Rape culture, not Asian culture, is to blame for Rochdale

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Emma-Kate McAlpine | No Comments

Follow Emma-Kate McAlpine on Twitter and on Tumblr. She discusses this story in her third podcast with Lauren Cole, which you can play at the bottom of this page.

The fact that race, not rape, has dominated discussion of the Rochdale rape case, says a lot about the state of society today. The event in itself is an abhorrent display of violence against women, but the reaction, in my opinion, shows a far more widespread disease affecting society. We live in a rape culture. I see this as indisputable. We live in a world which actively condones and justifies violence against women, including rape.

Last week’s BBC Question Time showed the prevalence of these attitudes. The first question asked about the relation between race and the case. I, for one, was confused – why would race have anything to do with the actual case? The responses given by the panel didn’t exactly help to clear up any misgivings.

The Daily Telegraph’s Peter Oborne answered that the real question was why these women were associating with these men. Because, damn those jezebels for talking to a grown adult male, right? It petrifies me that a mainstream political personality will hold these views – in fact, it scares me that anyone would harbour these misogynist, backwards opinions.

Women are raped because rapists exist. There is nothing a victim can do, ever, to stop herself being raped. No ‘extra precautions’ she can take. And putting even partial responsibility on the victim for an attack is revolting – how would you feel if a friend, a family member was raped, only to be told they are somewhat to blame, because of what they wore? Why should half of society be restricted in their choices because a minority choose to rape? A hundred men could walk past a ‘vulnerable’ woman, but only a rapist would rape her.

So no, Oborne, I don’t care if the victims were complete strangers to, best friends or worst enemies with the perpetrators. I don’t care if they wore a latex catsuit, a bin bag or jeans and a t-shirt. It was not their fault.

So race, is that a factor? Did these men rape because of cultural differences? Because they were of Asian origin? Maybe they didn’t understand that it’s not okay to force yourself on an underage teenager? Sorry, but that excuse doesn’t wash with me. Reading the reports, particularly one in the Independent, it is clear that the abuse was sustained and that the men convicted were fully aware of their actions. One victim “lost count of the number of times she had had sex with men when she did not want to do so”. Another was “persistently coerced or forced into submission” by the men.

Which leads me to my next point – if you forcibly penetrate another human who does not want that to happen, it is rape. It is not sex. Sex is intrinsically good, and by definition consensual. So reports of the Rochdale case referring to ‘sex’ with underage girls are incorrect. There was no consent, so, by definition surely, it was assault. These crimes were heinous violations of the victims’ autonomy. This is not justified by Asian culture; it is promoted by a global rape culture.

The hegemonic culture in music, media, politics, society is a patriarchal one, which continually subjugates women. In Western democratic society, rape and violence against women as a whole is condoned through practices such as victim-blaming and slut-shaming.

Look at the comments by a Toronto police officer which sparked the worldwide ‘SlutWalks’. The misogyny present in modern hip-hop. The way Chris Brown, convicted domestic abuser, has been welcomed back into the collective consciousness with no repercussions. An advertisement on 4Music for an entertainment news programme poses the question “Should Rihanna get back with Chris Brown?” A mainstream-owned television channel asking if a woman should return to the arms of a man who assaulted her. I’m sorry, what? How is this an acceptable thing to do in modern society?

Our entire culture, our society, seeks to justify violence against women. It shows men of all ages that committing horrendous crimes such as rape and assault are okay. Because women lie, and women make poor choices which lead to them being attacked, and women sleep around so it’s clear they just want sex, right?

No. It’s not right. It’s not okay. Race did not cause these young women to be raped. A sexist, patriarchal ideology caused this. Rapists caused this.

The Jubilee is a national sedative; this is a national wake up call

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Guest | 6 Comments

UK Uncut's Great British Street Party - The future's not what it used to be

By Anna Walker, a campaigner from UK Uncut

Cameron wants to see ‘the mother of all parties’. The Queen is old – celebrate! The Olympics are in town – celebrate! Ignore the fact that we are screwing you, your parents, your grandparents, your children, your friends and neighbours. Ignore the fact that we will monitor your emails, tap your phones, sell off the hospitals and schools brick by brick to the private companies. Have an extra day off, have a party, drink some tea, preferably drink some Pimms. But whatever you do, don’t remember the unemployment figures, the number of disabled people who are killing themselves because their benefits are stopped or the number of services you use that are being scrapped.

