Sunday, October 21, 2012

Rees: remodeller?


'I stand for change' says the leaflet just received from Marvin Rees. But the prescription is the same old stuff. Its party political, present day 'Labour' Party material. Being photographed next to Dawn Primarolo in another leaflet hardly suggests change either because Dawn has for decades been a key player in government - national and local - that has been a part of bringing our society its current social, economic and environmental problems.

The Rees/Labour prescription is often vague and populist, like that of many of the mayoral candidates (the Greens aside).  In the typical style of Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative Parties the prescription has policies that contradict each other eg Marvin Rees promises to 'make Bristol greener' but also promises to build 4000 homes without saying where they would be built or detailing how and favours a large development on green belt land (the proposed BCFC stadium) with its associated large supermarket developments.

When referring to a greener Bristol Marvin Rees talks about the stereotypical issues, like recycling, waste, ‘sustainable energy’. Typically his ‘environmentalism’ is a mere add-on. No joined up thinking. If he really got sustainable development he would successfully integrate his social and economic policies with his environmental ones and not end up having some policies that could make us more sustainable counteracted by many that make us less sustainable.   

1 comment:

  1. I haven't seen Marvin's "I stand for change" leaflet but was intrigued reading his manifesto.

    This is the link to the online version of his manifesto - sorry for the mega long link: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/marvinrees/pages/65/attachments/original/1349864502/Marvin-Rees-Manifesto2.pdf?1349864502

    Ok it's all smeared with the usual politicians guff about 'change' and 'values' but there are a fair few concrete pledges in there he can be held to account for, should he be elected.

    As someone who's homeless and living out of bins I was pleased to see housing and food getting due prominence.

    There aren't that many empty residential buildings in Bristol. There may be more in future due to repossessions but it's not currently a big problem. So his pledge to do more to bring the few long-term empties there are back into use is a bit null. The city is increasingly blighted by empty commercial buildings, something Marvin doesn't appear to have noticed.

    As for making Bristol a zero food waste city what am I going to eat if the supermarkets stop filling their bins with tasty food?

    Of course I'm not going to get to vote for Mayor as I don't have an address to register at. Oh well.

    ReplyDelete

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