The Deputy Leadership hustings London 20/8/2010

A NOTE FROM JONATHON BUCKNER (Young Greens)
Comrades,


The Deputy Leadership hustings were held in London tonight.


The turnout was very good, and the questions very interesting, ranging from AV to party strategy, disability issues within the Party to political philosophies, and lots of talk on economic issues....and the occasional mention of Latin America and Elinor Ostrom from Derek!


Owen Clayton and Adam Pognowski, both of Green Left renown, also sent questions in to the hustings which were put to both candidates. And Zain Sardar, another fine and upstanding member of Green Left chaired extremely well throughout the evening. So well done to him!


(NB Green Left does not take a postion to support either candidate in this election PM)


Introductions



Questions and Answers: Part 1



Questions and Answers: Part 2



Questions and Answers: Part 3



Questions and Answers: Part 4 and conclusions

Help us build the Coalition of Resistance against cuts and privatisation

Thank you for adding your name to the Coalition of Resistance
statement. Support in our first week has been incredible,
with well over 3,500 people pledging their names and offering
support. Other people signing this week include comedian and
activist Mark Thomas, Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War
Coalition, writer A L Kennedy and actor Roger Lloyd Pack.


What you can do to help:


1. Ask everyone you know to sign the statement - available here. A printed version with a sign up sheet is available here.


2. There's a planning meeting for the Coalition of Resistance at 7pm on Thursday, 2 September, in University of London Union, Malet St, London WC1E 7HY. Please try to attend. We'll be holding other meetings around the country - details to follow shortly.


3. Set up a local Coalition of Resistance meeting, with everyone who wants to oppose the cuts invited. We can supply speakers nationally to help build the campaign in your local area. Let us know what events you have organised.


4. We'll email you with details and a booking form for the 27th November conference soon.


5. Get your trade union branch, tenants' association, anti-cuts group, pensioners' association, club or society to back the statement.


6. Make a donation to the campaign. Cheques should be made out to "Coalition of Resistance", and mailed to Coalition of Resistance, c/o Housman's Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX.


Urgently required: Web and Media volunteers
If you can help us develop our website or would like to get involved in producing and adding content - whether written, photography, images or video please contact us.Contact details
Email: http://uk.mc250.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=coalitionofresistance@mail.com
Phone: Andrew on 07939 242229
Website: http://wordpress.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=dd957c6eb39e2c25a43db43d5&id=3c2bc318ff&e=65a57692c5








The meeting on September 2nd is only for London activists and those within range of London. The national conference will be on November 27th.








Joseph

A redder shade of green

Features Morning Star

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Derek Wall

You know you are getting somewhere when you get attacked. And with Caroline Lucas being successfully elected as the first Green Party MP, the attacks are coming.


One has to be self-critical, especially when it comes to green politics.


However, a lot of criticism of the Green Party and Lucas is unwarranted. Perhaps predictably the most recent attacks have been over homeopathy and socialism.


Lucas, along with MPs from six other parties, has signed an early day motion (EDM) defending homeopathy. But rather than criticising all those who signed, commentators have launched a number of specific attacks on Lucas for doing so. This suggests they might have more to do with bashing the leader of the Green Party than discussing the problems of alternative medicine.


The EDM argues that the availability of homeopathy should be the choice of “local NHS service providers and practitioners,” and Lucas has suggested that the NHS should support a range of therapies.
While it would be wrong to uncritically support “alternative therapies,” there seems to be a much wider problem when it comes to NHS treatments.


The research and marketing of pharmaceuticals is controlled by a small number of huge corporations which spend millions marketing their products and influencing clinical decisions.


In the same way that debates over climate change are distorted by the millions paid by oil and coal corporations to “sceptics,” the science of health care is shaped by self-interested multinationals.
With their monopoly profits, big pharma can spend money manipulating the media and public opinion including the rubbishing of alternatives.


So while she does not, as far as I know, specifically endorse homeopathy, Lucas is absolutely right to support both patients and medical practioneers if it is a choice they wish to make.


Separately, an astonishing article appeared in Tribune magazine recently from a member of the Labour Party attacking the Greens for not being on the left. Carl Rowland criticises Lucas’s contention that Greens represent part of the “true left in the British Parliament.”


