Climate Change:'Stop listening to the siren voices of the fossil fuel lobbyists'

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Following yesterday's release of the “Summary for Policymakers” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said: 

“The scientific consensus on the causes of climate change and the risks is clearer than ever. We are talking about 95% certainty, and consensus of 97% of climate scientists, about the impact of human action on amplifying the greenhouse effect, which has been understood since the 19th century. Those who would deny the science should not have a further place in this debate: the Flat Earth Society continues to exist, but that doesn’t mean we need to take it seriously.”

Natalie continued: “The debate now should be moving away from the science and on to politics and policy. Britain led the way with the Climate Change Act, but has failed to follow that clear statement of intent with effective action. Globally, China and the US are taking steps in the right direction, but that all countries need to move much further and faster.

“The UK needs to maintain leadership, and benefit by leading in adjusting its economy for the low-carbon future. Cutting our addiction to fossil fuel use is good for consumers too. The massive rise in energy bills that has hit UK households hard in recent years is chiefly the result of rising gas bills. Fracking and the ‘dash for gas’ are expensive dead-ends.

“Instead we need to restructure our economy. Green MP Caroline Lucas has highlighted the risks of the ‘carbon bubble’ – the over-valuation of companies based on unburnable fossil fuel reserves. We also need to end the global  $500-billion worth of subsidies being paid for fossil fuel extraction, six times the subsidies being paid to renewable energy.

“Investment in energy conservation and in renewable energy technologies is the right choice both environmentally and economically. The Centre for Alternative Technology has calculated that the job creation potential of a zero-carbon economy could reach 1.5 million, covering a range of skills and sectors across the country, all at least paying a living wage.

“Currently not a penny of government money is going into insulating our leaky, poorly insulated homes, which are a huge factor in fuel poverty. A serious programme of insulation – and of building new, appropriately sited homes that are affordable not just in rent but also in heating and transport costs – could together deliver jobs, tackle poverty, and cut our carbon emissions.”

Bennett concluded: “A further important step would be to produce the long-delayed transport strategy for England, replacing the discredited HS2 plan with an approach that focuses on helping people get between home, work, study and leisure affordably and in a low-carbon way, with a strong focus on walking and cycling, and improving the many ‘Low Speed One’ rail lines around the country.

“Today’s report makes it very clear that the world is running out of time to tackle the threat of uncontrolled climate change, and that climate risks to people here in the UK, such as flooding and summer heatwaves, are even greater. Now is the time for politicians to stop listening to the siren voices of the fossil fuel lobbyists, and act decisively to put us on the path to zero carbon economy.”

Manilow May-hem expected in Wembley next year

Wembley residents are usually stoical in the face of football and music fans taking over their streets for events at the stadium, Arena and Fountain Studios.

These hardened survivors of Barcelona vs Manchester United trembled though at the news that Barry Manilow, and thousands of his fans, will descend on Wembley Arena for a two night engagement on May 13th and 14th next year.

 

Tickets are now on sale at prices ranging from £29.50 to £111.50.

Brent Council pay-offs revealed

Gareth Daniel - pay-off better than a game of conkers

Brent Lib Dems have revealed 'the compensation for loss of office' sums awarded to former Chief Executive Gareth Daniel and former Director of Finance Clive Heaphy as £200,702 and £140,508 respectively. Gareth Daniel went after a row with Muhammed Butt, leader of the council and Clive Heaphy went following his suspension pending investigation of allegations of gross misconduct which were later withdrawn.

 The figure for exit packages breaks down as follows:

• 2010/11 – £3.502 million
• 2011/12 – £4.366 million
• 2012/13 – £2.311 million
• TOTAL – £10.179 million

The Lib Dem claim that  if it was managed more effectively this money could have helped keep closed libraries open, fix potholes and clean streets.

Gareth Daniel did not do as well as his predecessor George Benham. Benham got £700,00 compensation (including a car)  in 1998 when Daniel, then an ex-GLC left-winger, was installed in his place.

