Rupert's Read

People sometimes ask me where my roots are. I was brought up mostly in London, and I've lived in Norwich for a little over a decade now - but my family roots in this region go back much much further. One branch of my family originated from East Anglia . My great grandfather was Francis John Thorn, born in 1873 in the small market town of March , Cambridgeshire. In 1908 he married Mabel Grace Thorn, née Morris, who was born in 1880. They married in the church in March in 1908. Together they ran the family grocery business and soon moved to Peterborough where they opened a grocery store. On March 21 st , 1909, my great grandmother gave birth to Freda Frances May Thorn. She was the eldest of four children; her siblings were Leslie, Reg and Margaret. They all lived in half a manor house in Woodstone on the outskirts of Peterborough . Freda went to school in Peterborough and then went to St Peter’s teacher training college in Peterborough in the 1920s. So, when I vis...

The interview below is reproduced from The Crab Line, North Norfolk newspaper of distinction -- to see the original, goto p.12 of http://www.crab-line.co.uk/download/issue_126_web.pdf It May Well Be Two Years Away Rupert became a Norwich City Councillor in 2004, representing Wensum ward, and was re-elected in 2007 with 49% of the vote. Rupert serves on the Joint Highways Committee of the City and County Councils, where he is a strong advocate of Norwich Green Party's Transport Policy . He is the Green Party's representative on Norwich Peace Council and has been a prime active opponent of the Government's aggressive foreign policy. Rupert is also the spokesperson on Transport for the Green Party City Councillors. Naturally Rupert has a great deal of groundwork to get his name out to the wider Norfolk community and to get his message out for people like you and I to end up voting for him, as MEP. How Rupert are you going to do this? I’ve always been a campai...

It is sometimes said that greens have made 'prophesies' of environmental doom, prophesies that have turned out to be exaggerated. And some headline-grabbing greens have sometimes done a bit of this; but, mostly, the allegation against us here is simply untrue. Prophesising is not a rational activity, and never makes sense where what is concerned is human action. For we always have a choice as to what we do. What environmentalists have done is made _hypothetical_ predictions: If x isn't stopped, then y will be much more likely to happen, etc. . The problem with the argument that goes 'There hasn't been environmental catastrophe, therefore the greens are wrong', is that the first time a hypothetical turns out very badly, very few people will be around afterward to have the discussion... We only have one chance to get this world right. What the controversial and brilliant 'limits to growth' analysis of 30/35 years ago said was that if human habits di...

I am a local Councillor. In most strong local Green Parties, Green Councillors are our representatives in the governing of the land. Across the county, over a hundred of us are slogging their guts out to make the Green message a reality. When as a Green activist you are looking to get a first Councillor elected, and when that wonderful moment arrives, and when your Group starts building in numbers, you want the national Green Party to be doing everything that it can to give more power to your arm. The Party nationally ought to be as robust and as media-savvy as our Parties with Councillors are locally. That means Leadership. It means getting the front page of the _Guardian_ as often as we get the front page of the Norwich Evening News , the Brighton Argus , or the Lewisham News . It means having the same impact nationally, with a charismatic figurehead, that we do locally, through people like Adrian Ramsay, Keith Taylor, and Darren Johnson, who lead their Groups on their Councils...

I've been on the radio quite a bit and we've had national coverage too in the last 24 hours because of our call, as Eastern Greens, for an end to the silliness of putting the clocks back in October... BST should be extended in England and Wales; Scotland can have its own devolved arrangements, should a longer BST period raise problems with mornings becoming too dark north of the border. BST ought to be extended until at least mid-November and to start again by no later than mid-February in England and Wales. If I get elected in 2009, one concrete result that I will try to bring home is a major change to ‘British Winter Time’: the outdated practice of putting the clocks back to Greenwich Mean Time, each October. It is unfortunately an EU rule that keeps our clocks back right through late into springtime: as an MEP, I would work to overturn that rule. Putting the clocks back for 5 months or more each year means more lights on for more of people’s waking hours: it there...

