Vote for Policies: Security

In a blind test of policies whilst ignoring personalities and tactical voting, Greens policies often come out on top.
Here is a summary of what we had to say in 2015 on Foreign Policy / Defence.  We call this "Security"

• Make a new international agreement to tackle climate change the main foreign policy priority.
• Cancel Trident replacement and decommission existing nuclear forces and facilities.
• Work to reform the United Nations and associated bodies, to reflect better the needs and interests of all countries, and make the UN more representative and effective through abolishing permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
• Promote trade which supports the well-being of workers without breaching sustainability limits.
• Increase overseas aid to 1% of GDP, write off and write down unpayable international debt.
• Seek negotiated settlements to a range of conflicts around the world, block sales of weapons and military equipment that increase misery and death for non-combatants, and take a leading role in preventing violent conflict.
• Outlaw the use of torture, the sale of torture equipment and the rendition of people to countries where torture is not prohibited.
• Take proportionate measures to protect against terrorism, ensuing that civil liberties are not undermined in the process, that communities are not scapegoated and that action reflects a genuine assessment of the threat to our security.

on Brexit

Having been very close to the coal face engaging with all the campaigns across our borough, I tried to think big and help build an overwhelming mandate. Only 100,000 voted against Brexit in Barnet. These were largely in the "posh" areas, with my team sharing my doubts about Britain Stronger in Europe - Barnet Group and the Labour In campaign. One example of a miscalculation was the off-message shouting in High Barnet that we say no to Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, which polls show is not an effective message. Rather than re-enforce the class divide we need to bring Barnet's workers and middle classes together, who have been divided over the issues of migration, the economy, and so on.

I was upset about a trend of verbal and physical abuse notably the loss of mum-of-2 Jo from a Britain First member.

Our campaign was entirely peaceful and law-abiding. Matthew Offord (the re-elected Tory MP for Hendon) is probably very happy right now, which is no victory for the left exit camp, whose arguments were largely drowned out by arguments about pencils and pens driven by first time voters.

I campaigned across the EU against "Fortress Europe" and I hope that we can resist becoming the new Turkey, being paid to erect borders by the EU's Frontex agency.

Wilst we expressed serious concerns, some environmentalists I spoke with were worried about the pressure on our green belt, due to population trends whether it's unsustainable housing developments or too many cars clogging our huge road network.

The next thing on my to-do list is to continue to stand up for our human rights, review Green policies that will need updating, in the run up to the county council elections, and take bold steps to protect wildlife areas like Dollis Valley Green Walk, and the Welsh Harp reservoir in West Hendon and Brent. As we look for the next Natalie, I hope we will reflect on Caroline Lucas' performance during this whole Brexit campaign given that her leadership bid with Jonathan Bartley is about "the power of working together".

Greens to help renters challenge 'no pets' rules

Sian Berry will make sure landlords recognise the needs of responsible pet owners if she is elected Mayor of London, she announced today. Her plan is to work with the new London Renters Union (which she as Mayor will set up and fund) as well as with the rest of the housing sector, to ensure all housing providers have positive pets policies. She will also lobby the government to remove the breed-specific legislation in the Dangerous Dogs Act which is leading to the destruction of well-behaved animals. "Landlords should be required to recognise the needs of pet owners in rented accommodation and allow them to keep their pets," she said after a visit to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home today. "As a pet owner myself, I recognise the crucial role that domestic animals play in millions of our lives, which is why I will do my utmost to make sure that Londoners are not excluded from this enriching experience simply because of the type of tenure of their housing. "I have also been shocked to learn in Battersea how many animals they have to put down based purely on breed specific appearances - because a dog looks like a pit bull, not because of its behaviour. That's a horrible state of affairs and as Mayor I will lobby for this damaging and ineffective law to be changed." The promises are part of the Green Party's animal manifesto for London, which also includes a pledge to ban purchase of cleaning and other products tested on animals by all Greater London Authority agencies. This will apply to City Hall, Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade. Sian will further work to make London a world centre for non-animal biomedical research, encourage all establishments conducting animal research in the city to commit to moving towards humane alternatives, and use City Hall's funding for London Fashion Week to help make the event fur-free. Her manifesto also includes a pledge to appoint a deputy mayor to support nature reserves and wildlife corridors. "The Mayor of London and the London Assembly can play an important part in protecting and championing animals," Sian said. "We can ensure that City Hall and the bodies it controls uphold the highest ethical standards on animal welfare and also help London become a model city when it comes to respecting our fellow inhabitants of the planet." ENDS For more information contact Simon Edge on 07740 411462 Notes to editors: 1. Sian Berry is a former principal speaker of the Green Party. She previously stood as the party's candidate for Mayor of London in 2008. She is a councillor in the borough of Camden. 2. The Green Party came third in the last mayoral election in London in 2012 and has had at least two seats on the 25-strong London Assembly since the body's establishment in 2000. 3. As well as campaigning for Sian for Mayor, the party is urging supporters to vote Green on the orange (proportional) ballot paper, which is where its votes will count the most. 4. With current AMs Darren Johnson and (Baroness) Jenny Jones standing down, the lead Green candidates for the Londonwide (proportional) section of the Assembly are Sian Berry, Islington councillor Caroline Russell and the party's deputy leader Shahrar Ali. 5. Sian's complete animal manifesto can be found at http://www.sianberry.london/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Green_Party_London_An imals_Manifesto_2016.pdf

