryingly, amidst the publicity for this planned strike, the Con-Dems have touted an idea, originally touted by London's awful mayor, Boris Johnson, that will effectively make public sector strikes impossible-they propose requiring a 50% support threshold for strikes, when most elections in

In my spare time recently, I have been researching the history of the Ecology/Green Party, and in particular our candidates from ages past (by which I mean the 1970s and 1980s). In particular, I have been able to locate an archive containing all the names of the Ecology candidates from the 1979 general election, and I can trace at least the London ones of the 1983 general election (and also Ecology candidates of London from the 1981 Greater London Council election and London borough elections of 1982). I have noticed many of them are still active, or at least were active recently,in green politics of one form or another, particularly in the South West region. In the spirit of the 'where are they now?' posts of the total politics website, I have found out what happened to many of those original British Greens: Don Grimes (contested Bath in 1979 and 1983): Don is still an active Green in Bath-he contested the Bath and North East Somerset local elections of 2015. Nicholas Alb

Several by-elections, including a particularly important deferred ward election in Tower Hamlets, took place on Wednesday and Thursday this week. The results of the local by-elections which feature Green candidates were as follows: Craven DC, Skipton West: Labour 185 (24.0%), Lib Dem 143 (18.5%), Conservative 131 (17.0%), UKIP 126 (16.5%), Independent 120 (15.5%), Green 67 (8.7%). North Yorkshire CC, Skipton West: Independent 391 (23.4%), Conservative 355 (21.3%), Lib Dem 309 (18.5%), UKIP 238 (14.3%), Green 194 (11.4%), Labour 181 (10.9%). Colchester BC, Wivenhoe Quay: Labour 857 (46.7%), Conservative 629 (34.3%), UKIP 129 (7.0%), Lib Dem 127 (6.9%), Green 90 (4.9%), Patriotic Socialist 2 (0.1%). Northamptonshire CC, Brixworth: Conservative 1297 (55.4%), UKIP 500 (21.3%), Labour901  248 (10.6%), Green 228 (9.7%), Lib Dem 69 (2.9%). Cheltenham BC, Charlton Park (deferred election): Lib Dem 861 (45.9%), Conservative 767 (40.9%), UKIP 154 (8.2%), Green 46 (2.5%), Labour 46 (2.

Ladies and gentlemen, there have been two recent and important news stories about Labour. One is that Labour has ruled out renationalisation of railways and other public transport even if it wins the next general election, and the second is that loyal left-wing Labour MP Dennis Skinner, aka the Beast of Bolsover, has been voted off Labour's National Executive Committee, apparently because he 'irritated Ed Miliband's office' (although there is no evidence for that rumour). They are just the latest in a long line of articles confirming that Labour under Ed Miliband is still New Labour and will just continue down the failed road of neoliberalism and privatisation that the Conservatives under Thatcher and Major, Labour under Blair and Brown, and the Con-Dems under Cameron and Clegg have been following despite overwhelming evidence having been demonstrated several times that for the good of humanity, neoliberalism must end and a new consensus-hopefully the green consensus-m

Ladies and gentlemen, the internal Green Party executive contests will be rather interesting, to say the least. In 2012, The Independent (and some other newspapers) kept a close eye (at least for a few days) on the Green Party leadership election of that year and the four contenders, following Caroline Lucas' decision to concentrate on parliamentary duties, so I might as well post about this now. I am pleased to say that Natalie will effectively be running unopposed for Green Party leader, as she has done an excellent job for the Green Party over the last 2 years despite not having nearly as much charisma as Caroline has, and despite all that has been prevailing against us these past few years. The contests for male deputy leader (we now have two deputy leaders, not one) and international coordinator will be the most interesting, although I am banking on Will Duckworth and Derek Wall (opposed by Ray Cunningham and Anna Clarke, who I know nothing about at the moment) to be reelect

Ladies and gentlemen, my eyes turn once again to Canada, as four federal by-elections, all with (Canadian) Green Party candidates, took place yesterday. The results of the by-elections in question were as follows: Alberta, Fort McMurray-Athabasca: David Yurdiga, Conservative, 5,945 (46,8%, -25.0%); Kyle Harrietha, Liberal, 4,491 (35.3%, +24.9%); Lori McDaniel, New Democratic Party, (NDP) 1,449 (11.4%, -1.8%); Brian Doeher, Green, 449 (3.5%, -1.0%); Tim Moen, Libertarian, 374 (2.9%). Alberta, MacLeod: John Barlow, Conservative, 12,394 (68.8%, -8.7%); Dustin Fuller, Liberal, 3,062 (17.0%, +13.3%); Larry Ashmore, Green , 1,042 (5.8%, +1.2%); Aileen Burke, NDP, 766 (4.2%, -5.9%); David Reimer, Christian Heritage, 763 (4.2%, +3.7%). Ontario, Scarborough Agincourt: Arnold Chan, Liberal, 12,829 (59.3%, +13.9%); Trevor Ellis, Conservative, 6,344 (29.3%, -4.9%); Elizabeth Ying Long, NDP, 1,844 (8.5%, -9.6%), Kevin Clarke, Independent (1.5%); Shabaz Mir, Green , 307 (1.4%, -0.9%).