Councillor Matt Sellwood

Unspeakably thrilling news

2008-09-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have returned to the blogosphere. If you're still interested in my ramblings, you can find me at my new gaff - www.anglobuddhistcombine.blogspot.com

Cheers,

Matt

A time for unity....

2007-12-04T05:23:00.000-08:00

This is still an ex-blog....but I did feel the need to clamber atop my battered soapbox one last time, to make a plea to fellow members of the Green Party.

As many readers will know, the Green Party has just had an internal referendum on the 'leadership question'. After many months of discussion and debate, the Party membership voted 73% to 27% (with about a 50% turnout) to switch away from our current model of Principal Speakers without a vote on the National Exec and elected annually, to a model of Leader/Deputy Leader both with a vote on the Exec and elected once every two years.

Readers may also know that, due to my opposition to the abandoning of annual elections, I urged a 'No' vote in the referendum.

However - I strongly believe that now that the Party membership has spoken, it is time to unify and move on to what we are meant to be doing - winning elections and building a movement for radical social change. It is up to the hundreds of members who voted 'NO' to act constructively to ensure that a Green model of leadership is inclusive, transparent, accountable and empowering - not to fight some sort of guerilla battle against proposals that have been overwhelmingly supported by thousands of party members.

I guess I just wanted to express my opinion, clearly, that now is the time to take stock of our new internal structure and make sure that it works for everyone. Not to hark back to an old structure that, lets be honest, never worked very well anyway and has been rejected by a large majority of our fellow party members.

Here's hoping that peace breaks out, and we can all move forward on a constructive basis...winning at least one MP at the next General Election!

Cheers and best wishes,

Matt

An ex-blog

2007-10-31T06:21:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I admit it. This is an ex-blog. It has ceased to be. etc. My apologies to my literally tens of readers, but I just don't have the time to update it anymore...things keep getting more and more hectic, and my need for free time isn't going away....

I hope people have found it a useful if rather random and erratic snapshot into the life of a district councillor. If you are interested in that aspect of things, then do go along to http://greenladywell.blogspot.com for Cllr Sue Luxton's thoughts on life in Lewisham! Alternatively, if its left/green analysis you would like, there's nowhere better than http://greenmansoccasional.blogspot.com

Enjoy - and best wishes, as always!

Matt

Oxford Police and Protest

2007-06-07T08:05:00.001-07:00

Having returned from a wonderful holiday (walking the Cumbria Way - I fully recommend it!) I was very disturbed to see the latest copy of direct action weekly 'SCHNEWS'. It has news of the dismissal of charges against animal rights protestors, due to unacceptable behaviour from the Oxford police force:

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news590.htm

Now, as regular readers of my blog will know, there is history of my views on this subject being somewhat selectively represented. So, I will make it clear. I do not agree with everything that SPEAK say. I DO agree with their right to say it, and certainly with their right to say it without a campaign to 'persecute' them. Our police should be on the side of the law, not of Oxford University. I know from bitter experience in the past that the police, too often, are on the side of power against those wanting to express unpopular or controversial views. I will continue to do everything within my limited power to hold actions like this to account.

B52 not guilty!

2007-05-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

News that I am delighted about today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6681639.stm

It's taken them four years of their life, but they've been found 'not guilty' - I won't say that they were vindicated, because regardless of the court finding, there was never any doubt in my mind that they did the right thing. Speaking as someone who broke into RAF Fairford at around the same time in order to stop the planes taking off - but also as someone who, quite frankly, wasn't brave enough to take on the whole judicial system - I am over the moon for them.

Phil and Toby, my heroes!

Matt

Ex-Lib Dems become Tories

2007-05-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/display.var.1407826.0.two_jump_ship_to_tories.php

I'm a bit speechless about this one. Defecting to become Independents is one thing - but Tories? One of the councillors, Paul Sargent, was elected as a Lib Dem in Carfax Ward at the same election as me - and Carfax is the only ward less student dominated than my own. I can guarantee that the many students who voted for him thought he was the progressive choice - not a Tory in disguise.

As for Tia Macgregor...I don't know what to say. Her voting record is progressive and leftish - I can't imagine what on earth she is doing joining the Conservatives.

