OFFICE OF CAROLINE LUCAS, MP FOR BRIGHTON PAVILION

Responding to the announcement [1] by Energy Secretary Ed Davey today
that he has given planning consent to EDF to build a new nuclear
facility at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, Caroline Lucas (Green Party)
said:

“Ed Davey rightly warned in 2006 that “a new generation of nuclear
power stations will cost taxpayers and consumers tens of billions of
pounds” and that, “in addition to posing safety and environmental risks,
nuclear power will only be possible with vast taxpayer subsidies or a
rigged market” – so it’s astonishing that, in a deplorable departure
from his party’s policy, he has today given the green light to EDF to
build the UK’s first new nuclear plant for a generation.

“That the Government is willing to sign off on Hinkley even before an
agreement has been reached on how much the taxpayer will have to hand
over to the French state-owned energy giant, and before a new facility
to deal with the toxic waste has been agreed, is misguided in the
extreme.

“Despite the energy department’s attempts to rewrite the dictionary on
the definition of a subsidy, it’s now blindingly obvious that billions
of pounds of public money will be thrown at new nuclear in the form of a
strike price and the underwriting of costs including accident liability
and construction – in direct breach of the Coalition agreement.

“The only two nuclear power stations under construction in Europe today
are billions of pounds over budget and facing increasing delays. With
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Sweden and Denmark
all rejecting new nuclear, why is the UK still obsessed with keeping
this expensive and unnecessary technology alive?”

The Brighton Pavilion MP concluded: “Nuclear is a dangerous distraction
from the truly ambitious energy policy we need – one which focuses on
renewable energy and energy efficiency, and which would deliver more
jobs, faster carbon reductions and a fundamentally more democratic
energy system fit for the future.”

Links:

I would especially recommend the following:

CHAPTER ARTS CENTRE – CARDIFF

• Wadjda (PG tbc) -16th March

  Director: Haifaa Al Mansour
  Starring: Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani
  Saudi Arabia/Germany, 2012, 1 hour 37 minutes, subtitles

  A hugely appealing, heartfelt gem that will give you a rare glimpse into everyday Saudi society. Smart, strong-willed, tomboy Wadjda is often in trouble as she chafes at her lifes restrictions, but shell stop at nothing to earn the money to buy a bike. To shoot a film in a country where cinemas themselves have been banned for over thirty years is some kind achievement for any director. When that filmmaker also happens to be a woman, in a country where it is illegal for women to drive, let alone direct, is all the more impressive.

• The Sun Beaten Path (PG) – 19th/20th March

  Director: Sonthar Gyal
  Starring: Yeshe Lhadruk, Lo Kyu
  Tibet, 2011, 1 hour 29 minutes, subtitles

  With vast, desolate landscapes and often dream-like sequences, this cinematic gem is a really authentic portrait of contemporary Tibet. Walking home to a remote part of Tibet through barren mountains and dusty wind-swept plains, the troubled Nyma is joined by an old man whose gently persistent good sense allows Nyma to gradually unburden himself. A simple tale, elliptically told that really shows how Tibet is now with smart Chinese buses speeding past Tibetan couples prostrating themselves on the hard shoulder all the way to Lhasa.

TALIESIN ARTS CENTRE – SWANSEA

• 5 Broken Cameras (15) – 18th March

  Director: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
  Israel, 2012, 1 hour 30 minutes, Arabic with subtitles

  A powerful personal testimony that shows exactly what life is like in occupied Palestine. Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, bought his first camera to record the birth of his youngest son. Over five years of village turmoil, Emad records as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, Israeli settlers take their land, his cameras are smashed, and lives are lost. With overwhelming power it gives us a direct experience of what its like to be on the receiving end of oppression and dispossession. A defiant, hopeful, incredibly moving, hugely revealing film about how people struggle and survive such a life.

• Chasing Ice (PG) – 19th March

  Director: Jeff Orlowski
  Starring: James Balog
  USA, 2012, 1 hour 19 minutes

  Winner of the Excellence in Cinematography Award Sundance Film Festival 2012

  A phenomenal, passionate, unpreachy doc this provides insanely beautiful evidence of man-made climate change through time-lapse photography of the rapid retreat of the worlds glaciers. Twenty years ago National Geographic photographer James Balog was skeptical about climate change, then he started photographing ice. Now hes a man on a mission, setting up the Extreme Ice Survey a huge global project to remotely film the glaciers rapid disappearance using custom-built cameras designed to withstand 200mph winds and temperatures of minus 40 degrees. Thanks to the fabulous photography of the ice in all its glorious shapes and colours melting and constantly changing shape this is both extremely beautiful and extremely scary bringing home the reality of climate change like nothing Ive ever seen. If a single picture is worth a thousand words then Chasing Ice tells volumes.

