Category Archives: Jason Kitcat

The democratic dilemma: people or party?

Posted on 24 May 2013 | 11 Comments

Ask anyone in Britain today what they most dislike about our politicians and you will hear a consistent theme in all the answers: the political parties have strangled the process of politics, politicians put their party loyalty above all else and they cannot be trusted to keep their promises. In Brighton & Hove this weekend, this complaint echoes especially loudly. A prominent and much respected local councillor, Alex Phillips, attempted to build a consensus across the party divide between the Green Party, which she is a member of, and the Labour Party, to prevent a rogue Green administration from imposing pay cuts on council workers.

The current battle for the heart and soul of the Green Party is no secret. It is focused on Brighton & Hove, where the Greens muster most support. The struggle is dominated by what party members think about the style and leadership of one person: Jason Kitcat. It is worth noting that whilst other bloggers and the press routinely calls him the local party leader, in fact he is not. There is no local party leader. Mr Kitcat is the Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council. Those who support Mr Kitcat’s leadership say that all party members must rally around him for the sake of party unity and that he has been handed a poison chalice by being obliged to lead a minority party in times of austerity. Those opposed to his  über managerialism have been growing in numbers over the last few months and now form the majority of the local party and roughly half of the local councillors.

Recently Mr Kitcat managed to win, narrowly, re-election as Convenor of the Green Group on the Council. However, immediately afterwards it was revealed that he had broken his very important and much repeated promise to his party and the Green Group. That promise concerned ongoing pay modernisation negotiations. Mr Kitcat’s administration chose to hand Council Officers total power over those negotiations and wash their hands of it. The broken promise was that the Green Group would be consulted before the new pay offer was announced. They were not.

In Italy, there was much disquiet about handing power to technocrats after a major financial crisis. Jason Kitcat’s administration has handed power over to technocrats before any crisis. His justification was that both Labour and the Tories failed to resolve the equality issues in the council pay structures and that there was nothing to suggest that he could do any better as an elected politician! Aside from the recent claim by Norman Tebbit that only marriage as traditionally defined by the Church of England could prevent him from wanting to marry his own son, it is the most bonkers statement of political belief anyone has ever heard of.

Mr Kitcat’s breach of trust unleashed a tidal wave of anger inside the local party and around the country because the Green administration appeared to be in breach of party policy by seeking to impose pay cuts. The local party convened an extraordinary general meeting which decided, by a substantial majority, to declare its support for the council workers against the administration and asked the administration to change its policy. Since that resolution was passed, distrust has continued to grow. Most party members, including almost half of the local Green councillors, now see the administration as traitors to their stated principles. There has been much discussion about what can be done to prevent Jason Kitcat from continuing to wield power in the council, so as to realign the administration with party policy.

It was in this context that Councillor Alex Phillips contacted Councillor Warren Morgan, the Leader of the local Labour Group of Councillors to see if he would support an alternative ‘candidate’ from the Green Group for Council Leader. She suggested that Labour support Councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty (oddly, the local media cannot spell his name properly), who is the Deputy Council Leader. She used Twitter’s private direct messaging system to make the plea. She asked for the communication to remain private.

Her decision to make this effort has been called into question by one local blogger and some Green Party members. Essentially, they say that she’s misjudged the situation, because it is well known that Labour prefers to promote itself rather than its own policies.

That’s harsh. Had the attempt to build a consensus on the Left been successful, those councillors who would have been prepared to break party ranks would have been eulogised up and down the country. Rather than respond constructively to Alex Phillips’ private messages, Warren Morgan chose to publish them via the local Labour Party website. Here they are ~ read them from the bottom up:

Direct Messages on twitter between Councillor Alex Phillips (Green) and Councillor Warren Morgan (Labour)

Private negotiations made public

Many Green Party members regard Alex Phillips’ actions as the stuff of the politically brave. Without doubt, she has confirmed herself as true leadership material. Despite all the risks to her standing within her tribe, she has stuck true to her principles. She has chosen to support the poor over and above her party.

It’s worth remembering which principle is in play here. It’s called solidarity.

Council workers who do the filthiest job in town, the street cleaners and the refuse collectors, are currently balloting for strike action to oppose the pay offer made by Council Officers. The local Green Party has already declared its support for them (in the Extraordinary General Meeting). With a slim majority of the administration apparently unwilling to follow party policy, Alex Phillips has taken a risk to try to right the wrongs already done. Had Phélim Mac Cafferty become Council Leader, the pay offer would have been withdrawn and the negotiations restarted with full political control of them. There is no doubt about that.

Whatever the merits of her judgement call, the real eye-opener has been how much Labour relishes division, even if that means pissing on its own supporters. Warren Morgan’s motivation for revealing the private messages was to show up the Greens as divided. Every party has differences of opinion. All of them are broad churches. Show me a party where everyone agrees about everything and I’ll show you a fascist party.

Labour’s entire election campaign last time around in Brighton & Hove (in 2011) was funded by the GMB, the very union now balloting for strike action. Without GMB funds, the local Labour Party could not have fought a city wide election. Labour persistently promises to help the poor, the disadvantaged and working people everywhere. Locally, it has launched tirade after tirade against the Greens on the basis that they are the same as the Tories, that they are all middle-class, that they are politically backward, that they support cutting the pay of the poorest workers. Yet here we see Labour being given an opportunity to protect the very people who form its natural constituency and instead of immediately achieving a clear political goal – protecting their pay – instead it chose to score petty points.

The GMB is a major funder of the Labour Party nationally. It is a strong trades union which has managed to weather the storm of Thatcherism reasonably well. This weekend its leadership will be asking serious questions about its continuing relationship with the Labour Party. Many people in the local Labour Party will now be asking themselves similar questions.

For many of us Greens, the correct position is straightforward. We have a clear party policy, which supports those who fought an election against us, because it is the right thing to do by our socialist principles.

Personally, I have just landed my first ever PAYE job (I’ve been self-employed until now). Last night, I joined the GMB online. Then I realised that I didn’t have any money in my bank account but luckily my wife also supports the trades union movement and she has lent me the subscription money until I get my first pay cheque. Joining a trades union is a fundamental human right and key to progressive politics. Now that the leadership of every party in my home town opposes working people, that’s more important than ever.

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Posted in Alex Phillips, Brighton, GMB, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Labour Party, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Trades Unions, Warren Morgan

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Ringing a hollow bell

Posted on 23 March 2013 | 7 Comments

The Brighton & Hove Green Party is dusting off its ballot boxes right now and settling down to an uneasy autumnal evening, following the unconvincing victory of Jason Kitcat in the so-called Green Group Convenor elections. Outsiders may find an election with only one candidate something of a confused concept. To win his uncontested election, Mr Kitcat had simply to win more votes than the option to re-open nominations.

