Mark Thomas in Maidstone

Mark Thomas's gig in Maidstone was superb last night. The theatre was packed and buzzing!

The People's Manifesto now has a commitment to ensure that nurse whistle blowers don't get struck off for speaking out (or filming). This policy easily beat a commitment to copy Jackie Smith in to all emails sent on a day in June (to save her having to set up the huge database to spy on us).

My suggestions that terrorism should be banned, elections should be done under proportional representation and that all tupperware should be blue got nowhere...

However, I do now have a signed copy of his book to auction at the quiz night next week.

20mph Maidstone launch photos

Photos of the 20mph Maidstone campaign launch on Saturday.

Cranie, the North West's best chance to keep the BNP out

My hat off to Peter Cranie, our seriously hard working Green hope for the Euro's in the North West. He is standing on an anti-racist ticket and has the backing of Respect. The Euros elect under proportional representation and the race in the North West will be to see which party comes fourth and gets the final Euro seat. This race is between the Greens and the BNP.

The way the electoral system works means that to stop Nick Griffin getting in people should give their vote to the Green rather than Lab, Libs or Tories. Four parties will return MEPs so it is vital that the Greens occupy that 4th slot (or 3rd...) to keep the BNP out of Europe.

Peter's new campaign website is here: http://www.stopnickgriffin.org.uk/

If you have friends or relatives in the North West, then please talk to them about this and spread the word.

Glimmer is not good enough

I'm puzzled by Greenpeace's apparent welcome on Ed Milliband's decision to build coal power stations with only 25% carbon capture. Milliband has given the go ahead for up to four experimental plants that:

1. will emit more CO2 than current gas powered ones
2. will create electricity from a source that will run out, i.e. is not renewable
3. divert funds and effort from building renewable power and reducing energy consumption
4. will only have full carbon capture fitted if it works
5. are unlikely to be decommissioned if CCS doesn't work.

He is talking about two different types of CCS and we can only assume that one version might work or might work better than the other which is why there are to be two types of power station. So if one works will the other just continue as dirty coal? Will it be retro fitted with the other type? What if both types don't work? I can't see them being decommissioned.

So why are Greenpeace seemingly backing Milliband's decision? Their suggestion that he is showing a 'glimmer of leadership' may be true, but what the world needs is a bit more of a glimmer, we need a dazzling bright light.

If the government can spend hundreds of billions on buying banks, it can also spend enough to make the UK low consumption and renewable.

Budget shows that grey parties haven't a clue about money

All three main parties have become fixated with, and enslaved by, a social construct that they clearly don't quite understand, i.e. money.

They want economic growth which equates to more consumption and is generally regarded to need more money, yet all of our money is created through borrowing.

They say consumer debt is too high, government debt is too high, business are in debt, etc. and seem to want to reduce the levels of debt, which begs the question where is their desire for more money going to come from?

It is time to accept that we make debt OK (i.e. reduce the need for fast repayment, high interest rates and excess profits being made from lending) or we simply get government to create the money and spend it on useful things (obviously with strict controls over fraction reserves and derivatives to prevent run away inflation).

Fortify Cafe

Forget the budget, Maidstone has just got its first town centre vege cafe: Fortify Cafe. No website yet but they have a facebook page.

The food's great too!

Earth Day, Eon and 20mph

Earth Day today. It is ridiculous that we have this given the scale of environmental problem that the world faces! Earth day should be all day, every day. Marc's cartoon says it all.

Earth day comes a couple of days after the revelations that the government is more support of big business than the people whom it is supposed to serve. Ok, that's not a revelation but it has to be time to vote out the weakest government and put a Green one in place.

Meanwhile the tide is turning on the Kent Messenger debate on 20mph Maidstone. After the ire from petrol heads, the KM have made a second story out of it and it is filling with much more supportive comments!

Campaign to make Maidstone's streets safer

Good coverage of the launch of our 20mph Maidstone campaign so far. Broadcasts going out on KMFM and Radio Kent, and it is on the Kent Online website.

The launch is this on Saturday 25th April outside County Hall at 10am where we will be handing out leaflets and getting signatures on a petition.

I was unsurprised but still saddened by some of the comments on the KM website. The way some people react to anything that threatens their desire to drive quickly is predictable, but it was good to get a couple of positive comments too.

One day the petrol heads will wake up and smell the diesel??? Well at least I hope that they can see that there are other ways to enjoy life rather than endangering others.

If you are around on Saturday, please join us. The Farmers' Market will be there to.

Government in bed with EON

More revelations about the policing of Kingsnorth in today's Grauniad. Apparently the police handed documents to EON:

• BERR officials passed a strategy document belonging to the "environmental protest community" to E.ON, saying: "If you haven't seen this then you will be interested in its contents."

• Government officials forwarded a Metropolitan police intelligence document to E.ON, detailing the movements and whereabouts of climate protesters in the run-up to demonstration.

The collusion between DBERR, the police and the private energy company is appalling - but almost unsurprising. That DBERR could colude so blatantly with EON demonstrates the government's aim to send society and the planet to hell in a handcart.