Jim Jepps, of the excellent leading Green blog, THE DAILY (MAYBE), has just interviewed me about RUPERT'S READ. You can find the interview by going to: http://jimjay.blogspot.com/2007/10/interview-with-new-green-blogger-rupert.html

Check out my latest online post on the Green Party leadership issue; goto: http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2007/10/23/the-possibility-of-green-leadership/

http://www.dominiklukes.net/rupertreadinterview If you have trouble making this work, then goto http://www.archive.org/details/DominikLukesAndStashKirkbrideInterviewRupertRead , and you won't have any problems. The interview is for my new book, 'Philosophy for life'.

The Cambridge LAUNCH of the Eastern Region campaign to get a Green MEP elected in 2009 was took place on Saturday the 20th. It went very nicely, even having a nice sunny day for it... See the launch photograph at http://rupertread.fastmail.co.uk/eastern%20region%20launch%20pic.JPG . In the centre are myself and the number two and three candidates on the Green Party list, James Abbott and Peter Lynn.

A major news item today will be the uncovering by the world's top climate scientists, at my own University (UEA Norwich), of startling new evidence of the failure of the world's biggest carbon sink: the oceans. Basically, the study will point up extremely-worrying facts indicating the virtual total shut-down of the world's biggest carbon sinks: so that from now on, virtually all of the CO2 emitted (except those bits absorbed by forests etc.) will go straight into over-heating our atmosphere... What more evidence is needed? It is time for the world to go Green. We have the solutions -- the grey Parties' blind economic expansionism continues simply to fuel the problem.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-is-point-of-greens.html Top blogger (Tory) on the Green Party leadership issue (and me).

Congratulations again to all those elected in the Green Party Executive elections, particularly to Caroline Lucas MEP with her huge mandate as female ‘Principal Speaker’. One of the reasons I support the proposal for change in our Leadership structures is that, provided that leading people put themselves forward in these ways, it potentially allows members to choose between a single and deputy leader and Co-leaders every two years, which currently they can’t do. For many this will I believe provide the ‘middle ground ‘ between the status quo and moving to a single leader. Here is what I think might be a dream _Co-Leaders_ ticket: Adrian Ramsay and Caroline Lucas. The huge extra profile that this would give Adrian , our Leader on Norwich City Council, could play a critical role in getting him into Westminster . Norwich is now clearly our second strongest Parliamentary prospect, after Brighton . Let’s get the referendum passed, and then get not just one but at least two MPs into P...

A very interesting document has fallen into my hands. It is the letter sent to Norfolk County Council by the government, on the question of whether the proposed 'partnership deal' with May Gurney for the building of the Northern Development Road (NDR...) is legal or not (see http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/10/northern-lots-of-unwanted-new.html ). The answer is that the government believes it is not. Here is the heart of the letter (emphases in second para. mine): " The key question for us is the scale and proportionality between what the strategic partnership contract was set up to do and the scale of the proposed major scheme... From our view, the scale of the proposed NNDR is entirely disproportionate to the scope of the framework and therefore it is our view on your proposals that the use of the framework contract would be potentially illegal . We are not convinced that the construction of the proposed Norwich Northern Development Route (NNDR) can be procure...

http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=51cb01353fd1c176c1e8224e1f0c7242 My fellow EDP columnist Iain Dale interviewed me yesterday on road-building, and we talked also about various other topics that have occupied me and my interlocutors here on this blog: congestion charging, dangerous climate change, air travel, and Green Leadership. Enjoy...

The results of this year’s elections to the Green Party’s National Executive have just been announced. The results were all close, except for the most striking result: the enormous majority for Caroline Lucas, elected to the position of female ‘Principal Speaker’. Caroline garnered 78% of the vote; her opponent, Jenny Jones A.M., got just 22%. Caroline is the main standard-bearer for the ‘Yes’ campaign, who are looking to get the Green Party a Leader in the unprecedented binding membership referendum on this topic next month. Jenny is the main standard-bearer for the ‘No’ campaign, who are fighting to preserve the status quo. So: If this result is anything to go by -- and it may of course turn out that it isn't, but IF it is -- then the ‘Yes’ campaign clearly stands a strong chance of winning the two thirds majority it needs in order to win the referendum, and transform the public image of the Green Party. And then Caroline would surely stand a very strong chance of being...