• Wadjda (PG tbc) -20th March – see above

Two performances are to be given by Bridgend Green Party member, Robert Minhinnick, and Tracy Evans – one in Porthcawl (5th April) and one in Swansea (11th April)

An Opera in Baghdad is a long poem, published in Minhinnicks recent New Selected Poems (Carcanet). It concerns a visit he made to Iraq in 1997, between the first and second Gulf Wars.

This opera is a lively and very musical dramatic poem, says Robert Minhinnick. It commemorates some of the extraordinary people I met on the visit.

Entering and leaving Iraq meant arduous journeys across implacable desert. The experience has had a major effect on my writing, especially the visit to a deserted Babylon.

I was helping make a film about uranium, and hope scenes might be screened during the performances.

Details:

Friday, April 5, 2013, 8pm.

Robert Minhinnick & Tracy Evans perform An Opera in Baghdad at the Green Room, Sustainable Wales, 5, James St., Porthcawl, CF36 3BG. £3. Open mic follows. Details: 01656 783962 robertm

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 7.30pm.

Robert Minhinnick & Tracy Evans perform An Opera in Baghdad, Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea SA1 1RR Details 01792 463980.

Letter sent to the Guardian today.

18 March 2013

Dear Editor,

The depth of Douglas Alexander’s denial over the real reasons for his
government taking the UK to war in Iraq in 2003 is truly breathtaking
(‘Iraq war was national disgrace, say military chiefs’, 18 March,
Guardian).

The evidence is clear [1] that the war had nothing to do with finding
non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction, and everything to do with the
Fact that the then Prime Minister Tony Blair had already promised
President Bush in March 2002 that he would support a war for regime
change.

The legal and political distinction between finding WMD and regime
change was essential for Blair to secure a majority of the parliamentary
Labour party’s support for war, without which he could not have gone
ahead. However, the now infamous Downing St memo told Blair in 2002 that
in the US “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

If WMD were really the focus of the war, Blair would have granted the
Weapons Inspectors’ call for more time. Moreover, Blair blatantly
misrepresented the evidence available. For example, in his speech to the
House on the resolution to go to war, he suggested that soon after
Saddam Hussein’s son in law, Hussein Kamal, defected to the West in the
mid 1990s, he disclosed that Iraq had an extensive WMD programme.

In fact, the transcript of the interview with UNSCOM/IAEA records
Hussein Kamal’s statements that Iraq’s WMD programme had been destroyed
and nothing remained. The details of the interview were public knowledge
in February 2003, well before the vote for war.

The parliamentary failure to hold Blair to account at the time of the
vote makes it all the more essential that we have a debate in parliament
now. We must formally record how such a flimsy case for war was able to
get through our parliamentary process.

Unwavering Tory support for the vote was obviously critical. How
convenient, then, that soon after William Hague writes to his Cabinet
colleagues to tell them not to mention the war, David Cameron’s
government has failed to find time for a Parliamentary debate, requested
by myself and a cross-party group of MPs, to coincide with the 10th
anniversary of that vote.

Whatever position this Government now takes on Iraq and the Chilcot
Inquiry, it is crucial that the public does not see Parliament just
sitting back and ignoring the 10th anniversary of these lies and
distortions. We owe it to the servicemen and women and all those who
have lost their lives in Iraq to carefully examine what happened, in
order to learn the lessons of the most damaging foreign policy decision
of recent times.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion

Links:

Saturday 22 June 2013, 9:30am 5pm,

Central Hall Westminster, Storeys Gate, London, Westminster, London SW1H 9NH

The Peoples Assembly Against Austerity was launched with a letter to the Guardian by the initial signatories below:

This is a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provision come under renewed attack by the government. With some 80% of austerity measures still to come, and with the government lengthening the time they expect cuts to last, we are calling a Peoples Assembly Against Austerity to bring together campaigns against cuts and privatisation with trade unionists in a movement for social justice. We aim to develop a strategy for resistance to mobilise millions of people against the Con Dem government.