I could make the obvious comment about the Lib Dems recruiting their candidates from people who don't quite know what their politics are - but its a bit too easy, isn't it....

Matt

New Council Year

2007-05-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well, tearing myself away from esoteric theory, I should point out that council business goes on as ever. Annual Council was yesterday, at which we appoint all the committees for the year, as well as the Leader/Deputy Leader of the Council. Everything stayed pretty much the same - the Lib Dems are still in minority administration (despite not being the largest party!), I am still sitting on Executive Board as the Green Group representative, and so on. John Tanner was also sworn in as Lord Mayor for the year, which should provide much hilarity. Even his own Labour benches started laughing when he had to take an oath promising to use his 'good judgement'....

I didn't stay for the ceremonial flummery afterwards, as generally I don't like that kind of thing unless I have promised to give a speech nominating someone to a civic office (as last year) - but perhaps I should have done, because I came home to the tidal wave of sycophantic coverage about Blair's resignation. I had to restrain myself from putting my foot through the TV at times...particularly when commentator after commentator said things like 'well, putting aside Iraq'....

PUTTING ASIDE IRAQ? Thats like saying of Pinochet - 'well, putting aside the death squads'....

The man is a mass murdering war criminal. He deserves to go down in history as such, and I trust that he will, despite the seeming inability of today's media to paint him in his true light. May he have a long and unhappy retirement.

Matt

Greens and the left

2007-05-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Well, my post on local elections seems to have awakened a debate - mostly on my assertion, made over a number of years now, that the Greens need to affirm themselves as an explicitly 'left' and anti-capitalist party.

At the risk of appearing immodest, I felt it might be useful to explain exactly what I mean by this, as such a statement is open to misinterpretations.

I most certainly do *not* mean that the Greens should adopt the kind of alienating language used by the far left, that we should reject everyone to our right as 'class enemies', that we should refuse ever to engage in the existing political system, or that we should adopt the stifling centralisation of Leninism. While the antics of the far-left over the decades have meant that these counterproductive habits have become associated with being on the left, they are certainly not inherent in a leftist position.

What I *do* mean is that the Green Party needs, urgently, to have a debate about how the radical social and economic changes that we desire will come about. At the moment many Greens have a sort of fuzzy faith that electing councillors and MPs to institute greenish reforms will do it. This is fine if you believe that the current system can be reformed. I don't think that most Greens actually believe that this is the case...instead, we believe that a radical change is necessary - in short, that capitalism as a system cannot deliver sustainability and social justice. If we think this (as I do) then we have to be honest about it - *and* we have to have some idea at least of our 'direction of travel'. Yes, elected representatives are part of the way in which we change society, but they are by no means the only way - and if they become too compromised by the status quo, too obsessed with 'managing decline' and ameliorating cuts, they actually become actively counter-productive.

I am an anti-capitalist, left-wing Green. I am anti-capitalist because I believe that capitalism cannot deliver a sustainable society, and I am left-wing because I believe that a sustainable society without equality, social justice and peace would not be worth living in or fighting for. I believe that the most important function of Green representatives is to provide leadership in empowering their communities, in restoring cohesion amongst people, in creating solidarity and communication that has been ripped apart by capitalism and modern society. Green representatives should be the catalysts for true 'people power' - not the administrators of neo-liberalism.

If people aren't happy with using the word 'left', I don't really mind. What is important is the policy that is put forward, the vision for radical change, and the actions in practice. As long as those are socially just, and move against the system that commodifies nature and people, I don't care what you call it!

Matt

P.S. The most interesting comment to the last post was from DarrenJ, who said that he was happy for the Greens to be a progressive 'centre left' party, but not a 'far left' party. Does this mean that it is OK for Greens to be social democrats, but not anti-capitalists? And if so....can we really get to a sustainable society by reforming the current system? I don't think so - perhaps others disagree.

Two more campaigns to support

2007-05-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

There are a number of campaigns that I am actively involved with at the moment. Two of them are supporting the striking workers at the City Council's park and ride sites, and opposing the plans for an Academy School at the Peers site.