Disturbing characters feature in Brent Council horror movie

NOT NOW, BERNARD

Will Bernard be given the chance to climb Labour's mountain?

The crowded field of Labour hopefuls for the Brent Central parliamentary has been joined by yet another runner. Fresh from winning a council candidate place for the Willesden Green was, Bernard Collier has now set his sights higher, and has announced he wants the Brent Central seat.

After last week's flurry of letters to the Brent and Kilburn Times (and Zaffar van Kalwala managed it again today)we can look forward to the Thoughts of Bernard jostling for a place alongside those from the other candidates.

Meanwhile here is what he wrote about himself: LINK

I have lived in Kilburn and Willesden since 1986. Bringing up two children in Brent, using local schools, GP’s and hospitals, has given me a thorough understanding of the issues that affect people locally.

I began my working life teaching independent living and advocacy skills to adults with learning difficulties. Since then I have run voluntary organisations and worked with community groups (Refugee, Pre schools, Senior Citizens) for the last twenty years. I have gained experience of promoting their collective voice and influencing social policy at local, regional, and national levels.

My varied experience, including managing Sure Start outreach teams and facilitating Community Networks for example, means that I bring both a passion for social justice and a range of strategic and management skills to “make it happen” in Brent Central.

The Labour party in Brent Central has a mountain to climb after losing a nominal majority of 19% in 2010. It is vital therefore that the candidate we choose has experience of representing, influencing and negotiating on behalf of local communities. Someone with a good grasp of policy and also a history of standing up for communities and fighting for social justice.

I believe Brent Central deserves to have an MP who has lived a life outside of the political bubble. Who has experience of the local area and the problems facing local people. A fresh face untainted by some of the negative issues that have dogged our party in recent years. Someone to represent all the communities of Brent Central.

This is why I am putting myself forward to be the candidate for selection by Brent Central CLP.

Youth Group: Home Office has to earn our respect and trust on stop and search

The consultation on Stop and Search closed on Tuesday. In this open letter to Theresa May, the Home Secretary  the STOPWATCH YOUTH GROUP tells her what stop and search really means to young people and why the consultation is only the beginning:


Dear Home Secretary,

Over the past three years, the StopWatch Youth Group has been campaigning, educating and advocating for changes to stop and search policy and practice and to improve the experiences of young people who come into contact with the police. Our aims have been to bring young people’s voices to policy debates, draw attention to the impact that stop and search has on our lives and empower our peers to deal with stop and search in a confident and informed way.

We welcome this public consultation, and that you have extended it to September, as a way to allow young people to respond but stop and search has been debated since before our members were even born.
We feel that;

• Stop and search is a tool for the police to harass and bully people. It rarely targets the crime and antisocial behaviour that actually harms communities.
• The powers can only be effective if employed as part of a wider crime fighting strategy - better recording can help with this and also encourages the police to consider how they are using the powers in practice.
• Stop and search targets play a perverse role in unnecessary street confrontations. Setting targets for higher arrest rates is going to lead to arrests that may not have been otherwise made.
• Young people are disproportionately stopped because we are easy targets; we do not know our rights and feel bullied by the police for the way we dress and because we are spending time on the street. We are treated with no respect; even when we ask the police about the reason for the stop they threaten to arrest us for not cooperating.
• Young people are repeatedly told we “fit a description” of a suspect and we feel we are given excuses by the police to justify their search. When the police are not being honest with us it is difficult to expect us to have confidence in them.
• Special youth groups should be set up and be given direct access to decision makers. Members from the community bringing action against the police should be supported through legal aid.

We currently lack faith in any official process and the questions you have asked in this survey are very biased, framing issues like “police bureaucracy” in a leading way. The Home Office needs to earn our respect and trust by ensuring that all stop and search powers - not just the narrow few being consulted on - are used in a much more intelligent, limited and fairer way, which we hope will be the end result of this consultation.

