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

Qualitative Easing

Quantitative easing is all the rage today. The Bank of England pumped £75 billion into the economy and reduced interest rates to 0.5% - both actions should be applauded but we need to ask where the £75 bn is going.

Simply increasing the amount of money available to commercial banks to borrow from the BoE and then lend to customers, means that the country suffers unfocused reflation. While there is clearly a need for businesses to gain access to borrowing, the government should use a large proportion of the money to stimulate green economies.

We need a national insulation programme, massive investment in renewables and public transport. Ploughing money into these areas would reflate the economy and create the green jobs that the country needs. This investment could be thought of qualitative easing perhaps?

Maidstone Core Strategy consultation

Apologies for taking a whole week off blogging - have been writing a response to Maidstone Borough Council's Draft Core Strategy which is currently open for consultation at present.

In keeping with its Tory masters everywhere, our Tory filled council seems happy to comment on the economic crisis but has no solutions to it. They seem happy to propose to cut services (quite how removing more money from the economy and making more people unemployed will help is beyond me). They also suggest that it would be cheaper to jointly provide some services with neighbouring areas.

Of course, if it was cheaper to jointly provide services with neighbours then I have to ask why haven't they done this before, the savings could have been channeled in to enhancing other council services. I suspect the answer is simply that the jointly provided services will reduce both cost and provision, and it is clear that the Tories are only doing this to slash jobs.

The draft Core Strategy is unbelievably light in ideas, fortunately I think Maidstone Greens have a few! I will publish our submission here once we have agreed it, but it focuses on:

• localism
• pump priming green jobs aka Green New Deal
• improving democracy and communities
• reducing carbon dependency
• increasing alternatives to car use
  

Landmark day at Green Party Conference

On Friday Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsay were elected the first leader and deputy leaders of the Green Party. Yesterday Caroline gave one of the most rousing speeches that I have ever heard.

She told the conference: "Just three companies - BP, Centrica and Shell - together made £1,000 profit every second over the first six months of this year.

"These corporations are robbing from the poor to give to the rich and they know it. And it's about time they learned that, in a progressive democracy, there is no place for robber barons."

Gratuitous photo of Caroline and me:

There are still a few people in the party who don't like leaders, but I have never been more certain that The Green Party has done the right thing electing Caroline and Adrian.

Caroline's speech came straight after a panel session on the Green New Deal with Ann Pettifor, Colin Hines, Jeremy Leggett and Tony Juniper. Amazingly inspirational, the deal calls for nationalisation of money creation (currently in the hands of banks) and the rapid creation of a green industry to reduce our carbon dependency.

Keeping people warm, reducing their fuel bills, providing jobs and stabalising the economy are just a few of the many positive outcomes suggested by the GND.

A Green New Deal

I need to plug this fantastic paper published by the New Economics Foundation. A Green New Deal is an impressive view of the crunches that are hitting the world and sets out what we can do about it.

From their website: "The global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’: a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and soaring energy prices underpinned by encroaching peak oil. It is increasingly clear that these three overlapping events threaten to develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression, with potentially devastating consequences."

The credit crunch hit us all last year, with the ensuing economic downturn. The political spin on the effects is as expected "it will be over by Christmas" etc. although they seem to be getting a bit more wobbly as time goes on. They might be right if it weren't for the energy crunch that is driving inflation up. Fuel and food are far higher than this time last year, and people are feeling it with inflation at 4.4% in July.

The climate crunch is slower to feel, Al Gore's analogy of 'how to boil a frog' is all too true. The effects are being felt: 150,000 deaths each year due to climate change; environmental refugees arriving in the UK; today's reports from the Indy on rapid coastal erosion - and a further interesting piece with welcome comments by Lord Smith the new head of the Environment Agency; and jellyfish invasions around the coast. The climate crunch might be less obvious to individuals but it is starting to get noticed here.

The energy crunch, peak oil, peak gas, peak coal etc, has had a stark effect over the past 12 months. Fuel prices soared in the spring (£1.40 for a litre of diesel) and seem to have abated as the economic downturn bites. The volatility of oil prices must not be underestimated and the high prices are driven by consumption and demand which has lowered a little in the past few months. The economics of oil mean that uneconomic supplies become viable as prices rise increasing the volatility further. Gas supplies are particularly fragile in the UK and while we have some coal left the speed at which all the ancient stored sunlight is being used up means that we need renewables more urgently than ever before.