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

Greens warn young people ‘Beware of ID cards’

Zain Sardar

Barnet Green Party is urging young people in the borough to shun the government’s new offer to sign them up to the national identity card scheme.

The Home Office this month invited 16- to 24-year-olds in London to apply for identity cards at a cost of £30. For any young person who does apply, up to 50 categories of personal and biometric details about him or her will be added to the National Identity Register. These will include finger prints, National Insurance number, current and past addresses and full history of the card’s use.

There is little or no practical benefit for young people in having the card over other current forms of ID, as shops, bars and other premises don’t have biometric scanners. However, even more worrying than wasting the upfront £30, is that while getting a card will be voluntary, once on the National Identity Register, young people will not be able to get off it, will have to keep the register up to date with their personal details for life and not doing so could lead to a fine of up to £1000.

Also, the life-time cost to the card holder of updating the register and obtaining replacement cards is completely unknown.

Barnet Green Party Youth Officer and Council candidate for Colindale, Zain Sardar says, ‘With the current economic climate, and the pernicious effect this had had on youth and graduate unemployment the last thing we need is for the government to be wasting money when it could easily have been used to help universities fund extra places for students that are currently out of work.

“The London School of Economics estimated the costs of the scheme will be between £10 billion and £20 billion but there is no evidence that this scheme will reduce terrorism or benefit fraud. Thus is a smack in the face for students and young people, who really need the government to invest in their future right now.”