Appropriate technology comes to Sutton & Carshalton?

If Sutton Council really wanted their green credentials to be taken at least a wee bit more seriously, then why oh why do they perist in buying those absurd leaf blowing machines which grown men use to blow piles of leaves around from one place to another whilst using lots of energy and making lots of noise? It must rank as one of the most iconic bits of crap technology we have produced for the coming age of energy scarcity.
However, help is at hand. I can reveal a couple of inventions which will do the job better, with zero energy consumption and a noise level of below ten decibels; and i share these with the Council. One is called a broom, and the other a springbok rake. Together with a couple of bits of old plywood and a mobile bin (the sort they got rid of years ago) - hey presto job done.

Incinerator comes a step nearer as other parties play politics..

Breaking news this week (November 9th) that the South London Waste Partnership is about to give the go-ahead for its preferred bidder, Viridor, to apply to build a waste recovery plant (Incinerator, to you and me) at Beddington Lane is bad news for the environment and for public health. However it’s no surprise as Greens have been warning about the likelihood of this for over two years now.
However, what I can't help but notice is this. Within the four boroughs covered by the South London Waste Partnership, this is how political parties measure up:

We in the Green party have consistently opposed incineration. The devastating health, environmental and financial implications have all been well documented on other blogs such as http://croydongreens.blogspot.com/search/label/incinerator or http://insidecroydon.com/2011/07/07/cancer-risks-from-1bn-croydon-incinerator-warn-greens/ Moreover large facilities like this need a constant stream of waste and lengthy contracts, resulting in the burning of recoverable/reusable/recyclable materials
CROYDON: Conservatives control the council and support the SLWP. Labour are in opposition and oppose it.
SUTTON: Liberal Democrats control the council and support the SLWP. Conservatives are in opposition and oppose it.
MERTON: No Overall Control: Labour are the biggest party and support the SLWP. Conservatives are the smaller party and oppose it.
KINGSTON UPON THAMES: Liberal Democrats control the council and support the SLWP. Conservatives are in opposition and oppose it.

Do you detect the usual lack of integrity here? The Liberal Democrats of course win the prize for the most intellectually dyslexic stance. Their national policy is allegedly against incinerators, but in the 2002 local elections the Lib Dems lost control of Sheffield council by arguing for a new incinerator, and gained control of Hull by campaigning against one! They currently support incinerator projects in Exeter, Plymouth and Barnstaple, and also in Essex, despite having proclaimed support for a zero waste strategy - which means no incineration. What a shambles!

Why do all the Parties in control support the SLWP?

Why do all the Parties in opposition oppose the SLWP?

Are all those Parties the same?

This is the text of a letter written to the local Guardian newspaper by Shasha khan, leader of the greens in Croydon, following the news this week:

"Dear Editor,

I was interested to see Councillor Whitham, the leader of the Conservative opposition group on Sutton Council comment that he had “grave concerns” about an incinerator in Beddington, something Greens have been opposing for the last three years [Croydon Guardian, Nov 9th]. He is right to be worried about its impact. Might I suggest that he write to the Conservative council leader in Croydon, Mike Fisher who is in favour of such a facility. Similarly, could I ask the Labour opposition in Croydon, also against the Beddington incinerator, to contact the Labour leader on Merton Council, Councillor Stephen Alambritis, who is also in favour of the waste facility in Beddington. When principle is absent, one can only see a tangled web of hypocrisy".

Cuts in Croydon - council lobby video

Demonstrators lobbied the last council meeting. Greens were there in force.
The facts are that the Council is planning to cut upto one third of its workforce and to privatise many services. As many as 2000 jobs could go as the Council tries to cut its budget by £70 million over the next few years.