Event: EU In or Out

Why I'm IN by Ben Samuel - writing in a personal capacity! The story starts when I joined the Green Party a long time ago. I remember watching Caroline Lucas' speech at Glastonbury talking about what a difference Green MEPs make. Derek Wall came up and told me to join the Green Party and I said I've already joined. I made some compromises and followed the party line much of the time. I later found out I didn't have to be so cautious of having my own opinion. I first put my name on a motion to conference about 5 years in (against implementing local government cuts, it was amended by Darren Johnson and Green Councillors) and it took me a while to really throw my weight around. Now I am on policy committee and very high up in JfJfP so it's come full circle. On most things I try and adhere to the party line because it's just a lot easier to make changes by convincing people in the party to come around to my view. In turn I listen to others and are moved by what they come up with. It's my job on policy committee to make sure members have an equal say, including on this issue. When I first stood as a general election candidate I was asked all sorts of questions including about the EU referendum which had not been announced yet. Rather than state my party's opinion, and then my own, I responded that yes we want a referendum but unlike David Cameron the reforms we want from Europe are very different. That was my 10 seconds of fame, at Mill Hill residents association, but the truth can not be summed up in 10 seconds. My favorite hustings was actually MMK school, where the kids politely got a lot out of me and who could lie to or betray those sweet kids. But my favorite thing about all this is feeling I am making a difference, that my work is key to the democracy of the party. In some way my endless trawling through positions the Greens have taken on Europe means that whatever position we take collectively is the preferred one based on evidence from millions of conversations. In 2014, the year before the General election, I helped hold London Green Party's seat in the European Parliament. We also gained a seat in the South West of England. As far as I was concerned I did not really care who the candidate was or what they did in Europe. For Barnet Green Party it was a chance to do something and we actually ended up getting more votes accross Barnet for the Council, than in Barnet for re-electing our Euro seat. At the time you could call me Euroskeptic, not really in the "out" camp, I despise Nigel Farage's UKIP, as an anti-facist, but undecided or not taking a position. I do not think the EU is a top concern to voters like the NHS, affordable housing, or migration. What swung it for me was my trip to help elect German Green Party MEPs in 2014. I spent every day for the week that I toured with the German Green Youth and a French Green Youth, and spent every night campaigning. We had a few campaigns which we interchanged in the different towns we toured: -Asylum and Frontex -TTIP and GMO's -Democracy, Solidarity, Europe! -For people to vote for Terri for all these reasons and more (many had already voted) -Anti-facism opposing the extreme right wing parties. and finally -Same-sex hand-holding and the International Day Against Homophobia, followed by a trip to a gay bar Having a gorgeous dinner which I cooked myself from local ingredients at Effi's home, Effi asked how we could counteract UKIP in the UK and why the UK want to leave Europe. We talked about other things and German state politics, which the Greens were involved in a Green-Black coalition in the area. I learned so much during that trip about our shared European identity. I saw how our allies the pirate party campaigned to legalise weed (a personal stance more liberal than Barnet Green Party's) I have spoken to old members who remember the many years the Green Party opposed EU membership, and new members inspired by the "seeing green" and "young greens" leadership. In summary I like my new European identity much better than my old undemocratic British citizenship, if you could even call it citizenship. I would not go as far as to say I love it. But a vote to stay in Europe can make another Europe Possible; -one with an alternative trade mandate that learns from the mistakes of the Common Agricultural Policy and provides better environmental regs than being the 51st state of America would. -Solidarity. A union where I (we) could be part of something with my (our) peers from the Federation of Young European Greens after last year's climate mobilisation, we'll be mobilising at the COP22 in Marakesh next year. -Living in a democracy with free and fair elections, working with other democracies on citizens' initiatives such as re-thinking the prohibition of Cannabis. David Cameron says giving prisoners the vote makes him physically sick. Physically sick. -A so-called Brexit is what the rightwing newspapers have been campaigning for for all my life. Dictators such as Murdoch, Putin, and their far-right allies would be very happy with a "leave" vote. Even a narrow majority would give them a chance to further destabilise our institutions, our democracy, and return to nationalism and their very scary views on race and identity. The real scare tactics are coming from the far-right and always have been, to sow distrust with our neighbours, to make make neighbours hate each other, with stories about muslims and disabled people. I don't associate myself with everyone on this side of the debate, and I respect my 20% of Green friends who take the other position, but if there's one thing we learned from the Scottish Indy referendum, it's that if we play this right it can unite us as a party and lead to a surge in interest amongst a population turned-off politics before. Ben Samuel - Proud campaigner, Former General Election 2015 candidate for Hendon ________________________________ P.S. We've got a debate scheduled at Middlesex University, organised by Poppy 7pm March 21st. On the panel we have representatives from both sides of the debate. For more info contact Poppy or look on Barnet Green Party facebook. I won't be there because I have an other meeting, with London Green Party. However here are my views on the EU and the real reason I will be voting in the #EUref.