Don’t dissent. Don’t resist. Don’t protest. If you do, you are unpatriotic, a killjoy, a ‘dangerous anarchist’. We will arrest you if you put an anti-Olympics poster in the window, we will stop and search if you’re wearing a hoodie too near the Olympic stadium. We will pre-emptively arrest you and slap an ASBO on you if you dare to suggest that all is not well and try to do something about it.

UK Uncut also wants to party – but for completely different reasons. We want to undermine the government’s propaganda and the Jubilee pageantry. The idea of UK Uncut holding street parties of resistance came from anger that the government will use Jubilee celebrations as a national sedative and a justification to clamp down on political protest. We want people to remember and to resist the cuts being rammed through by the government. We want people to celebrate a different future, determined by everyone.

The last time the Olympics were held in London was in 1948. The country had an enormous national debt yet the NHS and welfare state were introduced. We are not saying that we wish we could go back to this time, but that the introduction of free healthcare for (almost) everyone is a good thing. That it is better to have some form of support for disabled people, children, single parents and people without work than not. We are not saying that Britain was a perfect place for everyone then or now. Discrimination against people of colour, women, disabled people, LGBT and queer people, migrants, travellers and Roma people was rife then and remains today. Colonialism was vicious and persists in new forms today. The flag is a symbol which means very different things to different people from pride to football hooliganism to far right extremist views. What does it mean to be British? Again, it’s different for different people, so we’ve asked people with different perspectives to write guest blogs which will be posted on the UK Uncut site next week.

We live in communities that make up this country. And those communities are suffering. We are asking what do we want society to look like in a future Britain? You decide. You decide together how you want resist the attack on our services, rights and future. Do what works for you wherever you live.

As opposed to the sedative effect of Jubilee parties, UK Uncut’s street parties are intended to wake up new ideas, new connections and new collective power. They are not about celebrating Britain as it is or as it was in 1948. They are about defiance and the definition of a future that we want to see, where we live – that is determined by us all – not for us, by a bunch of men who think they own power, money, business, government, us and our future.

Caroline Lucas stands down: space for someone to lead

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 7 Comments

So, it’s now public – the rumours that Caroline Lucas is standing down as Green Party leader have been confirmed. It’s a good move.

Perversely, because we didn’t used to have one, we Greens have a long history of talking about what a leader is for. One of those roles – the role we used to have – is principal speaker: the person who goes on telly and says things to the public. This is a crucial role. But the truth is that Caroline will keep it whatever – she is our only MP, and by far our most prominent face. The media really won’t give a damn that she isn’t formally leader. Of course, relinquishing the role means that someone else can get a little more face time – that we can make it clear publicly that we are more than a one woman band. But that effect will surely be limited, and it isn’t really why this is a good move.

Nope, the real reason why this is a good move is that leadership is about more than being the person who goes on the telly. It is about leading. And more than ever, the party needs leadership right now. For ten years at least, we have had a simple strategic goal as a national party – elect an MP. Now we’ve done that, we need rapidly to work out what the next big goal is. We also need to navigate the political tsunami we are amidst – the collapse of the economy and distrust of the older parties present huge opportunities for Greens, and whilst we are beginning to take advantage of them, we need someone who can keep their eye on this ball full time.

Caroline is an excellent MP. She is an excellent spokeswoman. The strategy the party has followed in the last couple of years has essentially been the right one – we are the party of the anti-cuts movement, the party that opposes NHS privatisation, the only English parliamentary party left on the left. But as a new MP with quite such an astonishing day to day schedule, she really hasn’t had much time to lead – or, perhaps, facilitate – her party.

Standing aside as leader gives someone else the space to do this. Who, we don’t yet know – though Adrian Ramsay (no relation) is surely the frontrunner. The character doesn’t matter hugely – they will have to be able to bring the party with them – to build consensus around a forward plan, but they won’t really be the front person most of the time.

What will matter will be what their plan for the party is. They will need to be clear that they are left wing: in tough economic times, as the mega-rich screw everyone else for more than ever, it is no longer acceptable to pretend that we don’t take sides. They will need to be clear that we cannot simply be another party of centralised bureaucracy: across the planet, the successful 21st century parties of the left are the parties of movements, not just of slick media. And they will need to be ambitious: a handful more councillors each year is not enough either to maintain the momentum a small party requires, or to secure the justice we exist to secure.

