We need to talk about Kingsnorth…

We need to talk about Kingsnorth…

A debate on climate change and the future of energy

13th November, 7pm

Sunlight Centre, 105 Richmond Road, Gillingham ME7 1LX

Refreshments provided

Join a ‘Question Time’ event featuring a panel of local people, policy makers and experts on coal, climate change, Kent and the energy debate.

This is your chance to ask questions and have your say on the local and global concerns surrounding plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.

The panel includes:

Teresa Murray Labour candidate for Rochester & Strood

Mark Reckless Conservative candidate for Rochester & Strood

Robin Webster Friends of Earth

Dr Mark Avery Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Benedict Southworth World Development Movement

Andy Rogers Kingsnorth Climate Action Medway

Simon Marchant Medway Green Party

Geoff Juby Lib Dem candidate for Rochester & Strood
To book a free place call 020 7820 4900 or email stopkingsnorth@wdm.org.uk www.StopKingsnorth.org

The worst choice

Received this from Comrade Fidel today, it is especially poignant at this time. Economic growth cannot continue, but neither must economic depression be chaotic. Reducing our impact on the environment means consuming less which will reduce GDP, the secret is to do it in a controlled and fair way. It is no good allowing the market to dictate life, the market just increases inequalities.

Castro's point about the US dollar being one of the few international currencies is interesting. This gives the US an even higher degree of influence that they would have from just being a superpower. An independent single international currency is essential in a fair world.

Anyway, this is the email from Fidel:

Today, I read that the US Federal Reserve had opened a new line of credit for the Central Banks of Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Singapore.

The same report claimed that similar credits have been issued to the Central Banks of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the European Central Bank.

Based on these agreements, the Central Banks shall receive funds in exchange for hard currency reserves from these countries which have sustained considerable losses due to the trade and financial crisis.

This way the economic power of the US currency is asserted, a privilege granted at Bretton Woods.

The International Monetary Fund, which is the same people under a different name, has announced the release of high sums of money to its clients in Eastern Europe. Hungary will be receiving the equivalent of $20 billion euros; a large part of these are dollars coming from the United States. The machines keep minting bills and the IMF keeps granting its unfair loans.

On the other hand, the World Wild Fund stated in Geneva yesterday that at the present spending rate, by 2030 humanity will need the resources of two planets to keep up its life style.

The WWF is a serious institution. There is no need to be a University graduate of Mathematics, Economics or Political Sciences to understand what this means. It’s the worst choice. The developed capitalism hopes to continue plundering the world as if the world could still stand it.


Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2008
8:05 p.m.

SOUTH EAST EURO-MP WELCOMES EU VICTORY FOR KENT ANIMAL CAMPAIGNERS

The South East’s Green MEP has paid tribute to the commitment and hard work
of a Kent animal campaign group today, after its monitoring of livestock
shipments at Dover led to an EU investigation and subsequent damning report
to which the UK must now respond.

Kent Against Live Exports (KALE) alerted Green MEP Caroline Lucas to the
potential breaches of existing EU law on the transport of live animals
through the Dover harbour; she then took the campaign to the EU through a
series of formal complaints to EU Commissioners.

KALE, the Kent based volunteer- run organisation which campaigns against the
export of live farm animals to mainland Europe, has spent the last two years
documenting the movement of livestock through the port of Dover, uncovering
numerous breaches of EU animal welfare law.

When their pleas for action were ignored by the UK Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), KALE and the Green MEP took
their efforts to Europe; the EU Commission for Health and Consumer Affairs
in Brussels promptly sent a team of officials from the Food and Veterinary
Office department (FVO) to investigate.

Dr Caroline Lucas MEP, who is also Vice President of the RSPCA and VP of the
European Parliament’s Animal Welfare Intergroup, said: “I wholeheartedly
welcome the conclusions of the FVO report, which confirms that welfare
standards of farm animals being transported at Dover fall far short of EU
regulations – if only the UK’s own DEFRA had shown such concern.

“The report clearly identifies a number of breaches of EU Regulation 1/2005
on ‘the protection of animals during transport and related operations’. It
found a lack of adequate contingency plans, a lack of an unloading facility
for animals in the vicinity, and a general non-compliance with welfare
requirements, including lack of cleaning and disinfection of the vehicles
used in livestock transport.”