He argues that the Green Party of England and Wales fails to challenge capitalism and that European Green parties have moved to the right. For example, he rightly criticises the Czech Green Party’s support for “George W Bush’s plan to station America’s missile defence on Czech soil.”


What he fails to mention is that the majority of Greens strongly challenged Bush’s drive to war while the Czech Greens, essentially hijacked by the right, are discredited and have now lost all of their parliamentary seats.


Of course, the Labour Party leadership in Britain supported Bush’s bloody invasion of Iraq while Greens globally helped build the anti-war movement.


Rowland also picks on the example of the Irish Green Party which has moved from radical green politics to a catastrophic alliance with the right-wing Fianna Fail. He further hints that members of green movements might see unemployment as a positive experience.


Now of course Rowland is quite right about the Irish Green Party, but guess what? Prominent members of the Green Party of England and Wales have been highly critical of the Irish experience too, including Lucas who told a Compass conference that it was a textbook example of how not to build a coalition.


Rowland’s article ignores the existence of the green left. There is an international movement for eco-socialism that, while most advanced in Latin America, spans the globe. Lucas herself has been at the forefront of a vigorous movement against spending cuts.


In fact, unlike the Labour Party, the Green Party of England and Wales pointed out that with the scrapping of Trident and higher taxes on the wealthy there was no need for cuts in services.


The 25 per cent cuts which threaten to devastate Britain, tipping us back into recession, accelerating unemployment and crushing the most vulnerable in society, are primarily a product of our neoliberal government - Labour Party support for slashed spending has been part of the process.


So the Green Party challenges cuts as a central part of our general election campaign, while Labour supports cuts. Yet the Greens are told off for not being socialist enough. Does that make any kind of sense?
Lucas has been showing real leadership urging members of the Green Party to get involved in anti-cuts campaigns and using Parliament as a platform for opposing government plans to bring further free-market misery to Britain.


Our Green Party is often described as one of the most left-wing Green parties in Europe - this is largely down to Lucas’s leadership, but it is also because green socialists have organised in the party by launching Green Left.


Members of Green Left get stuck into both internal debates in the Green Party and wider campaigning.
It is certainly not sectarian. Green Left often promotes joint events with another British eco-socialist organisation, Socialist Resistance, even though it is a member of the Respect Party.


Many Green Left members support Labour Party activists who genuinely fight to make the Labour Party more socialist, like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.


We also get involved with more anarchistic non-party Greens like the Climate Camp and, of course, we have been strong supporters of trade union activism, such as at Vestas where workers opposing the closure of their wind turbine factory mounted an occupation.


Green politics in Europe would be strengthened by similar eco-socialist groups operating within Green parties and there is clear evidence that greens in Europe are moving left.


Indeed, at the European Green Party conference in Estonia in October the star platform speakers will be professor Elinor Ostrom, a strong advocate of alternatives to the market, alongside our own Lucas.
If Rowland really wants to make an assessment of the possibility of Greens introducing the fundamental changes necessary to resist the economic and environmental chaos of unrestrained capitalism, he might want to consider taking a closer look at the work of Green Left.


Incidentally not all members of Green Left will agree with me about homepathy, but I think they would agree this is more about bashing the Green Party than a genuine concern with medical ethics, especially given the way that Lucas has been singled out. 

London's entire firefighting force have been told they'll be sacked

MORNING STAR

Britain

Thursday 12 August 2010

John Millington

London's entire firefighting force have been told they'll be sacked if they refuse to go along with cuts to night cover.

The capital's 5,000 firefighters were given 90 days' notice on Wednesday night by the London Fire Authority. 

It wants to impose drastically altered shifts with longer days and shorter nights which unions warn will leave fewer fire engines and staff protecting the capital.

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson wrote to the government and Fire Brigades Union (FBU) leader Matt Wrack to tell them the authority was opening consultation on "terminating the contracts of these staff and offering to re-engage them on new contracts of employment."

But the FBU accused the authority of behaving like "Victorian mill owners" and Mr Wrack insisted his union would "fight the disgraceful attack every step of the way."

