Socialist Worker Letter on Brighton Green Cuts

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=27499

…but can we trust Greens?

I’ve just heard that the Green Party councillors here in Brighton are planning to vote for a cuts budget.

We voted Green at the elections because we wanted an alternative to the Tories and Labour Party.

What kind of alternative is this? Who are we going to vote for now? What does Brighton’s Green MP Caroline Lucas have to say for herself?

The Green Party needs to get its act together and if they vote for cuts we should vote them out.

Sarah Hughes, Brighton

 

Old Jokes Revisited – Sir Bazalgette

Via Private Eye 1305:

“So, hail Sir Peter Bazalgette, knighted in the new year honors for ‘services to broadcasting’. These magnificent services include introducing the shows Deal or No Deal and Big Brother to an entranced British public. His great-great-grandfather Sir Joseph Bazalgette was knighted for having devised a system that removed sewage from every home in the capital. Sir Peter has been knighted, then, for devising a system that pumps it straight back in.”

“It’s a little-known fact that Peter’s grandfather Joseph designed the London sewer network. Some people have very unkindly suggested that Peter has simply taken what his granddad did literally and continued it metaphorically, delivering an unending torrent of human filth and waste into our homes.”

Brighton Constituency proposals

Earlier this week the boundary commission published its proposals for the redrawing of constituencies to Westminster.

I have never agreed with the plan to reduce the number of MP’s to 600 and have always thought it a ploy to weaken the scrutiny over the executive, and as is ever the case with any Conservative or Labour government, gerrymander the boundaries to an extent that the other loses out!

I also hate the word ‘fair’ when used by a Tory. This is inevitably the term Cameron et al used when describing the current arrangements as not so, because Labour MP’s have smaller average electorates and tend to win with a lower number of votes. It is not that hard to realise the issue is more complex than that and that seeing as Labour MP’s tend to represent urban areas there are a lower proportion of people registered and turnout is also usually lower, hence the lower overall votes. So instead of being ‘fair’ Cameron foisted the boundary commission with a strict set of criteria for the new seats without taking on board things such as the lower registration in urban areas, hence giving the Tories an ‘unfair’ advantage. But we know they don’t really care about that.

All this aside I decided to look at Brighton where my party has an MP and the proposals are for significant changes to the boundaries.

The current arrangement gives the city itself three seats (Hove, Pavillion and Kemptown) and the neighbouring town of Lewes (and hinterland) a fourth. The new boundaries if excepted would reduce this to three and a half. The hinterland of Lewes (Seaford) goes to a new Uckfield seat, meawhile Lewes itself is attached to the current Kemptown seat minus Queens Park ward. Meanwhile instead of having a central Brighton Pavillion seat and a neighbouring  Hove seat with perhaps Regency ward, the commission has instead opted to take out the northern half of the current Pavillion and put it into Hove, while Pavillion itself gains three of the most southern wards of Hove, and Queens Park.

So what we now have is a central seafront constituency, surrounded to the West and North by a new Brighton and North Hove seat and to the East by Lewes and East Brighton seat.

Looking at the biased that the commission may or may not have been aware of. All the Green wards are concentrated in the seafront seat, making Caroline Lucas probably now the MP with the safest seat. Meanwhile the Tory voting suburbs of the North have been put into Hove further diluting the chance of either Labour or the Greens capturing it in the near future. Meanwhile just two Labour wards remain in the Lewes and East Brighton seat, while the seat is further diluted with Tory countryside. The twist here is that the incumbent Lewes MP is a Lib-Dem and the town and surrounds itself is strongly so. But it is unlikely that unless either Labour can convince Lewes Lib-Dems to back them, or the Lib-Dems can convince Labour Brightonians that either will be able to beat the Tory vote.

