Ashford Green Party Official Blog

2011-11-10T04:54:00.000-08:00

ASHFORD GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE STEVE CAMPKIN IS SUPPORTING A CAMPAIGN TO GET
NIRVANA'S SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT" TO NO.1 FOR CHRISTMAS. The campaign is to raise awareness of the music charity Rhythmix (1), based in Tunbridge Wells, which uses music to help vulnerable children. Simco (a company owned in large part by Simon Cowell) have applied to trademark the name “Rhythmix” whilst fully aware that “Rhythmix” was an existing trademarked name of a music charity that works with vulnerable young people, to grant them the exclusive right to record, create promotional items and even use the word in printed media.(2)

Steven said:"The music industry is now dominated by big companies churning out insipid rubbish, while genuine musicians are overlooked and local music scenes are dying, or being forced to conform to the industry's idea of music. The X-Factor is almost guaranteed a Christmas No.1, making millions for Simon Cowell and songwriter Gary Barlow, regardless of who wins. This campaign will be a massive effort to tell Simon and the industry in general that there are still people out here who know what real music is!!"

Steven also plays drums for Slam Cartel, who are currently promoting their debut album 'Handful of Dreams', without signing to any record labels. They can be seen playing live, (ie: NOT to a backing track!) at Ashford's Club Q on 12th November and London's Rhythm Factory on 18th November.

notes:
(1) Rhythmix is a Charity registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, registration no: 1125646. Rhythmix is a not-for-profit Company Limited by Guarantee, registration no:
6050730.
(2) http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/x-factor/rhythmix-the-charity-not-the-band-ask-
for-your-support-in-their-x-factor-legal-battle/

http://www.greenparty.org.uk
http://www.kentgreenparty.org
http://www.ashfordgreens.org.uk
http://www.slamcartel.com
http://www.facebook.com/steve.campkin
http://www.stevencampkin.blogspot.com ...Thinking Allowed?

LGBT rights in Uganda

2011-05-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Ashford Green Party deplores the private members bill currently going through the Ugandan parliament. If enacted the bill would introduce the death penalty for same-sex couples, and would punish individuals or organisations which support LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) rights in Uganda. In addition the bill proposes to implement the death penalty for individuals living with HIV. In a country where around 5% of the population are HIV positive this will dissuade people from getting tested for HIV and could lead to a massive increase in the spread of HIV. Ashford Green Party does not believe we can sit by and allow state-sanctioned genocide to occur in a country which received £72.1 million in aid from the UK during 2009/2010. Ashford Green Party urges residents to write to their MP, Damian Green, to highlight this issue, and to sign the petition by visiting www.allout.org/petition/uganda/taf

Matt Stanley, Ashford Green Party.

YES to AV

2011-05-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

Tommorow in the UK, there is a local election, and also a referendum on the Alternative Vote. Here's a Wikipedia page for it.

The Green Part recommend voting YES. Please do the same. This is the first time the voting mechanism in the UK has been subject to a referendum. This opportunity will never come again. It is a case of Now, or Never. The AV system may be imperfect, but it is certainly far better, and far more representative than the skewed First Past The Post System. If you vote "No", you're voting for a lifetime of gruel because you didn't get the EXACT cake you wanted.

In the UK, MP's get can elected with less than one person in five voting for them. They can be elected, practically for life. In one constituency, it has been held by the same party for 110 years - apart from when an independent clergyman ran in the 1920's. That vote is worth nothing. Stephen Fry - or Brian Cox - could run in this constituency, and if they weren't in that party, they'd lose. That vote is worthless. (Check yours here at the Voter Power Index).

The First Past The Post system is fundamentally flawed. It only ever allows the largest single minority to win. It is blunt and crude. In UK elections, where for example, most of the time, less than two thirds of the population actually vote - and therefore 20,000,000 don't, the First Past The Post System can see a person elected on less than 30% of the vote (Norwich South in 2010 won on 29.5% of the vote).

Only 1 person in 5 then, actually voted for the MP for Norwich South. Is this fair? Is this democratic? Is this the system that Cameron calls fair and simple? AV is no more complicated for X-Factor.. You rank your candidates in order of preference.

If you think AV is complicated, you are underestimating yourself. If you think First Past The Post is fair and right, you should realise democracy is not about a "winner", its about representing the wishes of the people. First Past The Post is only fit for Sports Day.