The actual election results have not been officially published, not even inside the party, on the grounds that, “This manipulation precludes the publication of numerical votes cast.” The manipulation referred to is the Green Party’s electoral college, which divides the votes of ordinary party members and elected councillors, so that each group gets 50% of the total vote. Last year’s surge in those asking to re-open nominations rather than elect Mr K has been repeated. Why doesn’t the leadership doesn’t want its own membership to see the results? As political bells come and go, this one rings more hollow than most:

Members in public office
	Jason Kitcat 12
	RON 11
Other members
	Jason Kitcat 65
	RON 38

Members in public office includes Keith Taylor, the local Green MEP, Caroline Lucas, the local Green MP and, of course, Christina Summers, even though she has been expelled from the Green Group of councillors. Obviously, two didn’t vote. Here’s the clanger: at least one councillor did not receive a ballot paper at all. A definite re-opener as it happens. Although this missing ballot paper would not have affected the final result, it does mean that half of the elected political leadership voted against Jason Kitcat. A number of scenarios now present themselves.

The conventional scenario would be that the whole group pull together, sort out their differences and go into the next local elections on a proud record. The Greens rarely do conventional.

A likely outcome is that some of those who might otherwise have picked up the reigns of administrative office, decide to step back. That’s less committee members walking the talk. That’s more Green councillors getting back to the membership too but it will put a unique strain on a young Council.

Another possibility is that some Greens form a rebel group on the council, thus depriving Mr Kitcat of his Convenorship of the largest party status. Thus, the half of the Green Group who appeared to be willing to risk anyone but the present Council Leader, could see him being deprived of that. That path would also create the bizarre situation whereby the Tories run the city, because the split would most probably leave the political groups as follows: Tories ~ 18, Greens ~ 16, Labour ~ 13, Other Greens ~ 6, Independent ~ 1. It is unlikely that the present Tories could anything other than hang themselves with the incompetence rope. 18 is way to few to manage the city, just as 22 is tough for the Greens now.

Whatever happens in high office, on the ground fissures of that magnitude do not inspire activists to recruit, to raise funds, to deliver newspapers… there is no room for celebration in the Green Party tonight. The Left and Dark Green wings of the party are whispering instead about roots activism, of personal causes, of lost dreams. Many of the party’s best activists are about to just walk away. Who will ring the bell then?

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Posted in Brighton, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Jason Kitkat, Politics, Politics in the Cave

The ballad of Jason and Ron and the cat

Posted on 18 March 2013 | 1 Comment

Although people who join the Greens find none of the rumoured tree hugging rituals, some distinctive working peculiarities do present themselves. There’s the emphasis on openness, so that anyone may attend the party’s monthly meetings, party member or not. There’s the surprisingly effective silent minute of “attunement” to keep the purpose of a meet. There’s the candidate for every election called Ron, always standing without a surname. Ron’s phantom identity reveals much about the Green Party’s democratic approach. Ron stands for “Re-Open Nominations.“

Desiring the fairest representation, the Greens took external expert advice. Ron stands as a candidate for the sometimes very many people who might otherwise remain a silent majority. In all parties, trades unions, clubs, et cetera very many fine candidates do not want to put themselves forward against an incumbent because they do not wish to appear to be responsible for breaking up the party, so to speak. In most parties, once someone has become that party’s elected MP for a certain constituency or councillor for a certain ward, they remain that party’s candidate until the electorate chooses someone else (scandals excepting).

The phantom Ron, the one for all, is facing down the ballot’s second player, Jason Kitcat, now. We’ll come to the cat later. Six days ago nominations closed for the post of Green (Councillors) Group Convenor. An election has begun (it ends at Noon, 23rd March 2013). Basically, the winner becomes the Council Leader but if you want the specifics, read through the turgid bullets below. The direct responsibilities include:

  • Membership Governance Committee
  • Joint Membership Budget Review Panel
  • Regular personal briefings with Chief Executive
  • Strategic direction – setting, review, monitoring & forward planning
  • Media overview and delivery
  • Managing work priorities of Political Assistant
  • Maintaining during an electoral period an on-call rota of members available for service on an Electoral Disciplinary Panel

The shared responsibilities include:

  • Liaison on agenda setting
  • Policy – co-ordination, delivery, & review
  • Mentoring the Green Group

Mr Kitcat is once again the only corporeal name in the game, as he was a year ago, when he first won in the Green Convenor electoral college. Councillors get 50% of the votes, the ordinary membership the rest. Here are the results from last year’s Convenor election:

  • Jason Kitcat 80 Members (1,520 weighted), 11 councillors (990 weighted) TOTAL WEIGHTED 2510 (73.39%)
  • Ron 10 Members (190 weighted), 8 councillors (720 weighted), TOTAL WEIGHTED 910 (26.61%)

Although Mr Kitcat’s failure to command the support of more than half of the Green Group is notable, the real story is the record breaking number of ballots cast for Ron. The highest vote for Ron in a decade, at least. That’s let the cat out of the bag and quite right too, it was cruel.

That was a year ago, after Mr Kitcat had sported the Financial feathers for the first year in office. Since then trust in him has deteriorated to the point where for the first time ever, an actual campaign for Ron is in progress.

Councillors and activists, preparing the campaign, believe, with some justification, that any such rival that they would prefer will be characterised as being of the Deep Greens (or Hard Left) and is, therefore, also unlikely to defeat the incumbent Mr Kitcat. However, they believe that the majority of the party want a different Convenor, begging the question as whether there is a third potential candidate ready, willing and able to step up to the plate, should Ron win. The answer to that there is at least one, possibly two such people. Both are unifying candidates.

As with any party, within the Green Group, there are councillors of different political emphases. There are those who, like Jason Kitcat once was, walk and quack like Liberal Democrats. Way over on the other side are people like Ben Duncan. For all, the key issue is that since the Green Group Convenor will become the Leader of the Council, it must be someone who unifies people, rather than divides them. Grinning your way through life as if Tony Blair had the last word in public relations is no substitute for acknowledging difficulties. Repeatedly failing to reply to enquiries, especially in the Green’s daily chat space, “Members Discuss,” doesn’t help either, given it being populated by the party’s activist backbone.

When challenged on one such issue, Mr Kitcat’s excused himself with unspecified “legal reasons“, which, unsurprisingly, he could not name. With deep financial uncertainty for many people, unnecessary suffering and distress has been caused to the very people who make the council work, as a consequence. Activists voted to make party policy the opposite of Mr Kitcat’s, declaring that if that policy continued, the Brighton and Hove Green Party would actively campaign against it. The mark of a chap with the party behind him?

