Rupert's Read

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/31/barclay-sovereignwealthfunds Barclays bosses are paying 16% interest to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to hang onto their bonuses - disgraceful high-risk behaviour (high-risk, because it may commit them to unrepayable debt) strengthening the case for nationalising the banks, as this blog has consistently argued for some time now. Why should Barclays customers -- and the banking system that we all depend on, and that could hardly take another bank tottering -- have to put up with this kind of high-risk profiteering?  

Caroline Lucas, Green Party Leader, appeared on BBC World Service's One Planet programme yesterday alongside psychologist Oliver James and US economist Peter Morici. The debate centred on capitalism and dangerous climate change, and looked in detail at steady state economics. You can listen again to the programme online at BBC iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/w0bv189y . Strongly recommended!

http://www.forumforthefuture.org/greenfutures/articles/Zero_hour_for_a_new_capitalism This piece by Jonathon Porritt does a powerful job of bringing together the climate and credit crunches.  Recommended.

Eastern Region Green Party is backing a report issued this week by the Parliamentary Transport Select Committee entitled "Ending the Scandal of Complacency: Road Safety beyond 2010". The Report calls for a much bolder strategy to address road safety calling it the "major public health problem of our age." As well as the human tragedies involved, the Committee found that the total cost of road crashes in the UK was a staggering £18 billion a year. Green Party Councillors in Eastern Region and across the country have been active in calling for much better road safety to cut the annual toll of death and injury on the roads and to make roads and pavements much safer for walking and cycling. Greens believe that a safer road environment will encourage and enable people to walk and cycle more who are currently intimidated by traffic volumes and speeds.   Green Councillors in Norwich successfully won backing for a city wide 20mph zone that is to be triall...

People are asking me whether I am still backing McKinney (the Green Party candidate) rather than Obama, for the U.S. Presidency. Here is the answer: I am still much keener on McKinney. But, due to the media etc., her campaign hasn't taken wing as one would hope. And Obama has been rather better over the past couple of months -- the betrayals [detailed in earlier posts ] that occured a little earlier this year seem to have stopped. So: I wish Obama luck. In a choice between him and McCain (e.g. in 'swing states'), I would now strongly be tempted to vote for him -- and, between the two, I very much hope he wins. I am going to a 'Election Night' Party next Tuesday night with a bunch of Obamamaniacs: should be fun! My latest prediction for the U.S Presidency: it will not be close. This will be a Democratic landslide. The biggest Democrat victory since 1964. The really interesting and important question now is what happens in the Senate. The Democrats coul...

Check out this brilliant piece by the world's premier green/ecological economist, Herman Daly, commissioned by the Sustainable Development Commission earlier this year: points the way beyond the credit crunch to an economy that actually works for us... Do spread this word! http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Herman_Daly_thinkpiece.pdf

This blog has previously pointed out some of the unbelievably ostrich-like Tories in Parliament, who still don't believe in manmade climate change, even as we get New Orleans re-devastated, and the risk of human civilisational collapse from runaway climate change grows with the melting of the Arctic and the beginnings, terrifyingly, of large-scale methane release.  Check this out: here is a gentleman from the DUP, one Sammy Wilson, making the same garbage arguments, holding up progress on this most vital of all issues: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2008-10-28a.733.3#g774.2   In a future post, I will set out some of the appalling UKIP nonsense against manmade climate change. Watch this space... All these right-wing Parties are alike: you just cannot trust them, to have any climate-sanity...    

Green Party councillors in the Eastern region have challenged the East of England Regional Assembly (EERA), as it extended its key planning strategy review to 2031.  The Green Party are challenging the assumptions and objectives put forward by the EERA that astonishingly ignore the critical advent of diminishing oil reserves, the dramatic loss of current economic confidence, and the onset of dangerous climate change, when forming their forecasts for the region. "Regional planning has for too long conformed with wholly unrealistic assumptions handed down by central Government and its agencies. The dramatic economic changes and heightened awareness of the imminence of dangerous climate change afford an opportunity for a radically different perspective on the possible futures for our region",  said Suffolk Green Party Councillor John Matthissen, a member of EERA's Housing and Sustainable Communities Panel. Cllr. Matthissen continued:  "The oil does not ...