All the parties that support AV are those that are under-represented in Parliment. The current system polarises and simplifies political debate to Labour, Conservative, or Lib Dem. If you do not agree with their policies, you have no voice in our democracy. And plenty of people now have to exercise that complicated electoral doublethink in politics - knowing that the FPTP process does not work - so that they do not vote for who they want, but against who they do NOT want. Is that fair and simple? Not at all.

The parties that oppose AV are The Conservative Party. They know they do not represent the wishes of the majority of the country, but the largest single minority. Give yourself a voice. Let democracy actually work and represent us, instead of giving the largest minority all the power. Democracy isn't a race or a sport, and unless the people win, there is no winner at all.

2011-02-15T12:17:00.001-08:00

This is from Keith Taylor, Green MEP for Kent

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for Kent and the South East has given his support to protesters campaigning against a proposed expansion of Lydd Airport in Ashford, Kent. On the day that a public inquiry begins into the expansion, he vowed to write to the Secretary of State to voice his objections.

Nearly 14,000 people wrote to the Government Office for the South East to request the expansion plans were called-in for a public inquiry.

Keith said: “The large number of people that requested a public inquiry into the expansion of Lydd airport shows that there are huge concerns about the impact these proposals would have in terms of the increase in pollution for local residents and the threat to important wildlife.

“Dungeness peninsula is one of the most important and sensitive wildlife habitats in the UK. The airport’s expansion will have an impact outside the immediate locality, damaging internationally protected wildlife sites.

“From what I can see, the decision of Shepway councillors to dismiss their own officers’ recommendations to reject the proposal was not based on any sound reasoning. Like many others, I welcome the public inquiry to examine that decision-making process.

“Expansion of services would increase noise and air pollution and raise greenhouse gas emissions in the area. Such developments would set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the region, and indeed the rest of the UK. I will be writing to the Secretary of State to voice my objections to this ill-founded proposal.”

The inquiry starts today at Shepway Civic Centre in Folkestone and is expected to run for 13 weeks.

Woodland Trussed

2011-02-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

Currently the government owns the land which means we own the land, as everything the government owns is paid for out of our taxes. In other words they are selling off something you own without consulting you, and those of us who are saying 'no' are being ignored.

The private owners can then fence off land to stop public access to it, land that we and our ancestors have had access to for thousands of years. The Crow Act means that we can 'gain access' to this land and they cannot do us for trespass, but they can make it as difficult as possible and can prosecute you for damage to their property if you damage the fence while climbing over it.

Eventually the owners will want some kind of recompense for their investment, which means gaining planning permission then selling it to developers for a profit. if they did that tomorrow their would be national outrage (one hopes!) but if they do it in ten years time, for just a small part of that land, then again ten years after, for another small part...

This of course, doesn't take into account what hippies like myself call 'inherent value', which basically means the land exists for itself, as do we all, whatever species, not for our usefulness to others or the capitalist machine. If the land belongs to the government it belongs to everyone, thus it belongs to no-one, it belongs to itself, and that is as it should be.

The Woodland Trust has already stated that it cannot afford to buy enough woodland to make any difference, so the National Trust are probably in the same position. Also, the woodland will be sold in auction, so well meaning trusts and individuals will be priced out by rich developers. Even if we had the cash we could still be out-bid.

"The timeless giver of all life,

Offered as a sacrifice,

The priceless finds it's price,

In the greed of man"

Martin Walkyier

Riots within six months... just.

2010-11-11T12:44:00.001-08:00

So here we are. Six months into their administration, and there’s already riots. I think that might be the swiftest turn from election to riots in British living memory.

And why the riots? Why the protests?

Simple : we pay taxes to The Government, and the Government has a social contract to fulfil to maintain and protect the structure of society. Taxation without representation, and taxation without The Government fulfilling the duties they have been tasked with is a simple case of theft and fraud against the whole country. The current abdication of responsibility to maintain the fabric of society is the biggest and most obvious case of theft from this nation in living memory.

I pay my taxes, and I am proud to pay my taxes. Taxes have always constituted part of the social contract between Government and people ; that the fabric of society is maintained, those least able to care and fend for themselves – the ill, the old, the unemployed – are provided for to some extent. This contract has been broken. Broken by broken pledges and broken promises. This country can never trust a Liberal Democrat again.

Violence isn't just physical. The violence perpetrated to the finances of the students in this country is far more insidious and long-lasting than a smashed window, but a debt designed to be a lead weight around the generations that will look after us in the future.