The same meeting agreed to request the Council abolish the so-called bedroom tax for its own social tenants. Jason Kitcat voted against. A month later, word leaks out (in the blogosphere generally but here’s my report). Despite becoming the first local council in the the UK to introduce a practical measure to destroy a Government policy, its leader has stayed, at least until the time of writing (yesterday), publicly silent on the issue.

These are but two examples of the manner in which Mr Kitcat’s leadership has strayed from party policy. To heal divisions, their existence must be acknowledged. Read his election statement below to see if you can find that happening.

“This past year we have built on the great work Bill Randall did as Convenor the year before. There has been excellent progress in delivering our 2011 manifesto. We have improved the council which had been left drifting by the previous Conservative administration. Since May we have delivered the organisational change which has led to the appointment of a superb new chief executive, a fresh senior management team, a reduced high to low pay ratio and the rejection of the Intelligent Commissioning structure the Tories had left us with.

It is a testament to the work of all the Green Councillors and party members that so much has been achieved, and even more is in the pipeline. The council is soon to be an officially accredited Living Wage Foundation employer, it is also on course to be recognised as leading the world’s first One Planet City.

This year through the hard work of our Green Councillors our city has won unprecedented levels of government and international funding for projects especially biodiversity and boosting recycling, building on that already won for transport and the public realm. As a member of the Local Enterprise Partnership’s board I have lobbied to ensure the city has received more investment funding than any other area in the region including for the key ‘Block L’ development behind Brighton Station.

We have led and won the bid to government for ultrafast broadband in the city, and we will be installing free wifi in central parts of the city too. We have become a ‘Frack Free City’ this year and are in the short-list to host Rugby World Cup matches in 2015.

Working regionally I have shaped the agenda, bringing together neighbouring councils to win a ‘Greater Brighton’ City Deal from government, which by the end of this summer will bring devolved powers and new funding pots, the first being for cycling investment.

With colleagues I have been working to reshape and strengthen our partnerships with schools, the city’s public sector, local businesses and the third sector. Feedback from all has been incredibly positive and constructive. This has been backed by the CityTracker poll which shows growing confidence in the council’s services.

We have been vocal for Green values at local, national and international levels across all the broadcast and specialist media, at conferences, lobbying ministers and through the Local Government Association.

I have stood up to government repeatedly as they have rained down their awful policies. I have been speaking, writing and lobbying on key issues such as welfare cuts, and have often been able to persuade council leaders of all political persuasions to join me in doing so. Just over a year ago I was the first to speak out against Eric Pickle’s council tax freeze, winning a much cherished ‘Pinhead of the Month’ award from the ultra-right Tax Payers Alliance as a result. Despite my being ridiculed in Parliament by Pickles, today almost half of councils are rejecting the Tory freeze con trick, it was by following my lead that other councils broke the freeze.

My passionate leadership has been recognised over the year. With just six others I was shortlisted from hundreds of nominations for LGIU’s ‘Leader of the Year’ award. Out of 170 member cities, I was the only one of nine European City leaders invited to speak to the EuroCities annual conference and was one of only a handful admitted to the LGA’s annual leadership programme.

I am standing for the year ahead with Ian Davey and Lizzie Deane as a strong, collaborative convenor’s team. They have both been deputy convenors before, bringing a wealth of experience to the team. Whilst continuing to deliver on manifesto promises we will be focussed on improving the group’s dialogue with the party, external communications and media relations as we recognise there is much work to do there.

Greens have a unique vision for how local public services should be. We are in an incredible position to show that not only are we able to resist the worst of the government’s appalling austerity measures, but that we have positive policies that improve everyone’s quality of life, protects the environment and reduces inequality.

For continued Green leadership please vote for me and our team.”

No-one, bar none, failed to get along with Bill Randall, the previous Convenor. Widely respected across the city, he took on the nightmarish task of unexpectedly winning power in the city with an aplomb which denied the difficulty of it all. Bill gave way to Jason, just as the Greens have frequently cycled through candidates, councillors and the like. They don’t really do that, “me, me, me,” thing. It’s more “tree, tree, tree” (sorry). For a small party (approximately 7,000 members nationally) to have an MEP, 150 or so councillors, an MP and control of a famously exciting city, its methodology is demonstrably efficient.

Their refusal to have a whip means unity is got with good working interpersonal relationships. It isn’t that hard, with only 22 councillors. There’s a fair few of them who can easily manage the brief. Many of them go back years.

With two years to go before an election, the capital Green Party project hinges on on this moment. If Mr Kitcat hangs on in, as the project manager, will more of the activists grow sceptical, wondering what their effort is for? Already, tens of thousands of the party’s local newspaper, GreenLeaf, lay undelivered around the city.

The Green Party will do best by doing what it does best. Witness the recent incident of the tree at Seven Dials, just inside our Leader’s ward. Labour stands by, aghast, befuddled and spinning, whilst the Greens dominate both sides of the debate, as it were. Now it very much looks as if the tree could be saved with the Greens agreeing with one another again. But there will be a next time, followed by more of the same, with discord and deserters.

It isn’t a ballad, it’s a ballot. The Greens didn’t get this far to lament but to leave a legacy, at least. It’ll be made or broken on the outcome of this election. It depends whether they want Ron to break out the election and make way for a team player, including the cat, or to stake all on the brass plate policy diktat of Mr Kitcat.

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Posted in Brighton, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Jason Kitkat, Politics

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Jason and Ania Kitcat visit the Seven Dials elm tree

Posted on 10 March 2013 | Leave a comment

At 5:00pm yesterday afternoon, Jason and Ania Kitcat met with the campaigners to save the last Elm tree at Seven Dials. That was another crucial step on the path to saving the tree because they are the two councillors for the ward the tree lives in and, in particular, because Jason Kitcat is the Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council.

There had been much disquiet amongst campaigners and residents about the absence of these two politicians. Credit where credit is due. Whilst those of us passionately defending the tree (which seems to be almost the entire neighbourhood now) had been piling pressure on them to support the cause, in fact only a few days had passed between the start of their campaign and their arrival on the scene. With a young family to manage and already very busy diaries, it would have been a little odd if they had been able to just drop everything and attend directly. Besides, plenty of other Green councillors had already attended and, notably, our local Green MP, Caroline Lucas. Here’s Jason explaining his take on the situation:

The tree’s immediate neighbours were not made aware of the decision, which seems to have been made late on in the consultation process by a council officer, to fell the tree. Yes, there was a public meeting where it was announced but by that time the plans had been settled in a manner which appeared to please everyone, with the result that the majority of the people involved in the consultation had dropped out. There are reports of the public meeting being something of a shouting fest, which might also explain how the decision wasn’t effectively publicised. As soon as the neighbourhood discovered the plans, the outpouring of concern mentioned by Mr Kitcat in the video above began.

