Veterans?

I received an e-mail last week asking me to support a campaign to provide all veterans of military campaigns with free travel passes. I had a problem with this. Although it sounds very good on the surface what worries me is who is a veteran? During world war two my father was a member of the Auxiliary, later the National Fire Service and so spent all that war protecting the homes and families of the members of the armed forces. Although stationed at Chelsey he could be sent anywhere in the country at a moments notice leaving my mother and sister at home in Chelsey. He got none of the perks of those in the military because he was a civilian with civilian rations and the like. Was he a veteran of the second world war or not. He got no medals or great parades he just got on with the job of making sure that there was a green and pleasant land left for the military to come home to. There are a large number of people who were (are) in the same position as my father found himself in, should they be denied free travel? The situation with the Gurkhas has brought the subject of veterans to public view and it is good to see that justice has been done by them. Anyone who puts their life on the line for this country should automatically have the right to live here in the Islands of the Mighty. What we must do is be very sure just who has put their life on the line for us.

While on the subject of war heroes it is amusing going on tragic that the Nazi BNP has chosen to use the image of a Spitfire on their Euro-election leaflet. The amusing bit is that apparently the pilot of this particular Spitfire is Polish.

Reforming of Butterflies

So another week of canvasing and glad handing comes to a somewhat soggy end and I am really tied. Still this next week is also full of things to do including a hustings meeting at the Memorial Hall, Wallsend on Tuesday. The hot topic on the doorstep - transport- no; education - n0; what else but the activities of the ya-hoos in Westminster. I wouldn't mind if it was only damaging them but the do-dos is rubbing of on us all whether we be honest or corrupt. What does not seem to have been recognised is that the actions in Westminster and the economic crisis are both facets of the same underlying problem, consumerist economics. The acquisition of everything new, everything up to date no matte what the consequences to the would - and it is an effect on the world that it is happening. It is like that old maxim which came out of "Chaos Theory" that a butterfly flapping its wings in Borneo will have an effect on Hurricanes in North America (which is not actually the butterfly effect - that is another part of chaos theory to do with strange attractors and the pattens that they create.) But I digress, growth economics, to work properly requires "boom & bust" in order to operate. The economy is like a big bole of froth with bubbles being recruited to the mass from the bottom and as the rise and coalesce into bigger bubbles eventually they will burst so the new growing bubbles have room to take their place. And yet we are told that our economies can just grow and grow with not "boom & bust." Someone out there is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
And while I am at it how about those MPs? Well I would start my making sure that ALL elected Representatives are payed minimum wage; after all it is what we are told is all wee need to live on by these smug MPs. There should be a transparent form of paying for Secretaries, researchers and the like but this should be taken out of the hands of the MP. A comfortable block of flats should be created close to the Palace of Westminster for MPs to live in if they chose to. All other money matters should be as expenses claims which are fully open to scrutiny by anyone who wishes to see them and given approval by an independent adjudicator. Of course all of this would need to be fine tuned but I am sure you get my drift.
As to Parliament itself we should reduce the number of constituencies to 250 and elect 2 MPs to each constituency one by "First past the post" the other by proportional representation using the same vote for both MPs. I would get rid of the Lords replacing it with an elected Senate of 200 wholly elected by proportional representation every 5 years.
Of course it would be better to abolish the Westminster Parliament all together and replace it with an English Assembly meeting in York, and a small UK Assembly elected by the English, Scots, Welsh and, for now, Northern Irish, to deal with UK issues.
It is not going to happen of course. There are to many people with interests in keeping the statous quo in place. Still, I shall keep plugging away at it and eventually people will hear the truth and really go Green.

Please Don't Vote for Nazi !

