Congratulations and commiserations

Many congratulations to George Ferguson and commiserations to the other candidates, especially to Marvin Rees. You have to work hard to become the first elected Mayor of Bristol - but the much harder work begins now. It's a new way to run Bristol with many uncertainties and it has to be made to work. I hope that people in all political parties will work well together and that George's cabinet has someone from each political party with councillors currently on the city council. I hope this is a victory for independent-minded thinking from political people inside and outside of parties. I hope that power is genuinely and effectively spread out into communities, with real opportunities to participate. I hope George's decent record on sustainable development becomes the norm for development in the city. I hope George takes full note of the very large number of votes given to parties (the Greens, Labour and the socialists) supporting the living wage and the fairness agenda and the good number of votes given to the only woman candidate, the Greens Daniella Radice (who was only one percentage point behind the Lib Dems). Feels good to have voted for someone who has won an election - after 30 yrs as a voter!

Very good, gracious speech from the new Mayor George Ferguson here and I agree particularly strongly when he said this,

"I want to use that mandate to go and ask the prime minister and the government in general for more powers for Bristol and for more resources. I think we deserve it.

"We have delivered what they wanted, now they have got to deliver what we want."

Negligent Nadine

Following MP Nadine Dorries shining example, boosting the reputation of MPs and the political system: Dear Open University [my employer] I’ll be taking up to a month off work and so won’t be doing my lecturing and research supervision role for a while. You will continue to pay me as usual [I wish!] even though I won’t be doing the work I'm paid for and will be earning extra money during my month off. Cheers!

Member's means

Many MPs have second jobs eg North East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg received around £132,000 in the year to August from his company Somerset Capital Management. The Conservative MP works 35 hours a month in return for the cash...(story here). As a matter of principle shouldn't we expect MPs to work full time for their constituency? Mr Rees-Mogg for example has time and energy that he could direct into working for voters in his constituency that he is directing elsewhere. Surely there are enough problems and issues to work on in his constituency, the SW region, the country, the EU and the world to keep this (and other) representatives busy for a lifetime! Docking some pay from MPs with second jobs is perhaps missing the point - they should not have these jobs whilst being an MP to begin with, so make it a rule that they cant.

Fairer future

Labour's mayoral candidate Marvin Rees has promised to introduce a living wage in Bristol if he gets elected to the figurehead post in November. He has pledged to bring in a rate of not less than £7.20 an hour for all council employees and hopes it will be extended across all firms and organisations throughout the city...'fairness will be an over-riding focus of my time as mayor'...(more here).
Good to see a specific, clear policy statement.  The emphasis on fairness is right and the living wage idea is a very good one, though I would argue for fixing it higher than the £7.20 that Marvin Rees proposes. At 60% of net national average earnings, a living wage would be just over £8 per hour.

I hope by taking this policy position Marvin Rees is saying that he wants to tackle unjustifiably high salary payments at the middle and top end, cut the difference between salaries at the top and bottom, and spread salary and other aspects of fairness for council employees out into the private sector.

Forestry and fuel

Biomass does, up to a point, have potential to supply us with some of our heat energy and electrical power. This could be direct, in our homes, via good quality wood burners using sustainably produced logs. It could also be through biomass power stations, preferably combined heat and power ones. Not all biomass fuels or power stations are environmentally friendly though - it depends how you define and obtain the biomass. I was interested therefore to see this story Go-ahead given for new biomass power station where Govt has permitted a biomass power station at Royal Portbury Dock.

'The DECC said the plant would be fuelled mainly by imported virgin wood, dedicated energy crops and locally-sourced waste wood.'

Why cant we expand out forestry industry and fuel this power station fully ourselves instead of importing virgin wood? Wouldn't that be combining good, job-creating local economic development with fuel security and more environmentally friendly practice?? An expanded forestry industry would also have the benefits of soaking up pollution as the trees grow and providing wildlife habitats and opportunities for recreation. Get a proper energy and economic strategy - join the dots!!

