Showing posts with label Richmond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richmond. Show all posts

Tube Challenge


Yesterday I joined public transport Adham Fisher on the first half of his 10 hour quest to visit every stop on the London Overground.  My first barrier was at Hendon Station the machine refused to sell me a zones 1-9 (plus Watford) travelcard.  The Zone system and TravelCard would be abolished under Green Party's plans.
After lunch time we took the blue TfL rail line to Stratford and Sian Berry and her PA joined us at Stratford through to Highbury where of course we were met by transport geek Caroline Russell.
Caroline is not standing as a consitutency or Mayor candidate but you can make your vote go further by voting her for the Londonwide party list on the London Assembly.
Green Party - "Vote Green on Orange"
This morning I heard the soothing tones of Caroline Pidgeon, poor Caroline, begging Today listeners to vote Lib Dem on the orange ballot paper.  If she does copy our idea and tries to complete the Circle line she'd have some trouble at Earl's Court which is a building site, and she might face a few train delays due to the botched sub surface rail upgrade that she as chair of the London Assembly's Transport Committee is responsible for messing up.  However, there is probably no way of getting rid of her.  The good news is I've voted with my Yahoo mail spam filter, and marked her email about childcare as spam.  I never wrote to her about childcare, and on a technical note, if she is using Nationbuilder, she is literally paying for every email that is sent directly to my spam folder.

The other good news is that NUS have finally elected a president that represents students, not just the Labour Party.  You do not need me to tell you that the Telegraph article tweeted verbatim by Adam Langleben, and most of the stuff you get when you google her, is a load of rubbish.  I would encourage you not to click on any of these antisemitism smears; instead, twitter has some very favourable things, even from the horse's mouth.  I watched the video with my dad.  My remark was that if she hadn't talked so much about being black, she could pass off as Jewish.  My dad is confused about the student black liberation groups.  In this country the majority of black students are not Afro-Carribean, but they still call themselves black as an umbrella term for Asian, mixed race, and Arab.  The narrative of her speech, however, focused on the right to safety and to get education.  Safety is primarily from violence.  I don't think there's any other form of terror than violent terror.

A very satisfying 4/20, definitely worth skipping a bit of gardening work for.

Elliot Folan kicks off the Youth Parliament Campaign

Today is the big launch meeting with, er, me and Elliot strategising how to win the Green Party's first MYP. You can hear the voices of young people on www.bbc.co.uk/parliament and then find Youth Parliament.

Some good discussions have been going on. We already have the support of Alex Clayman who made a successful student demo happen here in Finchley, where I'm going to be going to this big launch meeting. I hope Elliot shows up and signs my nomination paper. So far I have many celebrities signing including Jonathan Bartley, the new head of the Yes 2 fairer votes campaign. Since there are in the Green Party more former committee members than current ones, I've obtained the signature of almost retired former treasurer of Lambeth Green Party, Stephen Norman of SW2. In the meeting we resolved to jointly appoint a returning officer for a postal or electronic ballot of both Lambeth & Southwark for the joint constituency, which formally starts selecting its candidates after the mayoral count on the 19th March, all things permitting. Noel advised me not to worry about who signs the paper, but as I see it, it's vital to have Elliot's support, as it's vital that I currently have the support of Young Greens based in Colindale, Tower Hamlets, Richmond + Twickenham, Southwark, Hammersmith, Ladywell, and East Finchley. I used to be on the Young Greens National Committee and this regional dimension is a really good way to keep that political base alive. So far I have a really representative list of my contacts in the Young Greens, minus Elliot, Marek, and Charlotte's. Admittedly 8 of the 10+ Young Green members who've nominated me are male, but I could actually end up actually representing Young Greens alongside Marek and Charlotte.

Today we heard that a politician was shot in the head and is unconscious. I hope we will find time to send our prayers which go out across the Atlantic, that this violent act is does not result in the death of one of the most Democratic parties I know...

Back to the subject of the Youth Parliament: Elliot plans to address a number of assemblies about it. I must dig out my CRB so I can go in and take a stand for renewed democracy.