The Green Party is celebrating gaining another councillor on Mid Beds District Council. On Saturday, (25th October) Councillor Ken Lynch (Sandy Pinnacle ward) went public with his decision to join the Green Party. He was joined by both local Greens and those from right across the eastern region. They spent the day helping Cllr Lynch let the people of Sandy be the first to hear that their local councillor had become a Green further increasing Green Party representation on Mid Beds District Council. In the local Green Party's biggest day of campaigning for months thousands of leaflets were delivered to local residents explaining Kens change of party and hundreds of voters were given the chance to talk to Ken about it. Dr Rupert Read, Lead Green Party Candidate for the Eastern Region European Elections said: "Greens from across Eastern Region came to Sandy on Saturday, to welcome Ken to the Green Party and help him communicate his reasons for supporting the existing Green Counci...

  I'll be debating dangerous climate change and regional 'development' with Norman Lamb M.P. live on Beeb1, tomorrow lunchtime.  

George Monbiot, writing in the _Guardian_ yesterday, proposes the idea of a '100-year Parliamentary committee' to speak up for the interests of future generations. This idea to end the short-termism of too much politics is helpful, but not [I fear] robust enough to actually safeguard the interests of generations as yet unborn. Here is a tentative suggestion of a more robust alternative: That every major decision made at any level of government should be subject to potential  veto by an individual or small group charged exclusively with having regard to the interests of the future inhabitants of this, our one and only planetary home. The name I think it natural to invest these proposed guarantors of the future with would perhaps be congenial to the newspaper that Monbiot writes in: I think that they should be called  guardians ... I would welcome comment on this idea. Is it a good one? Or is it too 'out there'? Let's see what Rupert...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/21/network   This is a great article. The prescription it seeks is simple. It's called the Green Party...

I have just heard the news that the Spa Common planning application that I have blogged about previously has been defeated. I have been helping out residents with their campaign against this planning application in the North Walsham area -- see http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2008/08/councillor-read-vows-to-fight-for.html  . My assistance has focussed on the transport aspect, which is my expertise -- and which, I am pleased to say, proved the undoing of this application for all those lorries to go down those country lanes.. I spoke about all this at the massive public meeting in North Walsham last month. Norfolk Highways have made absolutely the right decision in turning down this application from HFS, which would have devastated the lives of those living in Spa Common in particular and much of North Walsham in general. The quality of life of local people has trumped the crude profit motive that lay behind this plan to move so many lorries in and out...

   "This is the wrong time to be watering down climate change agreements" Rupert Read, Prospective Green Party MEP for Eastern Region, has hit out at European Council attempts to use the financial crisis to water down climate agreements and jeopardise thousands of potential jobs in East Anglia as well as potentially denying people lower fuel bills and cleaner air. Dr. Read, who is a Norwich City Councillor said "Efforts by Member States to deliberately dilute proposed EU climate legislation, in terms of both targets and mechanisms, are utterly unacceptable and could harm the future prosperity and energy security of East Anglia. In March 2007 Ministers agreed that the EU must unilaterally reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% on 1990 levels if a future global climate agreement is reached. They are now calling this commitment into question, as well as trying to undermine EU emissions reductions still further by allowing for a maxim...

Worst EU Lobbying Award 2008 – Vote Now at www.worstlobby.eu ! The Green Party is proud of our MEPs' absolutely solid record on exposing dubious lobbying practices. I plan to follow in their footsteps. So, we strongly welcome the chance to vote in the '2008 Worst EU Lobbying Awards' – the annual award for deceptive, manipulative or unethical lobbying. This year you can vote in two categories:     1.      The 'Worst EU Lobbying' Award for the lobbyist, company or lobby group that in 2008 has employed the most deceptive, misleading, or otherwise problematic lobbying tactics in their attempts to influence EU  decision-making.     2.      The special 'Worst Conflict of Interest' Award for the MEP, Commissioner or Commission official whose background, side-jobs or other liaisons with special interests raise the most serious concerns about their ability to act in public interest. Select yo...

Story From Norwich Evening News Concerned people who live near a new housing development in Earlham have been victorious in safeguarding trees. Persimmon Homes is currently building a development of 42 three-storey houses on land between Gipsy Lane and Earlham Road. But the work has already caused controversy after the housing developer felled about 17 trees, angering people living nearby. Neighbouring families have since been keeping a close eye on progression at the site and recently discovered workers were building what they believed to be a garage close to trees that were subject to a tree preservation order. Their concerns were initially put to one side but following a series of emails and a meeting with the site manager, the housing developer has vowed it will not do anything to harm these trees. Gerard Crook, 52, who lives with his partner Denise Denis on Gipsy Lane, said: “I was being a nosy neighbour on the behalf of other residents and what we discovered was that a structure ...