The original plan was to convert Vernon Terrace to a one way street, which would have involved narrowing the road entering the Seven Dials roundabout so that the tree stood on a wider pavement. A number of residents, who don’t live near the tree, objected very strongly to this plan. Theirs was the biggest voice throughout the consultation process, the ones which were raised during the public meeting. They dominated the process. In the absence of any competing voices, they were listened to by the Green council and that road narrowing scheme abandoned.

Subsequently, a city council officer (identity unknown) made the decision to fell the tree. With the road left as it is, there are minor technical issues to be resolved concerning the space occupied by the tree. Everyone can agree about that. The decision to fell is one way to resolve those issues. An unacceptable way. There are plenty of other suggestions which experts agree could easily resolve the issue. No-one wants to force the council to restart the entire consultation process (although we are ready to do that by means of judicial review of the decision in the High Court in London). We need to find other ways to resolve the issues. It isn’t complicated. Thus, today, the campaigners are discussing which ideas to present to the council and how. Watch this space.

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Posted in Ania Kitcat, Brighton, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Seven Dials, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, Trees

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Tree lessons for Jason Kitcat

Posted on 7 March 2013 | 10 Comments

Brighton & Hove’s world famous Green Party’s credibility is on the brink of ruination because of a decision by the local city council, run by them, to fell one of the most beloved trees in the Seven Dials area. No councillors have made themselves available for public comment. Not even the two ward councillors for the area, Jason and Ania Kitcat, despite the former being the Leader of the Council.

The facts are straightforward. The nearby roundabout has been a disgrace of traffic management for decades. The Greens have been the first political party with the balls to sort it out. They have brought forward plans to reorganise the roundabout to the benefit of pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles. There has been an extensive consultation, which the local residents participated en masse in. Unfortunately, along the way, a decision has been taken to fell this ‘troublesome elm’. Every part of the official correspondence which I have seen makes the decision look like it was taken by a council officer and then nodded through by the politicians. That such a big decision was taken so late on in the consultative process, so that most of the people originally consulted had no idea that it was being considered, begs the question of whether the consultation process was fundamentally flawed. (The wider question of whether long consultation processes are counterproductive is one I’ll leave to another day.)

Yesterday evening I spoke with an expert arboriculturalist about whether the tree could be saved as part of the redesign of the local area. In summary, the answer was a firm ‘yes’. Issues relating to sight lines for motorists approaching the pedestrian crossing to the South of the tree can be rectified by the crossing being moved a little farther away from the roundabout. Issues relating to the surface disruption caused by the trees massive roots can be rectified by various fairly simple technical solutions, which appear to be outside the normal ambit of the heavily regularised work of highways engineers. The tree is thought to be about 120 years old and can be preserved for another 10-20 years at least. I’ve requested a detailed description of the works needed and, when I receive it, I will publish it. The other reasons given for the felling have no legs ~ they cannot stand up.

A couple of days ago local residents discovered a notice pinned to the tree informing them that it would be felled this week. Immediately they organised themselves into a defence campaign: the Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group (@SaveOurTree on twitter). By last night they had gathered 500 signatures and presented their petition to the chair of the council’s Transport Committee. Significantly, one of the signatories was Brighton Pavilion’s Green MP, Caroline Lucas. Here’s what she had to say on the subject.

The local Tories and the Labour Party will lap this story up. Unable to make any sensible policy proposals of their own, they rely on negative campaigning against the Greens. The truth is that neither the Tories nor the local Labour Party members are permitted to express themselves at all, let alone as freely I am doing here (I’m a member of the Green Party). Not only does the local Labour Party not have any channels for daily communication amongst its membership as we do, it doesn’t even have monthly meetings! It is tiny, heavily controlled from the top and unable to tolerate dissent. Most of the local Tories appear unable to finish whatever sentence they start. They are, as with the rest of their party, suffering from a chronic ageing problem. Dementia is setting in.

That said, Green Party insiders are incredulous at the manner in which the political leadership of the council has potentially converted what was clearly a massive success story for the Greens into a howling blunder and a gift for the right-wing media. It is the eleventh hour. This tree can still be saved but not without loss of face for Jason Kitcat, the Council Leader.

Fiercely protective of the Green Party though I am, by the time you read this post, I shall be either up the elm or at its foot with others up in its higher branches, because this particular tree means more to me than Jason Kitcat’s personal prowess. The time has come for him to find a way to step down from his post and let someone else, someone with a good grip on green politics, someone with the backing of the local party, someone who can be trusted, to take over. If he can’t, he will be forced out, before the end of the year. We Greens have good form for recycling our people in and out of political office. There’s no shame in it.

The tree lessons Mr Kitcat needs to learn are as follows. One, us Greens are more driven by loyalty to our cause, than our party leadership. Two, trees are crucial to protecting the environment and much more loved by people than he is. His being the silent ward councillor for this tree’s loyal supporters has damned him. Three, he can leave office without loss of face if he takes that option but if he fights for his personal prestige, he risks de-selection from his candidature at the next election. The numbers are now against him.

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Posted in Brighton, Caroline Lucas, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Seven Dials, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, Trees

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The Green Party trades on policy, not people

Posted on 13 October 2012 | Leave a comment

Two days ago, I published a short essay discussing the source of the strength of capitalism in terms unfamiliar to many on the Left. Yesterday’s post was concerned with finding an economic framework which would favour the best alternative we have to corporate capitalism: cooperatives. Today, I’m going to wrap up these three essays by looking at the nature of the political leadership offered by the Green Party.

We Greens rejected the practice of having a single political leader for a long time. We discovered that the established media, and consquently, the public at large, could not get their head around reporting our views, let alone listening to us. So we changed our constitutional arrangements and chose a leader: Caroline Lucas. Proof of the success of this political engagement with the democratic structures we faced was found in the election of Lucas to the House of Commons. She became the first Green anywhere in the world to be elected via a first past the post voting system. Since then, she has worked tirelessly by our cause and is generally recognised as one of the hardest working MPs. Love or hate Saint Caroline, as she is sometimes affectionately known, you cannot fail to see her. She has constantly appeared in the media and has consistently argued for all of the Green Party’s policies, including the radical ones. Especially the radical ones. Being a party which has grown out of the peace movement, she was one of only a dozen Members of Parliament which voted against the UK intervening in Libya. Personally, I disagreed with her vote but admired her for sticking to her principles. How many MPs do that?

