Will Gordon Brown Change Labour?

What I'm encountering on the doorstep are folks who can be put into a few different categories:

- people who, in the Tim Spall TV ads with Jim Broadbent, don't do politics

- people who are so angry that they just don't vote anymore

- people who sympathise but don't think I'll get in

- people who are undecided

- people who are strong supporters of Labour or the Tories (I've only run into 3 people over 2 years of canvassing in Earlsdon who have said they are strong/lifelong Lib Dems -- maybe Lib Dems just don't declare at the door?), and,

- people who are Labour but wavering.

There are an awful lot of this final group.

Under Tony Blair, Labour has, on a variety of issues, become a centre-right party.

Off the top of my head, I'd cite the treatment of asylum seekers, the corporate influence in education, part-privatisations of air traffic control and the London Tube, keeping the railways private, Blair saying that Thatcher was right about the Falklands and the miners' strike, and their war alliance(s) with the US.

I'd guess that long-suffering Labour voters are holding out for a change of policy, and a dose of anti-spin presentation, under a Gordon Brown government.

However, Gordon Brown has been:

- the driving force behind the public-private-partnership of the London Underground
- the man who is privatising £16 billion in student loans
- a man, who unlike Robin Cook, remained in the cabinet despite Iraq, and who has been in charge of finding the money for Britain's part in the occupation of Iraq
- for 10 years, refusing to increase taxes on the rich ... this has meant that, for his tax credit policy, he has redistributed from the middle class and better-off working class to the poor
- someone who could have delivered more childcare by running state nurseries and crêches; Brown's childcare tax credit has not increased places and may have simply inflated the price of childcare
- a man who has only corporate representatives on his advisory panel on globalisation (from BP, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, Rolls Royce, Citigroup, Wal-Mart and eBay), that is to say, no representatives from NGOs, aid agencies, trade unions or human rights groups
- a man who Lord Turnbull (former Treasury permanent secretary) described as exercising such tight control of finances that he undermined government cohesion and coherence. Turnbull also said that Brown has a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues" and treats them dismissively, and that Brown prefers outsiders like Derek Wanless (NHS) and Paul Myners (corporate governance) to develop new ideas.

I fail to see how Gordon Brown will be agent of a wide-ranging renewal of Labour.

If anything, he will continue the PFI-led creeping privatisation of our public services, and in terms of spin/presentation, might out control-freak the control-freak's control-freak, Tony Blair.

Plastic Bags No More!

Before I go out to pound the streets for six hours today and six hours tomorrow, I thought I'd post up this interesting story from a town in Devon.

The town's 43 traders have pledged to no longer sell, give away or otherwise provide plastic bags to anyone in Modbury for a minimum of six months.

The retailers have commissioned 2,000 official Modbury bags, which could soon be collectors' items. Made in Mumbai, they will sell for £3.95. The shops have sent all their unused plastic bags to Newcastle where they are being made into plastic chairs. The town has also set up "plastic bag amnesty points" where people can drop off the bags they keep under the kitchen sink.

It's a great story about small business coming together, since they realise the international impact of plastic bag pollution.

Unison and PCS Hustings Last Night

Myself, Bryn Tittle and Dan Finnan attended, and I was the representative for the party on the panel. The other panelists were Dave Nellist (Socialists), John Mutton (Labour), Russell Fields (Lib Dems), and Caron McKenna (Respect).

It was my first hustings, by which I mean that I was nervous and it probably showed. The speakers for each question were in alpha order by party, so I was first each time too.

I suppose that myself and Caron faced an inherent disadvantage, as the other three were already councillors, and they could use "this happened at Scrutiny Board 4 in November 2002" comments.

- I fully support Unison’s request to negotiate with council leaders. 23% of Coventry City Council workers will lose out under single status. Despite its aim that pay discrepancies between men and women are addressed, in many instances, female staff will be worse off or have their pay capped. If we want to attract talented and hard-working people, who will make a difference in people’s lives, into public sector work, pay should reflect that.

- Central government needs to fund efforts to end pay inequality. Gordon Brown can't wash his hands of this issue. We need both pay equality and to avoid cuts in local services or council tax rises.

- The problem with PFI is that is has led to a greater burden upon taxpayers (building schools and hospitals on the never-never), reduced employment rights for workers transferred to the private sector, and guaranteed profits for shareholders. We oppose the PFI for funding the renewal of street lighting in Coventry (while renewal is needed, public funding is cheaper in the long-run).

- In general, companies shouldn’t make a profit out of basic public services, whether it is health, education or prisons.

- I oppose any further reduction in service provision or involvement of private companies within health delivery in Coventry.