As shares drop further today, and (despite the bail-outs and buy-outs) the banks still won't lend to each other ('LIBOR remains 2% above central bank rates, an unprecedented 'spread') isn't it becoming clearer that, as I've said before on this blog, there is only one real answer: the commercial banks have to be NATIONALISED and/or remutualised (Roughly, my suggestion would be: permanent nationalisations of the 'big four' etc., and permanent remutualisations of the former building-societies). This combined with a new strict and long-term regulatory regime to be introduced soon , might actually do the trick (of preventing a vast financial and economic meltdown). Banks need to be forced to lend, for the public good. There should be more inter-bank lending; more lending to small businesses etc.; and we need to fund a 'Green New Deal' to 'pump-prime' to escape a depression while saving rather than trashing our ecosystems.   At ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/toda y/hi/today/newsid_7673000/ 7673260.stm The top-of-the-hour interview on TODAY this morning is essential listening for anyone wishing to understand why the current crisis requires monetary reform ( http://www.jamesrobertson.com/book/monetaryreform.pdf  ), in order to be truly solved. One of the world's leading bankers tells us how banks create money through lending -- and destroy it (as is happening at present) through not lending. Listen again, and goto just under 5 minutes in. (I do hope sceptics of monetary reform will be among those who listen to this. When the bankers themselves tell you that what we are saying is true, then you really need to listen...)  

[[Media release:]]   UNANSWERED QUESTIONS REMAIN SURROUNDING COUNTY'S PLANS FOR 'GENOME ANALYSIS CENTRE'   After the Norfolk County Council Cabinet's decision on Monday of this week to go ahead with giving £1million to help create a 'Genome Analysis Centre' at the edge of Norwich (although the actual provision of the money is to be delayed, because of the County Council having £32million tied up in shut-down Icelandic banks…), Norfolk Green Party Councillors are asking a whole series of probing questions about the project.                     Councillor Rupert Read, 2009 Green Party Euro candidate for the East, questioned whether the scheme represented good value for money for Norfolk Norfolk Council Tax payers: "Has anyone asked Council Taxpayers whether they want their council to spend £1 million to support this initiative? Has the Council looked seriously into w...

http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/rupert-read/2008/10/13/an-epochal-change-on-our-political-culture    

As Lord Skidelsky has just said on 'The world at one' (listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/wato/  ), we are witnessing in short shrift the end of the 'neo-classical' domination of economics, and the end of a 'conservative' (i.e. neo-liberal) domination of economies. Gordon Brown has even called today for a new Bretton Woods! From the wreckage of the world's financial system, a newly-invigorated visionary green state-led system could arise... That is what we must make happen.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3184842/Bank-nationalisation-How-a-bail-out-became-a-buy-out.html Check out the sub-head to this piece: "October 13, 2008 will go down in history as the day the capitalist system in the UK finally admitted defeat." These are extraordinary days (in fact, the crisis is so fast-moving now, that it would be more accurate to say: 'These are extraordinary hours'...): this blogger's call and then the Green Party's call for the banks to be nationalised -- for no taxation without representation -- have been dramatically vindicated. At last, we the taxpayers are going to get seats on the Boards of banks. At last, banks will be forced to lend to each other, and to their customers, especially small businesses, who are at the moment being either gouged or stonewalled by commercial banks. At last, the obscene profiteering of the banks will be reined in, including dividends and executive bonuses. I w...

An important piece by Ann Pettifor of Jubilee 2000, about the spiritual crisis underlying the financial crisis... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/11/globalrecession-marketturmoil

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/a-green-new-deal-can-save-the-worlds-economy-says-un-958696.html   This from the IoS today (page 4). A very exciting development -- it appears that Caroline Lucas (one of the 9-strong 'Green New Deal' team http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/09/wantedagreennewdeal ) has helped initiate a vitally-needed proposal that has now gone global! Could it be that eco-sanity is about to dawn upon the world? (Though initial impressions suggest that the 'Green Economy Initiative' is somewhat watered-down, compared to the 'Green New Deal' proper that Caroline has proposed.)     A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor Sunday, 12 October 2008 Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaste...

The Darling rescue plan is a half-baked start, probably better than nothing, although not a lot. Its proposal of an option of part-nationalisation of any and all commercial banks is an attempt by the Government to step in the right direction, although it is absurd that vast amounts more of taxpayers' money should be potentially going into the banks without giving us any control over them. Without such control, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will start lending to businesses or to each other. And so this begs the further crucial question: Why should such a nationalisation be only temporary? Why should we allow commercial banks to profit rampantly in the good times, and sooner or later start speculating again, pushing the envelope, ramping up the risks and precipitating fresh bubbles or crises? We need fundamental reform of the banking system, to stop crises like this from ever re-occuring. The current proposals alone will never be long-term safe, because after a wh...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/11/uselections2008-johnmccain1   Check out this article by the excellent Michael Tomasky, on just how bad and nasty things are now getting in the lower echelons of the McCain-Palin campaign...