Having established herself in the nation’s living rooms as the Green Party leader and having won a seat in Parliament, she shocked the political establishment by deciding to step down from being party leader. Her reasoning was that her role had given her a high enough profile to overcome the hurdle placed before Parliament by the first past the post system. She declared that it was time for the party to give the high profile to someone else, in the hope that we could elect a second MP. We carried out a leadership election and chose Natalie Bennett to be our next leader. Find me another party with an elected MP and a leader outside Parliament and you’ll be looking at another country! Whilst the media pundits and the established political parties were surprised by this self-deprecating move, we Greens were not. We don’t particularly like egomaniacs, like the other parties seem to. We don’t want a leader to dominate our politics, we want our politics to dominate the way our society is led. It really is that simple.

We don’t just recognise the value of diversity in our culture, we see it as a strength. In the first post in this set of three essays, I used this analysis to look at capitalism and concluded that the diversity of its economically powerful class was the source of its apparent indestructibility. In the second post, I looked at the best possible alternative to capitalism and concluded that we should look to cooperatives and mutuals to calm the chaos of our economic woes. However, although such methods of organisation retain the principle advantage of a capitalist economy ~ a diversity which is durable ~ they do not necessarily manage the planetary resources in a sustainable way. That requires political leadership. We need political decisions about what sort of business enterprises are acceptable. Just as we previously decided that businesses based on slavery were no longer going to be tolerated, today we need to make decisions which revolve around the commonly accepted idea that we must preserve the planet’s ecosystems. I wish that all political parties were seriously competing for that mantle but unfortunately they are not. Luckily, we have the Green Party, which is absolutely committed to social justice and environmentalism.

With our pan-European economy in ruins and our parliament led by people bereft of any plans worth nailing a title to, our party puts a Green New Deal at the heart of our economic policy. Repeating everything written at that link would break the shape of this post but the basic idea involves:

  • Massive investment in renewable energy and wider environmental transformation in the UK, leading to,
  • The creation of thousands of new green collar jobs
  • Reining in reckless aspects of the finance sector – but making low-cost capital available to fund the UK’s green economic shift
  • Building a new alliance between environmentalists, industry, agriculture, and unions to put the interests of the real economy ahead of those of footloose finance

Here’s where the Green Party fundamentally differs from the other parties. We understand that we don’t have a monopoly on wisdom. Thus the call for a new alliance of disparate groups. Similarly, we don’t find much merit in becoming obsessed with the leadership qualities of any one particular person. Our strength truly lies in our diversity. Our party values its members regardless of their political heritage. Thus, we have many ex-Labour Party members who work happily with small business owners. We even have some ex-Liberal Democrats in our ranks; this even includes people we have promoted to top positions, for example Jason Kitcat.

Our growing credibility in Brighton & Hove has not been dependent on the same hands on deck. In fact, we’ve had a rather high turnover of elected councillors. Our electorate understands that it is the policies we promote that they are voting for, not the people.

Our local opposition in Brighton, the Labour Party and the Tories, seem absolutely unable to grasp this idea. They do not understand the strength of diversity, in much the same way that they do not understand the critical problems we as a society have visited on the planet. Our Green administration has introduced a carbon budget into its planning but they dismiss this as a ‘pet idea’, despite it being an obviously core Green policy. They are parties which are run along much more traditional lines, with leadership teams which remain in place for years on end.

In the case of the Brighton & Hove Labour Party, Gill Mitchell looks set to remain their leader regardless of their political misfortunes ~ they are now the smallest party on the council, with only 13 elected representatives. Her grip on power has had obviously deleterious consequences for party morale. An email from an unsuccessful internal candidate to become Labour’s candidate in the forthcoming East Brighton by-election, which was sent to Mitchell, has been widely circulated outside the party, due to the level of enmity it contains. Whatever the truth of their internal politics, this recent episode has led to the disintegration of their local party in the Queen’s Park ward. Unless they rebuild it, Labour will have to rely on people from other parts of town to fight another election there. All key Queens Park activists have quit the party.

This sort of debacle doesn’t occur in the Green Party because we truly believe in the strength of our diversity. Although we’re only in our second year of running Brighton & Hove City Council, we’ve had two Council Leaders already. First the prize fighter Bill Randall took on the post. He was succeeded by the shiny Jason Kitcat. Doubtless there will be another leader before the next election. Discussions are already underway. We thrive on our internal debate because we know that it is the policies we care about, not the people. Policies are best developed with as many people as possible taking their turn at being responsible for them. There are no easy rides in the Green Party. Everyone plays their part. If you’re thinking of joining us, be assured there will be a part for you to play!

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Posted in Bill Randall, Brighton, Capitalism, Caroline Lucas, Economics, Green Party, Jason Kitcat, Natalie Bennett, Politics, Politics in the Cave

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Green Party councillors expel evangelical christian

Posted on 10 September 2012 | 7 Comments

Green Party LogoA Panel of Inquiry has decided to expel Councillor Christina Summers from the group of Green Party councillors on Brighton & Hove City Council. The City Council is now divided between 22 Greens, 18 Tories, 12 Labour and one independent. Following the resignation of a much respected Labour member, on health grounds, there will be a by-election shortly. That is expected to return a 13th Labour member. This expulsion is not expected to make any difference to the Greens’ political control of the Council.

This is the first time that the Green Party has excluded an elected representative from their number. Without the whipping system used by other parties, the process by which the decision was taken took a little longer. Summers was allowed legal representation before the disciplinary panel. She opposed the expulsion.

Christina Summers has God on her side (and guns).

Christina Summers thinks she is only accountable to God.

Although the internal party Panel has voted to expel Summers, it has not yet given its reasons for doing so ~ they are expected on Thursday. The Panel was convened at the request of Summers’ former political colleagues after she (alone) voted, on 19th July, against the council supporting the extension of marriage rights to gay couples. The Greens were the first mainstream party to declare their support for same sex marriages. Summer’s vote not only contradicted her party’s policy, it also broke internal promises she made verbally and in writing in respect of this issue. She has confirmed to an evangelical radio station that she understood that she was voting against a core party policy.

Jason Kitkat

Jason Kitcat shuts up about God.

The three member Panel made its decision on a majority vote. The minority vote was cast by the Council Leader, Jason Kitcat, who is a practising Catholic. Despite his religious beliefs, he does not introduce them to his public political life. He doesn’t attend the prayers held in Brighton & Hove before council meetings. He voted in favour of marriage rights being extended to gay and lesbian couples. When it became clear that he was in a minority on the Panel, he resigned from it. N.B. Jason Kitcat asked for this post to be altered – please see the first comment.

