If you go down to the woods today, enjoy it while you still can....

Dear Kerry,

EDM 1199: FORESTRY COMMISSION REDUCTIONS IN EXPENDITURE

As the Member for Bristol East, could you consider adding your signature to this Early Day Motion?

I imagine that like me, you're alarmed at the prospect of deep cuts in the budget, and the sale of a substantial part, of the Forestry Commission estate. It is hard to see what possible benefits there could be from a sell-off, apart from the immediate one-off lump sum, to set against multiple threats to long term public enjoyment of the forests, biodiversity, forests as carbon sinks, and jobs.

Jonathon Porritt has blogged about the broad implications in (Forests on the Front Line) as lucidly as ever, with an update that takes a closer look at the Forest of Dean and its MP

At a time when you and I both are urging a rethink on the plans to sell Bristol's own open space assets, perhaps we shouldn't lose sight of the much bigger national picture where the same thing is happening. (There's a seasonal crack here about not seeing the wood for the Christmas trees - but I wouldn't dare use it!)

Yours

Pete Goodwin

Kerry and the Bill-killers

Kerry McCarthy MP is rightly aggrieved. Arcane parliamentary procedures allowed neighbouring MP Jacob Rees-Mogg to recite poetry as part of a government strategy to 'talk out' the second reading of the Sustainable Livestock Bill yesterday.

Yet again, a Friday afternoon "Private Members Bill" that made a great deal of sense and had very strong support, was lost not though argument, not through a vote, but through the abuse of Parliamentary procedure. And it's become a habit. No wonder Kerry tweets that
"We've got to sort out these Friday procedures".

Pity she wasn't so keen when her party was in power, and, as a junior whip, she was only too ready to use those same procedures to block Bills that, for its own reasons, the government didn't want discussed.

Bills like Lord Morris's Haemophiliacs Bill, to compensate victims of "the worst medical treatment disaster in the history of the NHS" the contamination of haemophiliacs with HIV/HCV through plasma imported from US prisons. That one was killed stone dead by Kerry's call of 'Object!' one Friday back in February.

There have been innumerable popular Bills killed off the same way. I know, I've often been part of the lobbying to persuade MPs to try to get them taken up in the first place.

Caroline Lucas MP was, like Kerry, appalled at the way yesterday's Bill was stopped. Unlike Kerry, Caroline hasn't got a history of killing Bills herself, or of using arcane procedures to avoid debate - the legislative equivalent of using legal loopholes to avoid paying tax. As she told this autumn's Green Party conference:

" I remain conscious of how strange, even alien, Parliament is.

It isn't just the odd language, the arcane procedures and strange costumes.

It's an institution designed for, and run by, an elite, who simply don't want to let the people have a real say in decisions. "

Kerry and the rest really need to get their act together if they really mean to challenge this shameful side of 'the mother of parliaments'.

But will it happen?

Lansdown's MPs - breaking the line, or breaking the law?

After the extraordinary 'A City United' statement that Bristol's MPs were cajoled into signing by BCFC, Simon Cook and the Evening Post, at least two have been under pressure to explain the bit at the end: “Councillors have an important and difficult decision to make. We urge them to stand up for the views of the majority of residents and bring the stadium to Bristol”. After all, that's a direct call on councillors to put populism ahead of an honest assessment of the Village Green application. Which would, of course, be unlawful.

Now, both Stephen Willams (in comments on his blog) and Kerry McCarthy (in comments on this blog) have given assurances that they expect councillors to act within the law - i.e. to consider the village green application only on the evidence of public use, not on the potential of the land to provide a stadium. Neither MP has yet gone so far as to retract that final sentence, though - even though it appears to have been drafted for them by the football club!

Of course, that leaves the other signatories - Dawn Primarolo, Charlotte Leslie, Chris Skidmore, and Tessa Munt, still totally unapologetic about urging Bristol's councillors to defy the law when they come to decide the village green designation.

Dear Kerry..... About that stadium statement.

Dear Kerry,

I've just read the extraordinary statement issued by the Bristol MPs, yourself included, about the proposed stadium site in Ashton Vale.

I don't know who wrote it (though it has the hallmarks of BCFC authorship), but I'm surprised that you and your colleagues have signed up so readily to such selective and sweeping unproven claims. Have you seen the piece by Marina Hyde  in today's Guardian nailing the myth that sports stadia bring urban regeneration, prosperity and jobs?

Equally important, your unqualified call on councillors to 'stand up for the views of the majority of residents and bring the stadium to Bristol' could amount to an invitation to break the law.