Having said all that I don’t think Labour couldn’t win either again, indeed in 2015 if the coalition continue their disastrous assult on the public sector, but it would mean Labour uniting the left vote behind them and with the Greens as a credible alternative in Brighton and Hove, it seems increasingly likely that in the short term at least, these boundaries will give the Tories two fairly solid seats in 2015 with the Greens their one.

I have compiled the results from the 2011 local elections and given a projected result of the proposed constituencies. A warning for the viewer, although the Pavillion and Hove North projections would be fairly accurate as all 4 parties stood in every ward (except with a few Lib-Dem exceptions). Lewes and East Brighton is harder because only the Tories consistently stood in all the wards across the constituency. Hence the level of Labour, Lib-Dem and Green support is probably suppressed.

Buried 57 Found Alive!

Not meaning to plagiarise and hope I don’t get sued but I thought I would repost this rather appropriate piece from Private Eye.

There were scenes of jubilation last night in London after contact was finally made with 57 Liberal Democrat MPs buried under a Conservative government over 100 days ago.

“As we’d heard nothing from them in weeks we’d naturally assumed they’d all perished,” said a jubilant Liberal Democrat councillor.

Despite the initial euphoria, rescue workers were more downbeat about the long-term prospects for the trapped Liberal Democrat MPs, saying few are expected to emerge from underneath Kenneth Clarke alive.  Said one, “I’m doing every thing I can to save them from being shafted.”

China does smoke – America does mirrors

As the new world order prepares to gather around the negotiating table at Copenhagen so Obama and the Chinese PM will now attend.

Their initial recourse almost not to do so has been averted.

For Obama something of a major back-tracking from the ‘Change’ he promised just over 10 months ago. He resembles more of a sceptical politician and of someone who himself is meekly led rather than leads. Indeed his pledge to cut emission’s by 17% to 2020 on 2005 levels is a very crude way of massaging the figures, it reminds me of  the bad old days of the Blair premiership when being visionary was inviting rock stars to Downing Street! The Kyoto Protocol was agreed on 1990 levels so in real terms if you are to compare the figure is more like 6% cut. It’s worth bothering but hardly the breakthrough we might have hoped for.

From the Chinese perspective their pledge on the table will be to cut the growth in emissions by 45% (that’s optimistic), by 2020 again based on 2005 levels of pollutants.

Meekly they say that they are at the back-end of the industrial revolution and should be allowed this smog ridden development just like the west did all those years back. I suppose that is a little like saying if Europe can start two world wars, we should be permitted to do so too (this is not meant to say that China wouldn’t do that, merely to illustrate that it would be politically completely unacceptable). Hardly an argument that one can reasonably debate with, reason was long since lost. We exist now not in the 19th or 20th centuries but the 21st. Please sir, there are other ways.

Through these meek words the world will no doubt have to wait for an agreement that means anything on climate change. Some hinted months ago that it would become the next Doha merry-go-round. They have sadly been proven right.

America could have taken the lead and stepped onto foot-plate, instead they have politely taken the platform beneath. If Obama had have said jump, the Chinese, Indians and others in the developing world would have had their hands forced. Instead we are left with a weak leadership from those whose our future most depends.

So back to Copenhagen and it will be the likes of our European heads of state to lead the world into radical action against climate change. Here in Britain these warm words have in the past led to few actions though signs are not a glum as one might think. Elsewhere within Europe the Nordic countries have led on emission reductions over the past couple of decades and there are further rays of sunlight to be positive about, whether it be European legislation on emission reduction or countries such as Portugal aiming to make a wholesale change toward renewable energy production.

The route of this posturing either way cannot be seen in isolation. The US China and others regard emissions reduction being in conflict with economic growth, as Sir Nicolas Stern said in his report over the long-term the opposite will be the case, as climate change impacts them and us closer to home. New Orleans and Katrina was a very stark example of this. For me it is a question of whether economic growth is really a necessity.