The assembly will provide a national forum for anti-austerity views which, while increasingly popular, are barely represented in parliament. A Peoples Assembly can play a key role in ensuring that this uncaring government faces a movement of opposition broad enough and powerful enough to generate successful co-ordinated action, including strike action. The assembly will be ready to support co-ordinated industrial action and national demonstrations against austerity, if possible synchronising with mobilisations across Europe. The Peoples Assembly Against Austerity will meet at Central Hall, Westminster, on 22 June.

Tony Benn President, Coalition of Resistance

Len McCluskey General secretary, Unite the Union
Mark Serwotka General secretary, PCS
Christine Blower General secretary, NUT
Michelle Stanistreet General secretary, NUJ
Manuel Cortez General secretary, TSSA
Billy Hayes General secretary, CWU
Bob Crow General secretary, RMT
Mick Whelan General secretary, Aslef
Kevin Courtney Deputy general secretary, NUT
Paul Mackney Former general secretary Natfhe (now UCU)
Vicky Baars NUS union development
Kevin Donnelly Trade Union Council JCC

Caroline Lucas MP

Katy Clark MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
John McDonnell MP
Murad Qureshi London assembly member
Dawn Butler Former Labour minister for young citizens and youth engagement

Tariq Ali Author
John Pilger Journalist
Ken Loach Filmmaker
Owen Jones Writer
James Meadway Senior economist, New Economics Foundation

Wendy Savage & John Lipetz Keep our NHS Public
Merry Cross Disabled People Against the Cuts
John Hendy QC Co-chair, Peoples Charter
John Hilary Director, War on Want
Sam Fairbairn National secretary, Coalition of Resistance
Imran Khan Solicitor, co-chair, Peoples Charter
Rachael Newton Peoples Charter
Romayne Phoenix Chair, Coalition of Resistance, Co-Covenor of Green Left, Green Party

Zita Holbourne Co-chair, Black activists rising against the cuts
Clare Solomon Vice-chair, Coalition of Resistance
Andrew Burgin Vice-chair, Coalition of Resistance
Colin Hampton Co-ordinator, National Unemployed Workers Centres Combine
Anita Wright Secretary, National Association of Women
Joginder Bains Association of Indian Women
Shang Gahonia Indian Workers Association
Carolyn Jones Director, Institute of Employment Rights

Lindsey German Convenor, Stop the War Coalition
Kate Hudson General secretary, CND
Bruce Kent Peace campaigner

Lee Hall Playwright
Roger Lloyd Pack Actor
Josie Long Comedian
Iain Banks Author
Arthur Smith Comedian
Roy Bailey Folk singer
Francesca Martinez Comedian

John Rees Counterfire editorial board
Natalie Bennett Leader of the Green Party England and Wales

Fred Leplat Socialist Resistance
Robert Griffiths General secretary, Communist Party of Britain
Bill Greenshields Chair, Communist Party of Britain
Richard Bagley Editor, Morning Star

TICKETS = £4 for the unwaged – £8 others: http://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/2013/02/peoples-assembly-against-austerity-saturday-22-june/

We co-exist within the Green Party because we largely share a concern for environmental and social justice. As a Jesuit, Bergoglio has a pretty good track record of championing the poor, but I do wonder how Green Party members happily remain within churches where their purported ‘infallible’ leader – God’s supposed representative here on Earth – spouts this sort of appalling nonsense.

Intolerant of these attitudes? Guilty as charged!

Part of a speech against Argentina presidential candidate Cristina Kirchner given in 2007, during the electoral campaign.

From a private letter to some nuns that became public.

Until he at least starts sorting out the child abusers within his ranks, and getting them prosecuted in courts of (worldly) law, he can have no moral authority whatsoever. It may be week one, but it has to be his number one priority. It will be interesting to see if his ‘elevation’ to the Holy See leads to actions on this front that we could all applaud.

Andy Chyba

By becoming a “factivist,” we can learn what needs to be done to end extreme poverty within the next generation. And the facts are beyond promising. Since 2000:

Eight million AIDS patients have been receiving retroviral drugs

Malaria deaths have been cut by 75% in some countries

Child mortality rate of kids under 5 is down by 2.65 million deaths a year

Extreme poverty declined from 43% in 1990 to 33% in 2000 to 21% by 2010

Extreme poverty has been cut in half in the last 20 years, and the facts show that we can get it to virtually zero within a generation — but only if we act.

Lets think about that, he says. Have you read anything, anywhere in the last week that is as remotely as important as that number? Its great news, and it drives me nuts most people dont know this.