29/11/15 Why I will be out on the streets of London

Ben here... last year I stood for MP in Hendon.
Here is a piece with few reasons I will be joining tomorrow's People's march for climate justice and jobs.




I did a LOT.  A lot has happened on affordable housing with the local compulsory purchase order number 1 being confirmed with slight amendments following a public inquiry.  But Climate Change is such a big problem, such a mind-blowing international issue that I feel quite strongly that I didn't do enough during the campaign, and I didn't communicate what I had done, on the issue.


I'm marching with my local party, Barnet Green Party, and our banners.  I will be outside Hendon Central from 10, heading off at 10:30.  Give me a buzz on my mobile if you want to travel from Hendon to the demonstration together.




I have had a look at the blocs that are organised for the march.  Many of them are tempting.  I am hoping to march with either the Green Bloc or my faith group, both meeting at the corner of Park Lane and Curzon Street.  What with ISIL and the Paris attacks it is really important that faith groups are coming together for this.  Tim Gee wrote a blog on OpenDemocracy on why it's important for believers to take action for the climate "in times like these".  Rabbi Jonathan wrote a piece for the JC and will be speaking to a packed hall tomorrow with other faith leaders. It's a shame, possibly with the exception of Jonathan Wittenberg, that none of those leaders are to the right of me on the religious observance spectrum. 


I also want to note; It's also a shame that Israel chose this weekend for this demo to keep Israel's natural gas for Israel.  Whilst criticising Israel is always a hot potato, I can't help thinking that both sides are wrong Netanyahu for signing the gas deal and the Zionist Union (Labour Party) for their negative protest at a time that the diaspora is crying out for community solar energy.


This weekend there is a truly global movement on the march.  The only place people aren't marching is in Paris, where a state of emergency has been declared and the 200,000-strong march banned by the authorities.

I'm marching to save the climate in solidarity with someone who can't. Kathleen. Join us #March4Me https://t.co/2bkK1Tneqj

— Ben Samuel (@filosofical_140) November 28, 2015


P.S. Remember to use your orange ballot paper in London to get Greens elected in 2016!

Last night's CELS Committee

This is my report of Monday 21st's Children Education Libraries and Safeguarding committee It is a rather partisan perspective but for some reason no one from the Press gallery or Barnet Bloggers turned up not even Dan, so this is a Barnet Green Party exclusive. The meeting started late due to the clock. The chair. is sporting an impressive beard. There are 3 suits sitting in the gallery waiting to speak, and a pile of recycling on the desk for anyone who doesn't have a way of reading the megabytes of reports on an electronic device. (I let my dad have a flick through afterwards). There was a quick presentation on a youth centre which is envisioned to be built on Montrose playing fields. Questions were raised about access which will come back to Planning and there'll be a consultation. They said it will cost £6m to build. I am not sure if this is in Northern money? The football pitches at Pavilion Way are also being encroached on, by an academy. Schools first. Much time was spent discussing how the improvement director is improving the exam results. One way of massaging the figures is to exclude foreign children from the primary school statistics. Great lengths were spent to scrutinise the exam results at different sorts of schools and absence for religious holidays, cheap holidays, and other reasons. However I did not hear the word "refugee" or "migrant" once. When asking questions I would expect the Labour Group to be on our side. This time they seemed content to stick to the same agenda. They had had a private briefing and discussed the difference between acadamys, free schools, and so on. I was half expecting them to mock the Tory leader for leaving his child in a pub, or even saying "I have crowd sourced my questions from thousands of residents emails and I have a question from Steve who is a TA." New school places are being created with a new primary in West Hendon which the locals know is not going to be built until the very end of the phased demolition and gentrification of the estate. There's also early indication of a secondary on the ruins of Grahame Park or Whitefield Estate. Labour asked about Hendon College and FE which is not the responsibility of the council. When I was a NEET I felt like a statistic and it seems nothing much has changed on that front. Libraries wasn't on the agenda so there will be a separate meeting. Safeguarding was left till last, finishing at about half past 8. By which time most of the Councillors had run out of energy for asking questions. The report contains some shocking figures. However I personally have issues with the language used to talk about risk in an unscientific way. I think too much focus is on safeguarding and not enough on the real issues families face; things like neglect, digital safety, things officially priorities but at the coal face that's not the experience we've had with social workers. We're told to look at the Barnet Website for a new campaign to recruit new social workers. One plank is higher pay, another is being supported by a computer system. Hardly a good pitch to come and join Barnet's team; personally if I was a social worker I'd rather work temporarily for an agency and get on with the work. Ben 22/9/15