Summers has received the benefit of legal representation from the Christian Legal Centre, an evangelical lobby group thought to be funded by wealthy Americans. It is expected to drag the Green Party through the courts. It has form for litigating everything, regardless of the legal merits and generating news stories along the way.

Several councillors have complained that Summers was difficult to work with generally. Despite professing to support strong family values, she repeatedly made life difficult for at least one of her colleagues with children by disregarding their need to arrange childcare. She objected to certain types of cursing, for example the phrase “Goddamn” and other pseudo-religious utterances, making ordinary every day conversation difficult when she was around. Since casting her vote, she has absented herself not only from internal party meetings but also from some of her official duties on the council, without either an apology or an explanation.

It is likely that other Green Party members, including myself, will petition for Summers to be expelled from the party altogether. It makes no sense to prevent her from sitting on the party benches in the Council but to allow her to attend party meetings as an ordinary member. She has deliberately opposed us in the most conspicuous manner possible, deceived us as to her voting intentions and cannot be trusted. Instead of campaigning for Green Party policies, she has campaigned against them.

There has been much debate about the merits of disciplining Summers at all, mainly from people outside our party. Most of the media coverage is led by religious lobby groups who seek to portray every instance of a Christian suffering as an attack on Christianity. This argument collapses in Summers’ case because she has authored her own political downfall.

Update: 11th September 2012 ~ here’s food for thought for those visiting this post from Cranmer’s Blog. It labels the Green Party as fascist because it expels a councillor for lying? Don’t you think it a bit sad, if that’s the best argument raised in Summer’s defence? Do you really want to vote for a party which keeps liars in their midst?

Second Update: 11th September 2012 ~ I couldn’t find this link yesterday (me being thick) ~ the Brighton & Hove Green Party has made an official statement on the status of the Panel’s decision and indicated the reasons for its decision. However, there can be no doubt that the Panel’s recommendation will be followed through. Christina Summer’s legal representatives have stated that she is considering taking the party to the High Court for judicial review of this decision. That could be an expensive mistake and begs the question of whether we want our politics to be dominated by cash rich litigators? She appears hell bent on maximising publicity for her cause.

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Posted in Brighton, Christian Concern, Christian Legal Centre, Christina Summers, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Religion

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Blogging, tweeting councillors in Brighton & Hove

Posted on 3 August 2012 | 8 Comments

These days anyone can talk to everyone for free by blogging or getting some kind of social media account. So far as the latter is concerned, twitter is by far and away the most useful. Celebrities, media junkies, various other extroverts and, of course, politicians make use of these new mediums. Today, I’m focusing on this last category of talkers – those who would seek to govern us. By doing the new technologies, they sidestep established media completely and thus avoid the manner in which these esteemed organs curate the news. Now it is possible to discuss matters directly with the highest policy wonks and pullers of the levers of power.

Every day radio and television news discusses what twitter has been talking about because more Britons are active on twitter (11 million) than buy a daily newspaper (9 million). We are living through the cusp of change. The early adopters seized the new opportunities some time ago, the ready to be convinced were fledgling technocrats by the time of the last general election in the UK and the most reluctant parts of the political world have now grudgingly accepted that they must join in. Yet some still resist. Of the refuseniks, some are probably too stuck in their ways to progress beyond occasional or frequent use of emails, some are frightened of the dragons that await inside the blogosphere and some don’t really want to talk to other people. Some just want the status that comes with their high office and are happy to be guided by their public relations consultants or party spin doctors.

Brighton & Hove City Council is comprised of 54 councillors. Presently, there are 23 Greens, 18 Tories and 13 Labour Party councillors. Our local population is, according to official statistics, very well educated. One-third of them have a degree. We are well known for our vibrant digital economy and when we do buy newspapers, we are frequently given the impression that they are written by people who live here. You might think that in these circumstances, a very high proportion of our local politicians would be active online. There’s no shortage of matters to discuss. Are our politicking brigade leading the discussions? I’ll take each by turn, using the simple but expedient method of a google search to determine whether they blog or use twitter. Of course, this will not establish whether they write something online anonymously but that can hardly be claimed to be assisting the political dialogue.