So the first few days of the official campaign is behind me and things are going well - weather accepted. I have been knocking on doors and meeting folk on the streets of North Tyneside and have been getting good reactions all round. I have also got a bit in the local newspaper about the launch on Tuesday of the Manifesto. There is also a video of the event on the papers web page so go to www.newsguardian.co.uk and you should find it.
There are six candidates hoping to be elected Mayor, me the Green, a Conservative, a Liberal Democrat, a Labour and two, yes two Nazi candidates. It is worrying that the far right wing of our politics seems to think that it can sustain two of these shameful groups. What is worst is that there are people in North Tyneside will actually vote for these right wingers. Some of these people will hold truly felt National Socialist views but most will be under the illusion that these parties offer something other than suppression and hatred to the communities of North Tyneside. They play on fear. Fear of the different. Fear of the new. Fear in general. They wrap themselves in the Union flag while not even knowing the difference between the flag of Great Britain and the flag of the United Kingdom. They claim to be democratic parties but please remember that Hitler and his German National Socialists were elected to power by the German people; I can only hope that the people of North Tyneside have better sense than to vote for these home grown extreme right wing parties, they will not solve our problems.

Growing Oak Trees (or Ash, or Beach, or Apple!)

The nomination papers are in and the manifesto has been launched so it is all go for the next few week knocking on peoples doors and shaking their hands and, most likely, getting rejected. That is fine. It is par for the course. At this point I usually make a botanical reference; something like mighty oaks from acorns, which are all very good and make the point to an extent, but these allusions fail to recognise is all the other things that go into making that oak tree emerge from that acorn. The first and most important is water. The water of life that will make the dry seed swell and begin the process of the single fertile cell that will eventually become the oak tree of division. One cell becomes two which become four, then eight until the number of cells in a mature oak are in the trillions, but all from one single fertile cell. The political revolution that we Greens are trying to grow also began with a single idea. For me that was E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" and membership of the Ecology Party. By the time I discovered all this the seed was beginning to develop and had already put out its first tap roots in the shape of the 1979 general election when 50 brave Ecology Party members scraped together the cash and supporters to stand. Things have moved and grown and morphed and today we have the Green Party which is a burgeoning sapling with strengths and weaknesses. This sapling will continue to grow because it is sitting in a clearing of politics. All around it the Gray parties have painted their grey leaves cosmetic green but they are stunted and crippled by the cosmetics they are wearing. It is only the Green party sapling that presents clean green leaves to the light of day and so it soars into the canopy. But we have to be cautious of squirrels and beavers that could cut things down and kill this young oak. It is the beaver of apathy and the squires of complacency that will kill the Green sapling. Political Ecology has a lot to offer but it needs you to help it grow and prosper. It needs you to vote for it. It needs you to understand it. in fact

it needs you.

Things and stuff!

The Game is Afoot!
And so it begins. The campaign proper to get me elected as Mayor of North Tyneside. The nomination papers are filled in and just need to be approved on Tuesday morning and it is all official. Later on Tuesday we launch the "Manifesto for Green Transition in North Tyneside" which you can read by going to the North Tyneside Green Party web site which is at the side of this posting.
Over the next three weeks I and other Green Party members will be doing the rounds asking you if you would support us at the election. One question we do not ask is if you are going to vote for me; that is between you and the ballot box and you just wouldn't believe the rigmarole you have to go to to break the secrecy of the ballot box - high court judgments and the like. But it is important that people see their candidates or their representatives; there is not a hope in hell that I could knock on every ones door and find you in so the people representing me are vital. The Green Party is still quite small in North Tyneside but we are always looking for people to participate in our activities (even if they don't join the party) so if you fancy it you know how to get to our web pages - it's at the side.

Vote Green on June 4th

The House.
The old caretakers house at Richardson Dees School, Wallsend, has been given an Eco Make-over. In its self this is fine but there is a telling comment from Labour Mayor John Harrison. He is quoted as saying "This project is unique in the North East." Why? Okay we need to find ways of converting our old housing stock to modern energy efficient truly Green units that people enjoy living in. So now we have one such house in North Tyneside; that's ONE! Across North Tyneside there are hundreds such houses. Surely if it is even just to do research there should be a few more of them dealt with than just this one. There is a big job to do here and our housing cannot afford to be treated in the cosmetic way it has in the past. This have got to be done thoroughly and fast.