13 May 2017
18/05 - Tell Barclays' Chairman to stop funding fracking in North Yorkshire.
13/05 - HOME OFFICE SPY PLANS - Leaked docs reveal the Home Office’s secret plan to gain real-time access to our text messages and online communications! AND force companies like WhatsApp to break security on its own software. This government plan will make us all more vulnerable to attacks, like yesterday's ransomware assault on the NHS. And precisely the powers a Big Brother state would want!
12/05 Stop Weaponised Drones - Weaponised drones should be outlawed now in line with CBW. Too many civilians are dying. They have become an indiscriminate weapon.
3/5 STOP the new plans to dismantle our NHS, can you help spread the word by forwarding the link below to your friends?
1/5 Support Progressive Alliances
As members and supporters of progressive parties we have our differences, but we all believe in a more equal, democratic and sustainable society.
We call on party leadership from Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens* and Plaid Cymru: Do not stand in the way of local electoral pacts that allow progressives to win. Support them if you can.
*Greens agreed to local pacts and alliances at Spring Conference.
Key Policies - Labour - Conservative - Green
Green Party policies this year find themselves very much in line with Labour ones, under Jermy Corbybn's leadership. The £10 minimum wage for example, we were campaigning on in 2015, and now Labour has caught up. The new commitment to housing, especially social housing, matches our 500,000 social homes commitment of 2015.
This closer manifesto is a major achievement! The Green commitment to social justice was emphasised from 2010 onwards, as Labour had given up the ghost, what with Tuition Fees, and ATOS testing, PFI, NHS contracts, benefit sanctions, a war, and so on.
What this allows now is for Greens to campaign on further core territory - such as what should Britain be like in 2017? What is the Green vision of a fair sustainable society? It's time to push for renewable energy everywhere, especially around the Green hub that Hull is becoming. SAnd let's bring an end to the hugely costly Hinckley C Chinese nuclear project!
Air Quality has featured recently - not least with a report that the Tores were trying to suppress before the election! With it contributing to 40,000 deaths a year, it is an important issue for all our cities. The key is lowering traffic especially heavy traffic. This is harder to do now that ABP has announced doubling container traffic through Hull. At the moment there are no limits to traffic, and the AQ around Castle Street is of concern.
How can we decrease traffic? Greens have always been keen on public transport - and transport that keeps us fit too such as walking and cycling. It's well past time to revamp cycle lanes in Hull for example. A number of bus stops show a digital timetable which is helpful, what space is there now for say free wifi on buses. The challenge remains to increase bus use as even more affordable and attractive.
We need to begin to look at just how much stuff do we need. Far too much of our life and our work effort is devoted to buying, consuming and then dumping goods. Much of it is wasteful, costly, unnecessary, and polluting. This is hardly ever questioned, but it is core Green policy - how can we live more human, more enjoyable lives, rather than an ever-increasing rat-race for more stuff we don't need.
We favour a more steady state economy, so instead of a devotion to internation trade constantly growing - which the other parties want but find it increasingly hard to get - not least when the implication of Brexit kick in! People will object that it will effect the economy. Of course it will, that's the whole point. Do we want to be beholden to a view of how economics should work, or are we prepared to look at it honeslty and admit actually ther are mad things going on here and we should stop them.
Trident has long been supported by Labour. It has also long since been opposed by Jeremy Corbyn. This typifies the current Labour Parliamentary resistance to Corbyn, and party HQ recently had to state it was keeping Trident after a Corbyn interview refused to say that. Rather Britain should be leading the way on nuclear disarmament, taking steps to make the world a safer place, not a more dangerous one.
The full manifestos will be out before long. Our 2015 mini-manifesto is here (PDF). And the full 2015 manifesto is here (PDF).