Exclusive to this blog, here is a DRAFT of my next One World Column (see www.oneworldcolumn.org or http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/commentary/OneWorld.aspx for previous columns by myself and fellow columnists.). Constructively critical comments welcome! Any help improving what will go into the paper would be welcome. best, and thanks in anticipation; Rupert. GENERATION LESS How do we go from Generation Stressed to what could perhaps be termed Generation Blessed? Since ‘X’, one negative term after another has described the rising generation; how can we break the circle, and at last create a new generation that is… blessed ? That we – and in fact not just children, but all of us ( http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,1871309,00.html ), are Generation Stressed, is scarcely to be denied (for the uptodate evidence, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6897485.stm ). To verify this, just ask yourself when the last time was that, when you asked someone how they are, they re...

The Conservative County Council in Norfolk, in their desperation to fund their beloved Northern Development Road, are looking at all options, including congestion charging. Therefore, a pilot study is being undertaken into congestion charging for Norwich. This is only a study, mind you, and the results aren't in yet. Nevertheless, the old Parties have all decided that they don't have to wait for the results... Some time ago, the Conservative Party in Norwich itself came out all populist guns blazing against the possibility of a congestion charge for Norwich. The LibDems then said that they didn't think there was enough congestion in and around Norwich to justify a congestion charge being looked into. Now Labour have come out and said exactly the same thing as the LibDems (Norwich Evening News , front page, yesterday (Monday)). This morning, I travelled out to Easton College, to speak to the students there about dangerous climate change and what we can do about it (e.g. enco...

So, as predicted in my post of the 5th, no election after all. This long false alarm, this false inspector calling, has helped all us politicians get prepared... and hopefully that will put us in the Green Party in really good stead for when it really is next time, in 2009 (or 10). We'll have more candidates in place, and we'll be in much better shape to win a Parliamentary seat in Brighton, and maybe in Norwich and Lewisham and Oxford, too. So overall, I'm pleased by Brown's announcement. It would have been exciting to have had a crack at kicking some Labour MPs out; but another couple of years will significantly increase our chances of success .

Events, dear Prime Minister, events... Cameron's unexpectedly impressive polls-bouncing Conference speech - on the back of a 'populist' (though appallingly regressive) pledge to give tens of thousands of pounds to the children of dead near-millionaires - seems to have changed the landscape somewhat. The prospects of a November poll are receding a little. Unless Labour's private polling over the next few days indicates a recovery of the Labour lead to at least 7 points (which remains altogether possible), I now believe that Brown will probably not go this year. And what of the content of Cameron's speech? The line that struck me the most was this: "what we must be is the party of sensible, Green leadership, and that is exactly what we are going to stay". "Sensible" is code for "not actually proposing to do very much". But it must nevertheless worry every Green Party member that Cameron - the Leader the Party of the super-rich and of ...

Everyone now acknowledges that the Iraq war was about oil. But what about the Falklands conflict? At the time, a few small voices put forward the oil hypothesis: that vast oil deposits surrounded the Falklands/Malvinas and that that, rather than the alleged ‘paramountcy’ of the wishes of a couple of thousand vaguely-English sheep farmers, explained the Conservatives’ risky decision to go to war to recover them. Those voices were shouted down in an outraged and gushing chorus of patriotic fervour that engulfed the country, cheerled by the ‘Gotcha’ press. But now, 25 years on, it is plain to see (check out for example www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,2174615,00.html ) that those voices were right . The British government couldn’t care less for a couple of thousand of distant nobodies – just contrast the fate of the Chagos islanders, who stood in the way of our imperial designs, with that of the Falkland islanders, whose presence fortuitously assisted those same designs. An...