Lib Dems join in the attack on our freedoms and public services

With friends like the Liberal Democrats, our beleaguered public services, reeling from a miserable thirteen years under New Labour’s right wing economic agenda, need no enemies. Business secretary Vince Cable has announced plans to privatise up to 90 per cent of the Royal Mail, and has said he would happily see it bought up by foreign companies. Far from acting as a brake on the gung-ho free market capitalism of the Tories, LibDem members of the coalition are enthusiastically Con-Demming us to the further decimation of public services.
What’s interesting about the draconian cuts in the spending review, as George Monbiot points out in the Guardian (October 19th 2010) is not so much what is being axed as what isn’t. Public bodies whose purpose is to hold corporations to account are being swept away. Public bodies whose purpose is to help boost corporate profits, regardless of the consequences for people and the environment, have sailed through unharmed. Whether the LibDems are having the wool pulled over their eyes and are innocently unaware of the Tory agenda, or they are simply now revealed for the illiberal right wing party that many of us suspected they (or at least their leadership) are, we’ll have to see. But it follows a series of defeats for the leadership at their conference on the coalitions’s plans for so called ‘free schools’, which of course in no time will become semi privatised ‘academies’ with no democratic local control. This from a party that likes to tell us how keen they are on localism and accountability. Ha ha. But they were at it before the election too. Lib Dem peers Razzell and Clement Jones, back in March, ameded the lready illiberal Digital Economy Bill to allow site blocking for copyright infringement. Rushed through by the illiberal Labour Government this tawdry Act opens the door for the blocking of sites accused of copyright infringement, including sites like Youtube. Any site with user generated content could easily fall foul of provisions like this. And we all know who can afford the expensive lawsuits which attach to any conflicts, and who can’t.
Even the environment is under attack from LibDem members of the coalition: this week we have the bizarre spectacle of a Tory, Tim Yeo, chairman of parliament's cross-party energy and climate change pleading with a LibDem minister, Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, not to slim down commitments to sustainable technology. Huhne has said: "nothing was safe" in his department.
There's plenty more; it all adds up to a depressing picture of continuing whittling away of the public sphere, with the Tories set to get their way nearly everywhere supported by their junior partners, still too intoxicated by the scent of power to know how to use it properly.

Prominent trade unionist and former Labour candidate backs Greens

Geoff Martin, Labour's parliamentary candidate in Sutton and Cheam in 1992 and a leading campaigner in the fight to save services at St Helier Hospital today called on local voters to back Sutton's Green Candidate Peter Hickson.

Geoff Martin, who lives in Sutton and who was expelled by the Labour Party last year, said: "Voters sick and tired of the spin and sleaze of the main Parties have a real choice in Sutton and Cheam and I would urge them to vote for the Green candidate Peter Hickson and give the political elite a real kick up the backside.

"The Greens oppose privatisation of services like the NHS and support workers rights and decent pay and pensions. I would call on all trade unionists and socialists in Sutton to make a positive decision and give Peter Hickson and the Green Party your vote. The Labour Party in this area is dead in the water and traditional Labour voters who feel badly let down by 13 years of Blair and Brown have a real alternative in Peter Hickson and the Greens. My advice is don't stay at home getting angry on May 6th - get down the polling station and vote for Peter."

On clean campaigning..

We really would love to believe that Nick Clegg and the LibDems are serious about wanting to 'clean up politics'.
But we can't.
Take the sordid episodes from the Norwich by-election last year, where our candidate Dr Rupert Read, himself an ex Lib-Dem, got the full tratement from his old friends. Oner leaflet put out by LibDems had a banner headline: "Residents shocked by Green Party candidate's terror views", and went on "Little is known about Rupert Read, but one thing is certain, local people have taken against his extreme views."
Dr Read, said the flyer, believed that "Britain simply had the terrorist attacks on 7 July coming to us". One safely anonymous "local resident" was then quoted as saying: "What planet is he on?" Another, equally shy, "Norwich resident" opined: "I can't believe that anyone could think that."

The voters of Norwich would have been right not to believe it, since it was a wholesale distortion of something Dr Read had written, four years earlier, equating terrorism with acts such as the Iraq war, but very clearly condemning both and calling for an "ethic of non-violence", as practised by Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

Dr Read, a philosophy lecturer, said: "The whole Liberal Democrat campaign was sickening. I look now at Nick Clegg promising to clean up politics and I remember that he was specifically asked to criticise his party's tactics in Norwich, and he refused."
Dr Read was also the victim of bogus Green party leaflets, produced by the LibDems in Green and in Green party style, urging voters to vote LibDem!
"People were telling me on the doorstep: 'I got your leaflet telling me to vote Lib Dem, so that's what I'm doing'," says Dr Read. "Anyone who's in politics knows that the Liberal Democrats are the dirtiest in their campaigning techniques, and I'm saying that as a former Lib Dem. It's one of the reasons I left."

In York, the Tory website was hacked into and redirected to the local Lib Dem one; in Cornwall, a Lib Dem candidate distributed flyers calling his opponent a "greasy-haired tw*t"; in Liverpool, a Lib Dem councillor was caught stuffing letterboxes with leaflets supposedly from a fringe party which smeared his Labour rival as a "lap-dancer". In Liverpool they have even accused the Green Party of wanting to limit the number of children people have!

