New Labour is now the nasty party

George Monbiot said it - the third Heathrow runway is New Labour's final betrayal. But it is one of many betrayals of Labour party members, Labour supporters, the left and progressives everywhere that have taken place during New Labour's reign. It has taken many years for many people to fully understand the scale and depth of the betrayal. In 1997 voters elected a Thatcherite party to replace an er... Thatcherite party. But most of them didn't know it at the time. If they had would New Labour have won so convincingly?

So what can we include in the long list of New Labour betrayals and failures? - Well they failed to re-nationalise the railways; they failed to stop the private finance initiative; they introduced a raft of legislation criminalising everyone from peaceful protesters to smokers; ID cards; surveillance of all emails and telephone calls; privatisation of education; the destruction of the Royal Mail; mass post office closures; blocking European social legislation; failure to have a referendum on the European Union constitution; giving the police ‘police state’ powers; pandering to religious extremists; shameful treatment of asylum seekers; failure to provide social housing; privatisation of the health service; refusal to repeal Tory anti-trade union laws; student tuition fees; standing by shamefully while Israel bombed Lebanon and Gaza; the Iraq war; doing nothing about climate change and fuelling the debt bubble which helped to wreck our economy.

And what have New Labour done for us? Devolution and the minimum wage and that's it - two good things in nearly twelve years. No wonder we can safely regard New Labour as the new nasty party. They have got to go at the next election - but have no illusions about the Tories - nothing much has changed there. Nor can the Liberal Democrats escape the neoliberal tag - they wouldn't have done things much differently had they been in power. If you want to reverse New Labour's nastiness and vote for a genuinely progressive party of the left - we’re here - come and join the Green Party.

Party meeting - 26th Janauary 2009

The Cheshire West and Chester Green Party is meeting at the Cross Keys, Duke Street, Chester at 7.30 pm on Monday 26th January 2009. If you are a party member or interested in joining the party please come along. The pub can be found here.

The Tories plan to make pensioners poorer

One of the great scandals of the past quarter century in the UK has been the way pensions have been handled and pensioners treated. Pensions have slowly but surely been devalued and the result has been misery for millions in old age.

Go back 25 years in the UK and you'll find many workers in the private and public sectors on final salary pension or defined benefit schemes but these have been whittled away to almost nothing in the intervening years. Workers in the private sector now have to rely on defined contribution or money purchase pension schemes which are worth much less. When Gordon Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997 he made tax changes which made it more difficult to sustain final salary schemes in the private sector and New Labour have much to answer for in the pensions debacle. But its not just about Gordon. Many companies have taken pensions 'holidays' - periods when they failed to contribute to their own schemes. The same is true of local government. Employers can simply save money by refusing to contribute to employees pensions.

As a gulf has opened up between pensions in the private and public sectors there have been howls of rage from the right. It is claimed that public sector pensioners are living in the lap of luxury while their private sector counterparts are living in poverty. This is nonsense. Certainly private sector workers are suffering but most public sector workers are low paid and earn less than the average wage, hence their final salary pensions are still very low.

David Cameron in a recent speech to business leaders said "We have got to end the apartheid. We are getting into a situation now where pretty much everyone in the private sector has gone to defined contributions and the final salary schemes are closed." Now we all know what that means don't we. The Tories are planning to slash public sector pensions just as the Daily Mail have been urging them to do. The Daily Mail complains that private sector workers are living in poverty and public sector pensioners are better off - its solution, like David Cameron's - is to make all pensioners live in poverty by ending public sector final salary pensions - smart huh?

We need better pensions for everyone. If public sector pensioners are benefiting from final salary pension schemes its time to create the conditions in which private sector workers can also enjoy those benefits, by legislation, if necessary. Here is a quote from the Green Party's policy on pensions - "The Green Party would introduce a Citizen's Pension that would pay pensioners a livable amount, without means testing and would be linked to the rise in average earnings. Independent studies by the National Association of Pension Funds have shown that a citizen's Pension could be afforded today within current net expenditure on state pensions."

We live in a society with an aging population its in the interest of all of us to ensure that we can have a dignified old age.

