Skip to main content

I get a top GP job...

Rupert Read gets Green Party "shadow" public services portfolio -
and calls for major re-nationalisation programme

Norwich City Councillor Rupert Read has been appointed to an important national post in the Green Party.

The Green Party of England & Wales will announce on Thursday April 9 that Dr Read, a Norwich Green Party councillor and lecturer at the University of East Anglia is the party's new national spokesperson on public services - a key area of policy for the Greens.

Councillor Read has greeted his appointment by immediately stressing the party's determination "to fight for accountable public services, and to keep pushing the radical and ethical agenda on public services that separates the Green Party from the big three parties."

Speaking from his home in Merton Road Norwich today, Rupert Read condemned the government's plans to continue privatising public services. He said:

"The Green Party wants public services which do what it says on the tin: serve the public, not simply oil the wheels of a business."

Threat of privatisation

He said: "The most immediate threat to public services is the plan to part-privatise the Royal Mail, which would mean reductions in both jobs and standards of service.

"That's why the Green Party wholeheartedly supports the campaign of the Communication Workers Union to keep the Royal Mail in public hands."

He said the Greens were urging the public to remember this is a political issue, driven by the decisions of politicians and parties, and privatisation should not be regarded as inevitable: "If you want to keep the Post public, then put the matter into the hands of the Green Party. Sadly, none of the other three parties are committed to running the Royal Mail and the Post Office as public services, and so the universal 'one price' postal service across the nation is now at risk."

Promise of re-nationalisation
But there's much more at stake than that, he continued: "If nationalisation is good enough for the banks, then why isn't it good enough for the railways? Everyone knows that you can't have a proper railway system without having it run as one combined service, for the public good. Labour talk about joined-up government; but they haven't even got a joined-up railway system!"

The Green Party also favours bringing the utilities (water, gas and electricity) back into public ownership and public control. Said Cllr Read: "It's mad to have essential services that form a 'natural monopoly' in private hands."

Need to defend British public services in the European Parliament
Rupert Read is standing for the upcoming European Parliament elections. If just one in ten voters in the Eastern region vote Green on 4th June, Rupert will join the three dozen existing Green Party MEPs who have already done a great deal to fight for public services across Britain and Europe.

Cllr. Read concluded: "Were it not for Green Party MEPs such as Britain's own Jean Lambert, the European Parliament would have forced through a bill that would have made it impossible to stop health services being privatised. Here in Britain, we all love the NHS. If you want to keep the NHS public, there is only one choice on June 4th: vote Green."

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well done Rupert! Who had the job before? I really look forward to seeing you develop the profile. Few have managed it! Take care, Ben
18 April 2009 at 13:18
Rupert said…
tHANKS, bEN. hOPE YOU ARE NOT IMPLYING THAT IT IS A POISON-CHALICE! ;-)
18 April 2009 at 21:19
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Medialens under the lens, over Syria and Libya: Becoming the new Dave Sparts?

I have long been an active supporter of Medialens ( http://www.medialens.org/ ). Like many others, I have supported them with money, time, tips, and I have been proud to have done so. For they have done very important groundbreaking work over the years challenging the inanities and distortions of the 'mainstream' media. They have for example written important critiques of mainstream media coverage of dangerous climate change, of Iraq Body Count, of the corporate nature of most of our media, and much more besides. They have held the corporate media to account time and again. They ought to be saluted for all of that. It is therefore with a sense of deep regret (as well as of some foreboding) that I have finally to write to address the ways in which, lately, some of the wheels seem to be coming off their wagon. An early warning sign perhaps was their long-running spat with George Monbiot, over the Rwandan genocide and the terrible atr...
16 comments
Read more

'Scandal' over hacked climate-science emails at UEA: Don't believe the hype

The 'scandal' of the hacked emails from Environmental Science at UEA ( http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRU-update - this includes a direct rebuttal of the single seemingly most-damaging email, the 'trick' email), my University, has been gotten out of all proportion in some of the right-wing media, old and new. I have now read a good number of the 'worst' of the hacked emails. I also know a few of the protagonists personally, and for human-interest value the hacked emails certainly do offer some tidbits. But: When the dust settles, I predict that the climate-deniers will be left holding onto hardly anything, here. There is so far as I can tell at this (still-admittedly-early) stage no significant scientific scandal, and most importantly absolutely no reason to doubt any of the fundamentals of the science of manmade climate change here, just a few unpleasant or silly or (at worst) unwise and bad-practice emails. Scient...
17 comments
Read more