The Park and Ride workers first. I want to start with an admission. I voted for the original City Council budget that had the introduction of lone working at night for the Park and Ride workers. As anyone who knows about local government will confirm, the money available to councillors shrinks year on year on year - and the £100,000 proposed to be saved from lone working was one of the Transport and Parking Business Unit's 'efficiency savings' for the year - one of scores of savings from across the authority, to meet our ever shrinking budget. While I, and the Green Group, were not happy with it, we hadn't received much complaint about it from the unions or from the workers concerned - and so when putting together our budget, we concentrated on reversing cuts that council workers and our local communities *had* made a big fuss about - things like investment in renewable energy, support for allotments, support for vulnerable families and so on.

Then the strike action began, and it became clear that a mistake had been made. It was immediately obvious that the workers involved felt far more strongly about the issue of lone working than we had realised when setting the budget. We set out to discuss the issue in depth with both of the other main political groups, the management and the unions - and after deliberation, decided that the strikers are right. The imposition of lone working on staff who had not been employed on those terms and conditions, particularly at night, is not an acceptable saving. Therefore the Green Group is now calling for the Council to spend £100,000 of its reserves (it has more than enough in this financial year to reverse the cut) on reinstating the old rotas in our Park and Ride car parks, and to scrap lone working.

The current situation is that the Green Group and the IWCA support the strikers, while the Labour and Lib Dem Groups support the management stance. I am now working on persuading the other political groups that we all made a mistake when setting the budget, and that we should listen to what council workers are telling us about their concerns over safety. Real political leadership is, I think, about examining the situation afresh and admitting when you are wrong - not refusing to change positions just because it might look embarassing. The strikers have my full support.

Donations to the UNISON branch hardship fund and messages of support should be sent to: UNISON Office, St. Aldate's Chambers, 109 St Aldate's, Oxford, OX1 1DS Cheques should be made out to ‘UNISON Oxford City Branch’ You can contact the branch on unison@oxford.gov.uk, or call 01865 252672.

As for the Peers Academy plans? Well, its hard to know what to say to such a stupid scheme - so typical of this government and its bizarre determination to involve the private sector in everything, regardless of common sense. For a small investment, BMW, Oxford Brookes and the Diocese of Oxford will be able to appoint the majority of governors to the new school, manipulate the curriculum and gain control of £22 million of public funding for education. The mind boggles. Why on earth New Labour want to further gut local democracy in this fashion is beyond me.

See www.antiacademies.org.uk for more details on the idiocy of schemes like this!

Motorways vs renewable energy

2007-05-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, once I start posting again, you can't stop me. Mostly because I remember all the idiocies of the current political system that I wanted to blog about. Top of the list is this:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2073611,00.html

Right - so - £21 million for 1 mile of motorway widening. The sum total of the entire Low Carbon Buildings grant programme? £18 million.

Vote Labour. Get an apocalypse.

Matt

Local elections

2007-05-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

We have entered a time of change in British politics, and no doubt about it. The Green Party are, of course, still a relatively small element in the political scene, and it would be foolish to claim otherwise. We do, however, have the potential to rapidly expand to fill the space 'left of Labour' that is such a gaping hole at the moment - and personally I certainly hope that we manage to do so. British politics desperately needs a left party that also has a functioning internal democracy, and that believes in local democracy and participatory economics.

However, we Greens have to be honest. Most Green bloggers have been hailing the local election results (with even the obvious regret over the number of returning Green MSPs tempered by a conclusion that 'at least we avoided wipeout like the other small parties) - and yes, they are pleasing. Brighton doubling its representation to twelve, Lancaster gaining five, Norwich continuing to expand, and a whole host of new councils with Green representation - of course I'm happy too. After all, we were the only party to have a net gain of councillors in double figures, apart from the Tories. HOWEVER - we have to recognise that we are still nowhere near the influence that we need to have, given the depth of the ecological and social crisis gripping our planet. 110 councillors is decent...more than decent, given our resources. But the fact remains that 110 councillors is where we should have been in the 80s. Given public awareness of 'our issues', given the widespread yearning for an alternative - we need to up our game, and do it fast.

That is one of the reasons that Oxford East Greens have selected Peter Tatchell as our Parliamentary candidate. We need a dynamic, eloquent, experienced campaigner, to catalyse ourselves into doing more than we ever thought we could. No longer should we be satisfied with the 'balance of power' on the City Council - though of course it is a powerful position - we must aim to become the main opposition party, and then control the Council, along with representation in Parliament. An astonishingly difficult and ambitious goal - don't think, as Elections Co-ordinator for Oxfordshire, that I don't realise this - but also the only goal that is going to begin to establish us as a serious, credible, powerful alternative to politics as usual.