Assets, regeneration, and cancer

OK, so I have a confession to make. I copied my stub speech from Rupert Read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFKQDz903Tw&feature=youtu.be&t=7m5s 7 minutes in But there's something very original about the Green Party's anti-growth message, which was mandated from conference. In the Leader's debates Natalie explained what austerity means. It comes down to the trickle down effect, Cameron and food banks. We're incredibly pro-business for small business and generally stand for a balance between private, markets, and the things we share. Businesses use public services, for instance the health service, rubbish collection, roads, and would procure more business if we had a thriving public sector work force with higher pay and decent state pensions, including students and the huge number of disabled people that makes us the great community that we are. Ken Livingstone may have "got" climate change, he may have given us the Boris bikes, but the fact is London's growth is having an irreversible impact on the natural world. No politician would be popular if he told the truth that infinite growth in a finite area is impossible. Resources are under pressure such as metropolitan open spaces, especially that serve poor communities. Barnet Council is starved of cash and yet the poorest are seeing higher bills and council tax. Other limited resources in Barnet is the stress that teachers are going through, and carers. We need to pay a living wage if we are going to tackle the deficit. An other limited resource in London is road space, which could be transformed into useful space for people not parking for a growing population of cars, many of them second or third luxury cars. Parking should be fairly administered and not privatised like we are seeing in regeneration projects that have become a parking disaster. London is squandering its food resources by wasting food, and not recycling waste properly. Green Party were the first people to notice that things had to change with respect to recycling. I recently visited a roof top garden in phase zero of the West Hendon redevelopment. The Green/ brown roof saves water by putting some sedum there to absorb excess water and slowly use it. It also adds to insulation. The biggest challenge this year is going to be how to cut down on Barnet's unsustainable use of fossil fuels to make them last longer and not put pressure on where they come from. Soon you will have to pay just to breath clean air. Ben - 2015 General Election candidate for Hendon, 2018 Local elections candidate for West Hendon

Manifesto launch and Council

We had a little tent protest outside Hendon Town Hall and then went inside for Council where I sat at the back of the gallery reading the Conservative Party Manifesto (with it's not so catchy title).  OMG! They are dull!  I made a big mistake not reading the environment chapter first because my attention span has totally gone.  The same shocking claims repeated, the same tired ideas, and total lack of detail or evidence.  But the Green manifesto reads quite well I think.
Meanwhile in the Council Chamber there was much discussion over the general election campaign.  More exciting was the heckling from 3 loud individuals mostly, who are absolute legends.  They are quite well known in activist lefty circles.  I think the heckling was quite embarassing and to make matters worse at the ajournment to "clear the gallery" I was given a banner to hold up and Councillors Alan and Alon took photos on their smart phones.  Something about 80% market rent.
It is such a shambles but I am used to it. - Ben

West Hendon Estate 2

The public inquiry is ongoing.
On Thursday we supported a demonstration; the video by an activist is here.