- In contrast to the PFI, one-massive-hospital approach, I’d like to see community-based publicly-run centres that emphasise preventative healthcare. That means outreach projects on diet (to save long term costs in NHS treatment of diabetes), properly funded NHS dentistry, community physiotherapy, mental health appointments, sexual health clinics (especially for youth and university students), and blood clinics.

- We need to reduce the use of consultants (whose growth in the public sector have gone hand-in-hand with the PFI and target-driven Blairite culture).

- Last, but not least, the insights and know-how of union members in the public services in Coventry, who have daily contact with people who use public services, could be harnessed, rather than sticking with a top-down, consultant-oriented, form of management.

Community Media In Coventry

We need more ways of binding communities together.

One way of doing this is through community media.

Community media is community-owned and controlled, and it has a key role in reaching people and communities at risk of exclusion and disadvantage.

Here in Coventry, we have The Hillz FM in Hillfields, a community radio project that tries to re-engage with 13 to 19 year olds who are in not in education, employment or training.

Liverpool has a fascinating community TV project, Tenantspin. 50% of Tenantspin's content was about social housing issues, and 50% content from artists commissions. It was developed and produced by high-rise social housing residents, the majority of whom are over 50, and residents are trained in studio management, production, research and presentation.

In a world that is increasingly complex and global, we need projects like this to empower people to become media producers, not just passive consumers.

As the Community Media Association puts it:

Community-based radio, television and Internet projects work by enabling people to become media producers, to send as well as to receive, and, by working together, to reinforce knowledge, dialogue and cultural expression at neighbourhood and community level. Access to new media and communication technologies is seen as an essential part of public life and a democratic culture.

Private Prisons in Warwickshire

In light of Panorama's undercover sting at privately-run Rye Hill Prison (between Coventry and Rugby), Mark Serwotka's letter in the Guardian today is timely. Serwotka is the General Secretrary of the PCS (Public and Commercial Services) union.

There is no evidence that privateers have brought about "innovations in prison design and improved rehabilitation." Britain already has the most privatised prison system in Europe ... Private prisons constantly feature in some of the most critical prisons inspectorate reports and rely on using fewer staff, lower wages and less employment protection for their profits. The answer is not to award £300m-plus contracts to the private sector to build more prisons; it is to invest in measures within the public-sector prison service that will reduce reoffending: improved drug and alcohol treatments and instructional officers delivering prison education and workshops.

The idea of making profits from the incarceration of offenders is morally wrong. If the state takes someone's liberty away, the state should take responsibility for them, not contract it out.

Sexual Health and Coventry

A third of university students, surveyed by Terrence Higgins Trust and the NUS, thought latex condoms had holes in them large enough to allow HIV to pass through. They don't.

More than one in 10 of the 2,200 who took part in the survey didn't know how to put a condom on correctly. One in 10 also believed condoms should be stored in a warm place -- this may lead them to deteriorate.

With two universities in our city, this is as much of a Coventry issue as any.

Lisa Power, head of policy at Terrence Higgins Trust said:

"University students are no smarter than many other young people when it comes to sexual health. They are just as likely to believe myths about condoms and to have got more of their sex education in the playground than the classroom. We spend a fortune educating students, but leave them ignorant about key issues in their adult lives. It's hardly surprising that rates of sexually transmitted infections are soaring."

I agree with the THT's call for sex and relationships education to be compulsory in schools.

Young people need information around negotiating safer sex, how to use condoms and how to deal with relationships.

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Offshore Wind Farms

Two interesting stories in the news:

- The "Egmond aan Zee Offshore Wind Farm" off the coast of The Netherlands has 36 turbines and cost 200 million oi-row to build. It's a joint venture of Nuon and Shell, and it was built on the initiative of the Dutch Government. It'll provide the annual electricity consumption for 100 000 Dutch households. What's more, for future projects, transmitters and mikes follow the movements of dolphins and seals. Soil samples have been taken from eighty locations to establish whether life on the sea floor is changing. Two radar systems have been installed to measure migratory bird movements, and fishing is prohibited in the wind farm, so certain species might use the area as a safe haven.

- The US is proposing a 130 wind turbine farm off Boston. It'll be built by Cape Wind Associates LLC, a privately funded Boston-based energy company. The project would meet the energy needs of 400,000 homes. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, said "We have work to do as we build a clean energy economy -- let's get on with it."

How My Day Went

A good day for a number of reasons:

- The Coventry Telegraph had an article on Garden Organic Ryton's restaurant won in the "Best Organic Restaurant" category at the Organic Industry Awards by the Soil Association. Congratulations.