If you live on less than $1.25 a day, this is not just data. This is everything. If youre a parent who wants the best for your kids, and I am, this rapid transition is a route out of despair and into hope.

http://www.one.org/c/international/actnow/4625/

“We are going to win because we don’t understand politics. We are going to win because we don’t play their dirty games. We are going to win because we don’t have a party political agenda. We are going to win because the tears that come from our eyes actually come from our hearts. We are going to win because we have dreams, and we’re willing to stand up for those dreams.” Wael Ghonim

Chastening words for those of us involved in the world of politics.

A council has declared that none of its social tenants will be evicted if they cannot afford to pay the government’s forthcoming bedroom tax.

Brighton & Hove City Council has become the first local authority in the country to take such a stance.

Councillor Liz Wakefield said: “The so-called ‘spare room subsidy’ is yet more immoral and harmful legislation from this morality-free coalition government.

“As Greens, we cannot throw people out onto the streets just because they’re unable to pay it. I will therefore be bringing proposals that seek to ensure no household will be evicted from a Brighton and Hove City Council owned home as a result of ‘spare room subsidy’ rent arrears accrued solely from that household’s inability to pay this unjust bedroom tax.”

She added that steps would be taken to ensure that tenants don’t take advantage of the proposals, and that officers would have to be satisfied that those pushed into arrears by the bedroom tax were doing everything they could to pay their rent.

Brighton Pavilion MP, Caroline Lucas, is also backing the proposals. She said: “The so-called bedroom tax legislation is not only morally wrong and a cause of great potential hardship, it is also unworkable in a city with a long waiting list for smaller properties.

“The council cannot downsize households on the scale required by the government, nor would we want it to, and we should not be prepared to evict hard-pressed families, the disabled and other vulnerable people purely because they are unable to pay this unjust levy on a home they either cannot or should not have to leave.”

Chair of Brighton & Hove Green Party, Rob Shepherd, said: “This government is willing to see people thrown out onto the streets purely because they can’t pay their bedroom tax.

“They can be sentenced to homelessness simply for trying to maintain a normal, liveable family home. The Conservative and LibDem coalition government should be ashamed of itself and, as Greens, we will have no part of it.

“I congratulate the party and councillors who are taking such a principled stand. We call on the other parties to support us in protecting, in this way, some of our most vulnerable residents.”

Review comments:

This interview is dynamite. We must make sure it is seen by as many people in the country as possible.

Stunningly clear explanations – one of the most lucid narrators I have encountered.

What a smart person…best explanation I’ve ever heard…thank you.

Crystal-clear. An excellent guide to clarifying what’s going on among the confusion.

Having now watched this video interview in full, I cannot overpraise Lucy Reynolds’ forensically detailed dissection of every aspect of the current privatisation of the NHS and in addition, the historical developments which led up to it. It must rank with Pollock’s NHS plc and Leys and Player’s Plot Against the NHS as the best accounts ever given of NHS privatisation. I urge you to put the time aside to watch it and to e-mail, tweet, FB and to tell everyone who cares about our NHS to do the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CO&hl=es-419&v=OkTnCtg_Omk

Share far and wide!

http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=724:death-of-a-bogeyman-the-corporate-media-bury-hugo-chavez&catid=51:alerts-2013&Itemid=202

“What lies behind the Western media’s obsession with Chávez? Why the extreme hostility and bias? A clue was provided by the Guardian when it observed that Venezuela is sitting on ‘The world’s biggest oil reserves’.

In discussing Chávez, Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, summed up the reality:

‘He applied the huge increase in revenues to massively successful poverty alleviation via social programmes, housing and education.

‘The western states of course do everything to stop developing countries doing this, on behalf of the multinationals who control the politicians. They threaten (and I am an eye-witness) aid cancellation, disinvestment and trade sanctions. They work to make you a political pariah (just watch the media on Chávez today). They secretly sponsor, bankroll and train your opponents. The death of such “dangerous” leaders is a good outcome for them, as in Allende or Lumumba.

‘Chávez faced them down. There are millions of people in Venezuela whose hard lives are a bit better and have hope for the future because of Chávez. There are billionaires in London and New York who have a few hundred million less each because of Chávez. Nobody can deny the truth of both those statements.’

One of the great tasks of our time is to appreciate how these undeniable realities distort coverage right across the supposed corporate media ‘spectrum’. Our ability to understand and respond to this problem is vital for the future, not just of Venezuela, but of all of us.”