Dr Lucas concluded: “KALE’s continued commitment and hard work on the
campaign against long distance transport of live farm animals has really
paid off. With this report, the EU is sending a strong message to the UK
authorities that more must be done to safeguard the welfare of live animals
being transported in and out of Dover.

“Farm animal welfare standards in the EU are far from perfect, and this
report represents a small step along a very long road. The Green Party
continues to call for a complete end to all live animal exports, both within
and beyond the EU, to prevent unnecessary suffering."

Mark Johnson, EU correspondent for KALE, said: “Now that the EU / FVO report
has been published, KALE trusts that the UK authorities will now take note
of the suggestions and recommendations, and fully implement procedures to
ensure that we (KALE) do not continue to see animal suffering as regularly
witnessed by our monitors and observers at Dover harbour.

“KALE, as always, will be independently monitoring all animal shipments from
Dover, and if we find that the proposed recommendations are still not being
implemented, we will go back to Brussels asking for the EU to take legal
action against the UK for continual non-compliance with EU regulations on
animal welfare”.


ENDS

Notes to Editors

KALE has obtained access to the twenty-four page (FVO) inspection report,
number 2008/7690 titled “Animal welfare during transport”. It can be viewed
at http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/ir_search_en.cfm by entering the inspection
report number (2008/7690).

For more information on KALE, please visit http://www.myspace.com/snuffle.

Climate change extremism

Two extremes of climate change:

A few miles up the road from here activists on the Rainbow Warrior have occupied part of Kingsnorth. It is fascinating to live close to the front line of the campaign, I know the jetty at Kingsnorth very well have sailed past it many times as a teenager living in Rochester. Good show Greenpeace!

Sadly, at the other extreme, Maidstone's current MP, Ann Widdecombe again voted against the climate change bill. I have to ask why. The climate crisis facing the planet will make the energy and credit crunch seem like a walk in the park. The world has a very short period left to tackle the problem, fortunately Ms Widdecombe was completely out voted.

Row with Lib Dem PPC

"I'm not sure how [Mr Jeffery] can say violent crime is not increasing..." said Lib Dem PPC for Maidstone, Peter Carroll in this week's Your Maidstone. Er... perhaps it is because the well respected official statistics in the British Crime Survey says so?

Mr Carroll goes on to say: "I'm trying to reflect how the public in Maidstone feel about crime.", however his letter said something very different: "Violent crime is on the rise".

Carbon reduction not a high priority target for Maidstone

Maidstone Borough Council's Cabinet decided not to make carbon reduction a high priority target for the borough. They prefered economic growth. Both Lib Dems and the Tories backed the prioritisation of the targets, i.e. both parties were happy that reducing Maidstone's carbon footprint was not a high priority target, yet economic growth was (it was stated at the meeting that the New Business Registration Rate is an excellent proxy for economic growth).

Another nail in the coffin of the LibDem claims that they are green. In fairness to Mark Woodin (Con) he was the only one to suggest that this target should be upgraded (thanks Mark), but his suggestion fell on deaf ears and he also agreed for the priorities to be passed as set out below.

As an aside, James May from Top Gear, was dicussing renewable energy on TV last night and presented a sensible picture. He started by saying that he wants an energy source that will last forever and only renewables can do this. If a Top Gear presenter can get what Greens are saying, why can't Maidstone's councillors?

The adherence to the need for economic growth by the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour is one of the key differences that sets the Greens apart from them. Continuous economic growth on a finite planet is simply not possible or desirable and certainly not sustainable. A stable economy does not grow and we should not keep using up finite resources.

The other interesting comment at the cabinet was from the Tory leader, Chris Garland, who suggested that the Growth Point status was a good thing for Maidstone. The Growth Point status was voted in by the LibDem administration (plus a number of Tories) in March 2006 and increased the house building target over the next 20 years by 20%.

