Tory MPs' no show at Brighton's last hurrah to save the NHS

Yards of column inches have been written about the way the Government is dismantling the NHS. About the way hospitals will be renting out their equipment, space and skills to the private sector to fund healthcare for those who can't afford to buy it. About how doctors will be distracted from the day job by being sucked into management of local health services. And about how unpopular it all is, among healthcare professionals as well as patients. Etc. I'm not gonna add to them here.

But there's a different, local issue: the contempt shown to Brighton and Hove residents by the city's two Tory MPs, Mike Weatherley and Simon Kirby. Both were invited to address residents outside Hove Town Hall yesterday, to explain the reforms. Both refused, saying they were too busy, according to the event's organisers, Brighton Against the Cuts. Too busy to talk to residents? As the hundred or so city residents gathered, Mr Weatherley tweeted: "This weekened I'm relaxing at home. Might stick on a film. Any recommendations?"

Personally, I think the moment for the Government to back down over its plans to privatise the NHS has probably passed. But, given that Messrs Kirby and Weatherley have consistently voted for the reforms, I think their failure to explain how they think they'll benefit us is nothing less than shameful. I hope they start taking their responsibility to communicate their positions to residents more seriously in future - perhaps by taking a leaf out of Green MP Caroline Lucas's book. Dr Lucas (pictured above) not only turned up (along with at least six local Green Party councillors), she spoke with residents, explained her position on NHS health reforms and generally doing the job of an MP.

Single parents - you're brilliant!

Bringing up a child a single parent is harder than bringing up a child in a traditional family.

It costs more (relative to parents' incomes), you lack the support of another adult and, when it comes to making difficult choices (and, believe me, parenting is so often about making difficult choices) you often have to do it alone, you are often without 'backup' when it comes to clashes of wills (they happen often too), and you never really get a break, even, sometimes, for a minute (ever tried going to the toilet with a toddler in tow?).

Children in single parent households too are often forced to 'grow up before their time' and take on far more responsibility for running a household - on top of all the homework, play and general tomfoolery that makes up a childhood - than their counterparts in a 'more traditional' family unit.

For single Dads the whole business of understanding and communicating with daughters can be tricky, especially in the teenage years - for single Mums the same is, of course, true when it comes to boys.

Oh and there's the small matter of having to fight with ex-partners, the courts, the Child Support Agency - and sometimes even friends and relatives - over access times, maintenance, parenting choices, and so on. All too often these legal fights can dominate a single parent's life.


And then there's housing issues, trying to find time to work and develop a career - and the associated financial hardship.


Single parents are all too often condemned as being feckless and lazy for facing these problems - even by their friends and relatives.


Of course that's just the start of it - as any single parent will tell you.

Amazing then that they do so well!


But this Government seems determined to make it even harder - with all the evidence suggesting benefit and public service cuts will hit single parent families hardest, and with David Cameron even suggesting that they ought to pay more tax as an 'incentive' to encourage marriage.


The campaign group Gingerbread offers a free telephone helpline to assist any single parent needing support or expert advice on anything from dealing with a break-up, going back to work, or sorting out maintenance, benefit or tax credit issues. Give 'em a call on 0808 802 0925.

Why being a Green Party councillor can make an enormous difference

Sometimes, as a local councillor, I feel a little despondent about the difference you can actually make.

So many good, clever people, think being a Green Party councillor is pointless, at best, and legitimises an undemocratic, expensive and harmful way of organising our lives, at worst.

To paraphrase the extraordinary Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction: 'Who wants to be an elected Green? I don't!'

And when it comes to many of the big problems our society faces - war, climate chaos, racism, poverty, violence, cruely to animals, wage slavery and rapacious economic growth, and so on - sometimes they do seem right.