It’s a few months until the final results, and I’m sure there’ll be a good debate. But, in the mean time, thanks to Caroline for her time as leader, and good work for creating space for someone to help corral the party to higher pastures.

Caroline Lucas to step down as Green leader

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Gary Dunion | 7 Comments

Caroline Lucas will not run for a third time when her current two-year term as Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales ends in September. Her decision was announced in a press release on the Green Party website, and she discusses it in an exclusive interview in tomorrow’s Independent.

Caroline served as Female Principal Speaker of the party from 2001-2006, when she was succeeded by London Mayoral candidate Siân Berry. Caroline returned to the office in 2007. In 2008, when the Principal Speaker system was abolished, Caroline became the party’s first ever Leader.

Caroline’s leadership has seen her elected as the first Green MP, Greens take control of their first council (Brighton and Hove which includes Caroline’s Brighton Pavilion Constituency), and overtake the Lib Dems to become London’s third party.

In the party’s statement, Caroline said:

I look forward to continuing to do all I can in my very demanding role as the MP for Brighton Pavilion, representing my constituents and defending them against the Coalition Government’s disastrous economic policies and its refusal to accept its environmental and social responsibilities. I will also be able to dedicate even more of my work to the political frontline, putting the Green case for change in Parliament and in all circles of national political debate.

After a long period of focus on making a beachhead in Parliament ended in success two years ago, the new leader will be charged with shaping the party’s next goals and delivering on them, including expanding European representation beyond the South-East and London in 2014, and capitalising on Caroline’s victory to add more Green MPs in 2015.

Who would you like to see run to succeed Caroline? What should be the priorities for the new leader? Is it time for our first team of Co-Leaders? Please comment below.

On environmental colonialism, the Amazon, and Scottish beavers

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 3 Comments

When people ask me about my political background, I often talk about my parents. I explain that, though they aren’t nearly as far left as me, they brought me up to have an interest in politics, and to care particularly about the environment.

There’s one particular lesson they taught me which, in retrospect, makes me pretty proud of them. For all of my life, my dad has worked in various ways on restoring Scotland to some kind of natural state – though he’d be the first to accept that what that means is complex. When I was 5 he stopped being a shepherd and wrote a book about this passion – Revival of the Land. It outlines what happens when deer are culled in the Highlands in a way which mimics the behaviour of the wolves who for thousands of years hunted on the hills I grew up on. The answer is that thick forests grow back – the wet desert of the Scottish Highlands reverts to the temporal – or, in some places, near boreal – woodlands of its past.

A decade later, he reintroduced beavers to the land he had once farmed. Beavers were wiped out four-hundred years ago in Scotland, and they are crucial, not just because they are a significant mamal who lived here until people trapped them to extinction for their fur; but because they are what ecologists call a keystone species. Once upon a time, much of Britain was effectively covered by temporal rainforest – by wetlands. Our ancestors cut down the trees and drained the marshes. And they wiped out the architects of these wetlands – the beavers whose dams had for thousands of years maintained these crucial habitats. I often watched him explain to people why he did these things: “beavers are key to our habitat” he would tell them “the wetlands of the UK are our rainforest, and it is beavers who built them”. “They were here before and they have a right to be here”. And, for me, crucially: “what right do we have to tell people in Brazil not to cut down their rainforest as long as we refuse to restore ours?”.

And for me, that’s the point. As rich white Westerners, we are very keen on going round the world telling people what to do. Of course we should oppose the destruction of the Amazon – apart from anything else, the indigeonous Amazonians demand it, as do many Latin American environmental activists. Where they ask for our support, it must surely be forthcoming.

Just as I learn from my dad, I learn from my girlfriend. She’s been teaching me recently about colonial feminism – the habit many liberals have of casting the complex problems of oppression of women as ‘white women saving brown women from brown men‘. The environmental movement has got better and better at understanding climate change as a justice issue. We have got better and better at working with those suffering most as a result of the most disastrous extraction projects – whether the people of the Niger Delta, or First Nation Canadians in tar sands rich Alberta. But we still sometimes verge on the same habits… as long as we are willing to be presented as white people saving indigeonous peoples’ forests from brown loggers, we have a problem – especially if we are not wiling to first address the total destruction of our own rainforests. We will not only have no leg to stand on. We will fail.

