Welcome to Hendon Greens

Welcome to the blog of the Barnet Green Party's Hendon group. Andrew Newby was Green Party candidate in Hendon constituency in the 2010 general election.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Can Labour save us from the Tories?

I was at that excellent pub by the 240 bus stop at the top of Mill Hill with some friends and left a Green Party "No cuts" leaflet lying around - the one we used on March 26th.  Someone commented well that's just Labour isn't it.
Yes there's a danger of us being seen as a smaller version of the Labour Party but let's just examine what Labour's policies really are.

Do you remember HS2, that grand folly launched by the Labour government?
Look back a bit further and you will see numerous examples of cuts and privatisation; something we on the left oppose.

Labour have been gutted since 1997 and perhaps opposed most labour strikes before that.  They have taken over and illegally co-opted and tamed the big unions.

No doubt controlled by the greatest conservative prime minister ever, Tony Blair, Labour were the only ones brave enough to sell off our rail operators and make unemployment benefits dependant on looking for non-existent jobs, and even displacing real ones.

Before that, Labour were as small as the Green Party.  The challenge is that we have only 40 months to do what Labour did in a century; become the leaders of the opposition and cobble together a decent government; possibly in coalition with Labour politicians such as commentator Owen Jones the activists of Compass but at this stage that's of course not on the table until we have more MP's.  Good green candidates are Surrey, Chipping Barnet, Oxford, Bristol, Warwickshire, Essex, and of course Norfolk ; mostly not Labour seats, the only Labour target being Brighton though our friends on the left of Labour think this is a mistake to fight Caroline Lucas of course.

Hendon is likely to swing to Labour and we haven't selected yet meaning the Lib Dems could cling on to third place here.  I think my Lib Dem friends in Hendon will be voting for us as a second preference in the next big European election in 2014.

And if you have got this far and have time to look into Labour's housing policy, try looking at the top comment on this article http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/housing-renting-rising-property-prices
and glance at this week's letters page in the local Press.  Labour built precisely zero in 8 years.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Poppy on Privatisation

Here is my video of the demonstration outside the town hall on 6th December 2012.  What happened next is well-documented by Barnet bloggers.