Extract from the cabinet agenda, 23rd Oct 2008:

1.2.1 That based on an examination of the available data, laid out in the draft LAP (Appendix A), the Cabinet agrees that the following National Indicators should be given the highest priority within the new LAP and that this be reported to the Maidstone LSP and Kent Partnership:

High priority
1. NI 15 -- Serious and Violent Crime
2. NI 21 -- Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime by the local council and police
3. NI 39: Related Hospital Admissions per 100,000 for Alcohol Related Harm
4. NI 47: People killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
5. NI 55: Number of affordable homes delivered (gross)
6. NI 75 - Achievement of 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE or equivalent including English and Maths (Threshold)
7. NI 110 - Young people's participation in positive activities
8. NI 117: 16 -- 18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEET)
9. NI 141 Percentage of vulnerable people achieving independent living
10.NI 154: Net additional homes provided
11.NI 163: Proportion of population aged 19 -- 64 for males and 19 -- 59 qualified to at least a level two or higher
12.NI 171: New Business Registration Rate
13.NI 191: Residual household waste per household
14.NI 187 - Tackling fuel poverty - % of people receiving income based benefits living in homes with a low energy efficiency rating

Medium priority
1. NI 8: Adult participation in sport and active recreation
2. NI 55: Obesity in primary school age children in reception
3. NI 111: First time entrants into the youth justice system aged 10 -17
4. NI 120: All age all cause mortality rate (All Persons)
5. NI 186: Per capita CO2 emissions in the LA area
6. NI -- 189 Flood and Costal Erosion Risk Management
7. NI 73 - Achievement at level 4 or above in both English and Maths at Key Stage 2
8. NI 83 achievement at level 5 or above in Science at Key Stage 3
9. NI 87 - Secondary school persistent absence rate
10.NI 3 - Civic participation in the local area
11.NI 11- Engagement in the Arts

Media sucesses this week

An impressive week for media coverage of Greens in Maidstone. We have had two radio news items, one on Radio Kent and one on KMFM plus two mentions in YourMaidstone and two in the Kent Messenger. This evening, Meridian news featured the Rainbow Warrior on the Medway and interviewed Geoff Meaden, leading Green Party member in Canterbury who also spoke at the FOE launch in Maidstone on Tuesday.

The Rainbow Warrior was followed by a police launch, the police clear still feel the need to keep high profile surveilance on extremist peace protestors, just in case those dangerous pacifists do something evil like sitting down in a road or paint letters on chimneys. I blame the fall in violent crime, the police have clearly got too much time on their hands???

Peter Carroll's version of reality?

Dear Stuart....

Violent crime is on the rise. Post offices are being closed. Older people have seen the value of their pensions sink.

Older people deserve a fair pension.

Peter Carroll
Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone


I received the above words in a mail shot letter from the LibDem PPC this morning. It is letters like this that make me ashamed to be involved with politics:

Violent Crime

Violent crime in Maidstone fell from 2006/07 to 2007/08, and I could find only one district in Kent where is rose during that period. From 2002 to 2006 an upward trend was seen, however this coincided with the introduction of recording standards by the police - so as the police had been counting differently the data is far less reliable. Police records have been considered poor sources of crime information (cue a barrage of comments?)

"violent crime has fallen by 41% since its peak in 1995" says the British Crime Survey, the report that is considered to give the definitive view on crime.

So what do I make of Carroll's statement that "violent crime is on the rise"? Clearly he wrong and it seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. Furthermore it looks like an attempt to scare the public into believing that we are living in a more violent society than we actually are. This is akin to the worst tabloid jounalism.

Post Offices

Well either he slept through the first part of the year or he knows something that I don't. Post office closures in Maidstone closed last winter. Claiming they are being closed is simply untrue, locally. I have no idea why he would make such a statement, other than to try to worry people that more may be closing.

Pensions

The value of pension funds that are based on shares are falling. I agree that they are. Mr Carroll seems to think that in the face of a global recession, he can make things better! Of course we should increase the level of the state pension, that is a given, but that will not affect those pension funds as the stock market collapses.

Maidstone Friends of the Earth Launch

I attended the launch of the Maidstone Friends of the Earth group last night. The event, set up thanks to the work of Rob Callaghan, was attended by about 12 people - which is relatively good for this type of meeting in Maidstone.

Rob had arranged three speakers, first up was Geoff Meaden of the Kingsnorth trial fame. Geoff talk about the effect of sea level rises on Kent, paying particular attention to Romney Marsh, Thanet and Seasalter.

