Spoiling the fun of it and rude words on the ballot paper

A few thoughts on adult content and sex as a public good 

A lot has been said about the negative effects of Porn.  But a friend's dissertation says that the concept of prostitution is not as black & white as the law makes out.

The law says that sex is a transaction and money is a transaction and the two should not go together.  But why is it so often the woman selling and the man buying?

An other friend in the conversation, who was attempting to defend the "Policies for a Sustainable Society", or PSS, pointed out that research he has read shows that outcomes for male sex workers… sorry, prostitutes, have better outcomes than female ones.  This I think shows a fundamental split in feminism.  The question for all "good" men to think about is can patriarchy still be an issue in an all-male scenario?  And how can we men use our position of privilege to work for the common good, rather than smash it?

Misfits is a show on Channel 4 where in previous episodes one of the characters has the power to buy and sell powers at a handshake.  The first episode of the new 5th series of Misfits illustrates this transaction perfectly with 2 sex scenes.  The first is a woman begging a man to have sex with him so he can cure her of some unfortunate superpower.  She explains that he has the power to **** other people's powers out of them.  The happy ending is when he has sex with a male friend to cure him of a power that makes him the devil's agent on Earth.

How does this match with our core principles?

Back to my first friend who did this for her degree:  We live in a market society.  We are increasingly mediating all our transactions with money, with disastrous consequences.  We in the Green Party invite people to think about resisting this by stopping certain public goods from being sold off.  Be this our basic needs of food (allotments) and water (hydraulic fissure cracking), a bit of spending money no questions asked, a free World-class health service that is the biggest employer in Europe, and our sex as a public good.  As long as it's consensual, it should be allowed, dare I say encouraged.  There was an interesting art project involving a guy losing his virginity in the paper today.  These things are non-negotiable and should never be for sale.

A good example that compares sex with health and presents prostitution as a trigger for a revolution is Victor Hugo's great work Les Miserables.  Fantine sells her hair, her teeth, before finally renting out her vagina.

See this, and understand what we stand for, and why everyone in Britain might wake up and vote Green on May 22nd 2014, and if Green Party does not appear on the ballot, write a rude word on the ballot paper.  Feminist.

Sam Coates joins Labour and Con-Dems in debate - "Coalition Government Has Failed"

London's debating society New Turn www.newturn.org.uk  whom I recommend you check out their programme, hosted a debate between the youth wings something Benali has been leading on for some time and seized the day with this one.  Also check out New Turn's facebook page with photos here.

I was disappointed not to see more of you London Young Greens at the debate but there was nevertheless a strong turnout of young up-and-coming people I can no longer keep tabs on.  Sadly it clashed with the final of the Great British Bake-off which is on iPlayer fyi.

The debate was live and un-amplified a 100-seater lecture theatre with New Turn live-tweeting but unfortunately Wifi was only for those with a KCL login.  It was an all-male panel due to the fact that the female co-chair Ash is busy in Norwich and the female chair of Liberal Youth (joint press release on fee hike) on the billing is down with tonsillitis. :-(

The Chair of the debate the president of KCL Politics society started off by pointing out it was a joint event with New Turn, Politics Society, Labour society, and Conservative society.

The first thing that struck me about the proposition's comments on what Labour would do is the focus on care for the elderly.  Spending thousands of pounds a day on bed-blocking makes no sense when the NHS budget and thousands of nurses are being cut.  Instead Gordon Brown would have merged social care and spend hundreds a day on residential care.

