ESOL Rally at Tower Hamlets College

ESOL stands for ‘English for Speakers of Other Languages’ though it is more common to hear ‘English as a Second Language’.
Whatever the distinction, funding cuts means that 1,000 places for classes will be lost.
Already 2,000 people are waiting for ESOL classes in Tower Hamlets, with many more in Hackney and all over London.

Thirteen people could lose their jobs.
Thousands more will lose the opportunity to learn.
The college also wants to cut youth & enrichment provision, mentorship schemes, learning mentors, administrative & tutorial support workers, health & social care courses, literacy and hair & beauty courses.
The choice is between profit and education.

Come to the rally on Saturday 12th September, from 2pm to 4pm. It will be held at Altab Ali Park, near Aldgate East Station, just south of Brick Lane.

Farid Bakht

Right-wing threat to mosque

“A motley collection of rightwing groups intend to march on the Harrow Mosque this coming Friday, September 11th. They are campaigning against ‘Muslim Extremism’ and have chosen the anniversary of 9/11, Ramadan and a Friday (prayer day) to give maximum provocation.

There will be a vigil in solidarity with the Harrow Central Mosque, 36-38 Station Road, HA1 2SQ from 1.30 pm, but the vital time for people to assemble is after work from 4.00 pm onwards. The fascists say they are planning to demonstrate from 5.00 – 8.00 pm. We need enough people assembled before our rally at 6.00 pm to make it absolutely clear to them that they are not welcome in Harrow. We need a diverse and united demonstration that reflects Harrow’s diverse and united community. We are calling for a dignified but determined demonstration which will deter the racists, fascists and Islamophobics not by violence but by strength of numbers”

This is an excerpt from Brent GP member Martin’s email

“Free” costs money

The London Paper is ceasing publication this autumn. Most of the others look shaky too. For some time, Murdoch has been complaining about why he dislikes free content on the Web. He prefers charging customers.
Plus the recession has cut back print advertising by up to a third.

So called free newspapers on the Tube are simply advertisements leaflets, with bits of gossip stuck on the edges.
At best they are brochures, with the TV schedule/horoscope and a few pics of a ‘celebrity’ stumbling out of a nightclub. Welcome to the knowledge society.
When everyone is up to their eyeballs in debt, all these worthless rags do is generate more ‘need’, or desire for things they don’t need.

Commuters can get their news on the web for free (still) and print them off if they want a read on the Tube.
Good riddance to these throwaway rags.

Farid Bakht

Vote Green, not Brown (1)

The Vestas saga (New Labour duplicity on the low carbon economy) may have some consequences:
1) Union members will demand that many of their compromised leaders change tack and press for an industrial revival based partly on manufacturing renewables
2) We convince them about our vision of a low carbon economy placing industry in the centre – jobs, high technology and low emissions.
3) Among many Labour voters, the credibility of New Labour is terminally shattered as they are found out to be obsessed in kow-towing to carbon-trading multinationals and to Nuclear.

What I would like to see is now:
a) a continuing protest to force the government to step in and save Vestas
b) a practical Green vision of a series of wind turbine plants up and down the country. For example, setting up clean manufacturing in the Thames Gateway and other sites in London – how many Mega watts, how many jobs, and in which locality.

The Green New Deal gave a broad outline. Since then, we have had additions, for example, by Sean Thompson, on embedding that initial document with reducing inequality and wealth mal-distribution, with a firmer commitment towards nationalisation.

I would now like us to draw a picture of what a green industrial renewable landscape actually looks like by region.
For example, if we had the per capita wind energy capacity of Denmark or Germany, how many jobs would we create and how many factories would we have?
Would it ten or twenty Vestas plants in England and Wales?

