Andy D'Agorne

What message do you get here about the dominance of the car?

The newly published 'Manual for Streets' from the Dept for Transport has been welcomed by campaign group Living Streets: http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/news_and_info/news.php?id=730

This actually supports the proposal in our local manifesto for residential streets (off main roads) to have a default speed limit of 20mph. It also stresses that 'walkability ' has to be designed into new neighbourhoods. This is the sort of feature that will be essential for new areas such as Hungate and any of the new housing developments that go ahead in the city.

 Want to read our manifesto? Click on 'downloads' section across the top on www.york.greenparty.org.uk

A busy weekend - photo call for the launch of our local manifesto, meeting about our election leaflet designs, performing with Chechelele as part of the Fair Trade Fair, a spot of gardening (Spring has arrived and the grass is growing again!) then no excuse for not getting out canvassing with such nice weather. Excellent article, with colour picture in Monday's Press as a result (thanks Gavin!) as well as the week's feature on election issues having another picture to accompany the parties' responses to the housing situation in York. Now it seems with the climate change bill everyone is talking about Green taxes, carbon allowances etc. The Green Party had some of these ideas in our national manifesto 15 years ago!

SO all we are waiting for now is Tony Blair to announce that there wont be lots of new airports and nuclear power plants after all... watch out for flying pigs!

As part of Fair Trade Fortnight, I will be singing on Saturday Mar 10th in Parliament St at 1.45pm with Chechelele ( a cross / non party-political world music choir !)

The set list includes a number of African songs and in a new departure for us even a couple in English! One is a spiritual and one a polenesian song about looking after the earth!  Heres what we plan to sing - come and here what we sound like

 1    Sto Mi e milo (Bulgarian)  2     Malaika   (African) 3    Lo Yissa   (Yiddish peace song) 4     O so seo  (song of reconcilliation from Korea) 5     E malama (song about caring for the earth  6     Lesang magwala  (Song from Anti apartheid struggle)  7     Ry La Nitra (Mozambican song)  8     Pokare Kare (Maori song) 9     Hush (Black American spiritual)

A pretty eclectic mix I think you will agree - makes a change for me from talking on the doorstep and email debate about election strategy!

The Barbican closure fiasco started out as a Labour project to raise funds to prop up the crumbling swimming pools in the city. 'Save our Swim', campaigning against the original Labour plan to scrap the Barbican pool was very much championed by the Lib Dems. Now ironically the Lib Dems have shifted the money to build a new pool at Oaklands with the remote long term prospect of a pool at the University and nothing in the city centre. Meanwhile Ernie Dickenson of 'Save our Barbican' fame has announced he will be standing as a Labour candidate, against the Greens who opposed the closure, thus conveniently allowing Labour to cover the traces of their early mismanagement of the running of the centre and the poor deal they handed on to the Lib Dems in 2003. Meanwhile a deal has still not been signed to hand the mothballed building on to the developers, some three years and thousands of pounds after this was supposed to have happened.

When checking out a link to the Muenster Green Party (York's twin town) website I came across this gem from those heady days when we hoped we might persuade Tony Blair not to support Bush's attack on Iraq in 2003  -note no mention of activists from the Lib Dems campaigning on the issue then (isnt hindsight wonderful eh?)

Feb 07, 2003   

The Green Party in both York and twin town Munster have agreed a common declaration against war which will be launched on Sat Feb 8th in both Munster and York.

In Munster the equivalent organisation to the 'Stop the War' campaign will be holding a big rally in the centre of Munster in front of the Lamberti church, with speakers from trade unions, catholic and protestant churches and even a famous German pop singer.

In York the campaign will be making a final push to fill 10 coaches to the national demonstration in London next Saturday (Feb 15th) Tickets will be on sale at the regular city centre stall in St Sampson's Square.

For further details of the event in Munster contact Wilhelm Achelpohler whose email hubrixia@muenster.de for further details. Contact York Greens on xxx

The declaration, in English, is below: We are deeply concerned for peace.

Nearly every day we get news about the dispatch of new American and British military forces to the Middle East. The likelihood of a war against Iraq is reaching more and more threatening dimensions. In this war the escalation of the conflict is imminent; people in Iraq, already suffering under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, will endure even more harm and death. The
destabilisation of the whole Middle East is a likely consequence of this war.

This war must be prevented!

But increasingly the show of US-American might is not appreciated any more:
American and British people are increasingly demonstrating against war. In Britain public opinion is still opposed to the war and the Stop the War campaign has the support of CND, socialists, The Green Party and many Labour Party MP's and members. The coalition of socialists and greens in the Federal Republic of Germany is against this war and in other European countries resistance increases against Bush's plans for an offensive war, which clearly is an offence against international law. Diplomacy, not war, is what we need!

We say NO to war!

We call on the governments of USA and Great Britain to stop their preparations for war! We expect of the Federal Republic of Germany to do everything possible in order to prevent a military conflict in Iraq! In order to make our resistance against war loud and clear and to demand that President Bush seeks a peaceful solution to the problems in Iraq, we urge everyone to join us in protesting against war!

Brigitte von Schoenebeck for Munster Green Party
Andy D'Agorne for York Green Party

POWER Report backs Votes at 16

10.46.24am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 27th Feb 2006

The long-awaited report of the POWER Commission has been published today - and it backs lowering the voting age to 16. The Isle of Man has recently lowered the age to 16 and Gordon Brown has said he supports the idea. It has been Green Party Policy for many years.

The POWER Commission was independent of all parties and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity which takes a close interest in democracy. The Commission was chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy.

In recommending a lower voting age, the Commission says that the move will help to connect young people with democracy. The Commission stresses that there is not a lack of interest in politics, simply a lack of faith that ordinary people have the power to change things.

The Votes at 16 Campaign has welcomed the report and urged the Government to take action on lowering the voting age. As someone who works in a college, it is obvious to me that if we want young people to engage with politics they need to be able to vote at 16, building on citizenship in schools and before they become cynical and disinterested in politics

You can read the POWER Commission report by going to http://www.powerinquiry.org/