We need to up our game across the country. Lets start today.

Matt

Apologies!

2007-05-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

OK - I doubt anyone is reading this blog anymore, given the criminally long time since I have last posted anything. I have two excuses - the first involves becoming Oxfordshire Green Party Elections Co-ordinator during the run up to the local elections and when we were selecting our candidate for the next General Election in Oxford East...the second involves getting progressively more frustrated with Blogger and its (being polite) 'eccentricities'.

However, May 3rd has passed, and I am back! First coherent post tomorrow, I hope...

Matt

Whats wrong with the Stern Report?

2007-01-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all!

This is the best analysis of the Stern Report that I have read so far, and one with which I almost entirely agree:

http://caractacus.wordpress.com/2006/12/31/2007-will-brown-do-anything-about-climate-change-or-just-try-to-make-money-off-it/

In fact, I'd recommend reading the entire blog - excellent stuff!

Matt

Doomed, I tell you...

2006-12-19T03:32:00.000-08:00

And, as if we need more proof about why we really shouldn't be building massive carbon intensive new retail developments, the following article provides it. I normally don't like cutting and pasting things - but this is serious enough to warrant it:

This year will be Britain's warmest since records began, say scientists

· Surge in temperature astounds weather experts
· Man - not nature - is to blame, researchers say

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian

Britain is on course for the warmest year since records began, according to figures from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia yesterday. Temperatures logged by weather stations across England reveal 2006 to have been unusually mild, with a mean temperature of 10.84C. The record beats the previous two joint hottest years of 1999 and 1990 by 0.21C.

Temperatures in central England have been recorded since 1659, the world's longest climate record, and they indicate the trend towards warming weather across Britain as a whole.

Experts are convinced that the warming can only be explained by rising greenhouse gases from human activity and rule out the impact of natural variations, such as the sun's intensity. "Our climate models show we should be getting warmer and drier weather in the summer, and warmer and wetter in the winter, and that's exactly what we're seeing," said Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. "I cannot see how else this can be explained."

Soaring summer temperatures and an exceptionally warm autumn were the main forces driving annual temperatures to record levels, with July being the warmest month ever recorded at 19.7C and September an exceptional 16.8C. The summer heatwave was caused by a high pressure weather system loitering over the Alps from July to August. Highs are associated with air currents that spin clockwise, so on the western side Britain was warmed by air sucked up from north Africa. The high brought chilly northerlies down to east European countries.

In July, temperatures reached 33C (91F) across an area of central and southern England from Hereford to Bedfordshire, with 29.5C recorded at Prestwick, near Glasgow, and 30C in Castlederg, Northern Ireland. The heatwave put the Department of Health on level three alert - one away from emergency levels - and elderly and vulnerable people were advised to drink lots, stay out of the sun in the afternoon and wear loose clothing.

In the autumn, predominantly south-westerly air currents brought warm air to southern Britain from Spain and Portugal.

The record year has astounded scientists. "What's phenomenal about this year is that some of these months have broken records by incredible amounts. This year it was 0.8C warmer in autumn and 0.5C warmer between April and October than the previous warmest years. Normally these records are broken by around one tenth of a degree or so," said Prof Jones.

A study this year by Peter Stott at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change found that warming over the past 50 years could only be explained by climbing emissions of greenhouse gases. A 1C rise in the past five decades was only reproduced by climate models when human-induced greenhouse gas emissions were included.

In 2004 Dr Stott and scientists at Oxford University showed that human emissions of greenhouse gases had more than doubled the risk of record-breaking heatwaves such as the one reckoned to have killed 27,000 people across Europe in 2003. The Met Office figures show that 2006 is set to be 1.37C warmer than the mean temperature logged over the four decades from 1961. The previous two hottest years, 1990 and 1999, both recorded mean temperatures of 10.63C.

All of the 10 warmest years in Britain have occurred in the past 18 years, except the fourth hottest, when in 1949 the year's mean temperature reached 10.62C.