Because for some taxes are a burden to be avoided. These selfish bastards try to justify their tax evasion and avoidance – of their theft from the Government which is far larger than any benefit fraud – by claiming they are “job creators” or that their money will go back to society through trickledown economics when they buy their next golden hovercraft. Not by admitting they would rather hoard their money instead of pay the Government a fair amount to maintain the society they exist within. I can’t see them being overjoyed to have to swipe their black credit card when the bins are collected, or at each toll booth they drive through, or each time they turn up for their chemotherapy treatment. They would howl in protest if their treatment for payment was declined. But that is the world they want to live in : a world where the poor die quietly after cooking and cleaning their homes and the rich sit on patios.

Not all money spent that is generated by tax is spent in any way wisely. It disgusts me that money is stolen from my earnings to fund aircraft carriers and military spending to prove a point internationally that the UK is still a big cheese in the War Stakes. And that everyone else in this country will see the most visible products of their taxes – the frontline services such as hospitals, rubbish collection, and libraries – cut to ribbons to please the National War Ego. UK military spending is the third largest in the world, the second largest pro rata per population, and the largest by landmass in the world.

But overall, to me, tax is a fair price to pay for a society that look after the weak, the poor, the ill, the old, the needy. For there, but for the grace of God, go I. And everyone who has ever lived, and anyone who will ever live, will at some point in their life be ill, or old, and need the help of others.

And a Government that takes our money, but does not fulfil its responsibilities, is committing no more, and no less, than enormous, state-led benefit fraud : the misappropriation of funds that is, at best, the kind of feckless, irresponsible dereliction of duties that the poor are demonised for allegedly committing.

We’re constantly told There Is No Alternative. There is always an alternative.

There are better ways of changing Britains economy than a rampant drive to cut the welfare state, to smash the public sector, to sack the ‘wanker bureaucrats’, and to demonise the poor. If nothing else, it’s very poor economic sense to inflict these massive changes on society.

Not because Britain has a cashflow problem at the moment : because of what Britain will look like in a decades time.

Ten years from now, Britain will be an ugly country. There will be more unemployed. The unemployed will be poorer than they have ever been. Communities will be smashed and scattered to cheaper housing. Work will be meaningless underpaid slavery and workers will have their rights stripped away wherever possible. Half a million families will be impoverished as their jobs are slashed away. And more than that, the subsequent effect on the economy of half a million jobs, or around 2% of the British workforce being made redundant, will be a massive impact upon the economy. The money will not be replaced, but simply vanish from the economy. The total estimate will be at least one and a half million additional people becoming unemployed. And that means one and a half million less people paying taxes or buying goods from shops. Those in work will be told they are lucky to be in impoverished near slavery. Those not will be told they are useless workshy scum.

On top of this, Housing Benefit will be slashed dramatically, to the 30th percentile of the market rate. Anyone in the Council or Social Housing market who signed a tenancy after summer 2010 will be charged up to 80% of the market average for their area, and in fixed term tenancies which will be reviewed around every five years. For those who are unemployed, after twelve months being unable to find a job where there are five applicants for every vacancy, the Housing Benefit, already no higher than a third of the market rents, would then be reduced a further 10% to no higher than the twenty seventh percentile of the market rate. Therefore, society would see, potentially, up to a 53% gap between the cost of the housing designed to house the most needy and the money available to pay for that housing. And make no mistake, that 53% has to come from somewhere – from benefits that are pegged at no more than £65 a week for most people.

Let’s not even consider the fact that Housing Benefit is a way of subsiding the profits of rich landowners by being pegged to market rents. A failure to invest in Social Housing is a way of allowing investors to make large amounts of money from the Government through the basic human right of housing.

If you rent then, and are unemployed, you’ll either have to choose between your rent and your food. A choice that, if you are unemployed, you probably already face. Debt and arrears will rise.

And not only that, in order for you, the people who want to work, to receive this pittance, Iain Duncan Smith has decided that you must work without pay and without consideration for your childcare or travel or dependents, or those benefits will be cut off for three months.

This work is designed to impose a “routine” on those who have no routine, being unemployed, who get up when they want, do what they like whenever they want, and sit around slacky in a world without clocks. In a world that does not exist. The work they will be doing? Probably things like working in libraries, or workshare in the council tax calculation office, or all the jobs that the Government has decided to ruthlessly take out of the public sector : the bad news is you have lost your job, the good news is you can do it for a fifth of the salary as enforced voluntary mandatory work as part of the State’s workfare programme.