Please read the following excellent article by the Green Leader, Caroline Lucas MEP. Her message is 100% correct - NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION (ON THE BOARD)..! BAILOUT: TAXPAYERS' MONEY SHOULD MEAN TAXPAYERS' CONTROL The Green Party has criticised Alistair Darling's £50bn bailout for offering public funds to banking giants without demanding any public control in return. The preference shares the Treasury will receive in the deal confer no voting rights, and the Green leader, Caroline Lucas MEP, argues that taxpayers should not be expected to provide a cash bailout without receiving in return the voting power to alter those banking practices that are the cause of the crisis...... (continues)

  NEWS RELEASE: GREEN EURO CANDIDATE EXTENDS LOCAL BUSINESSES SUPPORT AT 'FEDERATION OF SMALL BUSINESSES' DINNER Norwich Councillor Rupert Read, prospective Green Party MEP for the East, will be attending a dinner this Thursday evening hosted in Cambridge by the Federation of Small Businesses, continuing the Green Party's strong support of local businesses throughout the region and around the country.  The FSB represents 18,500 small business owners across the East of England, supporting local trade in the face of local-economy crippling giant multinational corporations and supermarkets. The FSB invitation is a sign of how seriously small businesses take Cllr. Read's chances of being elected next summer. Councillor Read said "I'm especially happy to have been invited along to the FSB dinner, an organisation that I support wholeheartedly.  Local businesses strengthen the economy of a community by creating jobs, recycling money back into the a...

Green Party letters in yesterday's IoS Start off with Jenny Jones's, and then scroll down a few for mine...

THIS FROM THE SPLENDID PEOPLE AT AVAAZ -- DO FOLLOW THEIR LEAD HERE! It is crucial that this vote goes the right way -- I want to be an MEP in a Europe that is leading on the prevention of manmade climate change, not lagging behind!... ...Far from the eyes of the media, elected representatives in the European Parliament are writing a climate and energy plan for our continent. As citizens, we've campaigned hard for a global deal to stop catastrophic global warming, and Europe's negotiators have driven progress in international talks -- but if big polluters succeed in watering down Europe's own climate action plan, all our momentum will be lost.[1] And that's just what's happening right now. This Tuesday afternoon -- that's tomorrow! --, European parliamentarians are gathering to finalise their proposals -- but the whole plan is being undermined by industry lobbyists demanding they lock in massive "permits to pollute", which would put emissions targets c...

Youtube Sarah Palin's answer here is terrifying in its ineptitude and in its mumbo-jumbo quasi-denial of anthropogenic climate change. Biden's answer is of course better, but hardly inspirational: note his backing for 'clean' coal, 'safe' nuclear and 'renewable' biofuels -- pass the sick-bag, please... Palin's come-back line is perhaps even more terrifying: "Drill baby drill", she says. If only she could see the future children whose faces she stamps on, in gleefully saying this...

Those who perpetrated this violent act are of course to be condemned thoroughly and the police to be encouraged in their ongoing work of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Mr. McGarahan's murder is symptomatic of a society which has in some cases grown selfish and materialistic in its prosperity.  The greatest honour we could pay the courageous Mr. McGarahan is to prevent similar tragedies ever happening again.  To prevent incidents like this re-occurring  we need to examine just why a group of adults in a reasonably wealthy society should feel the need to quasi-randomly beat another man to death.   This awful event makes plain how strong is the need for a change from a selfish, materialistic, Thatcherite society to one that is more caring, compassionate and peaceful, and where we treat each other as neighbours and not as a competitive threat. We surely need to look at how to change our society itself so that events like this...

I can't get over the fact that Bradford and Bingley were still this week parading the bowler-hatted advertising icons around on TV, even while it was obvious to all that they had quite shamefully shredded their supposed reputation for sobriety and reliability...    How about this conversation 'from the archives'...: "Let's demutualise, Mr. Bradford." "A capital idea, Mr. Bingley. It will deliver us lots of cash and an exciting new business-plan..." "And with our solid and bankable reputation, how can it possibly go wrong, Mr. Bradford..."

The first in this year's series of Philosophy Public Lectures, on the theme of PHILOSOPHERS AND PUBLIC LIFE Rupert Read 'Green Politics and Green Philosophy' 7pm, Thursday 16 October 2008 UEA Norwich Lecture Theatre 3 Free admission. All are welcome. Spread the word!