Miliband kicks nurses and unemployed young people

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 4 Comments

Friday was Ed Miliband’s day. Labour’s rise in the local elections revived his leadership and gave him a chance once more to articulate his message without the media sniping at his heals. Such opportunities are rare for party leaders – the space to say what they want to say, the time to craft a message, and the chance to choose a platform from which to deliver it.

The rarity of such moments means that it is a good time to judge a leader, a good time to see where they are actually leading up to, not just the bunkers they are forced to duck into. Most days, they are responding to some crisis or other, to the daily news cycle. With the coalition government, policy disagreements between Lib Dems and Tories are much more interesting to journos than what a hypothetical Labour government might do, so Labour struggle even more than the average opposition party to get simple front and centre coverage of their policy announcements. But after the local elections, before the next big crisis – this was Miliband’s chance to pounce – his chance to inspire the country with his bold vision. So, what did ‘red Ed’ do with his big day?

He went to Essex to slag off NHS workers and unemployed young people. Specifically, he called on any NHS workers who pull a sicky to be sacked, and called on young people to work harder to find jobs which don’t exist. If I was trying to think of the two least helpful media narratives he could perpetuate, they might well be inefficiency in the NHS, and laziness of young people who can’t find work…

After a local election in which the Tories were punished – in no small part because of dismantling the NHS and because of youth unemployment, this is perhaps extraordinary. Rather than articulating the case for the welfare state, and the case for job creation, for investment, Miliband took his big chance and decided to use it to put the boot into some of the people in Britain hit hardest by this Tory government.

In other news, on the 30th of April, 100,000 sick people lost benefits worth nearly £100 a week. Does Mr Miliband think that they are all faking it too? If not, it seems Ed is more interested in kicking those who are down than he is in helping people up.

UK Uncut’s ‘Great British Street Party’: kitsch nationalism?

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Guest | 7 Comments

UK Uncut's Great British Street Party - The future's not what it used to be

As if last year had not been enough, 2012 is to be awash with examples of pomp and pageantry; from the Queen’s jubilee celebrations to the Olympics and Paralympics – as well as the run up to these events. Britain is to celebrate itself and its achievements all year round and will certainly not be reserved about it. However, in reality, there is little to celebrate: government plans to sail the National Health Service towards privatisation have been signed off by parliament, welfare caps and cuts to disability benefits have begun to take effect, the criminalisation of squatting has passed into law and will soon mean many homeless find their attempts to find shelter criminalised, unemployment has continued to rise and is currently at 2.67 million and the economy may well be back in recession.

So perhaps then UK Uncut are trying to highlight the absurdity of this juxtaposed celebration and deprivation through their latest action ‘Great British Street Parties’, which appeals to the aesthetic and mode of celebration of 1948 – the year the NHS, welfare and even generalised squatting became realities for Britain. Here it seems UK Uncut seeks to draw attention to all that we are losing through this government’s efforts, or perhaps more accurately: that the working class is losing the very concessions they fought and won after World War II. But of course, this is in itself a fallacy. Claims that the working class fought for and won these basic provisions is historically not the case at all; there was no homogenous Labour movement that coordinated industrial action even close to that seen in 1926 and whilst many were just back from war, there was no risk to the ruling elites of a violent uprising.

Instead the reality facing the Beveridge government was a class that suffered greatly from illness with no ability to pay for care – apart from the occasional availability of voluntary hospitals – and thus not able to fill the jobs needed to get the British economy growing. In fact, plans to universalise the war-time emergency hospital service after its demobilisation had been in place since 1944. Similarly, plans for the beginnings of welfare provision as we understand it today were first drawn up in the Beveridge report of 1942, which along with eliminating ‘Disease’ and ‘Want’, also set its eyes on ‘Idleness’. So we see that rather than being a victory of the working class, a welfare state was a gift given to them in order to keep Britain working.

Admittedly, UK Uncut are not celebrating the achievements of that year in particular, just what the future looked like in 1948 compared to the bleak future we face now. But with the benefit of hindsight we understand that whilst welfare may have been positive in improving material conditions for the working class right up until the present day, it has also played its role against them ensuring that capitalism stayed unthreatened and arguably pacified any meaningful resistance, allowing for the inevitable destruction of welfare institutions now in 2012. The future may have looked good in 1948, but we now know otherwise.