Rubbish reporting

What are the journalists at the Evening Post on? There are no details at all to tell readers of this story why the animal rights people were protesting at Bristol Airport. Nothing on which animal rights group(s), of which there are several, including some very different outlooks and methods. Whatever the rights and wrongs of 'animal rights' and the tactics that have been used I'd like to know why exactly the protest occurred.

To make matters confusing the Post additionally reports - under the same headline - what seems to be an entirely unconnected protest in any entirely different place that had absolutely nothing to do with animal rights! The Youth Fight for Jobs story should have been given its own headline if they felt it was worthy of reporting.

Swedish sameness

So, David Cameron is off to Sweden to attend the Nordic-Baltic Summit. Great place to go to learn a fair bit about equality. Sweden has much lower income equality than the UK (see here). Its gender equality is also much better: http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Society/Equality/Facts/Gender-equality-in-Sweden/.

I doubt very much that our PM will be adopting the Swedish approach though. They redistribute wealth using taxes and benefits. Public services are provided by a very well developed welfare state. Sweden's state is large. Public services are well developed and there is effective legislation to ensure that both men and women can have reasonably balanced work and family lives and good prospects for fair involvement at all levels of society. This is the opposite of Cameron's Conservatism.    

Overpaid Ormondroyd

Occupy Bristol protesters question leaders over pay rates.Why have so many comments on this story simply attacked those asking the questions? Its the issue that counts and tactical rather than fair argument is a distraction from the very important matter of who is paid what and why - and whether its fair and deserved. The current Chief Executive Jan Ormondroyd (pictured) is paid £107,000 per year more now than in 1998 - 122 per cent more than her predecessor 14 years ago. This £7600 a year rise every year for ten years, way above inflation and bearing no relation to the performance of Bristol City Council, cannot be right. Less than 10% a year says one person - but this sort of level of sustained increase has only been given to those already well paid and wealthy. Where's the justice in that?

Efficiency drive

This sort of energy efficiency and renewable energy scheme (here) is long overdue but whilst the headline is current and active saying 'Ten-year energy efficiency drive will create jobs' the first sentence of the story immediately damps that down, referring to 'council plans to develop' the scheme.

Its good to see this project but £2.5 million over ten years, less than a quarter of a million per year, does not amount to a 'multi-million pound' scheme in my book - unless the council is going to get much more money from a range of other sources (are they?).

Work on 6000 homes and buildings is a decent start but Bristol has hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings, which gives some perspective to this. The 1500 jobs figure sounds more like hope than realism given the amount of money per year mentioned here.

Though the council setting up its own energy company to operate at arms length is a good move I'd ideally like to see many community based energy companies in the city - and I just hope the council is more dynamic than it has proved to be and gets on with it! Having said that they have been and are not helped by central govt policy, so lets see that change for the better.

These developments should be driven by our need for energy security, community resilience and what best science says about the rate at which we need to be cutting fossil fuel use and carbon emissions - if you work back from what they say to the consequent energy efficiency and renewable energy plans you get investment figures that are much higher and orders of magnitude more installations.

Savage for Mayor? Uncivilised?

The book - High in Hope - and all the surrounding hype sounds like John Savage's (and through him Business West's) bid the become the Elected Mayor of Bristol! Has he ruled out this possibility??

The project says '...by 2050 the area’s [Bristol's] population will have massively increased, perhaps by as much as 500,000, meaning 300,000 jobs will need to be created and a further 200,000 homes built.'

Dont they have any grasp of the unsustainability of this? Given the unsustainability isn't it reasonable to try now to shape the future we want? Better to at least make an effort rather than simply going along with 'crystal ball gazing predict and provide' as if its an inevitability we can do absolutely nothing about.