A nice piece here by the Sage of Norwich on the A11 lobby and on Norwich 'Growth Area' housing:     http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/d-j-taylor-all-roads-lead-to-the-a11-944647.html   INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY     28 SEPTEMBER 2008 D J Taylor : 'All roads lead to the A11' The Bottom Line: Our commentator scours the world of news, entertainment and sport to answer the question: what was that all about? His conclusion – we're all being used   * The pageant of vested interests, pundits and ginger-group spokesmen that habitually comes together to promote social or economic change is particularly noticeable at a local level, where the levers of power are more accessible and the policy forums more direct. Here in the Norfolk boondocks, the newspapers have been in a tremendous lather about the long-standing campaign to dual-carriage the A11, the principal conduit between East Anglia and the Home Counties. Politicians...

This is quite interesting: http://blog.bbcgreen.com/2008/09/29/will-the-green-party-ever-be-taken-seriously Remember that once upon a time the Labour Party were a single-issue Party (they were only 'for the workers'; they had 'nothing to say' about foreign issues, about the land, about the family; etc.); and it took just one generation for them to go from having no MPs to forming their first government. We are already taken very seriously in the Brussels Parliament, where I aim to represent Eastern Region next year; for there, we are a major political group. And we are taken dead seriously in places like Norwich City Council, where we will soon be the largest Party (if they don't abolish it...). When people get the chance to vote for a Green Party that is going places, they go with us. Next stop (for the Party): Westminster!

Anyone interested in the realities of what being a LibDem, Labour or Conservative tends to boil down to in contemporary Britain should have sat in Norwich City Council Chamber last night, as Councillors from these Parties formed a mutual admiration society and wallowed in negative rhetoric against us for daring to oppose one of their pet road-building projects. See my previous post on this, here: http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2008/10/dont-be-dinosaur-beyond-main-3-parties.html All the three grey Parties are tacitly committed to the same ideology, of endless industrial growth, of worshipping at the shrine of big business and big money -- of neoliberal globalisation. I wish they understood that this was / is an ideology, rather than being under the silly illusion that they are 'pragmatic', 'sensible', etc. I feel sadness that these dinosaurs are leading the world into perdition and oblivion. But I hope and believe that the people will have ...

Last night's sad debate at Norwich City Council between the Dinosaur Party (the 'Conservatives'), the Sub-Dinosaur Party (the 'Liberal Democrats') and the New-Dinosaurs Party ('New Labour') on the one side and the Green Party on the other, over the dualling of the A11, brought home to me how very far the various out-of-date grey Parties, dinosaurs that they are to a person, have to go before they realise that sustainability and being green is more than a fad or a coat of paint or a minor add-on. None of these Parties understand the _big_ changes that need to be made if we are to have a liveable planet for our grandchildren. None of them realise either how the things that they are championing are actively making things worse in terms of quality of life, now: making us hyper-mobile and more stressed, less rooted in a real community, living amidst more noise and pollution, less healthy, with fewer vibrant small businesses and more Tesco-isation a...

  I will be among a substantial group presenting a petition of about 14,000 signatures to officials at County Hall, this Friday afternoon, to save Fritton Woods:   Time and Place: Date: Friday, October 3, 2008 Time: 2:45pm - 3:15pm Location: Entrance to COUNTY HALL, Street: Martineau Lane, Norwich, United Kingdom.    Fritton Wood is far too precious to lose to quarrying for aggregates, which is what the County is potentially planning for it. This is a superb landscape in the Broads area -- there is no way that Fritton should be used up and thrown away in this way. I am proud to be one of the huge number of petitioners who are standing firm against this plan.   Come and join me!

‘Keep Hinchingbrooke Hospital public,’ was the message from the Green Party’s prospective MEP for this region on a visit to Huntingdon. Rupert Read backed calls to stop the hospital being made into a Foundation Trust as he joined local party members leafleting homes in Hartford on Sunday (28.9.08). He said: “Foundation Trusts are simply privatisation under a prettier name. ’New Labour' has continued and accelerated the Conservative betrayal of our National Health Service, privatising it bit by bit while pretending to support it. “Only the Green Party can be trusted to stop this. If I am elected to the European Parliament next June, to represent this area, you can be confident that I will do all in my powers to keep our hospitals in public hands, free and open to all. “The Greens say: Keep public services public!” Members of the Hunts Green Party will be joining a Keep Our NHS Public, rally and march on October 4th, called to protest against the possible privatisation of Hinchingbro...