Lest we think these merely local excesses, it may be worth quoting from an official Liberal Democrat election manual, Effective Opposition, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, published by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors in 2002 and still in use, judging by the techniques seen around the country. On page 21, it instructs Lib Dems to "be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly". Page 23 advises: "Don't be afraid to exaggerate. For example, responses to surveys and petitions are always 'massive'. If a council is doing something badly, public expressions are always of 'outrage'." Page 4 advises: "Positive campaigning will NOT be enough to win."
if this sort of stuff is clean, what is dirty?

Sutton Green local election candidates

Follow this link for information about our local candidates for May 6th

Party election broadcast online

Watch the Green party broadcast here

I'm Tom, fly me - to Brussels!?

Another shameful sequel to the grubby LibDem Euro leaflet saga- one of our supporters was telephoned on polling day by the enthusiastic LibDem knocking up brigade: "Would you like a lift to the polls to vote for Tom Brake?"
A supreme irony that this is the party that would have us believe they are in favour, altruistically, of fair votes. When a PR election comes up, they pretend it's first past the post.
I suggest Inspector Knacker reads up the book of electoral law.

Indecent, dishonest, cynical ...and legal?!

Greens (and everyone else) condemn LibDems Euro leaflet lies
Those of us used to the ludicrous graphics routinely employed by the LibDems (and imitated equally amateurishly by Labour where they exist) cannot have been that surprised by the 'two horse race' version that was trotted out prior to the recent European elctions. there's a full discussion of the tawdry tactics on local blogger Adrian Short's excellent blog (http://adrianshort.co.uk/).

Mr Short reports, quoting from Paul Burstow's leaflet first:
“It’s so close here” declares the headline. “Elections in Sutton and Cheam are always a close finish between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.” To the side is a big bar chart showing the LibDems with 47%, Conservatives on 41% and Labour with just 12%. “Here in Sutton and Cheam, elections are between the LibDems and the Conservatives”, a callout box reminds us.
What the leaflet doesn’t say is that the electoral system for the European Parliament is totally different and there’s no need for anyone to vote tactically no matter which party they support.
The leaflet from Tom Brake, LibDem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, takes the same trick to even more sordid depths.“This election is going to be a tight contest and every vote will make a difference… With Labour out of the race in Sutton, more and more people are backing the Liberal Democrats to win.”

Did you see what they did there? “Labour out of the race in Sutton”? It’s not a Sutton race, it’s a London race, and in that London race Labour are still in a stronger position than the LibDems even despite the floundering government in Westminster.

And what does it mean that “people are backing the Liberal Democrats to win”? This isn’t a winner-takes-all election like we have for Westminster. All the three big parties are likely to get at least one Euro MP out of eight in London and it’s very likely that smaller parties like the Greens and UKIP won’t come away empty-handed. The Greens get the same treatment. “The Greens have no chance of winning in Sutton”, the leaflet says. Well, in the last Euro election in 2004 the Greens picked up 8% of the London vote, giving them a single Euro MP just like the LibDems.
Bob Steel, chair of Sutton Greens, commented in the Sutton Guardian:"The LibDems’ leaflet is a shamefaced attempt to con Green voters into considering a “tactical” vote for another party even though they have no need to do so. The leaflets are deceitful and patronising. They will only further corrode trust in politicians, already at an all-time low....Lib Dems apparently have such a low view of their European performance that they devote 90 per cent of their leaflet to trying to dupe voters they are electing Tom Brake to deal with local issues like recycling. In fact, in the Euro election, every vote really does count.


Mr Short says: "I contacted the Lib Dems about my concerns shortly after writing my article on 15 May and the only response I have had was one from Sarah Ludford MEP (London region) saying that she finds no grounds for complaint. The Lib Dems have had ample opportunity to clarify, correct, withdraw or even substantially defend these leaflets but it would seem that they are entirely unwilling to discuss them seriously. While that is their right, the conclusion I draw from that is that the Lib Dems don’t want to defend their leaflets because they’re indefensible".
Mr Short reported the Lib Dems’ leaflets to the police as he suspected they may have broken electoral law. However, the police have decided not to take any action- no surprises there, they are probably too busy updating their files on Climate camp protestors and other dangerous elements.

HEATHROW: OFF THE SCALE OF INSANITY?

