Knock, knock, who's there?

How? It is a very simple question but i can almost guarantee that you will not have the answer to it. How is an even more difficult question to answer than Why? At least with why things will have happened that you can safely hang the question on, but How doesn't have that luxury. But I still need to know how! For instance I want to know how the Green Party in Norwich is on the verge of taking over the local council and getting a Green MP while the Green Party in North Tyneside is not even close. I asked a member of the Norwich GP the question of how they did it and his answer was very revealing, "We knocked on doors." he said. "We got out there and made our presence felt. We offered a service, ourselves, and people responded to it." But then that brought up the question of how do you motivate GP members to get out there and start knocking on doors? The answer came "You have someone charismatic and enthusiastic as the figurehead." In Norwich that charismatic figurehead is very close to being elected to parliament.

So how do we of the North Tyneside Green Party get our candidate in the Tynemouth constituency, Julia Erskine, elected to parliament? Well, the door knocking has begun. The glad handing will start to take off and hopefully we will mobilise a lot of people who are not as yet GP members to at least vote of the changes we represent and with luck take up the gauntlet that Political Ecology offers and get the door-knocking habit.

The coming General Election is a good opportunity for us smaller Green Parties to get our face out there and present the new Green Way to people who think we are only going to ban cars and flights and hug trees and bunny rabbets. Political Ecology is a powerful took of social change, for social justice, for fairness, but it is also one hell of a challenge to the status quo and there are many powerful interests that want to make sure the Green future is stamped upon hard. Even the media helps. Of course there are pockets of the media, both traditional and new, that supports the Green future and not just in the meaningless cosmetic way the Grey political parties do. But to much of the mainstream media deride Green initiatives. Just this week in the "Metro" newspaper the Eco-home proposed by an ex- footballer was derided as mad, something from "Tele-tubies Land." If the thought that went into that house was applied to the general run-of-the-mill built housing that is thrown up across the country we would not be worrying about carbon footprints and perhaps the banning of flights(?).

We want lots of people to vote Green at the General Election because Green candidate, and of course Green MP and Local Councilors, will be good not only for England, or the UK but for our whole world because they will all be thinking, and asking,

how!

Trying isn't it!

I have just had a whole weekend of Green Party stuff - and I am tied physically but my mind is teaming with ideas so I can't actually sleep just yet. I met with a fellow Green person from Norwich where in the not to far distant future they are going to have a Green Party council. I mean a real borough council run by Green Party councilors. Amazingly there are other places around the country where there are other Green parties on the brink of taking power. It is good to know that it can happen so why can we not make the breakthrough in North Tyneside? Is there something intrinsically non-green about the place? I don't think so. It has the same mix of people who have the same mix of problems and pleasures as do the good people of Norwich but we do not seem to be able to reach them.

Over the next few months we will be running a campaign to try an get Julia Erskine elected to the job of MP for Tynemouth (we would have liked to have put someone up in Tyneside North but we just don't have the human or cash resources so if you happen to have a spear couple of million under the matres you don't want there is a Green Party that will happily spend it for you.) Tynemouth constituency is a nice seaside area with a little urban depreciation but not much. It is going to be a hotbed of activity politically as the blue-bes think they can take it from the redies while the oranges think that they are going to slip in and grab the prize. There are also a range of Nazi and right wing parties and us, the Green Party. Julia is a very good candidate and would make a very good MP. Unfortunately it would need you lot out there in Tynemouth constituency to vote for her but you wont. That would be to hard. Alot of you will prefer to stick your head in the sand and hope that it will all go away rather than go out and vote - which doesn't help - anybody. If all the good people who normally didn't bother to vote voted for Julia she would be elected.

So Vote for

Julia Erskine

for the Member of Parliament for the Tynemouth Constituency

Who's a teacher now then?

The Conservative Party has proposed that only people with high grade Honers degrees will be allowed to teach in schools. You can tell that these people have never really experienced schools as the majority of us know them or they could never come out with such rubbish. I have met many very intelligent people with a list of degrees as long as your arm who couldn't teach you how to boil water. I also know people who can barely read and write who are brilliant teachers. When I was at school teachers went to teacher training college and left with a teaching certificate. A select few went on to get a B.Ed. but by that time they had served their apprenticeship in a wide range of schools. I was taught by a range of good teachers who were not hogtied by National Curriculum's and league tables. Not only did they teach me the subjects on the time table but they taught us about life-things as well (including how to handle our drink properly).

There is an idea prevalent these days that being educated is about passing exams and gathering together the certificates that go with these passes. The "Gradgrime" factor of "teach 'em facts and nothing but facts" is great if you want to win mastermind but not much use if you need to undertake a project to find thinks out. It doesn't give you research skills, and it is these that we are all going to need in the future whether we are researching in books or on the Internet. Facts are only of use if you know how to find them at put them together in new, innovative ways. Regurgitating the same old stuff will never allow us to progress, or to add to the mass of fact.

But back to the question of who should be "allowed" to teach young people. If I wanted to be a plumber I do not need to be taught by an expert in fluid dynamics but I do need to be taught by someone who can light a blow lamp. A farrier will know as much about the anatomy of a horse as the average zoologist and I know who I would want to show any horse of mine (along with his apprentice).

I suppose we have to expect stupid, unthinking proposals like this from the Conservative Party, it's the sort of idea thing we have come to expect from them. And of course the red and yellow bits of the red-yellow-blue coalition has to come out with their own daft idea so as not to be left behind. Fortunately the is a Political party that is going to be speaking sense throughout the coming month of General Electioneering, and that of course is the Green Party. So, please do yourself and the rest of the world a big favour and vote Green Party where you can at the General Election when it comes.

Vote for

Julia Erskine

Green Party Candidate for the

Tynemouth Constituency

Vote Green Party in 2010

So here we go with the year of (at least one) general election and the Green Party is going to make its great breakthrough, in Brighton. I and the other people in the North Tyneside Green Party will be concentrating on getting Julia Erskine elected as MP for the Tynemouth constituency. It is going to be difficult but it will work, eventually. Julia is a very good candidate and when elected will represent East North Tyneside (and hopefully west North Tyneside when she has time) very well. But it can only happen if people vote for her or any other Green Party candidate for that matter. There is a common mantra we here when we knock on peoples doors. It goes "we would vote for you if we thought you had any chance of getting elected." People don't seem to see the illogic of this comment and yet I have heard it year after year when knocking on peoples door. It is almost as common as the comment "I fought in the war for this country and now look at it. I'm going to vote BNP/NF." How people could have fought and died to prevent fascism taking hold then vote for the same bunch but in modern suits I don't know.
Voting Green Party is not a waste of your vote. It is a very positive action. But it is important to vote Green Party and not be dazzled by the cosmetic greenness that other political parties are going to try and fool you into believing in. Have no doubt the Red-Blue-Yellow party who clam not only to be a separate entity but also "green" are not, either. Unless a party is proposing a non-growth economic policy as a way to solve the present problems of the world then they are not green.
So, in May (or if the General election is in March then in March and May) vote for your Green Party Candidate. This is your chance to change the world.
Please take it.