More here:
http://www.bristol247.com/2011/12/08/lets-end-curse-of-poverty-in-bristol-by-2050/

http://www.bristol247.com/2010/07/05/bristol-group-call-for-new-debate-on-elected-mayor/

http://bristolmayor.org/about/

Autumn Statement: visionless

George Osbourne's Autumn Statement could have been used as an opportunity to put our economy on the right road. This chance was wasted. It could have been used to set us on the road away from the unequal, unfair, wasteful and polluting rat race we have – it did not. It could have helped create a way of life we can afford in both economic, social and environmental terms – it did not. It could have helped create the jobs that need people, by building on the resources of the people – it did not.

It could have helped to build a more self-reliant and stable economy – instead we are still reliant on a system of international finance which cannot last much longer. It could have started to establish an economy which can be sustained into the future, without killing our environment and exploiting the people – it did not. Instead the Chancellor produced a statement totally lacking is any vision of a better society at all. Actually pretty much par for the course as far as such statements - and budgets - go.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15937446

Seven billion of us

Human population is currently 6.989 billion. It will reach 7 billion next month. You can see the statistics in real time here http://www.worldometers.info/ .

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday singled out sustainable development as the top issue facing the planet with the world's seven billionth person expected to be born next month.
Key to this was climate change, and he said time was running out with the population set to explode this century.
"Next month, the seven billionth citizen of our world will be born," the UN secretary general said during a speech at Sydney University.
"For that child, and for all of us, we must keep working to fight poverty, create decent jobs, and provide a dignified life while preserving the planet that sustains us.
"That is why the sustainable development agenda is the agenda for the 21st century.
"Above all, that means connecting the dots between challenges such as climate change and water scarcity, energy shortages, global health issues, food insecurity and the empowerment of the world's women."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/sustainable-development-worlds-top-issue-un-chief-2351721.html

Green Councillors achievements: Kirklees excellent energy efficiency example

Energy efficiency reduces fuel poverty, tackles climate change, creates employment, generates money for the local economy, produces warm homes with lower, affordable fuel bills, less misery, ill-health and social exclusion - and lowers winter deaths due to the cold.

Green Councillors are leading the way in developing energy efficiency. In Kirklees, Green Councillors delivered a project to provide free loft and cavity insulation to every house that could benefit.
They are providing loans for more expensive insulation measures, loans which only have to be paid back when the property is sold again. Council officers in Kirklees calculate for every £1 that their council spent on a similar insulation scheme, a further £4 was generated in the local economy.

Green Party Tackling fuel poverty, addressing climate change and creating jobs

A World In Waiting: 10 Feb, Colston Hall

Passing on this from Nick Thomas...I'm just spreading word of a free event that may be of interest. It's the final event of the European Year for Combating Poverty & Social Exclusion - a large-scale exercise in direct democracy that we hope will attract a wide range of contributors with interest, ideas or experience of the issues involved. It's called A World in Waiting, evoking the better world that we hold in our hearts and that we could and should do more to make a reality. The agenda is completely open, to be set on the day - and the Dept for Work & Pensions is expecting us to generate 5 “policy asks” from the day’s deliberations, so it should have practical outcomes!

It takes place this Thursday (10th Feb) at the Colston Hall - and is open to everyone. It runs from 10am-5pm, but you're welcome to drop in at any time for as long as you like. Full details are at http://www.aworldinwaiting.eu. Do get in touch if you'd like to know more - and do please spread the word. We hope to fill the Colston Hall!
Many thanks,
Nick.


Nick Thomas
The Pierian Centre
Tel: 0117 924 4512
www.pieriancentre.com

Clarkson 'weighs in' on Sky Sport sexism

Er... Jeremy this was not an issue of what Gray and Keys thought but how they behaved and what they said - in a workplace. Sexism in the workplace is illegal, along with racism, homophobia, ageism...but is still an issue and it will remain an issue unless determined action is taken. The rights of people should be protected and workplaces should not ignore the law and allow any kind of disrespectful, disciminatory culture to persist. Efforts are needed from all employers and employees to ensure that people are treated fairly and with respect.