There are three simple but compelling reasons why the government’s go-ahead for another runway at Heathrow is utterly insane:-
First is of course that even if you believe in ever-expanding airport capacity Heathrow is about the very last place any rational person would seek to put an airport today. The shocking road congestion and appalling noise levels for large numbers of local people who have to endure the misery of non-stop and ever increasing flights is too high a price to pay. Remember that London is the busiest by far of world, let alone EU air destinations: In 2007, a combined total of 139 million passengers used the five London airports. That compares with 88 million who used all Paris airports, London’s closest European rival.
Secondly, the government may not have noticed but we face a global catastrophe due to climate change which is happening now. Whilst Daily Telegraph leader writers, David Bellamy and other idiots who have sold their soles to the denial lobby may cry wolf, glaciers disintegrate around us and all the scientific evidence points to accelerating and irreversible change in a very short time scale. The Times recently claimed that “the jobs outweigh the climate danger”! If this is the view of supposedly intelligent commentators, then God help us.
As if this weren’t cogent enough, there is ‘Peak Oil’. The consensus in the industry is that global oil output will decline in the next decade. The Society of British Aerospace Companies concludes that there is currently no commercially available alternative to kerosene on the horizon. It also finds that liquids produced from gas or coal have CO2 emission problems, and liquids produced from biomass are a very long way off from either commercial production or a resolution of land-use issues. So even if this lunacy does go ahead, it seems likely that a third runway would be no more than a huge white elephant.

So let’s be honest about this: Heathrow is a monumentally stupid decision from a government which is increasingly bereft of any vision, courage or morality. Moreover, greenwash fudges from the Tories and LibDems who suggest that the cuddly alternative is ‘sustainable’ expansion elsewhere be it on Romney Marsh, the Thames estuary or Stansted, are almost equally bankrupt. It’s profoundly worrying that so many decision makers appear willing to close their eyes to the parlous stare we are in globally, in favour of perceived short term economic gain.

New Nation speaks to Sutton Green Stan Prokop

Green Party supporter Paul Macey and local party member Dr Stan Prokop interviewed in New Nation.

Climate Change March 2008

Approaching Parliament Square



Earlier in the day, reaching the end of the pre-march bike ride.



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Tags greenparty

Sympathy for the devil?

Among all the furore about the arrest of Damian Green, I was gobsmacked that Radio 4 chose to interview, of all people, Michael Howard, one of the most intolerant Home Secretaries ever and architect of the so-called Criminal Justice Act. To hear his sanctimonious whingeing was entertaining and the thought did cross my mind that perhaps someone Machiavellian in the Beeb had brought him on to satisfy their sense of irony. Anyway if (s)he did it went right over Howard's head. Outrageous as the arrest was, and in particular the use of the notorious anti-terror cops, it's been happening to the rest of us for some time, for example the arrest of Maya Evans three years ago after reciting the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq outside the gates of Downing Street.
And then there is the Tory threat of a vote of no confidence in the speaker. Anyone with a brain might have deduced that Gorbals Mick was not fit for the office long before now. Remember that last year Martin spent £20,000 of taxpayers' money on libel firm Carter-Fuck to represent him following articles querying his conduct. Martin also exempted his wife, Mary, from security checks in the Palace of Westminster, where they live, and for trying to block details of MPs' £5m-a-year travel expenses being published under the Freedom of Information Act. It suited the Tories to back him then, so who are they kidding now when they try to present themselves as defenders of democracy??

National Climate March

Saturday December 6th 2008

March on Parliament to demand that the government acts on climate now !
Part of a Global Day of Action - see www.globalclimatecampaign.org
- last year 70+ countries were involved !

The march this year goes to Parliament Square to demand that the government act now on climate. The march will now start at Grosvenor Square (5 mins from Speakers Corner, Hyde Park - Bond Street or Marble Arch tube. Apologies for any confusion over starting point see more here) - assemble 12 noon. Full schedule here

Speakers will include Nick Clegg (leader Liberal Democrat Party), Caroline Lucas (leader, Green party), Michael Meacher (ex-Environment Minister) and George Monbiot (Honorary President, Campaign against Climate Change).

The march will be preceeded by a climate protest bike ride starting from Lincoln's Inn Fields at 10.30 am:

see more here.

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Tags sutton, greenparty

A welcome U-turn on garden waste

So the LibDem council has finally capitulated over the garden waste collection. If they weren't prepared to listen to a wide spectrum of local opinion including the Greens, they had their minds concentrated by the high-profile condemnation by their own local MPs who are keenly aware thet they are in the firing line at the next election. A bit more listening to local groups and individuals before rushing into future mistakes, and showing a bit more humiltiy, would be welcome. That said, we applaud the decision to reintroduce the collections although we hope that this will go hand in hand with vigorous attempts to encourage those who can compost to do so.