 
Ben Samuel, our parliamentary candidate, is a member of Barnet Housing Action Group.  here is what they posted on their facebook today:

Barnet Housing Action Group

On Thursday's day of action, I met Leigh, a woman who has lived in her home (her precious and beautiful home) on the West Hendon Estate for forty five years. A woman who contradicts all of the DailyMail stereotypes of people who live on council estates. A woman who has not been involved in the campaigning to date, as she never gets back home from work in time for the meetings. A woman who has negotiated 9 days holiday from work to attend the public inquiry which is so critical to her future.
A woman who told me the story of the first time she cried about her situation. A "silly" story, she said. The story also made me cry.
I may not get the details exact, but I want to try to relay that story as best I can.
In years gone by, in the green areas between the blocks and York Memorial Park, circles of daffodils were planted on the small hill beside the place where people used to play football. [ALL of this area has now been lost to the mega development]. The mists would rise in the mornings off the Welsh harp...the sunset views were magnificent....this green space surrounded on three sides by the buildings of tyrell way, marriotts close & marsh drive and on the other by the Welsh harp. She'd always called her Estate, West Hendon's little secret, snuck away behind the Edgware Road.
When the "redevelopment", the destruction, the decimation of the area began, the greenspace was first to be taken. The small hill with the daffodils dug up, churned over like a vision from watership down. Leigh looked from her window one day and saw on the top of the brown disrupted earth the daffodil bulbs sitting on top of the mound.....they still grew, they still bloomed. The sight of the daffodils clinging on until the end....Leigh cried and cried...and so did I.

Leigh is a leaseholder, bought her home under the right to buy. She does not know where she will go, how she will get there, how she will start again, how she will get to work, how she will see her friends, who will be her friends.
For Leigh and the other 679 households on this estate and hundreds, maybe thousands of others on other estates, like her but each with a different, distinct story, we must not let what is happening to her to happen.
She must have a fair, dignified outcome from this trauma she is now facing.
We must fight together to achieve this.
What's right is right, AND THIS IS WRONG!! So very wrong.

West Hendon Estate

More Tory antics, much of which covered in today's Hendon & Finchley Times.
The claim that 3 tiers of Tory government is good for Hendon is ludicrous, because Cllr Sodha herself betrayed thousands of West Hendon residents who elected her on a Labour ticket to keep the Tories out then she joined the Tories.  What is going on is against the will of the people.

As the Barnet Bugle documents, there was a vote, and most people did not vote for regeneration.
My friend who owns a flat on the West Hendon estate itself says today he will be handed a CPO - compulsory purchase order.  This is to give local people a raw deal.  We should be at the centre of the redevelopment as the local community, not priced out of the new flats, called something posh like Lakeside.  It's not even a lake, it's a reservoir.

The Greens are making housing our number 1 priority these elections and we've spent months in the run up to the campaign on these issues working with local shops, the radical housing network, and the new social media based group, Our West Hendon. (photo from said twitter)

As a member of a genuinely non-racist and pro-immigration party, I am glad that in a recent panel on international students it was said that rent caps are a policy which resonates with migrants.  I have seen it work to gain support on the doorstep from one monk I canvassed in Burnt Oak who was evidently from Tibet.

Ben Samuel - Green Party local candidate for West Hendon

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.

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.

fix my street .com

Big thanks to mysociety.  First I uses their site for contacting my MP and David Cameron about the omnishambles that is Osbourne (see Chris Atkins video on GreenPeace). Then I looked at fixmystreet.com  If I were a local councillor this would be an invaluable tool.  Finally I wrote to my local councillor to urge Labour to ask questions about Pinkham Way.  It's no secret this local issue led to a great vote in Coppetts in 2012.  In the next 4 years I'm campaigning on parking issues taken straight from fixmystreet.com

Debate with Hendon Labour

I bumped into Adam a minor hack in Hendon Labour party at Hendon Station Sunday morning. We debated until I got off after two stops.  I disagreed with almost every point he made, so it's good to know I joined the right party.