The union also raised fears that bosses would retaliate against any industrial action with a strike-breaking "dad's army." 

Executive council member Ian Leahair said members will be balloted for action short of strike immediately, with the possibility of a city-wide strike at the end of October if the authority does not rescind its threat.

During the last major firefighters' dispute in 2002-3, the strikers were covered by soldiers using the ageing Green Goddess appliances, which have since been retired.

But this time, Mr Leahair said, the authority planned to call on privateer Assetco - which leases fire engines to the London Fire Brigade - to "roll out the red fire engines" crewed by a "dad's army of retained firefighters and security contractors" given only three weeks' training.

Mr Dobson delivered the ultimatum amid negotiations with the FBU on the fire authority's plan to change the shift pattern from two nine-hour days and two 15-hour nights to a flat 12-hour shift.

Mr Wrack was bemused by the decision to provoke firefighters while talks were still going on.

"We and the principal management of the London Fire Brigade do have a real disagreement about the way forward in difficult economic times, but until yesterday we were talking about it constructively, and I hoped to reach an agreement both sides could live with," said the FBU leader."The chances of that agreement have diminished dramatically this morning."

The negotiations had already been put under immense strain in the last few months.

In March a leaked document put the lie to bosses' claims that the shift changes were not about cutting night cover.

It said the scheme would offer "a capability to withdraw personnel from night shift" and "the removal of 10 appliances."

And last month Mr Dobson let slip on his blog that he would seek "termination of employment" for all London firefighters if there was not a "negotiated settlement."

Mr Leahair said: "This coalition government is totally hell bent on breaking the public sector to benefit the private sector.

"The FBU urge the fire authority to think again and withdraw the threats of mass sackings and get back round the table to avert any unnecessary industrial action."

PETITION AGAINST THE NHS WHITE PAPER

August 2010

Dear NHS Supporter
THE END OF OUR NHS AS WE KNOW IT?
It sounds alarming, but the future of our health service really does hang in the balance. Concern is both widespread and growing, but we still urgently need to raise greater public awareness. Read our short article that explains without jargon what the dangers are for our NHS.

We want to bring the public together with NHS staff to oppose the harmful proposals in the new NHS White Paper and are working with NHS staff unions on ways to campaign against it. As a first step, supported by UNISON and UNITE, we are launching a national petition for the public and NHS staff to show their concern. We are also approaching a range of other organisations and individuals for their support. You can help by adding your name to the petition and asking your friends and family to add their names too (see below).

We have also been talking to journalists and raised our concerns in the national media. We are maintaining this contact and working to make sure that concern about the White Paper remains prominent in the news.
THREE SIMPLE WAYS YOU CAN HELP


1. Sign our national e-petition
Please sign up to our joint statement. You can really help by circulating it to friends and family as this raises awareness about the impact of the White Paper and brings together all those who are concerned about it. Also ask organisations to which you belong to lend their support too.


2. Spread the word

Here are just a few ideas. Firstly you could write to your MP or, better still, attend one of their local surgeries and ask them to contact Health Secretary Andrew Lansley about your concerns. This will help as politicians rely on their postbag and their constituency meetings to tell them which issues the public really care about. You could also write to your local paper - the letters page is widely read! You could ask politicians, health staff or local celebrities to co-sign your letter, making it become local news in its own right. More help and ideas are available on our website.


3. Make a donation
Our recent report revealed the true extent of GP privatisation that has already taken place - something which many patients were unaware of. To help us continue investigating the hidden dismantling of the NHS, and to campaign and communicate critical issues to the media and wider public, we rely on the generous help of NHS supporters.
Further campaign updates will be coming shortly - along with a downloadable campaign leaflet. Our plans also include a big effort to make all our MPs understand that the White Paper is a fundamental threat to the future of the NHS if nothing is done to stop it. Further background on the White Paper is available on our website, including the critical views of a wide range of commentators and resources to help you contact your MP or local paper.

Your help and support for our campaign is very much appreciated.


With thanks,


Paul Evans, Director



NHS Support Federation
using the following email:
gray.201@btinternet.com
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Coalition of Resistance statement

It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers' profligacy.
The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners. Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.
We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.