Yours sincerely,

StopWatch Youth Group

The Youth Group’s response is informed by our own opinions and experiences as well as discussions we have been having with young people across London and further afield. For their diverse contributions, we thank BASE- Octavia Foundation, Chelsea Academy, Fully Focused, George Monoux College, Hackney Quest, Kids Company, SE1 United, Skyway Blue Hut, Tower Hamlets Somali Youth Group, Waltham Forest Youth Independent Advisory Group, Youth Futures.

Read our responses to the Home Office survey here

 

The Need for a National Campaign for Education

Writing on Wembley Matters I have repeatedly criticised Michael Gove's neoliberal reforms in education, the privatisation agenda represented by academies and free schools, and the way the emphasis on test results and league tables narrows the very concept of education and deprives children of their childhood.

The Anti-Academies Alliance has recognised the may strands of this battle and I fully support their support for a National Campaign for Education.

In this report Alasdair Smith, National Secretary  of the Anti Academies Alliance, outlines the issues and notes in passing the Green Party's opposition to the neoliberal vision.

Rumour has it that policy wonks in the DfE are hard at work on how to manage “market failures”.

Indeed the number of failing academies is soaring.  But then ‘failure’ is hardwired into a system of rationed exam success, the ever-changing goalpost of OFSTED and unbridled greed of ‘social entrepreneurs’ who now claim they have a special responsibility to transform education. Peter Hyman – pass the sick bucket please.

The wheels of big business intervention are in full motion.  I have looked, to no avail, to find figures on the increase in rate of investment by education businesses over the last 10 years. My guess it is huge. Rupert Murdoch’s re-branded edu-business – Amplify (www.amplify.com ) is clearly backed by huge investment.  Not surprisingly alongside big money, comes a whiff of corruption - nepotism, dishonesty and manipulation swirls around the system – with exam cheating, pilfering public money and appointing family members now part of Gove’s dystopian nightmare.

Revelations that several academies have adopted Section 28 style policy outlawing 'promotion of homosexuality’ come as no surprise. Deregulation and privatisation - what Gove calls 'autonomy' - can be a licence for bigotry. The outcry raised by the British Humanist Association report has forced the government into a review but we will need hard proof that no school has Section 28 style clauses in future.

The scandal of free schools is even worrying the likes of Graham Stuart – the Tory chair of Education Select Committee. The huge costs, obvious lack of value for money and, most disgracefully, the fact that free schools are opening in areas where there is no need for places is causing huge concern.

There is a ticking time bomb over the shortage of school places. Some parts of London now have several 5 form entry primary schools and are considering split shift education provision unless funding is dramatically increased.

Of course Gove will point to the odd ‘success’ in his new world order. But does he ask about the failures? And what will he do about them?

Is resistance to academy conversion futile?

The academy conversion process is now so clinical, so undemocratic and so dishonest that local campaigns rise and fall within weeks. Schools are handed to sponsors on a plate by DfE brokers. As John Harris argued in the Guardian last week there is murky relationship between OFSTED and academisation ( http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/16/ofsted-lashing-out-against-primary-schools )

This means there is little chance to build sustained campaign as happened at Downhills. Yet parents are still willing to fight. Neither Gove nor academy conversion is popular. Gove is hated by the profession. There is a profound sense that our communities are being bullied into conversion.

People understand that this policy is the same as policy as the privatising of the NHS. But unfortunately the patterns of resistance are similar to NHS too, although the sporadic protests tend to be even smaller.

One reason for the absence of serious resistance is that Stephen Twigg’s criticism of Gove’s policies has been too muted. Other Labour politicians have offered more - for example Andy Burnham's trenchant defence of comprehensive education. In some areas Labour MPs have worked hard to stem the tide and build alliances with parents and the profession.  But the few national policy announcement’s seems to be little more than ‘Gove lite’.

Elsewhere the Westminster village is in thrall to Gove. We should not believe for one minute that the Lib Dems are holding back Gove. David Laws has been central to propping up elements of Gove’s agenda such as Schools Direct and privatisation of teacher training.