Next was Hilary Newport of CPRE. Frustratingly for Hilary, her presentation was set up to cover the same topic, although she managed to get other information and a slightly different perspective into her talk. Hilary talked about how CPRE lobbied councils and government.

Finally, Matt Sellwood spoke as the FOE local groups coordinator for the south east. He also talked about the lobbying work of FOE.

After both had shown slides of Romney Marsh disappearing under the sea, I asked Hilary and Geoff about the two nuclear power stations that are on the far tip of the marsh. Apparently there is already a continuous job of shifting shingle to protect the stations from the sea. I asked a supplementary question about whether it would be wize to build a third nuke on the site as it gets consumed by the waves.

Old fashioned Keynsianism?

This is from Liberal Consipracy: "Darling now appears to be promising a return to good old fashioned pump priming economics, in a manner of which JMK would have approved."

They also quote this: "We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step ~ Prime minister James Callaghan, Labour Party conference speech 1976"

The problem with both approaches is that they don't control the money supply in the right way. Darling's pumping cash into the economy is fine, but where is he getting the money from? Borrowing it from whom? If he is borrowing it from banks and other financial institutions then is he increasing the money supply or simply moving it around?

If he is borrowing the money from private companies, then are they lending from their own reserves or are they creating un-backed loans? Lending from their reserves does not increase the money supply, lending by newly created loans increases the money supply, but why would you get private companies to do this when the Bank of England can do it for free?

A plan for successful restarting of the economy and for the money to be channeled into tackling the problem areas (e.g. energy and climate change) should look like:

1. The power of injecting new money into the economy should be transfered from commercial banks to the Bank of England, with commercial banks banks taking on a credit broker role for customers wanting new loans.

2. Government borrowing should be transferred to the Bank of England.

3. Electronic money should be made legal tender making its creation by anyone other than govt akin to counterfeiting.

4. The Bank of England should control the amount of money it lends to commercial banks to contract or expand the economy.

Leaving the economy in the hands of private, commercial banks has got us to where we are now. History is littered with examples of failed economies where governments have simply printed money; the above plan is not that, it is about tightening the control of the money supply.

History is about to be come littered with failed economies that have followed the commercial road to monetary policy and Iceland seems to have been first.

Freedom of Information on Collection of Information

The Freedom of Information Act is great, I use it regularly to get useful information from public bodies, but I take my hat off to Becky Hogge of the Open Rights Group. I shall be plagiarising her words in my future FOI requests! This is copied from WhatDoTheyKnow on the 'Intercept Modernisation Programme' - the very worrying database that will log everyone's calls and emails etc. More on that in a future post but in the meantime this FOI request sets the benchmark:

Dear Sir or Madam,

According to a written answer submitted to the Earl of Northesk on 8 July 2008 by Lord West of Spithead, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office:

"the objective of the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) is to maintain the UK's lawful intercept and communications data capabilities in the changing communications environment. It is a cross-government programme, led by the Home Office, to ensure that our capability to lawfully intercept and exploit data when fighting crime and terrorism is not lost. It was established in response to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister's national security remit in 2006."

The following information is requested under the Freedom of Information Act for the period from January 2007 to date:

-Agenda and minutes of all meetings of the Intelligence and Security Liaison Group (and prior and subsequent re-namings of this entity);

-Agenda and minutes of all meetings of the Government-Industry Forum (once called the Government Industry Encryption Forum);

-Any feasibility studies, or budgetary forecasts produced by the Home Office or their consultants relating to the Intercept Modernisation Programme, including breakdown in terms of costs to the taxpayer and cost to private industry;

-Draft or other plans for the technical architecture of the system;

-Agenda and minutes of any meetings, other than those mentioned above, between communications service providers and the Home Office on the subject of the Intercept Modernisation Programme; and

-Copies of correspondence regarding the Intercept Modernisation Programme, including expressions of concern from either communications service providers, civil servants, elected officials or civil society.

Please include copies of material which you hold in the form of paper and electronic records, including emails.

This information should be supplied by email, unless the total size is greater than 10MB, in which case a CD-ROM is preferable. If you are not able to provide the information in this format then please explain why not, when you provide the information in another format.

If you decide to withhold any of the information requested, please explain clearly why you have done so in your response, by reference to the legislation. If your decision to withhold is based upon an evaluation of the public interest then please clearly explain which public interests you have considered and why you have decided that the public interest in maintaining the exception(s) outweighs the public interest in releasing the information.

