Tube Challenge

At Dalston Kingsland with @sianberry @DirectionTravel & @filosofical_140 for #votegreenonorange overground trip pic.twitter.com/dPTifSrxV3

— Tilda Long (@tildalong) April 20, 2016

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.

An other documentary about Our West Hendon!

"Basically the lack of council housing that is the root cause of the housing crisis. Instead of building like private they should be building council houses. I think they shouldn't be knocking down council houses. Basically Barratts are forcing people out."

Shipped Out from Mediorite on Vimeo.

Please share and me and the Green Party :) https://vimeo.com/mediorite/shippedout#t=302s

Meeting with National Union of Teachers Barnet Association last night

I visited Hendon School and the Lib Dem and I had a brief look around the site which has grown over 100 years to quite a badly planned but nice grounds with an actual grass playing field, courtyard, old gym, new sports hall in the "new" building, and a courtyard with a focal point that is an art work designed by one pupil who worked as an autism consultant for the school. I saw the School Council notice board and the City Safe Haven (phase 2) notice board, as the school is affiliated to North London Citizens. I explained our policy. There was catering and cake and I helped take some home. I think it went well. But first here is what I said in my opening speech.

It is nice to be here at Hendon School and have the rep show me round earlier. It gives me great pleasure to launch my campaign for education by signing the NUT's manifesto to stand up for education. I remember panicking that our website was not up to date in time for NUT conference having had Martin Francis amend it to strongly oppose the changes Michael Gove has made in the last few years. To everyone who called for Gove to go, you won, he went! Well done. Imagine coming back in 5 years time and there are solar panels on top of it. A vote for Barnet Green Party is a vote for genuine action on climate change, a public NHS, free education, but priority number one is housing. (Holds up housing postcard) for people not for profit. Let me ask you something. Would you like to have an open space to be able to kick a ball around in? The Green Party will protect metropolitan open space and London's Green belt and not re-designate it for property development. My priority in this election is to make Hendon a safe space for self-defining women that make up 51% of the population. The Green movement a broad church open to people like the 3 families of Sweets Way who marched to Barnet House, united by a love of the local area. And it's great to have someone on the panel who's a West Hendon community legend.

Green-style charity appeal with Adele Ward in Golders Green

 Photo by Poppy

update: The goods arrived safe and sound at the depot at St Barnabas CoE North Finchley

Judy Klitsner - a great thinker and teacher - visiting from Israel

I went to a talk last night by Judy Klitsner of great practical and sociological importance.  She does not normally talk about herself but outlined some of the revolutionary leaps in women's rights in the Jewish world (re-defining the word halachah).  I noted some great quotes, and my uncle Benedict photocopied an article which was distributed at a previous partnership minyan.  I have a feeling my mom - a great Jewish educator and feminist - may have met up with her to discuss some of the sources she brought today.

The UK Government passed the Equality Act over 5 years ago.  I seriously doubt whether some of the sexist practices described, which survive from the 20th century, are in line with 21st century law.  Things do not have to be this way.  Let's build the system differently.

She described 3 things:
Exclusion of women from Jewish ritual - because women are spiritually superior (she knew they weren't)
Oppression of women through snius (Jewish equivalent of hijab) rules - because men are animals (so why shut-up women?)
Women accessing Torah.  Can women be rabbis?

Barnet's Council Tax Rip-off

When my dad lost his job I advised him to ring up his energy provider to seek out a better deal.  One of the first tasks he had time to do was to claim council tax benefit.  We pay one of the top rates of council tax and when you don't have anywhere to go, often we feel a lot poorer than we are on paper (we get junk mail from estate agents daily).

The Brighton & Hove Green Party propose an alternative to council tax called Progressive Council Tax.  What is PCT? So basically it means the council has the power to levy a bit more council tax.  However, the majority get it back straight away because it's linked to the ability to pay.

Dave Wetzel who just joined the Green Party here in London liked our promise of a Land Value Tax.  His promises for this tax is almost a panacea, and he claims it would stop urban sprawl.

Looking at the Oxfam Policy website I'm inclined to look at places like the West Hendon estate as paradise.  Sure there may not be public toilets or stacks of loo roll, or any remaining pubs and clubs on the Broad way but at least when you turn the tap on you have clean water.

I've believed for a long time that whilst population is key, it's more about car population, and population of rubbish rather than good people that should be capped.  The implications of the environment and social justice message is very much about re-distribution of wealth.  Recently James Hansen of NASA came up with the idea of a carbon fee.  Put it this way: Average carbon emissions in Africa is less than one tonne per capita.  BRIC countries get 2 tonnes and are looking to make cuts.  Britain and USA are around 10-20.  This should be rationed and brought to zero by 2030.  The Zero Carbon Britain report can show you how.  For me the objective of bringing it down is to allow a longer term availability of energy, lower bills in the longer term, so in seven generations time there'll still be plentiful oil, gas, and coal, but also a safe climate for global prosperity.

An other thing I'll be pushing towards the election for 2015-20 is a £10 national minimum wage which would be a living wage; higher in London, if the cost of living is higher.  This must be combined with a maximum wage as well.  NUS policy is to bring the ratio down to 8:1.  Personally I need a lot more; training is expensive, I work hard, and the cost of living is higher than ever.  Plus I re-invest a lot in tools.

Also since uni I've supported the idea of a basic unconditional citizen's income (BIG).  This was a demand in Occupy and surprise, surprise, the government is doing the opposite.

West Midlands broadcast - full of potential

This is from the Spring but I've only just seen it and it really speaks to a positive vision.  Here's Will Duckworth, who's wife Vicky was selected a while back for the 2015 General Election in her home town Dudley.

http://youtu.be/F_vVJOlIdps