Councillor Matt Sellwood

Hackney Blog

2010-03-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

For the avoidance of doubt, this is a 'dead blog' - kept up for archiving purposes. My current political blog, which is part of my campaign as Parliamentary Candidate for Hackney North & Stoke Newington, and council candidate for Clissold Ward, is at http://mattsellwoodforhackney.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Unspeakably thrilling news

2008-09-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have returned to the blogosphere. If you're still interested in my ramblings, you can find me at my new gaff - www.anglobuddhistcombine.blogspot.com

Cheers,

Matt

A time for unity....

2007-12-04T05:23:00.000-08:00

This is still an ex-blog....but I did feel the need to clamber atop my battered soapbox one last time, to make a plea to fellow members of the Green Party.

As many readers will know, the Green Party has just had an internal referendum on the 'leadership question'. After many months of discussion and debate, the Party membership voted 73% to 27% (with about a 50% turnout) to switch away from our current model of Principal Speakers without a vote on the National Exec and elected annually, to a model of Leader/Deputy Leader both with a vote on the Exec and elected once every two years.

Readers may also know that, due to my opposition to the abandoning of annual elections, I urged a 'No' vote in the referendum.

However - I strongly believe that now that the Party membership has spoken, it is time to unify and move on to what we are meant to be doing - winning elections and building a movement for radical social change. It is up to the hundreds of members who voted 'NO' to act constructively to ensure that a Green model of leadership is inclusive, transparent, accountable and empowering - not to fight some sort of guerilla battle against proposals that have been overwhelmingly supported by thousands of party members.

I guess I just wanted to express my opinion, clearly, that now is the time to take stock of our new internal structure and make sure that it works for everyone. Not to hark back to an old structure that, lets be honest, never worked very well anyway and has been rejected by a large majority of our fellow party members.

Here's hoping that peace breaks out, and we can all move forward on a constructive basis...winning at least one MP at the next General Election!

Cheers and best wishes,

Matt

An ex-blog

2007-10-31T06:21:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I admit it. This is an ex-blog. It has ceased to be. etc. My apologies to my literally tens of readers, but I just don't have the time to update it anymore...things keep getting more and more hectic, and my need for free time isn't going away....

I hope people have found it a useful if rather random and erratic snapshot into the life of a district councillor. If you are interested in that aspect of things, then do go along to http://greenladywell.blogspot.com for Cllr Sue Luxton's thoughts on life in Lewisham! Alternatively, if its left/green analysis you would like, there's nowhere better than http://greenmansoccasional.blogspot.com

Enjoy - and best wishes, as always!

Matt

Oxford Police and Protest

2007-06-07T08:05:00.001-07:00

Having returned from a wonderful holiday (walking the Cumbria Way - I fully recommend it!) I was very disturbed to see the latest copy of direct action weekly 'SCHNEWS'. It has news of the dismissal of charges against animal rights protestors, due to unacceptable behaviour from the Oxford police force:

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news590.htm

Now, as regular readers of my blog will know, there is history of my views on this subject being somewhat selectively represented. So, I will make it clear. I do not agree with everything that SPEAK say. I DO agree with their right to say it, and certainly with their right to say it without a campaign to 'persecute' them. Our police should be on the side of the law, not of Oxford University. I know from bitter experience in the past that the police, too often, are on the side of power against those wanting to express unpopular or controversial views. I will continue to do everything within my limited power to hold actions like this to account.

B52 not guilty!

2007-05-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

News that I am delighted about today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6681639.stm

It's taken them four years of their life, but they've been found 'not guilty' - I won't say that they were vindicated, because regardless of the court finding, there was never any doubt in my mind that they did the right thing. Speaking as someone who broke into RAF Fairford at around the same time in order to stop the planes taking off - but also as someone who, quite frankly, wasn't brave enough to take on the whole judicial system - I am over the moon for them.

Phil and Toby, my heroes!

Matt

Ex-Lib Dems become Tories

2007-05-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/display.var.1407826.0.two_jump_ship_to_tories.php

I'm a bit speechless about this one. Defecting to become Independents is one thing - but Tories? One of the councillors, Paul Sargent, was elected as a Lib Dem in Carfax Ward at the same election as me - and Carfax is the only ward less student dominated than my own. I can guarantee that the many students who voted for him thought he was the progressive choice - not a Tory in disguise.

As for Tia Macgregor...I don't know what to say. Her voting record is progressive and leftish - I can't imagine what on earth she is doing joining the Conservatives.

I could make the obvious comment about the Lib Dems recruiting their candidates from people who don't quite know what their politics are - but its a bit too easy, isn't it....

Matt

New Council Year

2007-05-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well, tearing myself away from esoteric theory, I should point out that council business goes on as ever. Annual Council was yesterday, at which we appoint all the committees for the year, as well as the Leader/Deputy Leader of the Council. Everything stayed pretty much the same - the Lib Dems are still in minority administration (despite not being the largest party!), I am still sitting on Executive Board as the Green Group representative, and so on. John Tanner was also sworn in as Lord Mayor for the year, which should provide much hilarity. Even his own Labour benches started laughing when he had to take an oath promising to use his 'good judgement'....