If you are proposing to make a charge for providing the information requested then please provide full details in advance together with an explanation of any proposed charge.

We look forward to hearing from you promptly, as required by the legislation, and in any case within 20 working days. We would be grateful if you could acknowledge safe receipt of this request by email.

Yours faithfully

Becky Hogge Executive Director, Open Rights Group

Kent County Council investment woes will hit services

Kent County Council has investments of over £50 million in three Icelandic financial institutions. The Government is suggesting it will not compensate local councils for any losses incurred as a result of such investments (1).

Stuart Jeffery, Kent’s Green Party’s Campaigns Officer, comments:

“Kent County Council should have been more careful. The £50 million in investments in three Icelandic financial institutions is the largest exposure of all the UK local councils and other public bodies which invested in Iceland’s collapsing banks. Unfortunately, Kent council tax payers may now have to suffer for the County Council’s mistakes, since the Government may not be willing to cover all of the shortfall. Bearing in mind, Conservative pledges not to increase council taxes, taxpayers are likely to suffer through severe cuts to services. Kent’s people may lose out even further as the financial crisis continues to impact upon spending and employment. To move quickly away from recession, we need a ‘Green New Deal.’(2) This would require:

• Massive investment in renewable energy and wider environmental transformation in the UK, leading to,
• The creation of thousands of new ‘green collar’ jobs
• Reining in reckless aspects of the finance sector but making low-cost capital available to fund the UK’s green economic shift
• Building a new alliance between environmentalists, industry, agriculture, and unions to put the interests of the real economy ahead of those of footloose finance.

“Kent County Council needs to clean up its investments in general. It is still investing in tobacco and arms sales. A sustainable investment programme based on the Green New Deal ideas must include a commitment to ethical investment for the long-term.”

Ends

Notes:

1. KCC, according to the Guardian, have investments in three Icelandic financial institutions of £50 million in total making them the most exposed of only 20 local councils to have Iceland-based funds.
See also Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4910126.ece
which notes: Kent County Council said that it had £50 million deposited in Icelandic banks £15 million with Glitnir Bank, £17 million with Landsbanki and just over £18 million in its British subsidiary, Heritable.
ditto the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3162204/Financial-crisis-Turmoil-in-Iceland-puts-councils-funds-at-risk.html
2. Caroline Lucas MEP participated in the team which created the Green New Deal report, available at the New Economics Foundation website: http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/

Proud to be Polish

Did anyone see Bobski the Builder on Channel 4's Cutting Edge? I spent an hour cringing and cursing at the treatment of Jarek the Polish builder at the hands of the public. He built a superb extension for a couple who were simply nasty to him. The build was of excellent quality and Jarek lost money on it, mostly because the guy was too nice. I hope that Channel 4 recompense him and that others watching the programme seek him out to do work for them (this did happen with the electrician who was bought in to wire up the new build - he went on to hire Jarek).

The Polish built extension went up in good time and was beautifully made.

By contrast the British builder was unhelpful, slow and shoddy. He charged nearly twice as much and took more than twice as long. There are some very good British builders, I know lots of good ones, and I suspect that C4 chose a bad one.

This was a shameful inditement of British society. The programme looked like it could have been set up to expose these traits - if so it did that with bells on.

Maidstone has a thriving Polish community, thankfully! However, having been to Poland I found that they don't cater for vegetarians so sadly I'll be staying here for now...

Nationalising money

The monetary system is surprisingly simple yet is shrouded in the mystery of 'financial instruments' to make it seem inaccessible.

All money is created by debt in a method akin to double entry book keeping. When a loan is taken out the bank opens a 'loan' account for that person, debits it with a sum of money (the total loan value) and pays the money into the person's current account allowing them to spend the money. Interest is debited from the loan account each month and credited to the bank as payment, creating further money to enter circulation.

Cash is created in the same way with notes being printed and entering circulation backed by a debit in an account which is in turn backed by government securities. Whether money is created virtually as a figure in an account or as cash, it is balanced by a debit to an account. The Bank of England prints notes and puts an equivalent debit to its cash account, when high street banks need cash they debit their cash account and credit the BoE, the BoE credits its cash account (i.e. reducing the negative balance) and hands the cash to the high street bank. Cash is simply another form of credit which is created through, and backed, by debt.

