My recommendations at Green Party conference

I am heading off to the Autumn 2014 Green Party conference in Birmingham tomorrow morning. I will be leaving by coach from London Victoria coach station at 9 am sharp tomorrow to reach the conference in Birmingham by midday.

 Now the final timetable has been confirmed, here are my personal recommendations for Green Party conference fringes that I believe you should attend:

Any day: If you are a conference first-timer, please attend at least one of the conference first-timer sessions, the earlier the better.

Friday: General election training session at 6.30 pm, Adrian Cadbury room-especially if you are a prospective parliamentary candidate.

Saturday: Green Party Disability Group relaunch, 2.30 pm, Conference 3.
Of the 6.15 pm fringes, I recommend either the anti-TTIP fringe or the fringe on everyday sexism, which are in rooms Conference 1A/B/C and Room 145 respectively.

And of course, please come to our conference quiz at 8 pm if you can :)

 Sunday: A Green Voice-Meet Your MEPs, 9.15 am, conference 1A/B/C (unless you prefer the C motion workshops)

Any of the hustings for committees at conference.

Writing the 2015 general election manifesto-12.30 pm, Great Hall.

Get Organised! Getting a new generation unionised and organised-5.30 pm, Conference 1A.

And please come to our Open Mic Night at the Gosta Green pub at 9 pm-I will be one of the performers.

On another note, I will be standing for re-election to the Green Party's Equalities and Diversity Committee, which I have been on since March this year-please vote for me and help ensure that my hard work on the topics of disability and mental health can be continued so that we can continue to be a diverse and progressive party.

Kind regards, Alan.



 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more