Farid Bakht

Tower Hamlets Labour AM thinks hedge funds ‘add value’

Saturday’s Progressive London conference was peppered with Labour politicians. They did their best to stretch the word Progressive to breaking point.
John Biggs, the Labour Assembly Member (and Tower Hamlets stalwart) astounded the audience with his comments.
On a Saturday, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, he highlighted his credentials of working in the City of London.
He told us that hedge funds added value to our economy (while the Chinese economists in the main hall were saying the opposite)…. how we had to ‘work with the City’… how it was a nostalgic dream for manufacturing to return to London………
This was a performance of an unreconstructed New Labour politician in thrall to the City and the banks.
Northern Rock, the collapse of the banks all seemed to pass by…..
He also came out against any EU regulation of the City…. which rather says it all. He made a comment that we don;t need Europeans to regulate us.. well, we wouldn’t if the UK Labour Government had the guts to do something (Darling’s speech last week was widely derided as Labour’s final capitulation to Finance)
If Singapore can operate as a financial centre, a manufacturing centre and a magnet for tourism why not London?
In any case his old boss, Ken Livingstone, told the main meeting that indeed we need to bring back manufacturing to the Thames Estuary….

Incredible..

Where now for Progressive London?

Ken Livingstone did Part two of his Progressive London project last Saturday. In case you are wondering, Pro-London is his vehicle for his mayoral bid in 2012.
The numbers this weekend were disappointing. Is it running out of fizz?
The main draw was Vince Cable of the Lib Dems.
Ken Livingstone and Vince Cable has competed for a Labour MP’s position in North London many moons ago, so there is history there.
Then, Ken won.
The dynamic on Saturday was about an attempt to stitch together a ‘progressive alliance’ behind Ken as Mayoral Candidate. i.e. why Greens and Lib-Dems should back Ken as ‘the man to oust Boris’.
Will it work?

I have my doubts.
First, in 2012 Ken will have been out of power for four years and there is no sign of Pro-London being anymore than a series of conferences – by itself not constituting a ‘movement’.
Second, Ken insists on inviting totally discredited Labour/New Labour politicians. For example, where does Geoffrey Robinson fit in to anything progressive? His performance was that of an apologist for the banks. In the first meeting, Ken brought over David Lamy(!), Harriet Harman (!) and other Labour politicians.

After the next election, there is no way Greens will ever contemplate sitting with these types of Labour politicians.
Similarly, with Nic Clegg having taken his party to the Right, there is no reason for Greens to ally with them either.
In any case, while the Mayor’s post is important, we will all face far larger issues – a Conservative government, an imploded New Labour, a continuing war in Asia, unemployment at 3.2 million (using govt stats), public sector cuts and social tensions over immigration.
For the rest of us, the 2012 mayoral election can wait.

Meanwhile, I wonder if Vince Cable may not turn out to the winner. He has carved himself a niche on economic competence – more for highlighting the dangers, rather than any radical solutions (he is after all an ex-economist for Shell) .
With Nick Clegg slipping up (a serial loser of by-elections), Ken may find his competitor is one level up on him and untouchable.
The Geoffrey Robinsons and David Lamys and other Blair/Brown/Mandelson crowd will quite happily join with the Lib Dems (1981 all over again)…. Where would Ken then go?
Green mayoral candidate? Kidding……………….. on the other hand…….

Farid Bakht
Parliamentary Candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow

Greens beat Lib-Dems in Tower Hamlets

The Green Party gained 5,406 votes against the Lib Dems’ 5,080 in Tower Hamlets..
The Green vote came to 12%. In other words, nearly one in eight voters in the borough put a X for the Green Party.
It would be interesting to see this vote broken down by ward.
Given that a lot of effort was put into the north of the borough, and the visible nature of support at the doorsteps and posters on windows, it is possible the Greens did much, much better in Weavers, Bethnal Green North, Bow West and Bow East.
We would not be surprised if we had pulled in more than 20% in these wards, making up for less than 5% in Canning Town, Millwall and perhaps Mile End East.
The Conservative vote at just over 10,000 is almost for sure from the south of the borough, along with UKIP and BNP.