The historical inaccuracy of what UK Uncut is proposing isn’t the most concerning part of this action however, but rather the appeal to a nationalist aesthetic. Shows of pageantry and calls to celebrate ‘Great Britain’ at events such as the Diamond Jubilee or Olympics are often thinly veiled attempts to supplant solidarity of a dissenting nature with one based around a blind allegiance to the nation. For example, it is entirely convenient for the coalition government to utilize the Olympics to label the bosses of unions – and by extension union members themselves – as ‘unpatriotic’ for threatening industrial action. This is unsurprising as both right-wing and nominally left-wing governments often appeal to patriotism to stifle dissent, but that UK Uncut seems to have joined in with mainstream politics’ nationalist consensus is highly concerning.

This is perhaps most evident when you consider the ‘all in this together’ mantra used since the global financial crisis to foster a sense of homogeneity and getting on with things as we supposedly move towards recovery. UK Uncut and its activists originally set out to illustrate precisely that we are not ‘all in this together’ at the current moment, but now seem to suggest in the call-out for their latest national day of action that “Britain back then really was ‘all in this together’”. This falsely hints towards the existence of a golden era where capitalism worked; falsely, because in reality this never existed – it is but a national myth. Beyond this however and apart from the hopefully obvious factors of gender, race and sexuality that would mean exclusion from any notion of ‘together’ at all, let alone in 1948, the mantra is no truer of then than now: whilst a Keynesian economics prevailed in the post-war period, the working class were clearly, as always, the exploited class.

UK Uncut finishes their call-out by suggesting “The future’s not what it used to be – let’s get it back”, but we have already surpassed much of the wildest and most dystopian ideas in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four of what a future may look like. This, incidentally, was written in 1948, the year we are supposed to believe gave the British so much to look forward to. In reality, 1948 played its historical role in getting us to where we are now. This is something no amount of nostalgia and kitsch nationalism will change, but when we have so much to fight for why would we look back anyway? The criticism of UK Uncut’s ‘Great British Street Parties’ is not that it is activism in the guise celebration, but that it is celebration in the guise of nationalism, supported by a fictitious history. This can be all too tempting as a form of popular activism, but in reality is dangerous and simply plays into the hands of exactly what we seek to oppose.

Wail Qasim is a London student of Politics and Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He blogs at isthisday.com

LOLBoris and LOLObama

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 1 Comment

OK, I’m going to make a clear prediction: Barack Obama is gonna win. I should add that, when Gordon Brown was 10 points down in 2010, I predicted he’d be the next PM: that the disastrous Tory campaign would fail to convince people. When Ken was a mile behind, I was confidently asserting that he would be the next mayor – that differential turnouts would swing it for him. It seems I have a knack for nearly being right. That’s a spin doctor’s way of saying ‘wrong’.

With that in mind, here’s the thing about Obama – and the lesson we learnt from Boris.

People think young people backed Obama because he is radical. I wish that was so. The conventional wisdom is that tens of thousands of young people turned out for him because, like them, he is a raging lefty who wanted to completely transform America. The truth surely more that American young people, whilst to the left of their parents, certainly aren’t the socialists that Fox News would make them out to be. Nope. Like so many people in London, many of them backed Obama not because he is a communist, but because he is cool. Whilst campaigning in local elections last week, I met Oxford students who were voting Green in Oxford and Boris in London – they liked our policies and his hair. OK, Barack doesn’t have ridiculous hair, but he can – in a Youtube clip watched almost as many times as his 2008 DNC nomination acceptance speech – shoot a three pointer at the first attempt:

and whilst they say that you campaign in poetry but govern in prose, he’s taken of late to campaigning in song:

and:

There’s a reasonable case to be made that his mocking of Donald Trump at the 2011 Whitehouse Correspondent’s Dinner ended The Donald’s political career:

Similarly, can you imagine Romney giving this year’s speech?:

Here’s my point: once all the major decisions which directly impact on people’s lives are outsourced to corporate monopolies, then personality does begin to matter. Usually, politicians fit so neatly into the stereotypical ‘middle aged man’ category that they are indistinguishable. Other than that, you get a couple of other plastercasts – ‘intense young politician’ ‘charismatic front person’. But occasionally, someone breaks through that mould. And when people do, they are usually loved. Boris is, alas, just such a person. And so is Obama: he can do the charisma, the inspiring speech. But there is much more to him than that, and that humour and that sense of humanity help make him much less vulnerable: how can you hate a guy who makes you laugh? Compare him to the dull as shitty lager Romney, and you begin with a clear head-start: if 2% of voters stump for the cooler candidate, then the boring one has to make that up elsewhere.