Caroline Lucas is first Green Party Leader

Caroline Lucas has won the Green Party's first ever leadership election.
Lucas defeated her rival for the leadership, Ashley Gunstock, by a margin of 2559 votes to 210 - 90%.
Lucas, who is the party's candidate for the target constituency of Brighton Pavillion, said:
"I am deeply honoured to have been elected as the first leader of the Green Party.
"I am also delighted to have Adrian Ramsay elected alongside me as our party's first Deputy. His
work for the past ten years in Norwich, transforming an inactive party into the largest group of Green councillors in Britain is truly inspirational."Britain needs Green leadership now. None of the other parties has the vision or the courage to tackle the real challenges we face today - the accelerating climate crisis, and Victorian levels of inequality.
"We need a Green New Deal to tackle the impact of rising prices and increased unemployment.We need to invest the proceeds of a Windfall tax on massive energy company profits into making the homes of ordinary people warmer and fuel bills more affordable.
"As Leader I will work tirelessly to get our positive Green message across to the public, and to see more Greens elected to deliver social and environmental justice in towns and cities across the country.
"Adrian Ramsay, who supported Lucas for leader, was elected unopposed.
Councillor Ramsay, who heads the Green opposition group on Norwich Council, said:
"I'm honoured to be elected the first Deputy Leader of the Green Party. It's a crucial time for the Greens as we build towards winning our first seats at Westminster in the next General Election. At a time of rising fuel prices growing concern about the effects of climate change, Green polices offer real solutions for the country."
For more information about Caroline click here

Economics: Greens back New Green Deal plan

New Green Party Leader, Caroline Lucas, took to the stage today for her first speech to the party's annual conference to call for a windfall tax on energy profits to kickstart a "Green New Deal" to help people deal with the credit crunch and rising fuel prices.Dr Lucas, who became the Greens' first ever leader in a landslide result announced on the first day of the conference, yesterday, began the calls for a windfall tax months ago; more recently, MPs, anti-poverty campaigners and environmentalists have joined the campaign.The "Green New Deal" report, authored by a panel including Dr Lucas, Co-director of Finance For The Future Colin Hines, SolarCentury boss Jeremy Leggett, Guardian Economic Editor Larry Elliot, and former Friends of the Earth chief Tony Juniper, calls for public investment in green-collar jobs in areas including renewable energy. Lucas also backed a programme of free insulation for every home in Britian to create jobs, cut fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions."Just three companies – BP, Centrica, and Shell – together made £1000 profit every second over the first 6 months of this year. "These corporations are robbing from the poor to give to the rich and they know it. And it's about time they learned that in a progressive democracy, there is no place for robber barons." Proposing a Green New Deal in response, Dr Lucas said: "When the world faced economic depression back in the early 1930s, it was President Roosevelt's New Deal that got people back to work with a massive investment in infrastructure. "Today we stand on the brink of a triple crisis – a combination of a credit-fuelled financial meltdown, accelerating climate change, and soaring energy prices."We need a Green New Deal in response."The core would be a 21st century project to make the nation's buildings truly energy efficient, with local authority bonds being issued to raise the necessary funds for a major investment in insulation, efficiency and renewables, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process."

Green Party stall at Carshalton Green Fair

Thanks George for forwarding this photo taken at the Carshalton Green Fair. During a spare few seconds in between taking orders, washing up and waiting for the kettle to boil - the Sutton and Croydon Green Party gang had time to pose for this photo. Well done to everyone that helped run the stall.

What is the point of the Liberal Democrats?

It would be easier to take the LibDems more seriously if they didn't insist on picking anyone they can pin a rosette on to stand for them, and actually showed soemthing approaching integrity and/or consistency just now and again. After numerous faux pas including selecting Brian 'gas guzzler' Paddick to contest the London mayoralty, despite apparently being at odds with his party's policy on all sorts of issues, now this classic from Maidstone where local LibDems have selected a road fuel protester and local road haulage magnate as their Parliamentary candidate. Links here:-
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/default.asp?article_id=22242
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/default.asp?article_id=20235
http://www.kentmessenger.co.uk/paper/default.asp?article_id=13722

Maybe someone who purports to understand what LibDems stand for could explain what it is about Mr Peter Carroll that makes him a Liberal Democrat? And while they're at it, why the party apparently supports congestion charging but opposes it wherever local people apear top be against such as West london and Edinburgh, has differing views on waste incineration from city to city, supports the M74 motorway, condemned by official enquiry, waited until public opinion was well against the Iraq war before coming off the fence, etc etc ad nauseam...