As things stand at present, councillors have ONLY the evidence that the land qualifies in law as a Town Green. There is nothing in the public domain to suggest that the independent inspector got it wrong.

As you must know, councillors must now make their judgement on the same issues as were dealt with by the Inspector - the use of the land by the public in the last twenty years.

The development potential of the land, for whatever purpose, is not a legal consideration. (I don't think the Evening Post has ever mentioned that inconvenient truth!).

If councillors allow the stadium issue to influence their decision, they are operating outside the law, and you are encouraging them in that.

If you really want the councillors to bring the stadium to Bristol, can I suggest an approach that would protect green belt, minority groups such as the Town Green applicants, and council assets - while allowing you to promote a stadium without having to publicly encourage councillors to break the law!

It isn't impossible for Bristol's two clubs to ground share, so both sets of fans would get the benefits of a new stadium. There's a choice of potential brownfield sites on post-industrial land to the north of Avonmouth. There's good access by road, and by public transport (especially given the potential of the existing rail infrastructure, including the Henbury loop.   By comparison, access to Ashton Vale is difficult and likely to be a victim of cuts). Arguably, at Avonmouth there are industrial hazards to contend with, but I feel sure they can be overcome - they certainly were at Middlesbrough, with a similar site close by COMAH-regulated chemical plant. 

The big obstacle seems to be the clubs themselves; a proposal a few years back was stymied by a refusal of Bristol City to entertain the idea of sharing. I'm sure your guess as to why they did that is a good as mine - and probably the same!

Clubs that cannot co-operate for the good of the city and for their own businesses frankly have no right to hold the council, the fans, the residents, and local MPs to ransom.

Yours

Pete Goodwin

25th Oct: Kerry's response added in the comments below

Winkball

When some of our local Green parliamentary candidates tried their hand at making a 'Winkball' video, I must admit that I wasn't 100% pleased with the results. It's easy to criticise..... but perhaps they could have been a little more professional?

Then I saw the kind of thing the opposition (including New Labour's 'new media czar' Kerry McCarthy) were doing. And I felt much, much better.

You can see the three Bristol East efforts at Winkball - just put Bristol East in the search box, and be entertained, bored, or embarrassed. Or check any other constituency, of course.

The Bristol East Tweet War

A particularly vitriolic campaign been been launched today by prominent Tories to replace Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy with the aspiring conservative Adeela Shafi. The LibDems appear to have been taken in, and want to clamber aboard.

What singles this campaign out from both the local and the national party sparring (increasingly irrelevant to most of us, given that there's next to nothing to choose between them) is its personally vindictive nature and its very dodgy relationship to electoral law.

Kerry McCarthy makes no secret of her passion for blogging and twittering, and we know from her record that she's the compleat Labour loyalist. Many of us would like to see a better MP representing Bristol East. But if she's to be challenged, let it be on performance and policy. By contrast, this new campaign appears to have been sparked by tweeter Kerry 'blocking' responses from senior Tory twitterer and blogger Iain Dale. Big deal. Result... the #KerryOut campaign hosted by Dale's fellow blogger Harry Cole

Back in the dark days of Southville 2007, something similar happened. The issue was more serious than a tantrum over the loss of a tweet ration, it was a privatisation of the council's Home Care service, and the third party was the T&G union. The T&G distributed (highly misleading) leaflets in Southville with the slogan "Don't Vote Green" (in other wards, where the fight was between Labour and LibDem, the same leaflet bore the slogan "Don't Vote LibDem"). Southville's Green candidate Tess Green was defeated by a mere 6 votes by Labour. Labour and the T&G got away with it because, apparently, it's OK for a third party to campaign AGAINST a candidate, provided the electorate isn't urged to vote for a particular rival. The case law is based on a key decision (R v BOWMAN 1998) where a 'pro-life' campaigner put her energy - and money - into opposing particular pro-abortion candidates. By no means the same thing as the T&G got up to, but enough to make litigation an unacceptable risk!

In an attempt to avoid a similar charge, the #KerryOut campaign claims to be "not officially endorsed by Adeela Shafi and completely independent of the Conservative Party machine". You don't have to look far to find what it's really about, though. Click the 'Donate' button, and you're taken straight to a site appealing for cash and help for the Tory cause in Bristol East. Not the Green candidate, not the LibDem. This is campaigning by a third party to secure the election of a particular candidate.

I HOPE the conservative candidate will show the wisdom and the courage to persuade these 'supporters' to pull their vicious campaign, which at best will serve only to put ordinary people off the whole business of politics, politicians, and elections.

I feel sure that the Green Party candidate, Glenn Vowles, will keep well away from any association with the #KerryOut campaign. But it's easy for him... he's got a set of sane and distinctive policies to offer the voters that mark him out from Labour, Tory, and LibDem.