Listening to Radio 4’s _Today_ programme this morning, I had some trouble digesting my breakfast; I couldn’t help laughing over the repeated claims from Conservatives at Blackpool that their’s is “the green party”. What a total joke. For in fact, this Conference has already seen them junking most of their headline green-leaning policy-recommendations from Zac Goldsmith’s ‘Quality of Life’ policy group. John Redwood’s triumphant ‘Competitiveness’ agenda is clearly winning the day. Poor Zac must already be wondering when to return to the real Green Party. If you want to Go Green, you’ve got to VOTE Green. There is only one Green Party… No-one can take seriously the fantasy that the number 1 Party of big business, the Tories, would truly have a green agenda. It is more interesting to turn one’s attention to the claims of Blair, Brown, and Brown’s most likely successor (if he manages somehow to blow the upcoming General Election), David Miliband, to have something to say about dangerou...

A little while ago, I was on Radio Norwich, talking about the extraordinary and highly-unusual decision of Norfolk County Council not to competitively tender for the building of the Norwich 'Northern Distributor Road' [or the Norwich 'Northern lots-of-unwanted-new-Development Road' (see http://www.norwichn25.org/ for details) as it should perhaps more accurately be called...]. The Norfolk Tories decided to award the £106.5m contract [though the road will actually likely cost over £140m] to May Gurney [their 'partners'] without even considering any alternative bidders. How nice, to see such a trusting relationship in local politics/business... Some might call it a friendly relationship ... They might possibly even call it chummy ... [ I couldn't possibly comment...] A few hours later, news came to me by phone of a well-placed industry source who was incensed at this "collusive tendering", and who questions ...

I've written this little essay for this blog, to explain where I stand on the question of leadership in the Green Party. Comments are welcome! The OED's first definition of the verb 'to lead' is: 'to accompany and show the way to' - implying both community and enlightenment - 'showing' the way, rather than forcing down a particular path… Green leadership: Introduction Blair. Brown. Campbell . Cameron. Owen. Steel. Thatcher. Leaders? Hardly. Elective dictators, more like it. Dictatorial wielders of power over their own Parties and (when they are given the opportunity) the country. Miniature Caesars or Saddams. Forced to some extent to be that way by the media culture of this country, which (absurdly) equates being strong with brooking no internal division or opposition – when actually a mark of real strength is precisely a leader’s being big enough to allow real internal division and debate. The Green Party is having an open, t...

People quite often ask me this question. Here is my outline answer (for answers from our existing MEPs, see Caroline Lucas’s website http://www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/ , or the Green Party’s online Manifesto http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/Europe.html ; see also www.europeangreens.org ): The Green Party is deeply-critical of the current state of the E.U. . The Green Party OPPOSES British entry into the Euro currency. There is no good reason whatsoever to abolish the Pound – if shops wish to accept the Euro, they can do so. But by giving up the Pound, we would be giving up any control over our own financial borders – which would be a terrible mistake. Similarly, the Green Party OPPOSES the so-called ‘European Constitution’, which would be a disaster for public services such as the NHS (which the Constitution threatens with forced privatisation). The new Merkel version of this document still contains most of its most dangerous provisions – don’t be fooled by the merely-pre...

Our Parliamentary electoral system in this country is kind-of mad... It is quite ridiculous that the Prime Minister can call a (first past the post) election whenever he wants. The European Parliament, for all its many faults, works on a more sensible system: fixed five year terms. ...The Green Party has recently launched its candidates-list in Eastern Region for the Euro-elections, which are now just under two years away. As the person who was privileged to be selected to be lead candidate on that list, I am especially excited by the prospect that we may at last get what we urgently need in Eastern Region – a Green MEP. Someone to represent everyone in Eastern Region properly at Brussels . A Parliamentarian for all Green-minded people in the East of England, whether you are from a strong Green area or not. A generation ago, the E.U. took highly-effective action against the menace of acid rain, and it is currently beginning to take action against the much graver menace of man-made ...