Apart from the Green Party, a few principled MPs and a handful of commentators, the political class remain wholly committed to this neoliberal vision, or what Finnish educationalist Pasi Salhberg calls GERM – Global Education Reform Movement.

It means we need to think long and hard about our approach to education reform. There have been some bold initiatives. CASE, SEA and others have created Picking up the Pieces. This has identified some key features of what a good education system would look like.  The NUT and Compass have joined together to run an enquiry into future of education. Both initiatives appear to be focused on persuading Labour to change its policy going into the next election.

The viability of that strategy is a matter of some debate. In contrast the AAA has continued to try to mobilise parents and staff in campaign at school level, but with limited success. But it has also argued that we need something more. We need a new vision for education that stimulates a nationwide debate and action on achieving it.

The terrain has changed. We are not fighting a single battle against academies, but a ‘war’ in several different areas of education: curriculum, school places, primary, pre-school, teacher training and so on. The scale and breadth of attacks is unprecedented.

If the terrain changes, the vehicle has to change

From the outset we argued that the academies programme was a ‘Trojan horse’ to help break up state education as part of a much grander design to deregulate and privatise the whole system. That prediction is now becoming a reality. But just opposing academies and free schools does not always offer the best opportunities to fight back against Gove. Increasingly much of the secondary sector is now conditioned to academy status. And although academisation is new to the primary sector, it remains rare that single schools fighting alone stop conversion.

Our arguments about the real nature of the academies programme have stood the test of time, but our ability to halt it remains limited. So for the last couple of years the AAA has argued for a National Campaign for Education (NCE) to unite campaigns to create a greater sense of common purpose and above all to articulate ideas around what sort of education system we want not just what we are against.

There are many other areas of education policy on which Gove is more vulnerable. New campaigns are emerging all the time. The multiplicity of different campaigns working on different projects and timescales continue. Avoiding this sort of duplication of effort is a good argument for an NCE. But here is also another more compelling argument. The historic agreement between the NUT and NASUWT for joint programme of action that began on 27th June and will continue on 1^st and 17^th October offers new hope of resistance across the profession.

Whatever the success of the joint action there remains a job to be done for an NCE. It needs to keep alive ideas of what it means to have a comprehensive, progressive and democratic education system. It needs to engage in popularising a wholly different vision of education based on key ideas of the Finnish system - equality & ‘less is more’. But crucially this shared theoretical vision needs some genuine prospect of realisation for it to have any meaning. So the NCE needs to have a campaigning edge. It needs to take the debate on the future of education into schools and communities up and down the country.

As was reported at the AGM in March, progress towards an NCE has been slow. Support for it was agreed at NUT and UNISON conferences and a few practical steps have been taken.

The AAA is committed to working towards an NCE, but there remains plenty of work for us to do. Our primary function of supporting local campaign continues.
 

How many kinds of litter are strewn, in an English country churchyard?

Old St Andrews Church in Kingsbury is Brent's older building. The present building is probably 12th century but it is believed a church has existed here since Saxon times. In addition Roman remains have been found in the church's fabric indicating an even earlier settlement.

The grave's in the churchyard go back centuries and vegetation is kept in check by Community Payback workers. In Spring there are snowdrops, violets, bluebells and wild strawberries amongst the graves.

The old Church was redundant but has recently been rented out to a Romanian congregation who each Sunday overflow out into the churchyard, bringing life back into the ancient building.

Sad then it is to see that alfresco drinkers have strewn the churchyard with beer cans and other litter with carrier bags of litter dumped along the alley way/footpath leading to the church. When I last enquired about this being regularly cleared, Brent Council told me it was unadopted and therefore the street sweepers could only sweep it if they had some spare time. After the cuts they clearly don't have time, even more so in the season of leaf fall,  so it is currently an eye sore.

 

The footpath

Behind St Andrew's Nursery