This government of millionaires says "we're all in it together" and "there is no alternative". But, for the wealthy, corporation tax is being cut, the bank levy is a pittance, and top salaries and bonuses have already been restored to pre-crash levels.


An alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control, and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich, plugging tax loopholes, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, abolishing the nuclear "deterrent" by cancelling the Trident replacement.


An alternative strategy could use these resources to: support welfare; develop homes, schools, and hospitals; and foster a green approach to public spending – investing in renewable energy and public transport, thereby creating a million jobs.


We commit ourselves to:
• Oppose cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services.
• Fight rising unemployment and support organisations of unemployed people.
• Develop and support an alternative programme for economic and social recovery.
• Oppose all proposals to "solve" the crisis through racism and other forms of scapegoating.
• Liaise closely with similar opposition movements in other countries.
• Organise information, meetings, conferences, marches and demonstrations.
• Support the development of a national co-ordinating coalition of resistance.


We urge those who support this statement to attend the Organising Conference on 27 November 2010 (10am-5pm), at Camden Centre, Town Hall, London, WC1H 9JE.


Can't Pay! Won't Pay!
Signed:
Tony Benn,
Caroline Lucas MP
John McDonnell MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Mark Serwotka, general secretary PCS
Bob Crow, general secretary RMT
Jeremy Dear, general secretary NUJ
Michelle Stanistreet, deputy general secretary, NUJ
Frank Cooper, president of the National Pensioners Convention
Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention
Ken Loach
John Pilger
John Hendy QC
Mark Steel
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary NUT
Cllr Salma Yaqoob
Lee Jasper, joint co-ordinator of Black Activists Rise Against Cuts (Barac)
Zita Holbourne, joint co-ordinator of Barac campaign and PCS national executive
Ashok Kumar, VP education and welfare, LSE student union
Hilary Wainwright, Red Pepper
Francis Beckett, author
David Weaver, chair, 1990 Trust
Viv Ahmun, director Equanomics UK
Paul Mackney, former general secretary NATFHE/UCU
Clare Solomon, president ULU student union
Lindsey German, convenor, Stop the War Coalition (personal capacity)
Andrew Burgin, archivist
John Rees, Counterfire
Romayne Phoenix, Green party
Joseph Healy, secretary Green Left
Fred Leplat, Islington Unison
Jane Shallice
Neil Faulkner, archaeologist and historian
Alf Filer, Socialist Resistance
Chris Nineham
James Meadway, economist
Cherry Sewell, UCU
Alan Thornett, Socialist Resistance
Peter Hallward, professor of modern European philosophy
Matteo Mandarini, Historical Materialism editorial board
John Nicholson, secretary Convention of the Left
Michael Chessum, UCL union education and campaigns officer
Mark Curtis, writer
Nick Broomfield
Sean Rillo Raczka, chair, Birkbeck College student union, and mature students' representative, NUS national executive
Robyn Minogue, UoArts NUS officer
Prince Johnson, NUS president Institute of Education
Roy Bailey, Fuse Records
Doug Nicholls
Granville Williams
Gary Herman (CPBF national council member, in personal capacity)
Louis Hartnoll, president UoArts student union
Sarah Ruiz, former Respect councillor and community activist in Newham
Michael Gavan
Mary Pearson, National Union of Teachers, vice president Birmingham Trades Union Council
Joe Glenholmes, Unison, life member Birmingham Trades Union Council
Baljeet Ghale, NUT past president
Jane Holgate, chair of Hackney Unite and secretary of Hackney TUC
Marshajane Thompson, Labour Representation Committee NC
Richard Kuper
Chris Baugh, PCS assistant general secretary
Trevor Phillips, campaigner
Stathis Kouvelakis, UCU, King's College London
Carole Regan
Bernard Regan
Roger Kline
Hugh Kerr, former MEP
Nina Power, senior lecturer in philosophy Roehampton University
Norman Jemmison, NATFHE past president, NPC
Kitty Fitzgerald, poet and novelist
Iain Banks, author
Arthur Smith, comedian
David Landau
Anne Orwin, actor


To sign up please send an email to http://www.blogger.com/coalitionofresistan%20ce@mail.com and include your name.






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