The result is a major blow to Lib-Dem pretentions. They are correctly perceived as ‘more of the same’, with hardly any difference to the Conservatives or New Labour.
In effect, votes for the Lib-Dems offers no message of voter anger and call for a change. While they may claim that it’s their pro-Euro stance that cost them votes, it was clear that this election was fought on domestic issues.
Moreover the Greens do not want to pull out of the EU, though they are opposed to the EU in its present form (corporate control) and want radical changes.
The Green Party is now being viewed as a realistic proposition where voters can make their message loud and clear: they want meaningful change.
It is also clear that the Greens are now the only Left-of-Centre Party on the national scene. Smaller operations such as the No2EU took precious votes away to allow in the BNP but were insignificant.
Respect honorably decided to step aside in the Northwest and West Midlands allowing the Greens to challenge the BNP. Salma Yakoob should be thanked for that gesture.
However, we wonder if Respect is in terminal decline – its results in last year’s GLA elections and this years’ local and EU polls suggest its best years are behind it.
After all the results are digested, groups to the left of New Labour/Lib-Dems will be wondering what their position is in May 2010.
Let’s have no doubt in our minds. The Right won won hands down all over Europe, including England and Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland).
The only good news is that the European Greens increased their number of MEPs significantly to 53 (out of a 736 seat parliament).
Dark clouds hang over the political landscape as the agenda shifts to the Right.
Those opposed to the status quo need to realign their aspirations and position.
Greens can now take on the Lib Dems all over London where the votes were only 40,000 apart. While the seat count shows a vast gulf, the votes cast show Greens are ahead of the Lib-Dems or within touching distance.
This does not mean we should get into calculations about targetting Lib-Dems or massaging our message. Voters prefer us to emphasise our policies especially about jobs and housing.
If we keep to the theme ‘Think Again’, we will make waves.
Let’s leave spin to the three discredited parties.
Many Labour voters will also be wondering whether they should waste their democratic right on a spineless party which has betrayed all its traditional values.
Many will now see the Green Party as a viable, progressive alternative against an unpalatable Right.

London’s air quality is deadlier than H1N1 flu

Over the Bank Holiday I was out leafleting for the forthcoming European elections in Old Ford Road when an irate resident approached me brandishing the rolled up newspaper I had put through his letter box. (no plug included) It is the moment all politicians dread. I need not have worried.
“Air quality”, he said, what are you going to do about it. Old Ford Road, he said, is a rat run for cars that turn off Cambridge Heath Road. I could see the problem as we tried to talk whilst a bus manoeuvred its way along the narrow roadway.
It is unfortunately that the swine flu virus has dominated the headlines over the past few weeks as it has overshadowed the release of a report by the London Assembly t that will be of more concern to Londoners and in particular to places like Old Ford Road
Just as the swine flue is carried in the air, air quality is affected by pollutant particles called PM10 and inhaled by people. Yet everyday in London people are breathing in polluted particles that the report believes kill an estimated 3,000 Londoners a year, in particular people who suffer from asthma, as well as heart and lung disease.
The report by the London Assembly’s Environment Committee states that London air quality, already among the worst in the country as well as the rest of Europe, is having a costly effect on the National Health Service.
Government figures estimate air-quality related health costs for the UK to be up to £20 billion a year.

Emissions from diesel vehicles contribute to a range of health problems, from coughing and sneezing to more serious illnesses, requiring hospitals. Children and the elderly are worst effected. Among the worst affected areas is the City of London and surrounding boroughs.
London’s air quality is well below the targets set by the European Union. Despite this, the Labour government just before the report was released submitted an application for a further delay on current EU air quality targets – targets that the government was meant to meet in 2005!
The Committee in its report calls upon Boris Johnson to act upon the recommendations of the report.
They include forcing motorists to fit particulate filters to reduce emissions by 90 per cent. To reconsider his rejection of the introduction of stage three of the low emission zone which would have taken 90,000 of the most polluting vehicles off London’s road.
Londoners should not hold their breath, so to speak, upon the Mayor taking such action.
Despite his election pledge to “take action to make London the greenest city in the world his decisions in office show that he, or his advisors, has sided with the ‘dirty white van man’ than the interests of the health of Londoners.
Whilst he himself cycles he has cut the cycling budget by half. He has also halved the number of people in the environment team at City Hall. As a result of the Mayor’s decision not to ban polluting heavy goods the UK is facing the prospect of a heavy fine from the EU in the region of £300 million. That is the price Londoners will pay for poor air quality and something for not only the man in Old Ford Road to think about then they vote on June 4 in the European elections.