And instantly this process devalues the very notion of work as having any value financially or socially ; there is no economic reward for the work. The only benefit this mandatory voluntary work would have would be to take time away from the unemployed : time they could spend looking for a job. And who has the energy to look for another job when we already have some of the longest working hours in Europe? Especially when all you are receiving is unemployment benefit.

Because, in the eyes of the politicans, everyone who is unemployed is a lazy, workshy, feckless, useless slacker who wants to sit around parasitically feeding off the state. Look at the headlines. Not a day goes past without the Daily Hate publishing something about a family of Islamuslims living in Buckingham Palace on £80,000 a year housing benefit as they plot the overthrow of society, or Sheila Slackjaw on £76,000 a year in benefits for her 10 children by 42 different unemployed men, as if the unemployed do nothing but fuck day in, day out.

Students meanwhile, are planned to graduate with £27,000 in debt : these are the people who will be running the country, processing your tax returns, teaching your children, and holding your hand as you die of cancer in the decades to come. They are also the people who will have to work longer and harder, retire later, and pay more than any previous living generation.

And, already, we live in a society where someone on the average salary has to wait until the age of 51 before they can afford a big enough deposit in London to buy an average home, even if they could get a mortgage for a property at ten times their salary : even if home prices did not move at all in the next three decades.

We will be living in a brutal society of a massively angry, impoverished underclass : a world where the cuts will cost society far more than we ever could have saved through increased crime, illness, social upheaval, broken communities, mass unemployment, and practical slavery for pitiful salaries.

There are currently about two and a half million unemployed people in this country. Chasing around 400,000 jobs. That means that approximately 2,100,000 people will be punished violently for the crime of a society ruled and run by economists and not human beings.

“We’re All In The Together”, I am told. But that’s what millionaires say whilst they practice mass corporate and personal tax evasion and avoidance.

Despite what they say about trying to restore fairness to this country, there is no way that that can ever be described as fair.

And this is what we are told we are wanted, by a leader who apparently has a ‘mandate’ of 35% of the vote. (In 2005, during the last election, Blair “held on by the skin of his teeth” with 36% of the vote).

What this country is seeing a concerted and deliberate attack on everyone who has a job and everyone who hasn’t.

And, more than that, what is apparent from conversations held between public bodies and the Government is that the detail of these sweeping, brutal changes have not been considered - hence the lack of detail as to how these will be delivered. It seems there has been little consideration, and less thought, for how these changes will brutalise, divide, and change the world we live in.

And this is the beginning. Not the end. Most governments plan for two terms and take a softly, softly approach, holding back some of the big changes for the second term. Not this government. This government had waded in with a hammer instead of a scalpel, determined to effect massive and ugly change in as short a time as possible, mindful that they may not get a second term.

In one fell swoop, with the decision that all benefit recipients are to undertake mandatory ‘voluntary work’ for at least 4 weeks in order to understand the routine and structure of a working life sends two clear, and ugly messages to the rest of the country.

The first one is that the minimum wage is an inconvenience. That the Government has now sanctioned mandatory, slave labour at far below market rates is a crime against everyone in this country.

The second is that the rights we, and our parents, and our grandparents, and all our ancestors fought for long and hard over centuries are slowly, viciously being dismantled. Under the mantra that “There Is No Alternative”, and there is always an alternative, everything is being removed to facilitate profit.

The narrative we are given is not that this financial crisis is the fault of toxic loans, abusive financial practices, complicated and arcane financial models that compound and create debt and enslave the population whilst a minority become obsecenely rich, but that all of society’s ills are the direct cause of the feckless poor, teenage mothers, immigrants living in Buckingham palace on housing benefit, and a bloated, fat public sector that is populated solely by unemployable morons on gold plated pensions that piss millions away each and every day on sign language for the blind (a ‘gold plated pension’ with an average worth of £4,000 a year, by the way)

This is the dream we inherited. Instead of a world where the brainless work of endless meaningless busywork to justify benefits or employments are enforced upon us, there was a time when perhaps we, the people, the humans, were something more than mere resources, but human beings, humans doing.

Under the guise of there is no alternative, every concession our parents, grandparents, and all our ancestors fought for, for the vaguest sense of dignity, paid holidays, paid sick leave, pensions, unions, and for anything at all other than a simple transactional life where all we are are human resources that sell time for money in order not to starve to death.