- I received a call from a woman in Earlsdon, requesting two posters, one for her, and one for her dad. She said that she had been impressed that I had canvassed her the year before. Worryingly, she wasn't on the electoral roll at her current address. She was on the roll at her old address (still in Earlsdon, thank goodness) and plans to now vote there. This also happened with our candidate in Radford, Dan Finnan (i.e. both of them had sent in change of address forms to the council for the electoral roll, but had got lost in the wash).

- Myself and three other Green Party candidates (Penny Walker, Cathy Wattebot, Gianluca Grimalda) met up for an arts+crafts session (making words -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- out of collected rubbish) and then did a photo for a press release, with our newly-made words, at Charterhouse Fields. We've sent out four press releases so far on:

a) urging folks not to sign BNP candidates papers
b) our election launch
c) on Bryn Tittle, our candidate in Cheylesmore (focusing on waste/incineration)
d) on Emma Biermann, our candidate in Wainbody (focusing on youth and democracy)

They'll be some coverage of a joint campaign (Campaign for Dark Skies, Coventry Friends of the Earth, Coventry Green Party) in this week's Coventry Times, on getting companies to turn off their office lights at night. We'll have a letter in this week's Times as well.

I suppose even if our other press releases don't lead to immediate coverage, the efforts will still get local media used to the idea that we're go-getters who will provide them with interesting copy.

- The final thing wasn't exactly good, but was, in a way, inspiring. My agent last year was Clive Rosher, and his wife, Maggie, passed away a few days into this year's campaign. It was her funeral today, at Canley Crematorium. The funeral had songs (The Internationale, We Shall Overcome) and many rememberances of her, her humour, her love of teaching, and parties that her and Clive threw. She had been active in CND for 40-some years and a stalwart supporter of Labour, including 30-some years on Coventry city council and a stint as Lady Mayoress. It was a bit odd, since I was there more as someone who knows Clive, but I felt that I came away with a much better sense of who Maggie had been.

Labour And The NHS

Labour thinks that the NHS is a vote-winner for them, or, as Patricia Hewitt says, "Health is a Labour issue. It always has been, and it always will be."

After 10 years of Labour, there is a lot wrong with our NHS and our wider approach to health in society.

The Green Party is particularly concerned at the number of public service workers who suffer extreme stress and end up leaving their posts. We now face the irony of stressed staff trying to heal stressed people.

Much of the NHS budget is spent treating cancer, mental illness and heart disease -- symptoms of our increasingly stressed and polluted way of life. We would be in favour of more preventative healthcare, short term actions for long term health and savings.

Led by Darren Johnson on the London Assembly, the Green Party is championing the right of Londoners to have clinics within walking distance of their homes. Green MEPs Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucas are fighting to prevent Britain's health services from being forced open to international competition and privatisation.

Finally, we need to build a partnership between government, public sector workers and the communities they serve. That doesn't mean wasting our money by paying a private company £240m to provide a hospital that could have been built for £60m less on the NHS. Health care needs to be free at the point of use, including prescriptions, eye tests and dental treatment. Greens believe that the health service should be properly funded from higher levels of tax on higher incomes.

Canvassing Update

In Earlsdon, we've been canvassing Winifred Road, Spencer Avenue, Tile Hill Lane, Hendre Close, Mayfield Road, Mickleton Ave, and Stanway Road over the last few days.

The primary goal is to talk to people on the doorstep and find out what issues matter to them.

The secondary goal is to get an idea of who are lifelong voters for one party or another, and who are the folks who decide based on the leaflets, who are undecided, who are wavering, etc. This will lead to "remember to vote Green" leaflets for all the houses we've visited.

Posters are being printed for use in Cheylesmore, and on the University of Warwick campus.

For our other wards, our candidate in Binley and Willenhall, Cathy Wattebot, is working on an A5 "paper candidate manifesto" to drop off to the 10 people per ward who signed our nomination papers.

It's always unclear how the vote will shake out. The dream scenario is for us to win Earlsdon and Cheylesmore.

With poor local election turnout (35%), even if a party last year received nigh on 50% of the vote, like the Tories did in Earlsdon, that's only 170 people out of every 1000 voters. Our goal in Earlsdon is for our message to reach the other 800 voters.

In Cheylesmore, it'll be more of a 5-candidate split, and if our candidate, Bryn Tittle, can secure 32% of the vote (112 voters out of 1000, based on 35% turnout), then four candidates will have to split 68% of the rest.