**What should happen**

1. The power of injecting new money into the economy should be transfered from commercial banks to the Bank of England, with commercial banks banks taking on a credit broker role for customers wanting new loans.

2. Government borrowing should be transferred to the Bank of England.

3. Electronic money should be made legal tender making its creation by anyone other than govt akin to counterfeiting.

4. The Bank of England should control the amount of money it lends to commercial banks to contract or expand the economy.

Government borrowing should be replaced by Primary Credit - credit that forms the money supply. Primary Credit is a simply loan account created by the central bank that attracts no interest and requires no repayment (one account is debited and another credited - the credited account is the money that enters the economy). This is akin to the process by which cash is created. This Primary Credit required no interest repayment by government, which currently pays around £30 billion on the government borrowing (at 2007). Primary Credit can provide a stable constant in the monetary system.

Primary Credit would eventually provide the total money for the economy to function. Retail banks stop creating their own loans based on customer deposits (the Fractional Reserve system) and starts to act as a credit broker only, by borrowing money from the Bank of England and brokering it to businesses and people.

The level of current retail bank loans are gradually wound down as they are repaid or could be transfered to the Bank of England in one block. Either way the money supply stays constant (but could be increased or decreased at the government's request).

Electronic money becomes legal tender. Any bank lending money that it has not brokered from the Bank of England or doesn't already own would be guilty of counterfeiting.

The amount of money in the system is then easily controlled through the amount of Primary Credit. If the government increases the Primary Credit the money supply increases; if it repays the Primary Debt from a higher level of taxation than spending, the money supply decreases.

The government holds the strings on credit - banks have to borrow from the Bank of England rather than through interbank lending... any credit crunch would be the fault of the gov't and within the gift of the gov't to resolve.

I have put this on my new wiki (these are great for setting out one's thoughts).

Much of this is adapted from Huber and Roberson's book: Creating New Money

John Humphries learns how money is created

Three interviews with financial experts on Radio 4 this morning. The first with John Humphries was excellent. The interviewee explained, to the astonishment of JH, that it is commercial banks that create money, not the government.

Many of us have known this for some time (I worked in banking as my first career), but it is only now that people are really starting to question what is happening in our economic system, how it works and why we are in such a mess.

Banks simply create money by lending out money deposited with them while retaining the account balances. If I pay in £100, they credit my account and can lend this money out to someone else who spending it, the money is paid in again and the cycle continues with the account balances and loans getting bigger and bigger. The process is fractional reserve banking and has been in operation for 500 years.

The fact that private banks have created 97% of the £1.7 trillion in the UK economy helps explain some of the problems. If I printed money, I'd be arrested - somehow banks get away with it. Surely it is the government's role to create money.

"The process of money creation is so simple, the mind is repulsed" - JK Galbraith

"What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one?" - Bertolt Brecht

Empty Homes in Maidstone

Wrote to the leaders of the LibDems and Tories in Maidstone yesterday calling for action on empty homes. I discovered a couple of weeks back that there are 1610 empty homes in the borough (twice as high as 2006), the council has a target to bring 38 back into use each year, has not issued any Empty Dwellings Management Orders and there are over 2000 people waiting for social housing (three times more than 10 years ago).

Of course the building of new houses has also collapsed with the recession (I opposed the increased targets backed by the Tories and LibDems, but always accepted the original and more moderate levels as necessary). MBC needs to take urgent action...

Dear Councillors Garland and Wilson,

Despite the Empty Homes Strategy being agreed last year the number of empty homes has risen further with April 2008 double the 2006 figure. The number of households awaiting social housing has increased three fold over the last 10 years, yet the council does not seem to be exercising its powers to bring empty homes back into use - no Empty Homes Management Orders have been issued.

There are around 1600 empty homes with perhaps a third empty for more than 6 months. House building is grinding to a halt with the recession, so urgent action is needed to make the most of properties that are empty.

Please could you take action to reduce the social housing need and bring more empty homes back into use.

Stuart Jeffery
Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone and the Weald

Toxic Asset Dump

I have added my signature to this great letter from my friend Richard on Toxic Asset Dumps.

