Rupert's Read

My new piece at liberalconspiracy.org - please check it out!

I held my place this year - so still 8th! Good to see brightgreenscotland.org enter the rankings at No. 2...I post articles there fairly often so check it out if you haven't already! Full results: http://www.totalpolitics.com/blogs/index.php/2010/08/25/top-25-green-blogs-1

Regular readers of my articles will no doubt have noticed that I sometimes use words like ‘epochal’ and ‘history-making’ when describing Green Party achievements. I use these ‘hyperbolic’ phrases to reflect reality. They are a reflection of the massive steps the Green Party has taken in recent years, and in anticipation of future milestones to be passed not too far further down the road. For example: In the last decade we’ve had our first MEPs elected and re- elected, and our first MSPs. This year we finally returned our first MP to Westminster. Now we stand on the threshold of an occasion every bit as historic as those achievements, if not more so: In the local elections on Sept 9th (See here for why these elections are happening), the Green Party can capitalise on years of hard work by becoming the largest party on Norwich City Council (we are at present just 2 seats behind Labour) and potentially then forming the first-ever UK Green Principal Authority administration (We may well em...

We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight. It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government’s budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers’ profligacy. The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VATto 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBTpeople and pensioners. Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Interna...

Colleagues interested in the success and growth of the Party may wish to read my 3-part 'series' of posts on this topic, over at BrightGreen: http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2010/07/green-shoots-of-a-different-kind/ http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2010/08/more-members-more-councillors-more-green-success/ http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2010/08/democratising-and-professionalising-our-party-further/

  My newest on OPEN DEMOCRACY'S 'OUR KINGDOM' project, on the huge and exciting opportunity offered by the Norwich local elections: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/rupert-read/could-green-norwich-change-local-rule-across-uk . [If you're commenting, do comment THERE rather than here!]

There is an interesting blog today by Steve Keen, which I think explains quite a lot about our current predicament. Go to www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/ to read it, as well as www.nakedcapitalism.com/ to see it reproduced on another very good, and wider, blog. Keen refers to the situation in Australia, where he says government debt is 5.5% of GDP and private debt is over 150% of GDP. Of course both figures are very different in the UK and the US, but I think his argument still holds. [Hat-tip: Tom Lines]