Of course, none of this is to say that there isn’t a significant group of people who will vote on policy issues. There are lots of other reasons to believe Obama will win again, but we have months to go through those. But in the week that Boris Johnson won London mayor, it’s worth reflecting that, in the run for the Whitehouse, Obama has the LOL factor on his side.

The Morning After The Night Before

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Jonathan Kent | 5 Comments

It’s going to be one of those bittersweet days. The Greens made a few decent gains around the country. I suspect Jenny Jones will have performed creditably. But elsewhere we’ve seen good people get up and leave the party of late; Charlotte Dingle, Adam Pogonowski and several others. What’s most discouraging is that those who have left have tended to be young and energetic. There are several veteran moaners I’d not have missed but they, a little like haemorrhoids, seem to be with us for ever.

Adam Pogonowski (middle)

People say that if the Lib Dems continue to lose seats at the current rate they’ll all but cease to exist in a decade. I say if Greens continue to add seats at this rate the planet will cease to exist before we’re in a position to do much about it.

Of all the challenges the Green Party faces there are two we should tackle as a matter of urgency.

Firstly the party needs to find the right balance between the traditional green agenda and our commitment to social justice and translate that into a message that goes beyond the ‘Green New Deal’.

Yes we’re in a period of economic change as radical as the Agricultural Revolution in the early C18th, the Industrial Revolution of the early C19th and the birth of the oil economy of the early C20th. Yes the switch to Green clean tech is a part of that change, but it’s not the whole of it. However much we talk about a Green New Deal few people will buy the idea that we will pull ourselves out of an economic crisis through extensive loft insulation and building wind turbines alone.

We need an encompassing social and economic message that captures the wider Green vision. That means not just a shift away from pollution and unsustainable consumption. It means a shift towards something more positive – an economy powered by the liberal, free thinking culture that we enjoy in Britain (and I’d argue that we’re far more diverse and free thinking than almost any other country on earth) and educational resources that could, if properly tended to, be the best in the world.

I’m talking about a high value, low waste economy focused not on want creation but on meeting people’s needs. I’m talking about replacing a system that fabricates unhappiness in order to fill the void with consumer crap with one that cuts to the chase by setting out to create happiness in the first place.

We need to be talking about the politics of happiness. When Thomas Jefferson added to America’s Declaration of Independence certain self-evident truths; “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” he had grasped that our happiness, singularly and collectively is what it’s all about. People want to be happy. They want their families to be happy. They want their children to be happy. The pursuit of happiness for our nation and those our nation touches should be our goal.

But as the old saw says, you campaign in poetry but govern in prose. There needs be detail beneath the message. We need to be both radical and strategic in our approach to the economy – that which gives us the means to pay for the healthcare, education and other services that are the bedrock of a civilised society.

A higher percentage of GDP in Britain comes from the creative industries than does in any other economy anywhere. Likewise Britain should build up its research base, whether that be in biomedical research, clean technology, IT or high-end engineering and create the infrastructure needed to turn the fruits of that research into products that reach the market. We need to recognise that we won’t compete with the emerging economies on labour cost and create jobs that add value and thus pay decent wages. That means realising the potential of all our fellow citizens and seeing their talents as a resource we’d be as loathe to waste as water or oil or steel. And we need to treat that talent as a renewable resource that, properly deployed, can help reduce the use of resources that are finite and/or damaging to the environment.

That inevitably leads us to the issue of social justice. In America people have a dream. They dream that anyone can grow up to be President. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have shown that you can face huge disadvantages and still occupy the Oval Office and lead your nation (of course the deals they had to do to get there and whether they did any good while sitting behind that desk are other points entirely).

This country is still the prisoner of its history. Here you get to the top because you were born at the top. Our head of state isn’t chosen. He or she just needs to be conceived in the right womb. A vast proportion of the nation’s wealth belongs not to people to helped create it but to people who inherited it from ancestors who took it at the point of a sword or won it by sucking up to a monarch.