Instead, we live in a society fragmented and terrified of its own shadow, forever demonised in our fragile lives by the invisible bogeymen of forrin immigrants, benefit mothers, and all the other miniscule minorities that threaten the ability of rich CEO’s to make even more money from us, and instead of looking to the root cause of this, the country is trained to turn on itself and bite the infrastructure and people that hold it up : the public sector are demonised as, one and all, useless wanker bureaucrats who do nothing but steal money from your salary in the form of taxes.

The true theft from society are those who contribute nothing : those who practice “tax efficiency” and avoid their responsibilities to give something back to maintain the society that they glean their wealth from. Those who move money from one place to another, take home a bonus of seven figures, and who calculate their investment portfolios as they live in warm, enormous homes.

It is not debt our children will inherit, but something far more toxic : a world where human beings are merely resources to be exploited and us, faced with starvation, have no choice but to accept. This is a war on our dignity and the single minded deconstruction of the values that advanced societies claim to be built on. There are two worlds this society will occupy in the future : one where there is nothing more than an ugly slavery where we are all pitted against each other, and the other where the rich and privileged dictate to the millions the ugly terms of our lives as we work ourselves to a impoverished death.

And if we let this happen on our watch, we have no one to blame but ourselves. There is an alternative. We must take it before there are no more opportunities left. Time is running out, and the selfish bastards at the wheel are driving our society towards a feudal capitalism that we may never be able to extract ourselves from. All human beings have a value, and this new society in Cameron’s image will reduce us all. It starts here. This is the beginning. When we get to the end of our lives, and our children’s generation holds our hands as we die of cancer, is our legacy going to be the world we live for them. And if you have a conscience about the future, you should be terrified.

Act now for change, and make the world the world you want your children to live in.

2010-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

There's definitely something fishy about the announcement of the new benefits laws. The answer seems to be to deepen the crab bucket.

The point I'm trying to make is that benefit fraud is NOT a problem. What needs to be done is Nat Min Wage raised, not the benefits cut. Then people would see it as worthwhile going to work.

There are many people that are on benefits because they just aren't workers. You wouldn't put a musician labouring on a building site would you? (except the drummer, of course) And you wouldn't give a poet a gun and send him to war.

On another point I know of people who's illness cannot be defined, therefore they cannot fill in their form so they cannot claim their benefit, but nor can they work. Her husband is also her carer, but cannot claim carers allowance.

The benefits cut will catch out people like this, like dolphins in the tuna net. I would rather see the guilty get away with it than the innocent punished.

A Citizen's Income would address this very problem fairly, neither rewarding the lazy nor punishing the unfortunate. This would also give people the opportunity to go for a decent job instead of staying in an exploitative McJob, with the safety net of the Citizen's income to pay bills and rent while they find a job they actually want to do, which would put pressure on employers to create jobs worth doing and treating employees with respect.

PC World's current policy is to not make anyone redundant, but to cut hours across the board. So we have lots of people barely able to pay their bills because they don't work enough hours, there's no overtime, they cannot quit because then they wouldn't qualify for any benefits while they try for other jobs. They also have a rule where the first 4 days off sick are not paid, forcing workers who are ill to go to work and spread their illness because they cannot afford a day off sick, and they are, of course, more likely to get sick as they cannot afford to live a healthy lifestyle. With the safety net of a citizen's income PC world would certainly start treating their employees differently, or they wouldn't have any!!

In the meantime people like us are fighting over the £3.5 billion scraps while the rich gorge themselves on the £100 billion main course and also make off with the cutlery.

Green New Deal = 1 Million new jobs tackling climate change, raise the Nat Min Wage, introduce a Citizen's Income, close the massive holes in the tax system, scrap tuition fees, all for less than we just handed over to the w.. bankers who got us in this mess in the first place!!

http://greennewdealgroup.com/

Letter to Press: Kennington North, Chilmington Green and the Expansion of Ashford.

2010-10-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Ashford Green Party is disappointed that the Kennington North Estate has reared it's ugly head again. it was made perfectly clear that the people of Kennington, Bybrook and Bockhanger do not want this development, as the Keep Chilmington Green Campaign has made clear that the majority of people in Ashford and the surrounding areas do not want any more building. The expansion of Ashford is being rejected, and Ashford Borough Council, Kent County Council and the Government persist in ignoring us.