Other figures released by the Met Office yesterday reveal that global temperatures have risen too, with 2006 on track to become the sixth warmest year since records began in 1850. The latest figures mean that the 10 warmest years ever have all occurred in the past 12 years. Some scientists already predict a warmer year in 2007, in large part because of a natural phenomenon called El Niño in the eastern Pacific, which is expected to have a profound effect on climate.

Mild warming is not expected to be overly problematic for the UK, but the trend towards drier summers has already seen a two-year drought devastate groundwater supplies in southern England, while sudden downpours have triggered flash flooding. Though scientists are not able to pin a single year's record temperatures on global warming, the long-term trend towards a warming climate is now irrefutable, they claim, and should be taken seriously by policy makers.

"The government is making many of the right noises, but we really should be doing more," said Prof Jones. "We were the first country to industrialise, why can't we become the first to really reduce our emissions? I despair when I hear the government talking about extensions to airports, when air travel is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. It's as if there's a belief in government that this will sort itself out."

I cannot properly express how worrying this is. Not only are things steadily getting warmer (which we already knew) - but they are getting warmer *fast*. As Professor Phil Jones from UEA puts it in the article: "What's phenomenal about this year is that some of these months have broken records by incredible amounts. This year it was 0.8C warmer in autumn and 0.5C warmer between April and October than the previous warmest years. Normally these records are broken by around one tenth of a degree or so."

Temperature jumps of half a degree C and more in one year? Welcome to the future.

Matt

Westgate - the final chapter?

2006-12-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

So - Ruth Kelly has declined to 'call in' the Westgate application for a public inquiry....and it looks as if the centre is going to be built - and sod the human rights of the people living at Abbey Place. Why am I not surprised at that decision by a Labour minister? Ah well - at least no-one can accuse us of not giving the effort to stop this idiocy our all.....

You win some, you lose some. It's just a shame that people fighting for cohesive local communities, environmental sanity and an end to retail addiction seem to lose more than they win these days.

Labour and BAE

2006-12-15T02:39:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I helped to do the research with CorporateWatch that led to the production of their report on BAE Systems - available at: http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=183

Having immersed myself in the dirty world of BAE and their corrupt dealings with mass-murdering dictators, I couldn't quite work out why I was surprised by the news that Tony Blair has ordered the Serious Fraud Office to discontinue its investigation into the Al-Yammamah arms deal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6181977.stm). After all, Its hardly news to anyone who knows anything about Labour that they are completely in thrall to big business.

Having thought about it for a few moments, though, I've decided that it has to do with the sheer, obvious corruption behind this decision. Labour have always at least had the decency to shroud their moral bankruptcy in a sheen of PR - no longer, it seems. An ethical foreign policy is not only dead, it has been exhumed, drawn and quartered, and cremated. Meanwhile the pitiful shell of the Labour Party staggers onwards, totally bereft of even the thought that accomodation to massive business corruption might not be a good idea. Reclaiming the Labour Party? Don't make me laugh.

Matt

Public cynicism

2006-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

OK, I'll admit it. I was grumpy today even before I saw the Oxford Mail - having gone to bed with England cruising towards a comfortable draw in the Second Test, I woke up to find them having collapsed to defeat. Enough to send any cricket lover slightly around the bend. However, it was the Oxford Mail that really put me in a bad mood. 'Is Your Councillor Worth Their Expenses?' asked the blatantly leading headline, with the main body of the article full of quotes bemoaning the 'grossly overpaid' councillors and their fat cat lifestyles.

Utter, complete and total codswallop - and what is worse, the Oxford Mail journalists, who get closer to the process of local government than most, know that to be true. I'd be the first to admit that there are many things wrong with local politics, and that not every councillor is as effective or competent as they should be - but to suggest that an average allowance of just £5,000 per annum is too much to pay councillors is ludicrous. I probably put in a good 15 hours in an average week on council work - the equivalent of two days pay. If I was being paid pro-rata, I'd be on £12,500 - in Oxford, with a mortgage to pay. Such low allowances already make it difficult for anyone except rich, retired people to get involved in local politics - just look at the average age of Oxfordshire County Council, or the constant attrition of younger councillors who begin to feel the need to (shock, horror) get paid for work. Is the Oxford Mail really advocating a return to the days when only those who could afford to be elected should represent the population of Oxford? It was noteable that, in a throwaway sentence in the middle of the article, the journalist noted that Oxford's councillors already receive allowances that are significantly below the average for the rest of the South East of England - and that recommendations for allowances are set by an independent panel, not councillors.