The Editor, the Guardian

Your leader, (Bonfire of the certainties Oct 14^th) is dazzlingly clear and accurate in its diagnosis and prescriptions. You are right to say that new financial products must be approved by the regulators, in the same way as new pharmaceutical products must be approved. To take the analogy a step further, if the health service becomes aware that a new drug has toxic side effects, it is taken off the market. Derivatives, particularly Credit Default Swaps, have toxic side effects to the financial blood stream, not least in destroying trust. And they are infectious. If a corporation succumbs, out of its corpse crawls a Hydra of claims against the gamblers who made the wrong call on that corporation’s health. Ironically, given that some claim to act as insurance policies, they have the property of multiplying debt and magnifying risk. The magnification is so big that the total “value” of the derivatives sector is more than $596 trillion, which is about ten times the amount of foreign debt owed by every country in the world. This is an absurd amount, psychotic in the sense that it is a notion completely divorced from reality. It is unconscionable that the “products” of a tiny handful of financial gamblers and gamesters should endanger the livelihood of everyone in the world. The financial instruments that they have produced and profited from now threaten the banking system with a tsunami of odious debt. They must therefore be withdrawn from the financial market if that market is to survive. This is not going to be quite so easy as taking a drug off the market, but it can be done.

First, their legality should be carefully reviewed, both in general and also in particular instances. In general, the people creating these instruments have been behaving as companies, but have been operating outside of company law. Second, an institution, (Willem Buiter suggested it should be called a Toxic Asset Dump, TAD), should be set up, to act as a receiving and clearing house offering an amnesty for banks and institutions who have doubts about whether they still wish to hold them on their books. In this institution the value – or otherwise – of the “assets” can be analysed, and their legality – or otherwise – can be assessed. From what we learn in the TAD, ways and means can be devised to subject toxic derivatives to a controlled deflation.

Brown and Darling deserve credit in that their actions have stabilised the banks for a time. They must now use this time to take action to defuse the derivatives time bomb. We must burn the derivatives before they burn us.

Dr Richard Lawson
http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/

Complications

The economic crisis continues to exercise minds as much in the Green Party as every where else. Economics, we seem to be told, is seems is a vast, intangible array of concepts that ordinary people can't get to grips with and best left to the experts. Hmm... hasn't that led us to where we are now? I think many of the concepts are actually rather easy to understand but banksters (and I used to be one...) have invented a whole host of financial instruments with complicated names so that they can create more money.

This short film is fairly useful in its analysis of money, however I think there is a major flaw in one part of its thinking, I think it completely misunderstands what interest is and does. I will come back to that in later blogs and in a wiki I've started to create.

In the meantime, the next wave of problems just crashing down on us is Credit Default Swaps. The fallout from Lehman Brothers means that debts of $360 billion are likely to appear on other banks books very shortly, washing away their money. A bit like a tsunami, or even lots of them.

It will all be OK next year

I have seen a couple of commentaries claiming that the current economic troubles will rumble for the rest of the year and then resolve themselves later in 2009.

I'm sure the IMF are very clever people to predict that the recession will only last 12 months, but as other reports talk of the worst economic crisis for 80 years, I have to question their judgement. After all if these economists were really that good they wouldn't have invented a range of financial instruments that were as flakey as Palin's politics.

Iceland seems to have gone bankrupt, along with a range of banks some of which have been nationalised and under written. People are describing this as a domino effect, but a domino chain is easy to stop - you just have to introduce breaks in the system. Global banking is more like a ponzi scheme or pyramid. You whip away one brick and there is little to stop a significant collape.

This is not all bad. Lessons need to be learnt and new systems need to replace the old. A shift to nationalised banking with the scrapping of iffy financial instruments would be a great start.

Maidstone's recycling moving slowly forward

Press release from us on the new recycling arrangements:

Maidstone Greens have welcomed the announcement that the roll out of the delayed recycling scheme has finally been agreed. The scheme will complete its roll out by May next year and provide most households with doorstep collections of paper, cardboard, tins and plastics. Maidstone Greens remain unhappy that the scheme has taken so long to implement and does not include free compostable waste collections in biodegradable sacks. They now want to see business waste and packaging tackled.