Government and the police need to serve the people in this country and uphold the law, not continue to break it at the behest of big business and the gods of economic growth.

Tomlinson's coroner - how did he get it so wrong?

The news that Ian Tomlinson died of an abdominal haemorrhage and that a police office attacked him a few minutes before has been making the blogosphere rattle for the last 24 hours. The incident that led to Mr Tomlinson's death is shocking and horrific but probably expected given the tactics and attitude of the police, but what is not being explored is how the first coroner could have got it so wrong.

I'm not a coroner and have never seen an autopsy, but as someone with a clinical qualification (I'm a registered nurse) I have to ask how he could find a substantial amount of blood in the abdominal cavity and then conclude that the death was due to coronary artery disease, i.e. a heart attack.

I suspect that we will never know whether there was any pressure put on him by the police but there can only be three possibilities for him to come to that conclusion:

1. It is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to
2. He was pressured by the police or some other person or organisation
   
3. He is incompetant

Had the video footage of him being attacked not been made public a second post-mortem would have not been ordered and Tomlinson's death would have remained due to a heart attack. If this post-mortem had been a cover up then it may have been sucessful without the video evidence.

20mph Maidstone

GREEN DAY OF ACTION FOR A 20 MPH SPEED LIMIT IN MAIDSTONE

Maidstone Greens will be launching a "20mph Maidstone" campaign on the Day of Green Action in Maidstone on 25th April. The campaign is for all residential roads to have a 20mph speed limit. The campaign has the backing of the national "20's Plenty For Us" campaign and follows successes in places like Norwich, Portsmouth and Oxford. The launch will be outside County Hall at 10am and will feature Kent's two Green Euro candidates, Hazel and Steve Dawe, and Maidstone's Green general election candidate, Stuart Jeffery, and many of the County Council candidates plus some large 20mph signs.

Stuart Jeffery, Green Party general election candidate for Maidstone says:

"The vast majority of people want cars travelling past their homes to go slower and the public backing for 20mph speed limits is overwhelming. Hard evidence shows that cars travelling at 20mph are much safer than those going at 30mph, yet most residential streets in Maidstone allow cars to travel too quickly. This, coupled with the continued rise in deaths on Maidstone's roads over the past few years, shows the real need to sort out this unacceptable problem - yet little action is being taken by local government.

"The proportion of children walking to school has declined dramatically over the past 20 years and parents' most quoted reason for not letting them walk is road safety. With half of all fatal and serious accidents happening on 30mph roads, evidence that reducing speeds to 20mph reduces accidents by 60% and with fatal road accidents in Maidstone tripling between 2005 and 2007, the need for a 20mph Maidstone has never been greater."

"We will be collecting signatures petitioning local government to follow the leads of more progressive councils around the country and we will be handing our stickers for people to display in their cars and windows showing their support. We are also urging people to sign our petition online at www.20mphmaidstone.org.uk


* More than half of road deaths and serious injuries occur on roads with 30 mph limits (Ref: RoSPA)
* Britain has the third highest rate of pedestrian road fatalities out of 10 Western European countries surveyed by the AA (Ref: The AA)
* The proportion of children (aged 5-10) walking to school has fallen by 27% in the last 20 years (Ref: DfT 67% in 1985 to 49% in 2005)
* British parents consistently cite traffic danger as the main reason why their children are not allowed to cycle or walk to school (Ref: National Travel Survey)
* Lowering urban and residential speed limits to 20 mph has been found to decrease accidents by 60% (Ref: Transport Research Laboratory)
* Fatal accidents on Maidstone's roads: 2005 - 3; 2006 - 5; 2007 - 9 (Kent County Council)

Traffic calming in Maidstone

Maidstone's roads are unbelievable as are some of the drivers.

I saw two drivers mount and drive along the pavement to get past a queues of traffic. Frustratingly I couldn't see their number plates so I couldn't report them to the police. I then witnessed a driver overtake a line of queuing cars about 200m long, on the wrong side of the road only to try to pull in at the far end... the driver came past the queue at high speed too. Any pedestrian would have been minced.

I know that traffic is annoying but these dangerous and illegal practices must stop. Where was the law - nowhere to be seen.

Rant over...

Mark Thomas endorses the Green Party

Mark Thomas is endorsing the Green Party! Cheers Mark - we're looking forward to your Maidstone gig on 28th April.



Please note though, I don't wear sandals.

Credit Union for Kent - Letter to the Kent on Sunday

Letter to the Kent on Sunday

Dear Editor,

It is good news that Kent County Council is finally going to set up a Kent wide Credit Union. Publicly owned and democratically controlled banking is the only way forward for banking. We have all witnessed what happens when you let profits and greed take control of an unregulated economic system and KCC has first hand experience of this with its huge losses in Iceland. Let us hope, therefore, that they have learned their lesson on how to look after public money when they open the credit union.

Of course, KCC should do a lot more good than just providing savings and loans. A fully functioning, local government run bank for the people of Kent would be useful to many and hopefully more safe that most of the high street ones.