Really, though, I'm not as surprised as I sound at the sensationalism of the Oxford Mail - you get used to things being inaccurately reported as a councillor. What I am concerned at is not so much the individual story, though it was galling...but more the atmosphere of public cynicism that papers such as the Mail seem determined to engender. When there is so much good reason for the public to distrust politicians and the political process, creating another reason not based on the facts seems even more dishonest. From reading the local paper, you'd think that most councillors are greedy, indolent imbeciles who delight in wasting public money. In fact, far from it. I disagree (often virulently) with many council colleagues - but the majority are public-spirited, hard working, genuinely altruistic people who are doing their best to give something back to the community - and spending time doing it that could easily be used to earn much much more money than their council allowances provide. Why can't the media let us disagree on policy issues, and generate a real debate about the future direction of our city - rather than focusing on which councillors use their childcare allowances, or attend Rememberance Sunday?

Matt

P.S. I'll get off my high horse as soon as the Oxford Mail runs a story along the lines of 'Many journalists fail to research stories properly, shock probe reveals....'. I won't hold my breath.

89th Best Green...

2006-11-26T16:34:00.000-08:00

...or 89th best Green blog, at least, is my official rating - according to www.jimjay.blogspot.com

Apparently where I slipped up is frequency of posts (its a fair cop, guvnor) and unimaginative design (also fair). However, I am preparing to make my annual New Years resolution to improve my posting regularity - I promise, I will try harder!

For now, if you'd like some interesting Green thoughts, check out the 88 Green bloggers who are better than me - the full list is available at http://socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/activate/greenbloggers.htm

Also - an intriguing, close and ultimately surprising election result this week - fellow 'Green Left' supporter Derek Wall has become Male Principal Speaker of the Green Party, defeating Keith Taylor by about 750 votes to 700 (with Ashley Gunstock coming in third place). I must admit that my appalling record of predicting election results continues - I thought the Lib Dems would take control of the Council in May, that the Republicans would keep control of the Senate earlier this month, and that Keith would be re-elected as Principal Speaker. If you ever want to know how things are going to go - just ask me to make a prediction, and the opposite will invariably happen!

Matt

P.S. I confidently predict that Tony Blair will certainly NOT be indicted for war crimes. Oh no.

Green Party Students

2006-11-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

I feel that I should snap out of my Westgate irritation for a few moments to let people know about the really good work that OU Green Party Students are doing this year. We've already had two GPS talks - Paul Ingram talking about Green Party foreign policy, and Cllr Keith Taylor from Brighton talking about nuclear energy and renewable power. Both of them took place during our Friday organic lunches - 12.30 pm every other Friday, with free organic soup, bread, cheese and fruit...without a doubt the best meal that I get to eat all week!

The next two promise to be really interesting as well...on November 10th we are hosting Sian Berry (the Party's new Female Principal Speaker and hopefully soon to become a Camden councillor), and on the 24th we will have a speaker from Oxford-based Corporate Watch, speaking on the topic 'Is corporate social responsibility a contradiction in terms?'

If you're interested in getting involved, or just being added to our email list so that you can hear about these kinds of events in the future, then email our Co-ordinator at thomas.lowe[at]hertford.ox.ac.uk

Best wishes,

Matt

Westgate approved

2006-10-31T02:27:00.000-08:00

NEWSFLASH - The Westgate application was approved yesterday evening by the City Council's Strategic Development Control Committee, 7 votes to 4. I'm pleased to say that both Greens voted against it.

I'd hope that the Leader of the Council's proclamation that 'we are all environmentalists' now is turning to ashes in his mouth - but, in reality, I doubt he even sees the contradiction...

Matt

Westgate

2006-10-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised a proper post, and here it is. Apologies as ever for my sporadic blogging habits - but I hope that the last post but one explains why things have been quite hectic and difficult with me lately! As usual, when I am busiest with council work is exactly when I have least time to blog....and so appear like I'm not doing anything...