- Green Thinking from Crop to Crumb

Green Party members Natalie Bennett (left) and Ben Samuel (right) visited the Bread Factory this week to show their support for this important project providing healthy food to local people while investing in a fleet with zero carbon pollution. The Green Party passed new policy at its recent National Conference offering more support to local food initiatives. The Greens recognised the vital role they can play in providing fresher, more healthy food, addressing growing food poverty and greening local communities. Of course the new fleet is also more environmentally friendly, relying less on dirty diesel (£110 a tank) and making our food distribution systems less reliant on fuel. Ben Samuel, 25, who lives in the Brent Cross community said ‘We would like to see more of these fleets and see them getting better infrastructure from Barnet Council. The Council should be supporting local food by ensuring their procurement process makes use of local produce. The Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration should also be used to encourage the inclusion of food growing spaces that can be used by the community and unused land should be made available for people to grow their own food, whether you're into rocket or coleslaw sandwich fillings’. 
The director of the Bread Factory said,  "This initiative came out of thinking about how we take care of the environment.   We have here two electric vans.  We hope to get two more.  The other thing is the electricity it is fed by is now fed by solar or wind, so as I was saying to the Green Party it is zero emissions.  We hope to do our small change from our small perspective here in Hendon"
Alon from Oreo V representing the new vans said... I think this is an historic movement.  We believe the revolution of electric cars starts here.  Electric vehicles are more efficient.  All trains are now electric.  It is very brave to be taking that first step.
Natalie Bennett, said "John Lewis had electric delivery vans.  Back then there was hundreds and hundreds of different sorts of vehicles on our roads, especially adapted by their manufacturers to be suited to the job.  We got away from that with mass production and so what you have now is vehicles that are probably designed for running around motorways at high speed and high energy capacities and I was hearing earlier today lots of them do 60-80 km a day around London and the average speed in London is 7 mph (12 kph).  So what you are doing is going back to the future! Back to the right vehicle for the right job which means that we are also producing on a small scale with the right thing for the right job.  Now this is the sort of industry that we in the Green Party believe we need and that of course mirrors what you are doing with bread too because you are employing lots of (300) people and you said earlier that you value your people too.  And what we need is we need jobs, we need energy efficiency and we need quality products and you are delivering all of those, congratulations."
The manufacturer told me informally the battery now weighs only 150 kg, and I asked him if there was evidence that it goes 100 miles; of course the answer was yes.  I also asked them if the Bread Factory had any plans for green roofs.
Stop press: The Greens are now the third party in London ahead of the Lib-Dems, according to the last Assembly Poll which uses a proportional system.  The Green constituency candidate for the Assembly got nearly 11% of votes cast, behind local Tory Brian Coleman, but ahead of the Lib-Dem.

Make Barnet sustainable - and save money

Barnet Council's Conservative leaders have given themselves until December to come up with ideas to turn their Future Shape strategy into a serious policy rather than just a collection of political soundbites.
Here's my proposal: Abandon the dogma about 'cuts' and 'privatisation', which might end up costing more money rather than creating savings. If they want genuine buzz words I suggest 'sustainability' and 'solar panels'.
Birmingham Council has agreed a 100 million pounds scheme to create jobs and sharply reduce the city's carbon emissions. The project will start by giving an energy efficiency upgrade to 10,000 existing homes and energy savings in the retrofitted homes will generate funding for similar work on thousands more homes in the city.
Birmingham is a Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration so why can't Barnet's Tories come up with a similar plan that would create jobs, improve the lives of occupants of the improved homes and lead to a sharp reduction in energy costs and carbon emissions?
Before anyone asks where Barnet would get the initial funding, can I point out that Birmingham Council itself is only putting up 25 million pounds, ie roughly the amount that Barnet Council handed over to Icelandic banks.
I'm sure banks (British not Icelandic ones please!) would be eager to lend Barnet Council the money for an equivalent energy savings scheme and there might be ways of reducing the council's proportion to an even smaller percentage of costs.
The feed-in-tariffs which energy companies pay for power from sustainable sources mean, for instance, that photovoltaic panels can generate surplus electricity every year worth up to 10 percent of the cost of their installation. After ten years the panels are paid for and the electricity is pure profit.
Companies and syndicates are starting to spring up to develop rooftop “sun harvesting” operations and Barnet Council's thousands of homes, schools and other buildings would be an extremely attractive resource.
That's the kind of project that Future Shape should be looking at: dynamic, exciting, forward-looking, job-creating and sustainable.

Future Shape is so... shapeless

Barnet Green Party calls on Barnet Council’s Conservative administration to cancel its notorious Future Shape strategy after auditors Grant Thornton criticised the policy as lacking direction.

The damning report to the council’s audit committee by a team of expert professionals highlights that council leader Lynne Hillan and her cronies don’t have the faintest idea how much money Future Shape might save, nor do they have a serious programme for implementing the scheme.

“Grant Thornton’s report shows that Future Shape, better known as easyCouncil, is a complete mess,” says Andrew Newby, who was Barnet Green Party’s candidate for Hendon in this year’s general election.

“Barnet Conservatives’ concept seems simply to be: ‘Let’s privatise as much as we can and hope it saves money’,” Newby said.

“I call on Barnet Council to cancel Future Shape and go back to the idea that local authorities exist to provide accountable, democratically-controlled services, assessed according to the needs of local residents rather than treated as a trial ground for baseless political dogmas.”

Grant Thornton’s report spells out clearly that the easyCouncil idea is all talk and no substance. The experts wrote: “The council needs to develop and agree a more fundamental mandate for the programme by developing a programme level business case that sets out the planned costs, benefits, time scales, risks and outcomes of the programme.”