KCC should also move many of its own investments away from unethical companies such as those that manufacture arms and tobacco, and invest in green industries. Investing in energy saving schemes, producing renewable energy, effective public transport and local food production will not just provide a more healthy return on investments but will also ensure a better future for us all while providing much needed jobs now.

Stuart Jeffery
Green Party general election candidate for Maidstone and the Weald

Fant Wildlife

Spent an enjoyable morning on Saturday running in a new pair of wellies while working on the Fant Wildlife site. If you're in Maidstone you must pop down there, it is hidden away and very special.

The website is here http://www.freewebs.com/fantwildlife/

Anti terror billboards

I'm sure we have all seen these new billboards going up telling us to spy on our neighbours 'cause they are probably terrorists. I find the whole campaign just another appalling attempt to scare us into subservience.

This great website (http://jamesholden.net/billboard/) allows you to put your own words on them. I sure there is something funny to say about the lack of recycling in that town...

G20 Death -- Fix British Protest Policing

This is the latest call for action by Avaaz: G20 Death -- Fix British Protest Policing

"Peaceful protest is an essential part of our democracy. But at the G20 demonstrations last week it was threatened by flawed policing -- targeting the peaceful majority instead of isolating the handful of troublemakers. Watch one of the many videos which have shocked the nation, and let's stop this from ever happening again. "

The death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest is appalling. The video evidence shows that the police are no longer facilitating peaceful protest but are actively trying to stop it. Please sign the petition and let us hope that the masked policeman that attacked an innocent bystander is brought to justice also also that his bosses are held to account too. They are clearly sanctioning illegal attempts to intimidate protestors and trying to stop legitimate protests.

Next global recession due shortly

Happy headlines on the Energy Bulletin: The IEA warns of shortages - "The next oil crisis is coming"

It is suggesting that oil prices will hit a new high in 2010 as the global recession eases and growth restarts in earnest. As reserves are falling and production will not meet demand, the price of oil will soar again creating inflation and recession. Boom and bust and bust.

The only solution is to kick the fossil fuels habit quickly, to accept that economic contraction is necessary and good as long as it is a managed. We can't carry on consuming at our current levels, therefore the economic has to reduce in size. We either do it in a chaotic and unfair way that means poorer people suffer while the wealthy are protected or we do it in a managed way ensuring that jobs are created in new sectors that consume less and have more intrinsic value to society.

What we don't want is to replace one form of rampant consumerism with another. There is no point is paying people to scrap their cars so they can replace them with new ones just to keep an industry going, or pumping money into electric cars rather than public transport.

Economic recession doesn't have to hurt too much as long as it is managed properly. All change is uncomfortable as we are creatures of habit, but building communities based on localism and ensuring that goods are of a high quality and built to last (no built in obsolescent) have to be good for society.

The Other Taxpayers Alliance

This is a superbly naughty website: The Other Taxpayers Alliance. They have registered their web address as http://www.taxpayersalliance.org/ which is wonderfully close to the trolls' The Taxpayers Alliance website at http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/

Check out their random quote generator (the quick reference tool for Daily Hate Mail journalists). Quotes such as "It's scandalous that taxpayers are having to pick up the bill for this." and "It's an outrage that taxpayers are expected to stump up for this. Ordinary people are angry at the widening gap between their pay and those in the public sector."

£165 to those who need it not £1b to those who don't

Yesterday Jean Lambert announced the Green pledge to increase the non-means tested state pension to £165 a week. It was National Pensions Action Day yesterday and it is great to see such a strong statement from the Party.

In contrast, the Indy reports on the £1 billion nuclear white elephant. There are so many reasons to say no to nukes and this is one of them. £1 billion would go a long way to funding renewable energy, to insulate lots of houses, to increase public transport. It could also fund and increase in the state pension for 300,000 pensioners for one year (adjusted for rounding errors on my back of fag packet).

I know where I'd not want my money spent...

MPs expenses in Kent

Letter to the Kent Messenger in response to their piece on MP's expenses this week. This is the link to how the Maidstone MP voted on allowances last year.

Dear Editor,

It was good to read that Ms Widdecombe is one of the lower claimants for MPs expenses in Kent, especially as she voted against MPs expenses being made public last year.

The whole system of expenses is a mess, as almost everyone agrees, and the mess has clearly been driven by a desire to mask pay rises. As someone who commutes to London from time to time, there is simply no need for any MP in West Kent to claim a second home allowance. Although the train service from Maidstone is not great it is certainly easy to get to and from Westminster in a reasonable time.

We urgently need transparency for MPs expenses. These people hold immense power and can only be accountable to the electorate if we know what they are getting up to! It is no wonder people are disenfranchised when they are kept in the dark by politicians.

G20 protest lies

The police violence and intimidation seems to be becoming the norm at peaceful protests. It continues to shock me that policing is increasingly political and designed to restrict freedom of speech.

The lies that are being told are thoroughly depressing with the police claiming that there was violence in the G20 climate camp (clearly during the Buddhist meditation) and that bottles were hurled at the police trying to help the man who died (despite independent witness statements to the contrary).

I couldn't attend the protests, but many of my friends were there and I thank you all for sticking up for the truth.