Lots of stuff has been happening in the last month, including the resignation of the Council's Chief Executive, the reordering of the Green Group's 'shadow portfolios' and the usual whirl of campaigns and motions. HOwever, without a doubt the biggest thing that I have been involved in has been the application to massively expand the size of the Westgate shopping centre. I have been purposefully keeping quiet on this one, so that I could have my say having considered all the evidence in the Officers Report - but now that I have voiced my opinion in the Area Committee (I was the only councillor to vote against the application in the final vote, which was 4-1 in favour of the plans due to the barring of my fellow Green Sushila Dhall) I can explain my reasoning.

I think that approving the Westgate expansion (the binding vote is due to be taken on 30th october by the Strategic Development Control Committee, and it is then sent to the Secretary of State for her approval) would be a strategic blunder of the highest order for Oxford. Simply put, we are a medieval city, with historical charm and historical infrastructure to match - we are not Milton Keynes, nor are we reading, and 'competing' in simple retail terms with them is insanity. THis might seem obvious, but believe it or not such arguments of 'the need for competitiveness' (shades of WTO advocates, writ local) are the main drivers for the Westgate development.

There are literally scores of reasons to oppose this development, but my objections really centre around three areas - the transport implications, the environmental implications, and the housing implications. Needless to say, all of these are underpinned by my belief that ever increasing retail and never ending economic growth is counterproductive.

1) Transport implications. As mentioned above, Oxford is a medieval city, with infrastructure to match. It is already creaking at the seams, and anyone who regularly travels around Botley Road, Abingdon Road, or Magdalen bridge, will be able to tell you that. Trying to cram in tens of thousands more people to service this massively expanding retail centre (three times as big as the current site!) is insanity. Botley Road will completely grind to a halt, the railway bridge will become all the more dangerous, and life actually *living* in the city centre will be made miserable. This is not to mention the fact that the application makes it almost impossible to ever remove buses from Queen Street - a stated goal of the City Council, but one that other councillors seem able to simply forget when the juicy apple of the Westgate is dangled in front of them.

2) Environmental implications. Well, where do I start? Air pollution, perhaps - we have a statuatory obligation to reduce the appalling levels of NO2 in the atmosphere....so, of course, approving an application which will increase bus and car movements in the city centre is the move of a genius. Places like Tennyson Lodge will become almost unliveable. And then there's climate change - the topic that I spent most of my speech at Area Committee talking about. This application drives a coach and horses through our recently adopted NRIA policy (which regular readers will know I spent years helping to push through the Council). The *first* application that we consider with the new NRIA, and it doesn't even come CLOSE to meeting the renewable energy requirements. It fails on all scores - it doesn't meet the overal minimum score, it fails individual elements of the NRIA completely - the approval of this application reveals the support of other councillors for our radical NRIA policy for what it really is. A sham. When it comes to putting their money where their mouth is on climate change, non-Green councillors have failed, pitifully.

The officers reply to this rant was that such a development cannot be made environmentally sustainable under the terms of the NRIA and 'remain economically viable'. Other councillors seem to accept this - while my reply is, if it cannot be made environmentally sustainable then IT SHOULD NOT BE BUILT.

3) Housing implications. As if the above wasn't enough, the application will demolish 18 purpose built homes for elderly and vulnerable people in Abbey Place - a community that has been built and developed over decades. In return, on this massive site in the city centre, worth tens of millions of pounds and largely owned by the City Council, the application will deliver just over 120 homes...only half of them 'affordable units', owned by housing associations (not the council). This will not be enough even to meet the housing need of the people coming into Oxford to *work* at the Westgate - far from alievating housing need in the city, the development will make it even worse, and tear apart one of the few functioning housing communities remaining in the city centre.

Overall, this application is a disaster. It is a disaster not because the Westgate Partnership are a particularly evil example of rapacious capitalists - but because of what it is. It is an attempt to build a massive, unsustainable retail behemoth in the middle of a medieval town - and it will not work. If SDCC approve the application, they will be doing Oxford an enormous disservice.

Matt

John Denham goes mad

2006-10-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

OK - a proper post soon, I promise. But for now, just enjoy the sheer lunacy of this suggestion by Labour MP John Denham (who, formerly, I had some time for due to his principled resignation over Iraq):

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1932173,00.html

The poor should get longer sentences because they have more time on their hands?