Terry McGrenera, Coordinator, Tower Hamlets Green Party.

What are they afraid of?

The police, as the advance guard of the state, have come down hard.
Do we blame Boris or should it be New Labour? Does it matter? Both parties aren’t exactly divided on the issue.
The G20 protests were built up as a violent demonstration. Unknown ‘anarchists’ were rolled out in BBC Radio and other media weeks before to create a sense of fear among people who might have turned up.
Then, the Police were given the task of using brute force to ‘bring order’.
It didn’t seem very different from what I have witnessed in South Asia. In place of the lathi, it’s the truncheon. Same result.
Had people been allowed to protest peacefully, they would have embarrassed the G20 leaders. And why not?
Those same leaders are happy to meet in the seclusion of Davos. If all they want is a photo-op, why not go there instead?
Of course, Gordon “Dirty Tricks” Brown wanted to ’save the world’ and be seen to be doing it.
Unfortunately for him, all that effort seems to have been wasted.
People are more concerned with how Gordon can allegedly hire thugs (with keyboards rather than weapons) to consider writing fanciful stories about affairs among the Tory leadership.
Voters have forgotten the glitz of the G20, though unable to forget the police action given the stream of new pictures and suspensions. And they have seen the seamier side of New Labour.
This is so reminiscent of 1996. Mr. and Mrs Hamilton and David Mellor seem so tame in comparison. N
ew Labour should be very afraid if other people reach this same conclusion about New Labour sleaze and muck-raking. Even Gordon’s scowl resembles that of Nixon!
In comparison, a few thousand protestors clamouring for economic and environmental justice should not have frightened anyone in Government.
Perhaps the Government is afraid we may have rumbelled them about their bailout for bankers, and cuts for the rest of us.
Ah, now I see the point.
We all know about duplicity and incompetence.
So the best thing to do is create confrontation and turn the victim (people) into the criminal, and turn this into a re-run of 1968, to scare @Middle England’
It will not work. Middle England (if it exists) is also getting stuffed as they see their pensions, houses and jobs ebbing away.
We all hope New Labour return to trying to clean up their economic mess and not play with fire. They are on their way out. Could they but make a graceful exit.

Farid Bakht

Jenny Jones: “The police here are stopping peaceful protest”

Jenny Jones, Green Party Home Affairs spokesperson and London Assembly member, has called senior police in the Met “complacent” over their belief their officers behaved professionally at all times during policing of the G20 protests. Jones labelled the aggressive tactics used by police offices to manage G20 demonstrations as a threat to public safety.

There should now be a full independent investigation, not only into the tragic death of Mr Tomlinson and subsequent apparent misinformation by the police, but also into the wider police tactics at the demonstration.

A Tower Hamlets Green Party member who was at the demonstration said “Sadly, the protest was marred by violent and provocative tactics used by the police in their attempts to contain demonstrators. Thousands of demonstrators including pregnant women and young children were ‘kettled’ in to a small area immediately outside the Bank of England with only those who had work ID for the local area or were NUJ members allowed out of the police blockades. Protesters were denied access to food, water and toilets for over 2 hours. A small minority of protesters trying to escape from the enclosure early on were arrested by the police. Furthermore, police on horseback appeared rapidly to prevent protestors advancing down a side street. The use of police on horseback against pedestrian demonstrators is wholly inapprorpiate and stokes up violence and fear in protestors unneccesarily.”