  • Dawn Barnett is a Conservative Party Councillor for Hangleton and Knoll Ward. She does not blog or use twitter.
  • Jayne Bennett is a Conservative Party Councillor for Hove Park Ward. She does not blog or use twitter.
  • Geoffrey Bowden is a Green Party Councillor for Queen’s Park. He does not blog but he is very active on twitter: @TheSussexSquare
  • Vanessa Brown is a Conservative Party Councillor for Hove Park. She does not blog or use twitter.
  • Ruth Buckley is a Green Party Councillor for Goldsmid Ward. She does not blog or use twitter.
  • Bob Carden is a Labour Party Councillor for North Portslade. He does not blog or use twitter.
  • Denise Cobb is a Conservative Party Councillor for Westbourne Ward and is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She does not blog or use twitter.
  • Graham Cox is a Conservative Party Councillor for Westbourne Ward. For a while he ran two blogs! On 1st May 2012 he abandoned his personal blog because it had been a place where he could “write ‘opinions strictly my own’ type entries on here.” He says he realised that in fact, “there is really no such thing.” After that he has only maintained his official Conservative Party blog. Mr Cox is also very active on twitter: @CoxGraham
  • Ian Davey is a Green Party Councillor for St Peter’s & North Laine Ward and is the Chair of the Transport Committee. He does not blog or use twitter.
  • Lizzie Dean is a Green Party Councillor for St Peter’s & North Laine Ward and is the Chair of Licensing Committee. She does not blog. She has a twitter account but it has been inactive for more than two years: @LizzieDeaneBton.
  • Ben Duncan is a Green Party Councillor for Queen’s Park and is the Chair of Community Safety Forum. He was a very active blogger and tweeter until very recently when he stopped suddenly. The precise reasons for his unexpected silence are closely guarded secrets although they can be easily guessed at, given the heat that his political opponents turned on him for deploying a risqué sense of humour. Being funny is a serious crime in our boring political world. I know exactly how and why he came to quit the online chat (don’t ask – I’m not going to tell you, not yet anyway) and, as with many others, I want him to come back.
  • Leigh Farrow is a Labour Party Councillor for Moulsecoomb & Bevendean Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Brian Fitch is a Labour Party Councillor for Hangleton & Knoll Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Matt Follett is a Green Party Councillor for Hanover & Elm Grove Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Penny Gilbey is a Labour Party Councillor for North Portslade Ward. She does not blog but she does tweet frequently: @PortsladePen.
  • Les Hamilton is a Labour Party Councillor for South Portslade Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Christopher Hawtree is a Green Party Councillor for Central Hove Ward. He blogs beautifully and has taken to twitter like the proverbial quacking animal does to water but with more eloquence and wit than any political animal and beats many of our celebrity heroes hands down too: @chrishawtree.
  • Linda Hyde is a Conservative Party Councillor for Rottingdean Coastal Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Tony Janio is a Conservative Party Councillor for Hangleton & Knoll. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Rob Jarrett is a Green Party Councillor for Goldsmid Ward and is the Chair of the Adult Care & Health Committee. He does not blog but he tweets frequently: @RobHove.
  • Mike Jones is a Green Party Councillor for Preston Park Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Amy Kennedy is a Green Party Councillor for Preston Park Ward. She does not blog but she does tweet. She is presently recovering from a serious illness – that’s why she is less active than she was formerly on twitter: @AmyK_redux – everyone’s looking forward to her getting well very soon!
  • Ania Kitcat is a Green Party Councillor for Regency Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Jason Kitcat hardly needs an introduction of any kind. He is a Green Party Councillor for Regency Ward and Leader of the Council. He is a very active blogger and tweeter: @JasonKitcat.
  • Jeane Lepper is a Labour Party Councillor for Hollingdean & Stanmer Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Leo Littman is a Green Party Councillor for Preston Park Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Phelim Mac Cafferty is a Green Party Councillor for Brunswick & Adelaide Ward. He does not blog but he is a very active tweeter: @Phelimmac.
  • Jo Marsh is a Labour Party Councillor for Moulsecoomb & Bevendean Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Ann Meadows is a Labour Party Councillor for Moulsecoomb & Bevendean Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Mary Mears is a Conservative Party Councillor for Rottingdean Coastal Ward. She did blog between September 2009 and July 2011 but seems to have abandoned her extensive efforts since then. She does not tweet. Perhaps with no elections in sight, she cannot see the point of it?
  • Gill Mitchell is a Labour Party Councillor for East Brighton Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Warren Morgan is a Labour Party Councillor for East Brighton Ward. He does not blog but is a very active tweeter: @warrenmorgan.
  • Ann Norman is a Conservative Party Councillor for Withdean Ward. She does not blog. She has a twitter account but as with her husband (below), she does not use it, so as with Ben Duncan, I’m not counting her. There’s only three tweets there, all sent on 18th March of this year, concluding with the statement that for her, “being an effective councillor for my residents and for the city… is a full time job“, by which she presumably means that she hasn’t got time for anything else.
  • Ken Norman is a Conservative Party Councillor for Withdean Ward. He does not blog. He has a twitter account but like Ben Duncan and his wife he does not use it, so I’m not counting him either. Like his wife, his account doesn’t reveal much enthusiasm. There are only 7 tweets between February 2009 and today! The first announces who he is, presumably because he doesn’t understand that is what is bio space is for – he’s left that blank. Two and a half years later he updated his job description in another tweet. On the same day he praised David Cameron. Nine months after that he tweeted a single name, enigmatically: “Jason Kitcat” (also on this list). In a rush of activity, five days later he tweeted his wife’s account name, twice. In June of this year, he boasted that he was going to Buckingham Palace. It is fair to say that he doesn’t get it.
  • Gary Peltzer Dunn is a Conservative Party Councillor for Wish Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Alex Phillips is a Green Party Councillor for Goldsmid Ward. She does not blog (although she does have a personal, political website for her campaign to become Green Party Deputy Leader). She is so active on twitter that she has had more than one account, moving from one to another as she ups her political ambitions. Currently she is tweeting here: @alexfordeputy.
  • Brian Pidgeon is a Conservative Party Councillor for Patcham Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Anne Pissaridou is a Labour Party Councillor for Wish Ward. She does not blog but she tweets frequently: @paulinemable.
  • Stephanie Powell is a Green Party Councillor for Queen’s Park Ward. She does not blog or tweet.
  • Bill Randall is a Green Party Councillor for Hanover & Elm Grove Ward and is also the Mayor of Brighton & Hove. He does not blog but he is very active on twitter: @BillRandallBHCC.
  • Alan Robins is a Labour Party Councillor for South Portslade Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Sven Rufus is a Green Party Councillor for Hollingdean & Stanmer Ward. He has taken to blogging recently and is very active on twitter: @SvenRufus.
  • Sue Shanks is a Green Party Councillor for Withdean Ward. She does not blog but she tweets occasionally: @ShanksSue.
  • Dee Simson is a Conservative Party Councillor for Withdean Ward. She does not blog but she tweets frequently: @Woodingdean_Dee.
  • David Smith is a Conservative Party Councillor for Rottingdean Coastal Ward. He does not blog or tweet.
  • Christina Summers is a Green Party Councillor for Hollingdean & Stanmer Ward. She does not blog but she is on twitter: @SummersCM.
  • Ollie Sykes is a Green Party Councillor for Brunswick & Adelaide Ward. He doesn’t blog or tweet but he does share an occasionally used twitter account with Phelim Mac Cafferty: @Brunswick_Green.
  • Carol Theobald is a Conservative Party Councillor for Patcham Ward. She doesn’t blog or tweet.
  • Geoffrey Theobald is a Conservative Party Councillor for Patcham Ward and Leader of the Opposition. He doesn’t blog or tweet.
  • Craig Turton is a Labour Party Councillor for East Brighton Ward. He doesn’t blog or tweet.
  • Liz Wakefield is a Green Party Councillor for Hanover & Elm Grove Ward. She doesn’t blog but she is very active on twitter: @LizGreenBH.
  • Andrew Wealls is a Conservative Party Councillor for Central Hove Ward. He doesn’t blog but he is an infrequent tweeter: @Wealls.
  • Geoffrey Wells is a Conservative Party Councillor for Woodingdean Ward. He doesn’t blog or tweet.
  • Pete West is a Green Party Councillor for St Peter’s & North Laine Ward. He doesn’t blog or tweet.

19 Councillors out of 54 are engaging directly with the voters by blogging and tweeting – that’s 35%. Is this good enough? How does this compare with other local authorities?

Inevitably more Greens are currently active online – there are more of them on the council. Taken by party, 13 out of the 23 Green Councillors are ‘engaged’ (57%), 3 out of 13 Labour Councillors (23%) and 3 out of 18 Conservative Councillors (17%). Age obviously comes into play, with younger councillors being more likely to adopt the new technologies but that doesn’t explain the situation away altogether.

The Conservative Party seems to acknowledge the issue – it’s website gives the official Conservative Twitter feed as a place to contact all its councillors without their own account, despite this approach defeating the big advantage of twitter: direct, personal contact. The times they are a-changed but the older politicians don’t seem ready to accept modernity just yet.