Through production, consumption and disposal we are destroying the planet. Happiness and material wealth almost never go hand in hand, on the contrary we are 3 times richer in Britain than in the late sixties yet our happiness levels have stayed static. Meanwhile in Sweden a society that is both Greened and socialised so to speak they are the 2nd happiest country on earth. This example at least teaches us you can live in a more harmonious way with nature and be happy.

I am not saying there should not be a balancing of wealth between nations and in a way I feel for the likes of China and India. At the same time we must not destroy our planet and see that there are other ways round this, unfortunately for the politicians this route takes cooperation. If only the governments of the west had as much nerve as they do to fill the bank coffers as that of the renewable energy industry and combating poverty in Africa perhaps we wouldn’t be so screwed.

At the end of the day this argument is one of political bravery or none. If Obama and others had that bravery 6% wouldn’t be the start. They don’t and once again a opportunity has passed them by.

Spartacist have lost the plot!

I simply couldn’t resist taking a picture of this. On Saturday at Hyde Park corner this was causing something of a stir. I couldn’t think why? We should be expecting this sort of thing from Spartacist. They are after all named after the warring Gladiator Spartacus.

Left Weekend

This weekend I participated in the ‘Bring Troops home from Afghanistan’ march and also attended the Green Left general meeting on Sunday.

One thing that struck me about the march in the first instance was the size of it. When I was last at Hyde Park Corner the numbers marching were considerably larger. This smaller contingent could be for a number of reasons. One that was muttered about is the public becoming bored with the subject. One of my fellow comrades was saying how it was difficult to even hand out fliers at Stockwell tube during the week (a place where perhaps the war on terror would have resonance one would have thought)!

I think that seeing as the public conciousness is still very much switched on to the events that are going on this may not be the case.

There is however possibly a public scepticism as to whether anything can be done about the situation. All the major parties seem to collect around the notion that we must not leave until the job is done. Of course some of us would say that this is an open question, can the war be won? The answer regretfully has to be no.

As we continue to kill and mame others abroad so any chance of peace seems unlikely. Indeed the continuing occupation of Afghanistan has worked only to push the Taliban towards Pakistan and the potentially disasterous situation relating to that countries nuclear war-heads.

Here in Cambridge we have something called ‘Dispersal Zones’. Created by the City Council their basic role is to move on and “Disperse!” street drinkers. unfortunately for areas not within these ‘zones’, street drinking is concentrated. The response to this so far has been for the Council to extend these areas thus pushing those who they wish to disperse further and further out. This practice will presumably be passed onto South Cambs when we hit the city boundaries, meanwhile some have to suffer at the hands of anti-social drinkers while the rest of us are stigmatised for even drinking outside a pub! A solution this is not.

This like the American and British occupation of Afghanistan is a perfect example of what can happen when you apply the wrong solution to a problem. It can also as said have the effect of delighting a few while exacerbating the problem for most.

A withdrawal now from Afghanistan would take away the pressure we are asserting on the Taliban which justify their actions. Some would say their intentions are ones which are out to destroy the west. This may be the case and I wouldn’t necessarily agree with it. However our intentions could be seen to be exactly the same except towards them! The words from our leaders are not ones of understanding but of ignorance and superiority.

We must withdraw from Afghanistan now if only to show that we would be prepared to listen. Pushing the problem around until it has killed and destroyed as many lives as possible is not a solution.

The government, like my local authority must stop seeing confrontationalism towards those it doesn’t agree with as a way forward. We know the public cares about this war, we also know a majority agree with immediate withdrawal. Our New Labour and Tory politicians hid behind lies and deception for too long. My Party along with others on the left is the only one that has consistently opposed the occupation and war in Afghanistan. We see where the problem lies but believe the solution to be one of diplomacy and compromise.

I know a problem with street drinking cannot be compared with the scale of things going on in Afghanistan, but it does prove where small-minded quick fixes are the policies are concerned, all big three parties are guilty. Cambridge City Council is run by the Lib-Dems!