Our Green Friend spoke emotively about the equality impact of the cuts and how they are economically illiterate. His fourth point is that worse than when Thatcher sent a lost generation to the JobCentre, this Government is sweeping the benefits away for this lost generation, forcing us to accept precarious jobs.  
As you see from the twitter, Sam Coates, current 2013 co-chair of the Young Greens and Oxfordshire Councillor said, "We haven't heard much about global climate change for a while."
"We now have less than 5 years to reduce global gas emissions"
(The opposition from Conservative Future claimed that they have reduced the rich-poor gap in 6th-forms.)
"The coalition has succeeded in making the rich richer #NTCoalition"
"Thatcher recognised that when you put people out of work you need to compensate with macroeconomic policy. This hasn't happened #NTCoalition"
"We're making the country meaner as a result of this coalition #NTCoalition"
"We blame the unemployed, immigrants, etc when really its the policies of the government that have made us this way #NTCoalition"
Sam also mentioned the #bedroomtax.
Throughout Oliver made faces and muttered, and was forced to apologise "for distracting from the proposition's factually incorrect speech."
He faced LOLz from the left of the panel when he said "I am a conservative, I wish we had more opportunity to project our ... <ahem> values and power overseas but can't do that with deficit"

After the guest speakers (see  The hashtag for tonight's event #NTCoalition ) there were contributions from the audience.  The first came from the chair of Kings College London Labour society.  There was also a question about something Sam Coates @samcoatescymru raised earlier.  It was quite clever and climaxed in "That's why I joined the Green Party".  It was evident that she was struggling with these issues as a KCL student so I'm glad I didn't add my 2-cents with my great big Vote Green t-shirt.  She spoke about the difference between exchange value and use value in a way I understood.  The question was what would the Green Party do in government?  As a member of the proposition, Richard had a chance to reply as well.

There was a vote at the end, which did not include some Conservatives who walked out after the questions to attend Parliament.

The parties then stood in different corners of the room for a catchup while Sam snuk out.  I had a chat with @RichardAngell (who now heads up LGBT Labour) about Brighton which he'd raised earlier.  I really think that there should be localism and unfortunately we're seeing cuts from Westminster.  I am proud that Brighton & Hove Greens will be holding a referendum on raising council tax from the rich, and if he really believes in freezing council tax he should join in coalition with the Tories.  (Represented rather well in this debate by the cold-hearted @OliverCooper CF and @JoshDixonTweets from the Liberal Democrats)

I quite enjoyed the night...
(especially watching an all-male panel discuss the impact of the coalition's policies on women's lives)
The debate got me thinking about the Living Wage.  I will write something about this and "taking the poorest out of tax" next week.

Notes from Nick Stern

I attended a lecture by Nick Stern on 24/9/13 at the Royal Society.  I am not sure which one  I am most excited by but did get a photo of myself in front of a portrate of John Locke.

Nick is chair of a green economics centre called see sep (Centre for climate change economics and policy) and that is what he talked about.  All the name badges said they were sponsored by Munich RE, who I hope will give other progressive groups some funding too.

The lecture co-incided with the launch of a sister centre in New York.

In attendence were Ericha Thompson of LSE, Simon Dietz of LSE, LEonard Smith, Peter Hippe, Swenja Suminski, who had earlier held a workshop in the afternoon.

Also was Judith Rees of LSE who introduced the speaker.
l will not go into detail as to the lecture or powerpoint slides which are available on the CCCEP website.

Wuestions came from:
Bonfa - on data and international cooperative policy.
A young chap from The Environment Agency asked how fracking and renewable investment can coexist.  Apparently they can, says Stern, just use credit creation I suppose.  All the wrong answers I think.
Laura Mckenzie works for an MP.  She says leave the gas in the ground and put the tax breaks to desirable investments.  Nick agrees we need a good policy
 Amelia Womack asked about ecocide and laws.  Nick responded "I think it's very important that we talk about future generations."

Speaking of which I wonder how the Euro-list count went.

Other questions:
Where will climate change action come from?
John B. Leeds
Megan Evans from Australia asked what we can do about her new PM's aweful policy U turn against a carbon tax.
Sam Bickersteth from PwC who "works in the developing world" asked how it can contribute
Peter asked about different technologies.
Stern responded that since he published his report solar PV has become 5 times cheaper.