Very few doubt that within a decade newspapers as we know them will be dead. Lots of our local councillors waste their time by writing to our local rag, a poisonous contribution to politics popularly known as The Evening Anus, even though it only sells approximately 5,000 copies per day and probably half of those to businesses who use it for little more than table space filling. We can have some sympathy with hard working councillors who have allowed their brains to become too stuck in their current methodologies to cope with digital life but we have to ask them, don’t you want young people to vote for you? Don’t you know how people communicate these days? What are you waiting for?

There’s been much fuss in Brighton & Hove lately about whether politicians should be independently minded or not. On close analysis, most sensible commentators agree that we want them to vote for the policies owned by the parties whose platforms they stood on. That need not stop them from expressing themselves freely online, from debating the issues thoroughly, from being available for communication free from party spin doctors. Our national political life is completely tedious because it appears to be dominated by policy wonkers and people who, frankly, you would not want to spend an evening in the pub with. We want real people in charge of our lives. That’s the whole point of democracy.

We know that our politicians will be forced to accept the modern communication systems or lose office. The question is how quickly they will catch up with the rest of us. That is still a challenge for all parties.

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Posted in Alan Robins, Alex Phillips, Amy Kennedy, Andrew Wealls, Ania Kitcat, Ann Meadows, Ann Norman, Ann Pissaridou, Ben Duncan, Bill Randall, Blogging, Bob Carden, Brian Fitch, Brian Pidgeon, Brighton, Brunswick & Adelaide, Carol Theobald, Central Hove, Christina Summers, Christopher Hawtree, Craig Turton, David Smith, Dawn Barnett, Dee Simson, Denise Cobb, East Brighton, Gary Peltzer Dunn, Geoffrey Bowden, Geoffrey Theobald, Geoffrey Wells, Gill Mitchell, Goldsmid, Graham Cox, Green Party, Hangleton & Knoll, Hanover & Elm Grove, Hollingdean & Stanmer, Hove, Hove Park, Ian Davey, Jason Kitcat, Jayne Bennett, Jeane Lepper, Jo Marsh, Ken Norman, Labour Party, Leigh Farrow, Leo Littman, Les Hamilton, Linda Hyde, Liz Wakefield, Lizzie Dean, Mary Mears, Matt Follett, Mike Jones, Moulsecoomb & Bevendean, North Portslade, Ollie Sykes, Patcham, Penny Gilbey, Pete West, Phelim Mac Cafferty, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Preston Park, Queen's Park, Regency, Rob Jarrett, Rottingdean Coastal, Ruth Buckley, South Portslade, St Peter's & North Laine, Stephanie Powell, Sue Shanks, Sven Rufus, Thieving Tory Bastards, Tony Janio, Twitter, Vanessa Brown, Warren Morgan, Westbourne, Wish, Withdean, Woodingdean

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Brighton & Hove Labour Party hope hypocrisy will win votes

Posted on 17 June 2012 | 1 Comment

As regular readers will know although I am an active member of the Brighton & Hove Green Party, I am not shy of being critical of my local party when I think it appropriate. It is also no secret that some of recent actions have upset many in our party – in particular my campaign against the local rag for its crappy journalism, which I believe serves no party particularly well, even the Tories, to whom it is slavishly loyal. However, this morning is different. I’ve just read the one of the best demolition jobs that I’ve seen in years in a political debate. Please do read Jason Kitcat’s detailed deconstruction of the sheer hypocrisy from the local Labour & Conservative Parties’ campaigning in respect of bus subsidies in Brighton & Hove.

You can expect the thieving Tory bastards to lie, cheat and connive their way into power. That’s what they’re for – it’s their very raison d’être. Although I still warm to recall my Dad’s Dad talking about the atmosphere in Scotland after the 1945 general election, with people genuinely believing and openly declaring that the Tories “would never be elected again“, the fact is that without them and their nasty stall, democracy would be weaker. They destroy consensus and create a debate about values because theirs are fundamentally different from the way most of us live. Without that difference of opinion, people lose interest in politics and when people lose interest, all democratic values suffer. Without strong democratic values, society is weakened in its constant struggle with what the 1945 Labour Party manifesto called “the hard men“. The hard men of today run the psychopathic predatory corporations.

The Labour Party used to provide the other side of the political argument. It stood for socialism. That word, or even the phrase now favoured by the Greens and some others on the Left – social justice – is seemingly a taboo inside the Labour Party now. Since the illegal Iraq war, the Labour Party has lost its mojo. It doesn’t provide any form of alternative vision of society; the best it offers now is that its people will be better managers of capitalism than the Tories. There is nothing to inspire people. Without that inspiration, it lacks political integrity. Perhaps that’s why it stoops to hypocrisy in its local campaigning. I’m sure the people of Brighton & Hove, who are the most highly educated population in the country, will see through the flimsy veil of deceit.

The Labour Party councillors in Brighton & Hove need to answer the basic questions posed by Jason Kitcat’s post:

  • If, as they claim, they didn’t support the Green plans on bus subsidies, why did they vote for the budget in February instead of abstaining as opposition parties normally do?
  • Why didn’t they propose any amendments to the reports being considered by this weeks Policy & Resources Committee?
  • Do their activists complain that the Green Party spends too much time and effort consulting as widely as possible before passing decisions because it embarasses their campaigning strategy of not proposing changes but still complaining about decisions?

Here’s a twitter debate between Caroline Penn, a member of the Brighton & Hove Labour Party executive committee and Holly Smither, an ex-Labour voter (and no particular friend of the Greens, I think):

Twitter debate between Brighton & Hove Labour Party executive committee member and an ex-Labour voter

Click to enlarge image.

Just one of many examples of Brighton & Hove Labour Party campaigning against consultations. It’s beginning to look like they are obsessed about the Green strategy of wide consultations. What’s the point of complaining about consultations in respect of a key Green policy? The Greens don’t have a majority on the City Council. It ought to be easy to vote down their policies or prevent them from obtaining office. All that would be required is for the Labour Party to work with the Tories, with whom they have so much in common. Okay, perhaps that is a bit hard on them but it ought to be possible to concoct amendments which the Tories would agree with.

It was widely said during the 1980s that Labour made itself unelectable by refusing to declare a credible strategy for government. It learnt that lesson nationally but it doesn’t appear to have learnt it at locally. All opposition parties snipe sometimes and fire from the hip at other times, without worrying too much about the logical consequences of every criticism they make. Such is democratic politics. However, blanket campaigning against decisions when repeated opportunities to affect those decisions have been ignored is sheer hypocrisy. There is no other word for it.

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Posted in @HollySmither, Brighton, Bus Subsidies, Caroline Penn, Green Party, Hove, Jason Kitcat, Labour Party, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Thieving Tory Bastards