As a local councillor in Queen's Park, for example, it's been impossible to make American Express compensate neighbours for the misery, ill-health and hardship caused by the construction of their new HQ in Carlton Hill. It's proved impossible to stop the advance of clone town Britain into Kemptown: despite huge community and council opposition, there was nothing we could do to stop a new Sainsburys Local or even Starbucks opening on St James's Street. The ward remains one of the most deprived in the country, despite five years of working to strengthen community groups, trying to make countless Government schemes a success, and so on. It's proved impossible to solve the parking chaos that blights residents lives in some areas of the ward (the problem, at root, is that there are more cars than people here now, and there's nothing we can do about that). The list goes on.

Of course, we have managed to achieve lots of smaller victories: tress and flowers have been planted, bike racks have been put up, new play equipment has been installed in both Tarner and Queen's Parks, community engagement has increased, lifts in high-rise housing blocks have been replaced, energy-efficient  buildings have been built, refuse collection and recycling services have improved, the police are committed to attending regular neighbourhood meetings, and are more visible on our streets. We've been able to advocate successfully for countless residents on matters ranging from housing standards to parking issue to noisy neighbours - and everything in between. And so on.

I stress here that neither of these lists are meant to be exhaustive: merely illustrative. I hope you get the point.

But yesterday a meeting of Brighton and Hove Council's cabinet reminded me why it's all worthwhile.

We adopted a range of policies and plans that will make an enormous difference to life in the city.

For example, a £400,000 plan to promote community banking to break the stranglehold of loan sharks and high-interest doorstep lender on the estimated 1,500 households in the city with no access to a traditioal bank account. A real strike against poverty.

We adopted a new Traveller Strategy, based around balancing the needs of the Travelling and the 'settled' population, and recognising the needs of both communities, and approved the comnstruction of a new Traveller site at Horsdean. A real strike against racism.

We adopted a new Equality and Inclusion strategy that will make Brighton and Hove a best-practise council. It means we will carry out proper, dialogue-based, Equality Impact Assessments on everything the cuncil does. If any decision looks like it will penalise any particular group, we will seek to mitigate that as part of the decision. It means we will go further than the law requires us to do. A real strike for equality.

Of course, that's only a snapshot: but I came home yesterday feeling like I had done a really good day's work. And that's why being a Green Party councillor does make an enormous difference.

Trying to break the stranglehold of banks, moneylenders and loan sharks in Brighton and Hove

Financial exclusion is an increasing scourge in this city.

As our economy worsens – exacerbated by the failure of this and the last Governments to properly regulate the banking sector - more and more people are unable to access credit and financial services, good money advice, even in some cases to be employed or adequately housed.

This is destroying families and pushing more and more people into either committing or becoming the victims of crime. The police are already warning that we are seeing an increase in acquisitive crime fuelled by financial desperation, and we know that the activities of unscrupulous loan sharks and 'Cash Converters' type high-interest loan providers is on the rise.

A 'Financial Inclusion' strategy due to be adopted by the Council's cabinet today sets out some of the ways in which we are seeking to tackle this: 

* By promoting community-based alternatives to high-interest money lenders and even the high street banks whose casino banking approach has caused the financial crisis in which the UK finds itself – for example via the East Sussex Credit Union, 

* By supporting the establishment of an 'advice partnership' to make sure all city residents have free access to high-quality financial information,

* And by offering help to residents seeking to improve their understanding of money matters through the city's libraries, and partner organisations, including the Whitehawk Inn and the Bridge Community Education Centre at Falmer.

Of course the problems, at a national level, are expected to worsen before they get better. The introduction of changes to the ways Housing Benefit is calculated, and the planned abolition of Council Tax benefit, will mean it is more important than ever to make sure everyone in the city is able to access financial services and good quality advice on how to manager their household budgets.

I hope that the measures outlined here will go some way to achieving this and insulating the city from some of the impact of disastrous Government policy in this area.

Evidence of health and environmental benefits of veganism mounts

As the annual celebration of all things vegan comes to Hove this weekend in the shape of Vegfest 2012 the evidence seems to be mounting of both the environmental and health benefits of giving up meat.