Councillor Brian Coleman this week launched a typically childish tirade of insults against the organisers of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services but his outburst was no more than a desperate bid to distract attention from the fact that Future Shape is a shambles.

Newby said: “Grant Thornton’s report provides proof if any were needed that Future Shape is merely an attention-grabbing attempt to implement political dogma without a scrap of evidence that it could achieve real savings and efficiencies. Future Shape? It is definitely Shapeless and let us hope it has no Future.”

Even Coleman might be taken aback if he had any real idea of what happened at Thursday’s launch of the Alliance at the North London Business Park. Not only was the meeting well organised with a panel of prestigious speakers including film director Ken Loach, but more than 200 local people crowded the Emerald Suite to express their anger at the current threats to local schools, hospitals, social services and libraries. Hardly the “lone voices” imagined by Coleman.

Everyone went away fired up to campaign to save our vital local services and facilities.

“It became clear to me that though Tory councillors are eager to slash jobs and cut budgets, what really motivates them is privatising as many of the council’s services as possible. Council workers told the meeting of how they had asked fruitlessly for details of how outsourcing their particular operation would save money – it was obvious that there were no details,” Newby said.

Unfortunately, outsourcing privatisation often leads to greatly increased costs rather than savings, as Private Eye magazine spells out in case studies in almost every issue.

“It is far from proven that Barnet Council needs to make the humungous spending cuts that a being talked about but even if savings are necessary the first priorities should be to save jobs and avoid any hardship to people who use council services. Those are definitely not uppermost in the minds of Barnet’s Conservatives, who simply want to make a name for themselves with massive privatisations,” Newby said.

Barnet Greens earn 20,000 votes but still denied seats

Barnet Green Party would like to thank everyone in the borough who voted Green in the national and local elections last week and we would particularly like to thank the dozens of people who helped out, some of whom contacted us out of the blue.

The number of Green votes in the Barnet borough elections almost doubled from 11,637 in 2006 to 20,388 this time, which would have entitled us to several councillors under a proportional election system. Unfortunately, the current winners-take-all system continues to deny us any seats on the council, demonstrating at a local level the urgent need for major electoral reform.

Thankfully Caroline Lucas managed to win the Greens’ first ever parliamentary seat when she triumphed in Brighton Pavilion constituency, while across the country additional Green councillors were elected in Bristol, Cambridge, Reigate, Reading and Hull, though the vagaries of the dreadful voting system and linking of the parliamentary and local elections meant we lost a few seats on some councils in London.

“As I monitored the count for East Finchley, the ward where I was a candidate, I saw that an enormous number of people had voted for names from two or three different parties, rather than backing three candidates from a single party. Judging from my strolls around the marquees where the votes were tallied, the trend was the same in other wards,” said Barnet Green Party press officer Andrew Newby.

This proves that a large proportion of people in Barnet borough really would like to see a balanced council, with a fair representation of all the political parties rather than the overwhelmingly Conservative administration that we are lumbered with.

Let us hope that the new British government, in whatever shape it may take, brings in a truly proportional voting system for local councils as well as for parliament.

Meanwhile, Barnet Green Party will continue to campaign on the many urgent local issues, not least our efforts to persuade the council to adopt a 20 mph speed limit in all residential streets in the borough. This would not only reduce accidents but make side streets more pleasant to walk or cycle along, improving people’s quality of life and boosting community spirit.

We will very much need your help in future and hope you will continue to support us as we begin preparations for the next major electoral challenge, the London Assembly elections in 2012, when we and activists across London will be fighting to increase the number of Green members of the London Assembly. Greens have played a key role in shaping policies on the assembly and could have even more influence if we win additional seats.

Lucasmania grows as Green policies top survey

Forget Cleggmania, what the media should be reporting is Lucasmania, reflecting the nationwide surge in support for the policies championed by Green Party leader Caroline Lucas.

Unheralded by national newspapers or television, the Green Party's pledges under various headings are by far the most popular policies in a giant survey being carried out by http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

From more than 190,000 people who had completed the survey at the time I wrote this blog, Green policies have been selected as best by more than 26 percent of participants, with Labour second on 18.5 percent, the LibDems on around 18 percent, the Conservatives at 16 percent, UKIP on about 11 percent and BNP slightly less than 10 percent.

The special feature of the survey is that it does not tell you until afterwards which party each policy comes from. But it does show you that Green policies are liked by a large proportion of people, something which I have already discovered for myself while campaigning for the election.

I have lost count of the number of people living in the Hendon constituency who have said to me: “I like your policies but you aren't going to get in so I'm going to vote Labour to keep the Tories out.”