There are empty buildings and waste land that need redevelopment, there is infrastructure desperately needed, and there is climate change and peak oil to take into consideration. The future of Ashford must involve development in these areas, as well as in public transport and other services. It must not involve more mindless expansion or destruction of our countryside.

During our campaigns in town the only people reluctant to support our campaign, despite their sympathy, have been those from the construction trades, but a program of redevelopment and fortifying Ashford against the challenges of the future can be used to create jobs for these workers, helping them and Ashford as a whole through the recession.

More houses, more people and more cars will only make maters worse. Ashford Green Party will continue to oppose these developments, especially at the ballot boxes next May.

Steven Campkin
Ashford Green Party
37 Beecholme Drive
Kennington
Ashford
Kent
TN24 9AA

http://www.greenparty.org.uk
http://www.kentgreenparty.org
http://www.ashfordgreens.org.uk
http://www.facebook.com/steve.campkin
http://www.stevencampkin.blogspot.com ...Thinking Allowed?

NO BADGER CULL

2010-10-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

NO BADGER CULL

Kent Green Party is opposed to a cull of badgers. Steve Campkin, Kent Green Party’s Animal Rights Campaigner, explains why:

“Kent Green Party opposes the badger cull. We do not believe that it is ethical or practical to carry out a sustained 'removal' of an indiginous species over a minimum of 100km2. We believe that addressing cattle to cattle transmission and the development of a vaccine is the key. Bovine TB is spread because of intensive farming. The constant use of drugs leads to drug-resistant conditions. Animals, unlike humans, breed to a sustainable level. It is very likely a cull this year would lead to a population explosion next year.

“The best option is organic farming, where the animals are naturally healthy and happy, which would boost their immune systems so they are naturally resistant to bTB. An overall reduction in meat consumption would help. Interfering with Nature has caused this problem, and further interference will only make things worse.
“In more detail: the initial, very expensive (£50million) and comprehensive, field trial by The Independent Scientific Group on Badger TB chaired by Prof Bourne found that:

In summary, the ISG conclude that neither the proactive or reactive culling of badgers can be recommended as a means of controlling bTB in cattle. Culling causes badgers to move, spreading infection and undermining reductions in TB in cattle achieved in the area where culling has taken place. We understand that bTB is a condition of great concern to farmers and which also has welfare implications for cattle. However, the answer to its lies with better diets and welfare policies for cattle to improve their immune systems, not culling badgers.”

Ends

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Steve Campkin, Animal Rights Campaigns Officer, KENT GREEN PARTY on 07964 867589. Contact address as above. Promoted by H.Dawe and published by Kent Green Party, both at 27 Audley Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1XF. The assistance of Caroline Allen MA VetMB CertSAM MRCVS with this release is acknowledged.

Keep Chilmington Green part II

2010-09-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Ashford Green Party joined residents of Chilmington Green on Saturday 4th September in Ashford town centre to collect signature for a petition against the destruction of Chilmington Green.

Steve Campkin: "We collected over 1,200 signatures in one day, and continue to collect. I don't know where this idea that Ashford needs to grow has come from but it must be stopped. There's been too much growth over the years and the people of Ashford have spoken, they're fed up with it. Where will it stop? The planet is only so big and we'll soon run out of space, food and water.

"There are areas of Ashford that need rejuvenation, there are empty buildings everywhere, building more houses and moving more people in is not the answer, it will only make things worse. Where will the jobs come from?"

"Jobs can easily be created by supporting local businesses and starting a program of redevelopment in derelict areas of Ashford. We need micro-generation, bus lanes, cycle paths, insulation, community centres, schools, the list goes on. We do not need more houses and we certainly do not need any more supermarkets or junk-food joints (I refuse to call them restaurants!)."

"Ashfords remaining countryside must be protected, where are CPRE* in this? If this development goes ahead I will personally place myself in front of the bulldozers!"

Ends c225 words

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chilmington-Green/109756389080884

http://www.chilmingtongreen.org/

*Campaign for the Protection of Rural England

Keep Chilmington Green

2010-08-30T04:44:00.000-07:00

Ashford Green Party is utterly opposed to the planned destruction of the beautiful Chilmington Green. Mr.Frohnsdorff and Mr. Carpenter are right to question the economic wisdom of this project; the intention would seem to be to destroy a small community and build a dormitory town of commuters.

On a flood plain!?