Stuart Jeffery, Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone: "We have been campaigning for years to get improvements to the appallingly poor doorstep collection of recyclables in Maidstone and therefore welcome the announcement that Maidstone is finally going to catch up with the rest of the country.

"Doorstep collections of unsorted recyclables are the way forward in tackling our immense waste problems and if local government had got it right years ago they might never have needed the incinerator at Allington.

"It is also a shame that they continue to discourage garden waste recycling by charging for its collection through the sale of plastic sacks that don't compost. These sacks should be free and they should not go in the general waste to be incinerated.

"It is now time to ensure that businesses are able to recycle their waste easily and cheaply as they account for a high proportion of overall waste. It is also essential that packaging is reduced in the same way that carrier bags are beginning to be. It is far better to reduce waste than to recycle it."

LibDems join the road safety campaign in Fant

The papers have reported that the LibDems staged a protest on Gatland Lane against the speed of traffic at the junction with Fant Lane. While it is good to have cross party support for our campaign it seems, perhaps, that they are a little twitched by the diligent work we have been doing knocking on every door along the Fant rat run to collect our petition signatures.

It is also frustrating that they have represented the ward at both county and borough level for many years and the road safety problem still remains. The Lib Dems have had plenty of time to tackle this issue and have failed to do so; it's time to give others a chance.

When we were canvassing earlier this year, almost every person on the rat run from Bower Place to Glebe Lane wanted action taken to reduce the speed and volume of traffic. I have witnessed countless cars speeding down all four roads.

We need to recognise that these roads are where people live and should be driven along slowly and not used as cut throughs. We need a blanket 20mph limit across Maidstone and especially in Fant.

Express claims oil to fall

"America finally rescues banks and now petrol could fall to 74p a litre" was the front page headline of the Daily Express yesterday; the article goes on to suggest oil prices falling to $30. I don't read the Express (although it has an excellent crossword) but the headline caught my eye as it defies all logic.

Colin Cambell of ASPO has predicted, in his latest newsletter, peak oil production to occur this year at 84 million barrels of oil equivalent a day. The peak shown in his graphs is more of a table top mountain and oil production looks flat and stable for a few years. He also states that there are unknowns with biofuel production that will skew the peak and production from oil sands is only viable with prices over $100.

My previous predictions on oil prices were before the current world recession (damn, should have seen that coming). The recession has reduced demand for oil and helped the price to fall from its previous high. With demand and supply being very close and the elasticity of price being low the price of oil is swinging wildly.

The Express's claims that the bail out will reset the world oil prices is therefore bizarre. If the economy is righted by the bail out (which it won't be) and begins back on its continuous growth path, oil prices will rocket again as demand rises forcing us back into recession. Boom and bust at increasing frequency - and a great example of why continuous economic growth cannot happen on a finite planet.

If the economy stays in recession then oil prices will remain low for a few years as demand stay low, however the large reserve of oil sands will not be exploited until the price exceeds $100 and this could act as a balancer to keep the price at around $100. Biofuels are the other big unknown, if they are increased then there is more oil supply, prices will fall and people will starve reducing demand further. If oil consumption stays at around its current level for any more that a couple of years irreparable damage will be done to the climate. This is worsened by a switch to coal.

The only acceptable future is one of managed energy descent and renewables.

Nationalise or bust

The key industries that support our lives should be under government control, i.e. nationalised.

We are lucky to currently have a predominately nationalised health service (albeit one that Labour have been activity privatising) - a health service that, overall, we are proud of. Sadly the Tories privatised gas, electricity, communication and water (what is more essential to life than water?).

Of course we need to need to bring all of these back under national control, however at present Brown is working through an imaginative scheme with the industry that sits at the bedrock of our economy, banking - and he's nationalising it slowly.

While politicians make mistakes as they are (except for a few notable cases) human, they can be held to account and they should be elected to serve society. They are best placed to steer the economy in the direction it needs to go. Why should we allow organisations driven by the need to make profits to have such a tight grip on economy?

Nationalise the banks now, make them accountable to national and local government. Strip them of the profiteering. Pay their workers a fair wage for the work they do. Incentivise and motivate them to act in the interests of society. Take away the shareholders unalienable right to demand profit at any cost. Make the economy work for people do not let the people work for the economy.