Course, I would say that ......


Finally, a sign of real Tory principles re-emerging? The 'green tree' is the logo under which they've been disguising themselves as green progressives. The Union Flag one (unless that's a plastic bag caught up in the tree) is the new one, to appeal to activists... it comes from the official 'myconservatives.com' site.

Kerry, Caroline, and Tobin

Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy complains on her blog that Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP was invited to speak at the Labour conference fringe meeting.

Fortunately, not everyone in the Labour Party has such a closed mind, and Caroline was warmly received at meetings yesterday of the Fabian Society and the progressive group 'Compass'.

It's not unusual for politicians to 'guest' at other parties' conferences. For me, one of the most memorable fringe meetings at the Green Party conference was addressed by Labour's Alan Simpson MP, when he spoke powerfully and convincingly about the virtues of the Tobin Tax.

It's not just the left and the Greens that support such a tax. In the last few weeks it's been backed by Adair Turner, who heads the Financial Services Authority, and by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

None of us seem likely to persuade the Labour/Tory establishment though, who clearly favour 'the treatment as before' - the banking system awash with money, along with savage cuts in public spending.

Learners and Customers v2

The distinction gets ever-more blurred.....

Consultation and Kerry

A couple of weeks ago, our Bristol East MP, blogger and Twitterer Kerry McCarthy was invited onto a BBC 'Beyond Westminster' panel exploring the growth of 'direct democracy'. I know this, because she told us on her blog. We might have expected that she'd be proposing innovative ways of using the internet in the cause of grass roots democracy.

Far from it (unless, of course, the good bits were edited out!). Our Kerry, ever loyal to the party, was up there defending the status quo. On public consultation, she had this to say:

" I was Chair of Housing (I used to be a councillor) and consultation in principle is an excellent idea. Lets go out and consult with tenants, lets go out and consult with stakeholders. But what I found happened was it meant it took absolutely ages to make decisions..... "

Hmm... I wonder how she feels about the Water Act 2003, which allows the NHS quangos to decide to fluoridate our drinking water if they choose - subject only to the safeguard that they've 'consulted' consumers first. Note that the first regional health authority to do this (South Central) did exactly that, and is going ahead even though the public was, demonstrably, overwhelmingly opposed to it. Now our South West Regional Health Authority is starting down the same road. Maybe the problem is that people just don't have any faith in consultation.

Kerry's a bit uncomfortable about taking what her constituents tell her as any reflection of true public opinion, too. When the discussion turned to The Great Repeal Bill wiki, she was more than a little sceptical:

"How do you ensure that those people are reflective of... if I look at my constituency, I know the sort of people that write to their MPs, that send emails, come from a particular viewpoint, most of the people in my constituency won't do that, won't go online, won't take part in your wiki Bill procedure. Isn't there a danger of giving undue weight to the people who do participate?"

So there you have it. If you don't contact your MP, how can you expect them to represent you? And if you do, you're regarded by definition as unrepresentative and therefore you should be ignored. Catch 22.

Far easier to forget your constituents take your advice from the party whips. Or even actually become one, as Kerry has. And doesn't it show in her voting record.

Temple Meads meets Parish Pump Politics

A couple of days ago (and not for the first time) I heard the West of England's unitary councils described as the 'biggest parish councils in the country'.

That's probably an insult to parish councils, most of which get by very well without the worst of the party politics that seem to dominate our local council chambers - as anyone who's watched the petty point scoring and the party grandstanding at a full council meeting will know.

This has been all the more striking while I've been promoting the idea that Plot 6 at Temple Meads would be perfect for the transport interchange that Bristol clearly needs.

The suggestion's been very well received all round. Except that there's a deafening silence from the people who hold the key to making it happen - the big party groups on Bristol City council.

Faced with questions about it, Mark Bradshaw gave a seriously non-committal reply. The (non-executive) Sustainable Travel Select Committee has done a little better, agreeing to put it down for discussion later. Otherwise, no councillors' names on the petition, no comments on the blogs, no statements or questions in the council chamber.

No response either, after three weeks, from my MP, Kerry McCarthy, most of whose constituents can't get a bus to Bristol's main rail station.

Charlie Bolton (who, according to the other Members, doesn't count as a party) supports it, as does the rest of the Green Party.

Could it be that Green Party support makes the other parties' politicians deeply reluctant to come out in favour ? Is there a knee-jerk fear that it's not about Temple Meads, it's not about improving Bristol's dreadful public transport, it might really be all about party advantage?

I sincerely hope that I'm wrong.