But we must also consider the environmental devastation, the murder of the unique wildlife and years, possibly decades, of misery for the residents who will have to endure living within a building site, watching daily as this historic area is bulldozed and concreted with the full support of our elected councillors and Member of Parliament.

The ridiculous amount of money wasted on this misguided expansion would be better invested in fortifying Ashford against the oncoming effects of climate change and peak oil, creating more employment, better services, improved infrastructure, all produced and consumed locally to support the local economy.

So I urge the people of Ashford to join the Keep Chilmington Green campaign on Saturday 4th September in Ashford town centre, including residents of Goddington Park, Cheeseman's Green, and many other areas around Ashford threatened with similar pointless developments.

Steven Campkin

Ashford Green Party

http://www.greenparty.org.uk

http://www.kentgreenparty.org

http://www.ashfordgreens.org.uk

http://www.facebook.com/steve.campkin

http://www.stevencampkin.blogspot.com ...Thinking Allowed?

Charles River Protest Picnic

2010-08-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Animal Rights Kent staged a protest picnic on Saturday 31st July outside the gates of Charles River, opposite Manston Airport. Charles River Laboratories supplies various rodents, from mice to rabbits, to the animal research community, including genetically modified species like the patented Immortomouse!

The picnic lasted from 12 noon till 2pm, without incident, and was to raise awareness of the cruelty that goes on in Kent in the name of so-called 'medical science'.

"A.R.K. believes that animal experiments are morally disgusting, but this view is increasingly backed up with science. The similarities between humans and other animals are enough to discontinue this barbaric practice, the differences are enough to render it useless. Animal research has held back vital treatments for years, torturing animals while people suffer and die. The whole industry is a fraud.

The best treatment is to stay healthy on a vegetarian or vegan diet with plenty of exercise."

A.R.K. are a collection of independent Animal Rights groups from around Kent. They take direct, non-violent action and work to educate and inform the public on the cruelty inherent in hunting, the meat and dairy industry, the pet trade and animal experimentation.

The Greenwash Fades...

2010-07-24T11:06:00.001-07:00

I've actually spoken to people who voted Conservative because 'Cameron said something nice about the environment'. The Green Investment Bank was a fantastic idea, and won them a lot of votes, and the Lib Dems took on the Green New Deal, promising new jobs in the Green Sector, both of which were, of course, Green Party ideas.

The Green New Deal, based on Roosevelt's New Deal, clearly sets out how we can move towards environmental sustainability, whilst creating jobs, rescuing the economy, lifting people out of poverty and ending the need for armed conflict.

Now Cameron has turned his back on this plan, instead favouring his frankly weird Big Society idea, which basically means getting ordinary people to run the country for free whilst still paying (higher) taxes to the people who should actually be running the country.

I have nothing against charities, I donate, volunteer and even work for one, but it must be understood that charities exist where Governments fail. And now the Government is happy to exploit these well meaning people to fund their own interests.

Britain has a unique opportunity to lead the world towards a sustainable, peaceful, fair future, perhaps even making up for the crimes and destruction of the British Empire, but the Coagulation Government has decided instead to opt for abandoning ordinary people to the effects of poverty and climate change, while investing money in more nuclear weapons, more oil, and Cameron coming out saying he wants to make the military front and centre of our national life once again"

A peaceful, sustainable world? Or another British Empire, to protect us from the victims of our own actions? Hope or fear?

AV vs PR

2010-07-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

AV = Alternative Vote PR = Proportional Representation FPTP = First Past The Post Nick Clegg is selling us short in agreeing to AV. Under the AV system, a more complicated version of the FPTP system, we will still have one party representing, not the majority, but the largest minority. No change. Under the PR system, as used in Europe, every vote counts, and everyone is represented. We have Greens in the European parliament because some people voted for them. More people voted Conservative so we have more Tories in the European Parliament, but the Greens and UKIP, along with Labour and the Liberals and even the BNP are represented and have a voice. That's democracy! The reason we don't have more Greens is because people who want to vote Green but don't understand the system don't vote Green, a situation made even worse in the FPTP system (If I had a pound for every time I heard "I'd like to vote Green but you won't win" I could have funded a much better campaign!!) The compromise on the voting reform is compounded by the move to have less MPs. That means more people being represented by someone they didn't vote for, who effectively doesn't represent them. If anything we need more MPs, more parties, more people with a voice in parliament. Under PR more people would vote, and more people would vote for what they really want. Or is that what the Government fear...?

2010-07-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

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2010-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

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