Words fail me. I honestly can't think of what to write to properly comment on the idiocy of this proposal - or what it says about the depths to which the Labour Party has sunk.

My favourite bit is this:

'Mr Denham's comments are likely to enrage civil liberties campaigners on the grounds that they amount to discrimination against the poor.'

Those crazy, lentil eating, sandal wearing civil liberty campaigners - now they're against discrimination versus the poor? Whatever next? A ban on public beheadings? John Reid for PM!

We live in a very very strange political climate, and no mistake.

Matt

RIP Richard Sexton

2006-09-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Richard Sexton was my colleague and friend, as well as an inspirational activist for social justice and the environment. His tragic death from cancer at the age of only 46 is not only a blow to the Climate Outreach and Information Network, but to everyone working on these issues. His wisdom and calm inspiration will be greatly missed.

RIP Richard. We'll miss you.

Matt

Solidarity needed

2006-09-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

It'd be great if you could sign up to the solidarity statement below. I knew Robin in my first year at Oxford - but even if I hadn't met him, this would be completely unacceptable. I'm glad to say that a good number of Green Party members have already signed up - it'd be appreciated if you could too!

Matt

*******************************************************************************

On 7 September, Tony Blair and Education Secretary Alan Johnson visited Quintin Kynaston school in north London to announce the first wave of 28 "trust schools" run by business, charitable and religious organisations - of which QK will be one of two in London. They were met by a demonstration, supported by Unison and NUT locally and School Students Against the War, and composed mainly of students from the school, expressing opposition to government policy on trust schools, privatisation and the wars in Iraq and Lebanon.

The initiator of this demonstration, QK classroom assistant Robin Sivapalan, has now been suspended from his job for "insubordination" and "breaching confidentiality" by informing people of Blair’s visit.

The attempt to victimise Robin is an attack on freedom of speech and the right to protest. We are not prepared to see public service trade unionists silenced when they dare to express opposition to government policy.

We the undersigned call on the management of Quintin Kynaston to immediately reinstate Robin Sivapalan and drop all disciplinary charges against him.

To sign email robin@free-education.org.uk. For more information and list of initial signatories see www.workersliberty.org/node/6909.

Back in circulation....

2006-08-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the near month-long hiatus - it wasn't the byelection that did for me (though I was knackered after it!) so much as some very bad news about a work colleague. I'm afraid to say, for those of you who know him, that Richard Sexton (my boss at COIN) is very ill...and unlikely to recover. Needless to say that has been emotionally draining, and has also meant greater responsibility for me at COIN. In between that and 'holding the fort' while most of the Green Group take well deserved holidays, blogging dropped off the end of my priorities for a little while...

I thought I had best post a little something though - and its about my old friends Capita. Regular readers will remember my kicking up a massive fuss about (failed) Labour/Lib Dem plans to privatise the Council's council tax collection service, with Capita being a prime candidate for the outsourcing contract. You might also remember that about six months ago, I was very uneasy about the awarding of a contract to Capita to chase the Council's old debts.

Well, surprise surprise, it didn't work out particularly well. Out of £1 million of debts, Capita managed to find just over £75,000 in six months - and only a small percentage of that went to the City Council (most of it to the County). So, as a City Council, we made a loss....the County refusing to contribute towards the collection expenses. Obviously, the rational and responsible response to this is to - continue the contract for another six months (???). Yes, thats exactly what the Executive Board decided to do yesterday, 6-1, with Labour voting for and only me (again!) voting against.

It is true that the Capita contract, while making a loss for the City Council, has made a profit for 'the people of Oxford'. However, one assumes that the £75,000 recovered in the last six months was the *easiest* debt to recover...and that the takings may well be lower this time, leading to even more cost to the Council. Secondly, no alternatives were presented to EB - we weren't told how much it would cost to employ staff 'in house' to do the same job, or how much 'value for money' we had gotten out of Capita. Lastly, and most worryingly, there was no mention (apart from mine) about the *principle* of being against giving public money to private corporations, especially ones with extremely poor records on labour rights. Apparently, thats not now part of Labour thinking. It certainly doesn't seem to be part of a Lib Dem worldview....

The Green Party, the only party willing to vote against forking out money to Capita. You heard it hear first (well OK, here and the Oxford Mail...)

Matt