Well, I say celebration of all things vegan: of course Vegfest is really a trade fair allowing producers of animal-friendly goods to showcase their products and encourage us to buy them - but hey, we've all got a living to make.

And as long as we live in a society organised along capitalist lines, I guess we should be pleased at the growing number of vegan-friendly products on the market.

But I digress.

Two recent reports seem to suggest that the impact of beef farming is worse than previously thought, both environmentally - apparently the production of one kg of beef causes about 1 tonne of CO2 to be emitted - and on human health: it has been reported today that some scientists reckon regular red meat consumption is responsible for about one in seven premature deaths.

Of course the meat industry has been quick to denounce these reports - well, it would, wouldn't it?

I don't know the truth about these things, but I'll keep erring on the side of caution!

Meanwhile I look forward to being inspired by some of the hundreds of devoted activists campaigning against speciesism at Vegfest...

The Abolition of Work?

In 1985 Bob Black wrote 'The Abolition of Work', an essay which called into question the relationship most of us have with employment and employers.

He noted that most of us spend more time with our co-workers and bosses than we do with our family, friends or lovers, that for most of that time most of us are engaged in tasks we don't much enjoy (and sometimes are of questionable social value too) and asked whether that was the best way of organising our lives.

Of course, such ideas seem almost commonplace now (someone much more clever than me once observed that no-one, on their deathbed, wishes they'd spent more time working, but almost everyone laments time spent apart from their loved ones), but they certainly didn't 27 years ago.

Anyway, with unemployment rising fast (particularly among young people and women) perhaps now is a good time to revisit these questions: in short, perhaps we should stop worrying about how to create jobs for jobs' sake and instead focus our efforts on how to promote happiness and well-being, perhaps by redefining social attitudes to work.

I'm not talking about just making it easier for people to work part-time, or job-share, or to find better ways of valuing the unpaid caring, parenting, housekeeping or voluntary work so many of us spend so much of our time doing (though all of those things matter greatly) - I'm talking about changing the nature of society so we all do less work and have more leisure time, even if we've got less material possessions to show for it.

If we want to do this, a good place to start is surely in schools, which increasingly seem to be just about giving pupils the skills they'll need in the workplace - and incarcerating them in the day-time to allow their parents to work all day too.

Perhaps they should be more about having fun, and learning the skills needed to live a long, and, crucially, happy, life.

Discuss!

Tory councillors storm out of community meeting... again!

Yesterday Tory councillors Tony Janio and Dawn Barnett stormed out of a meeting of the Brighton and Hove Community Safety Forum (CSF) - in Tony's case, for the second time in three meetings. It means that neither councillor has attended a full meeting of the forum, on which they can raise issues of community safety affecting residents of their ward, for nine months now.

Why? Simples, innit. Cos I refused to apologise for earlier remarks  warning all councillors to take care not to use racist or inflammatory language when discussing Gypsies or Travellers.

Tony felt - although they clearly weren't - that my original comments were directed at him. Personally I can't really understand his behaviour - which has really got under the skin of several CSF attendees (one of whom repeatedly asked him to shut up during his pre-exit speech yesterday) - unless he really thinks the cap fits so well he just wants to wear it.

Perhaps what's going no is just a bullish face-saving thing, and he refuses to back down despite having edged himself into a corner.

Whatever the truth behind Tony and Dawn's behaviour it's the forum is the worse for the failure of two experienced councillors to ' take part - and it's residents of this city who, ultimately, pay the price. Especially those who, for some reason, think that Tory councillors will be able to represent the views at meetings like yesterday's. Clearly they can't represent anyone if they won't even take part!

Anyway my next step will be to write to Tory leader Geoffrey Theobald, asking him to reaffirm his party's commitment to working with communities and the police at the CSF by replacing Tony and dawn with two members who will.