Not only does this translate into a society where power is not evenly shared, it sets the tone for a society in which achievement and effort are decoupled. The people at the top, from the monarch down, aren’t there by virtue but by accident. What sort of signal does that send to a 15 year old preparing to set off towards the adult world? What is the British dream? That if you are born in the right year and you’re pretty enough you might be able to apply to a university where one of our princes or princesses is studying and marry them? That’s great in the world of Barbie and Ken. Out here in the real world it’s a recipe for discontent and disillusion.

We need to marry a vision of a diverse, clean, high quality economy with a nation where education can take anyone from beginnings however humble and liberate them to contribute the whole of their talents to the making of a happier nation. We need to value people by what they give and not what they take and we need to recalibrate people’s idea of worth. People know instinctively that good teachers, nurses and emergency workers are as valuable as bankers. It’s not an argument we have any trouble winning.

That takes me to a second challenge – broadening the front along which we communicate with people. As things stand the Green Party created just two elected leadership posts. That serves to build on the perception that we’re all about one person.

The Greens need a mechanism for showcasing the talent in depth and the diversity of views that the party undoubtedly has. The last time people asked where would a major Britiish party be without their leader it was with reference to the Tories and Margaret Thatcher. Her dominance meant that an entire generation of future Conservative leaders was blighted by having grown up in her shadow.

The problem with Caroline Lucas isn’t that she’s overbearing or megalomaniacal. Rather the problem is that her very effectiveness as a politician combined with lack of seats alongside her contrives to present us as a one woman show.

Not only can one woman not do everything and not be everything, I very much doubt whether Caroline wants to be in that position.

It’s time the Green Party started to think more seriously about broadening the franchise beyond two elected leadership posts to allow a proper team, chosen by the party, the chance to show that the Greens are a movement and not a fan club.

Two years ago I tried to offer a solution to that problem. This autumn I suggest we mandate the leadership, GPEx and GPRC to overhaul the Green Party’s administration and shift the centre of gravity within the party from those given a mandate to administer and deal with internal politics, to giving a mandate to those charged with communicating a Green vision to people outside the party.

The time for navel gazing is done. We need an outward looking party focused on winning over people to our ideas, and leave the administration to people who want to get that job done. It might also give those talented, often younger members with so much to offer, something to aspire to and a vision of a future within the party, not of a dead end.

20 Ways to Change the Way We Eat

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Mike Small | 8 Comments

The Fife Diet has launched a new food manifesto outlining 20 ways to change the way we eat.
The project is being shared with the wider sustainable food network and Bright Green readers are encouraged to offer their support and contribute their critical thinking.

Over the next few months we’ll be holding these ideas up to scrutiny and inviting feedback as we try and hone them and see which ones we can make a reality. Some of this demands legislative action, some demands just better collaboration, and others will need longer term campaigning and innovation.

The aims of the new food manifesto are to:

1) Connect the way we grow, produce, distribute and consume our food with our climate change targets;

2) To connect the environmental policy framework to our health and well-being initiatives;

3) To look afresh at the values that underpin how we organise our food economy.

We are looking at these ideas in four themes: low carbon communities, culture & education, health & wellbeing and innovation & enterprise. Ask your local candidates what their policy is about supporting local food, check the top five ideas below:

1. Soup Test – no child to leave school without knowing how to make a pot of soup [CULTURE & EDUCATION].

2. Right to Grow – strengthen the current legislation giving people reall access to land and the right to grow some of their own food: opportunity from the Enabling Communities legislation and the Land Fund [LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES]

3. A Seasonal 5 A Day – a joint national environmental and health campaign through schools, social media and GPs / health centres / cafes exploring what a Scottish 5 a day would look like. [HEALTH & WELL-BEING]

4. Sugar Drink Tax – a small tax on the most unhealthy fizzy drinks as has been applied successfully in France[i] [HEALTH & WELL-BEING]

5. Elevate Food to the Climate Change Agenda: develop specific Food Emissions targets. see also Waste & Composting – see the Zero Waste Plan for Scotland] [LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES]

Food affects us all, this manifesto of ideas is for everyone to contribute to. To see the whole report, leave your own comments and download from SCRIBD here.

Or see low-bandwith version here.

Tell us which ideas you love and which bits you think we have got wrong.

The project had input from Teresa Martinez who created the One Planet Food report and fed off small group discussions in Stirling in January and February drawing on farmers and growers, health experts, food writers and researchers . The remit was to look at food policy that could be initiated at a Scottish level now, so for example some of CAP and fishing was omitted.

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