Last night controversial Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson also weighed into the [Sky Sports sexism] row - and said he would have been sacked '100 times' if the same rules were applied to him.
Talking backstage at the National Television Awards, he said: 'We've arrived at a stage where you actually can be busted by heresy by thought, which is a terrifying place to live.
'While we try very hard on Top Gear not to be sexist... if a man wants to think that... that's fine. You should be allowed to think what you think.'

Quoted in this story:
Richard Keys resigns from Sky Sports over sexist 'bully boy' behaviour Mail Online

Poor economics, poor politics

Unemployment is up by 35,000 to 2.5 million. At the same time inflation has risen to a six month high of 3.3%. More unemployment and more inflation is forecast in 2011 as the cuts in public spending and the VAT rise make their damaging economic and social impacts. Its crazy not to be stimulating key parts of the economy at this time - very poor economics from the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition. Despite this situation Labour leader Ed Miliband only asked very briefly about the economy in today's questions to the Prime Minister. Ed and his team are weak on the economy, weak on defending Labour's record and the need for economic stimulus and weak on political strategy and tactics.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11998364 on unemployment
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11996631 on inflation.

Despite cuts, Bristol City Council offers deputy job for £120k a year

The council should scrap this idea, not employ anyone in this role - and save £240,000 over two years. We are all supposed to be 'in it together'. You can afford to employ six people on £20,000 on two year contracts with this money - or keep a library open for the same period...Very bad choice Bristol City Council.

BRISTOL City Council is advertising for a new deputy chief executive on a salary of more than £120,000-a-year – at a time when the council is in the grip of the biggest cuts in its history. [salary alone for the two yr contract is £240,000 - there may be other costs involved]

The council is shedding hundreds of jobs and has had a freeze on vacancies to try to balance the civic books.

The advert says: "We have recently reviewed our senior management team and are looking for a new deputy chief executive to join us initially for the next two years...

Simon Hughes - add action to your words and make change on housing benefit cuts happen

Simon Hughes' words on housing benefit changes - 'harsh and draconian' - are right but I want to see him and others like him back their words with actions. A roof over your head is a basic need and the changes risk significantly increasing homelessness - on top of all the extra risk of a lot more unemployment, cuts in councils services and so on...

Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes is threatening a backbench rebellion over planned cuts to housing benefit.

The party's deputy leader told Channel 4 News some of the proposals were "harsh and draconian".

In its Spending Review last week, the government announced major changes to housing benefit - including cutting it by 10% for the long-term jobless....

...The government is proposing the biggest shake-up in housing in decades - cutting money for new social housing by 50% and allowing housing associations to charge new tenants close to the full market rate for rent...

Countering the cuts myths - Red Pepper

Excellent piece in Red Pepper: Countering the cuts myths

The government and the press say we are in the grip of a debt crisis caused by the ‘bloated’ public sector. Here, Red Pepper debunks the myths used to push cuts to jobs and public services...

Thanks to Charlie Bolton for pointing me in the direction of this article - its a good read with important information.

Green view on today's spending review

Budget to destroy a million jobs

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP has called George Osborne's comprehensive spending review a "budget to destroy a million jobs" - and has again argued that the worst cuts could have been avoided by an alternative policy based on a fairer tax regime.

Caroline Lucas said immediately after the budget statement:

"This is a budget to destroy half a million jobs in the public sector, according to the government's own estimates. And the knock-on effects will be at least as many jobs lost in the private sector."

The Brighton Pavilion MP added:

"When those public sector workers find themselves out of work they will, along with disabled people, feel the full force of the additional £7 billion worth of cuts in welfare spending, on top of the £11 billion of cuts announced in June. The housing benefit regime will become much more harsh, risking a rise in homelessness.

"They will also find that the loss of public services that this budget represents will massively disadvantage them, and all the most vulnerable people in society who rely on those services."

She asked:

"Where's the fairness in a budget that lets vital public services go to the wall, hitting the poorest hardest?"

Britain's first Green Party MP concluded:

"This was a budget of false economies, undermining the economy and hitting the most vulnerable - and all, incredibly, under the banner of fairness."