My personal view is that the three main parties are as bad as each other. None of them are proposing the policies this country needs such as scrapping British nuclear weapons, getting out of Afghanistan, stopping subsidies to sunset industries such as North Sea oil etc etc.

But it is hard to argue with the people whose first priority is to keep the Conservatives out when Britain's old fashioned electoral system rigidly maintains the traditional two-party system which has led to the current political crisis in this country.

A large proportion of voters have been alienated by the expenses scandal but the antiquated electoral system is forcing them to continue voting for people who have been deeply immersed in it and is denying people the chance to vote for much-needed electoral reform.

In 2005 Tony Blair and Labour managed to gain a majority of parliamentary seats even though the party received the votes of only 22 percent of British people entitled to participate.

This time it could be even worse. If David Cameron becomes the next prime minister he will lead a Conservative government whose policies are supported by barely 16 percent of people, if the Vote for Policies survey is accurate.

A hung parliament sounds a tempting idea but how do you avoid letting Cameron in or, equally bad, letting Gordon Brown stagger on for another five years?

The best way in my view is for everyone to vote with their consciences. Think what a political earthquake there would be on May 6th if 26 percent of people voted Green – the level our backing in the Vote for Policies survey.

That really would be Lucasmania.

Greens’ protest kite soars into the empty skies

A protest kite launched by Barnet Green Party was the only authorised craft in the skies above London on Sunday 18th, as Donald Lyven, the party’s candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, attempted to fly the kite to 140 metres, the height of the chimney at an incinerator planned as part of the Brent Cross Cricklewood development.

The flight, for which Donald obtained prior permission from the Civil Aviation Authority, mocked the Brent Cross Cricklewood developers’ denial that the 140 metre chimney will spew fumes across the whole of North London.

“Of course it will,” said Donald Lyven. “140 metres is an enormous height, (460 feet). The legal maximum height for flying a kite is less than half of that – 60 metres in fact. It seems crazy the developers expect to get away with building a polluting chimney 140 metres tall when we can only fly a kite to 60 metres.”

Donald, helped by the Greens’ Hendon candidate Andrew Newby, launched the two-&-a-half metre wide Giant Cody box kite into sunny plane-free skies as all commercial aircraft remained grounded over London because of volcanic dust in the upper atmosphere.

“The fact that volcanic dust from Iceland can halt air traffic over Britain shows just how far any kind of airborne pollution can travel,” he pointed out.

The Green Party were joined by other environmental groups and concerned residents at Clitterhouse Playing Fields, Claremont Road, NW2.

When pulled along, the kite soared above the expanse of the Playing Fields, a stone’s throw from where the Brent Cross Cricklewood developers want to build a chimney taller than any cathedral in Britain. “Unfortunately variable light winds prevented us from getting the kite as high as 140 metres, but that just shows how tall the chimney would be,” Donald said.

Andrew Saffrey, Golders Green candidate for the Green Party in the coming Barnet Council elections, believes the incinerator would blight Golders Green and spread pollution far and wide.

The waste incinerator has been dressed up in the consultation material as a “gasification plant” or a “CHP station”. Whatever it is called, it will emit large quantities of harmful emissions from a 140-metre chimney into the suburbs of North London, and produce tonnes of waste,” he said.

With prevailing winds taking these emissions to the east, the Boroughs of Enfield, Haringey and Waltham Forest would also be affected, as would the Counties of Essex and Hertfordshire,” he said.

Andrew Newby said: “When the Brent Cross Cricklewood plans came before Barnet Planning Committee its Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the planning committee all just rolled over and let their tummies be tickled by the developers.

They approved the plans almost on the nod when the sheer number of objectors and the broad scope of the various objections – the incinerator is just one of many problems – meant that the only truly democratic decision would have been to call a public enquiry,” the Hendon candidate said.

Barnet Council needs a strong Green group to hold the administration to account not just on environmental policy but on jobs, housing, social issues and certainly planning,” he added.

Labour’s Communities Minister John Denham may have blocked the development for the moment but he has not ruled out approving the scheme after the election, still without the vital public inquiry needed to expose the many flaws in the scheme.

Andrew Saffrey said in his submission to the ministry: “With an estimated 29,000 vehicle trips a day predicted to be generated by this development, clearly this project is seriously jeopardising efforts to control and reduce CO2 emissions.”

Suggestions that a light-rail system is sorely needed to serve Brent Cross have been derided by Conservative councillors yet providing light rail has been enormously successful in other large-scale development projects, notably Canary Wharf,” he said.