News From Iraq

- Tens of thousands of Iraqis are leaving the country each month. More than one million Iraqis now live in Syria, plus 750,000 more in neighbouring Jordan. The movement of Iraqis is being called the biggest displacement of people since Palestinian refugees and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

- Last Wednesday, a series of bombings in Baghdad killed more than 200 people in the worst day of violence since the US-led "surge" began in mid-February. That's the same as 400 people dying in a country the size of Britain, or 2000 people dying in the US. How much coverage do you think it received in the US, compared to the Virginia Tech shootings?

- The new big US solution to the violence unleashed in Baghdad are Berlin/Belfast style walls between neighbourhoods. However:

"Erecting concrete walls between neighbourhoods is not a solution to the collapse in security and the rampant violence," housewife Um Haider told AFP news agency. "If so, Baghdadis would find themselves in a maze of high walls overnight."

Another resident, Mustafa, said: "I resent the barrier. It will make Adhamiya a big prison."

- Oliver Stone is to direct an advert for a campaign calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. It'll focus on the views of servicemen and women who have served in Iraq.

French Postal Service and Electric Vehicles

At least someone's got the right idea.

The French postal service, La Poste, plans to order 10,000 electric delivery vehicles. They'll save 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per vehicle. It's six times cheaper to run an electric vehicle than a diesel one.

We need a similar commitment from British delivery organisations -- courier companies, the Royal Mail, home deliveries by supermarkets -- to support the electric vehicle industry.

New Thinking From The Green Party

- The UK Drug Policy Commission has found that Britain has the worst level of drug abuse in Europe and the second-highest rate of drug-related deaths. The study found that the number of heroin users in England alone is estimated at 281,000, compared to just 5,000 in 1975. Longer jail sentences and more arrests have not cut the number of addicts, nor the availability of drugs. Drugs policies in Britain aren't working. The Green Party is in favour of taking drugs, such as cannabis, out of the hands of criminal mafia. Mafia compete against each other, making drug supplies more and more potent to keep their customers. Legalisation would break that cycle.

- The national minimum wage does not allow many workers to escape poverty, so why not have a Green policy like a Citizen's Income? Barring that, the Green Party is involved in living wage campaigns, notably around the Olympic contracts in London. In the UK, 4.25 million adults, from aged 22 to retirement, were paid less than £6.50 per hour in 2006. Two thirds of these were women. We can't have a sustainable society without social justice.

- New buildings, such as secondary schools, have to have environmental transparency built into them. This means schools with display panels to show students can see how much electricity is being generated from renewable on-site sources. It would mean school meals cooked on site with local produce and schools with their own recycling centres. It would mean desks made from recycled yoghurt pots, more solar panels, water monitoring systems, and biomass boilers.

Myths About Asylum And Migration

I've sent this off, in slightly different form, to the Telegraph today:

"The problem with a surge in BNP candidates, along with right-wing policies by Labour and the Conservatives, is that it leads to myths and half truths. Asylum seekers and refugees are less than 2% of the population of Coventry. They’re not pouring into our city. Until a decision on their claim, asylum seekers have to live on a poverty-level subsidy and aren’t allowed to work. We do have our share of economic migrants from Eastern Europe, but it’s not the highlife. Some are living six to a house, and are being exploited due to not knowing about employment rights or health and safety.

If you don’t bother understanding anyone different than you -- whether it is migrants, Muslims, asylum seekers, “scoungers who should get a job,” or gays, lesbians and bisexuals -- and if you hate a group hard enough, they start to seem less than human. Once that’s achieved, you can start taking their rights away.

We’re facing challenges like globalisation and global warming, and we have to build up local alternatives together, not become separated by difference."

Tesco's Profits of £2.55 Billion

That's £291 000 an hour.

The Today programme's Greg Wood had a barbed 4-minute interview with Terry Leahy, the chief exec of Tesco, this morning.

Wood pointed out that Tesco had objected to the Competition Commission's definition of a "local store." The Commission had defined "local" as a 15 minute drive away, whilst Tesco wanted a definition of 30 minutes. Wood said that you can drive from Liverpool to Manchester in 30 minutes, and that if his local pub was 30 minutes away, people would think he was barmy.

I'd probably respond that stores should be compared within a 10 minute bicycle ride. Driving a half-hour from your house or flat in Coventry to shop at Tesco?

It's a simple choice.

Do we want to patronise mammoth stores like Tesco, which now controls just over 30% of the UK market, or Saino's or Asda or Morrisons? It's a model that is dependent upon cheap petrol to keep their distribution centres linked to their hundreds of stores, with just-in-time deliveries. It's a model that prides itself on providing out-of-season fruit shipped from across the world year-round.

Or should we support locally-owned green grocers and butchers with locally-sourced and seasonal food, and independent health food and organic food shops?