Party Meeting - 24th November

The next CWCGP meeting will be in Chester on Monday the 24th of November at 7.30pm. The venue is the Quakers Meeting House, Union Walk, Frodsham Street, Chester. There is a possibility that the venue may be changed. If it is I will post the change on here. Please check this blog before you come along.

Party Meeting

The Cheshire West and Chester Green Party is meeting at the Old Harkers Arms, City Road, Chester at 7.30 pm on Monday 20th October 2008. If you are interested in joining the party please come along. The pub is on the canal near to the railway station.

Its the environment stupid!

As we slide into a recession, one or two commentators such as George Monbiot have been doing us a service by reminding us that the credit crunch is trivial compared to what is potentially facing us in terms of a climate crunch.

In August I highlighted a report from the New Economics Foundation which stated that we had just 100 months to avert rising temperatures and runaway climate change - 98 months now! There is an increasing sense of urgency about our need to do something about this, and the recent pledge by the government to make an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is encouraging. Problem is, they have a lousy track record of delivery on such pledges - they are too wedded to big business and consumption.

In any case, we can't make big enough cuts unless everyone is involved - and that means you! And yes it means insulating your house, using low energy light bulbs, turning the central heating down, putting a jumper on, car sharing, dusting off your bike lights and cycling to work if you can. You have heard it all before but now is the time to get on with doing it and encouraging other in your local community to do so also.

I am working with a nearby local action group and trying to set up a group in the village I live in. In Cheshire, we have the example of Ashton Hayes, which aims to be the first village in England to become carbon neutral. Since starting in January 2006 they have cut their carbon emissions by 21%. You can get help in doing this from the Low Carbon Communities Network. If you have a local group - get involved. I have only just started but I'll keep you informed of progress. So far I have contacted the Parish Council and will speak at their next meeting to try and get their support. I've put a poster on the village notice board, and have an article coming out in next weeks local paper.

But this isn't just about climate change. Also of great significance is Peak Oil. Its worth quoting the definition from Wikipedia:

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.

There is some disagreement about when peak oil occurred. Some people say 2007 others as long ago as 2005. But there is a consensus that we have passed peak oil. Just think for a moment what this means - a world without oil means massive changes in the way we live and there is no substitute, no magic technological fix on offer. We are going to go through what is known as an energy descent. And it is going to happen in our lifetimes. We are going to have to get used to living in a lower energy environment. And that means making the same kind of adjustments we would have to make for climate change anyway.

So, the local group I am trying to set up is not just about climate change because climate change adjustments to our lifestyle and peak oil adjustments go hand in hand. If you want to find out more I suggest you take a look at what Caroline Lucas had to say about the Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins.

We need to see theses changes as an opportunity rather than a threat. An opportunity to connect with our neighbours and build sustainable communities, communities free from the destructive excesses of free market capitalism,

We want government on our side, not turning its back

01 October 2008

Caroline Lucas has spoken out against David Cameron's attempt to use the financial crisis to take control of the economy away from Parliament, and to introduce more market reforms and privatisation in public services.

Caroline said:

"David Cameron's proposals are nothing more than a hair of the dog. He claims that the way to solve a financial crisis brought on by irresponsible corporations in underregulated markets is to reduce regulation and hand more power to the corporations.

"He wants to remove power over government finances from parliament, and hand it to the City. Under the Tories, he says, two separate bodies will decide on public borrowing, and neither are elected: the governors of the Bank of England, and George Osbourne's shadowy Office of Budget Responsibility.

"Cameron is using the economic situation to try to dismantle the NHS and comprehensive education, promising an even more cutthroat internal market in health, pitting individual doctors against one another, and making it the norm for the curriculum of your local school to be controlled by one business or wealthy individual.

"No wonder Cameron got so excited he proclaimed "thank God for Margaret Thatcher"; the Tories are like vultures waiting to feast on the carcass of the British economy.

"We don't need a government of asset-strippers. We need a Green New Deal: a financial system in which banks are a manageable, sustainable size and responsibly run; and a government that invests in our public services and in rebuilding our economy to get us through the tough times.

"David Cameron says it is 'arrogant' to want government to be on the side of the people; I think most people would rather have government on their side than turning its back."