I didn't stay for the ceremonial flummery afterwards, as generally I don't like that kind of thing unless I have promised to give a speech nominating someone to a civic office (as last year) - but perhaps I should have done, because I came home to the tidal wave of sycophantic coverage about Blair's resignation. I had to restrain myself from putting my foot through the TV at times...particularly when commentator after commentator said things like 'well, putting aside Iraq'....

PUTTING ASIDE IRAQ? Thats like saying of Pinochet - 'well, putting aside the death squads'....

The man is a mass murdering war criminal. He deserves to go down in history as such, and I trust that he will, despite the seeming inability of today's media to paint him in his true light. May he have a long and unhappy retirement.

Matt

Greens and the left

2007-05-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Well, my post on local elections seems to have awakened a debate - mostly on my assertion, made over a number of years now, that the Greens need to affirm themselves as an explicitly 'left' and anti-capitalist party.

At the risk of appearing immodest, I felt it might be useful to explain exactly what I mean by this, as such a statement is open to misinterpretations.

I most certainly do *not* mean that the Greens should adopt the kind of alienating language used by the far left, that we should reject everyone to our right as 'class enemies', that we should refuse ever to engage in the existing political system, or that we should adopt the stifling centralisation of Leninism. While the antics of the far-left over the decades have meant that these counterproductive habits have become associated with being on the left, they are certainly not inherent in a leftist position.

What I *do* mean is that the Green Party needs, urgently, to have a debate about how the radical social and economic changes that we desire will come about. At the moment many Greens have a sort of fuzzy faith that electing councillors and MPs to institute greenish reforms will do it. This is fine if you believe that the current system can be reformed. I don't think that most Greens actually believe that this is the case...instead, we believe that a radical change is necessary - in short, that capitalism as a system cannot deliver sustainability and social justice. If we think this (as I do) then we have to be honest about it - *and* we have to have some idea at least of our 'direction of travel'. Yes, elected representatives are part of the way in which we change society, but they are by no means the only way - and if they become too compromised by the status quo, too obsessed with 'managing decline' and ameliorating cuts, they actually become actively counter-productive.

I am an anti-capitalist, left-wing Green. I am anti-capitalist because I believe that capitalism cannot deliver a sustainable society, and I am left-wing because I believe that a sustainable society without equality, social justice and peace would not be worth living in or fighting for. I believe that the most important function of Green representatives is to provide leadership in empowering their communities, in restoring cohesion amongst people, in creating solidarity and communication that has been ripped apart by capitalism and modern society. Green representatives should be the catalysts for true 'people power' - not the administrators of neo-liberalism.

If people aren't happy with using the word 'left', I don't really mind. What is important is the policy that is put forward, the vision for radical change, and the actions in practice. As long as those are socially just, and move against the system that commodifies nature and people, I don't care what you call it!

Matt

P.S. The most interesting comment to the last post was from DarrenJ, who said that he was happy for the Greens to be a progressive 'centre left' party, but not a 'far left' party. Does this mean that it is OK for Greens to be social democrats, but not anti-capitalists? And if so....can we really get to a sustainable society by reforming the current system? I don't think so - perhaps others disagree.

Two more campaigns to support

2007-05-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

There are a number of campaigns that I am actively involved with at the moment. Two of them are supporting the striking workers at the City Council's park and ride sites, and opposing the plans for an Academy School at the Peers site.

The Park and Ride workers first. I want to start with an admission. I voted for the original City Council budget that had the introduction of lone working at night for the Park and Ride workers. As anyone who knows about local government will confirm, the money available to councillors shrinks year on year on year - and the £100,000 proposed to be saved from lone working was one of the Transport and Parking Business Unit's 'efficiency savings' for the year - one of scores of savings from across the authority, to meet our ever shrinking budget. While I, and the Green Group, were not happy with it, we hadn't received much complaint about it from the unions or from the workers concerned - and so when putting together our budget, we concentrated on reversing cuts that council workers and our local communities *had* made a big fuss about - things like investment in renewable energy, support for allotments, support for vulnerable families and so on.

Then the strike action began, and it became clear that a mistake had been made. It was immediately obvious that the workers involved felt far more strongly about the issue of lone working than we had realised when setting the budget. We set out to discuss the issue in depth with both of the other main political groups, the management and the unions - and after deliberation, decided that the strikers are right. The imposition of lone working on staff who had not been employed on those terms and conditions, particularly at night, is not an acceptable saving. Therefore the Green Group is now calling for the Council to spend £100,000 of its reserves (it has more than enough in this financial year to reverse the cut) on reinstating the old rotas in our Park and Ride car parks, and to scrap lone working.

The current situation is that the Green Group and the IWCA support the strikers, while the Labour and Lib Dem Groups support the management stance. I am now working on persuading the other political groups that we all made a mistake when setting the budget, and that we should listen to what council workers are telling us about their concerns over safety. Real political leadership is, I think, about examining the situation afresh and admitting when you are wrong - not refusing to change positions just because it might look embarassing. The strikers have my full support.

Donations to the UNISON branch hardship fund and messages of support should be sent to: UNISON Office, St. Aldate's Chambers, 109 St Aldate's, Oxford, OX1 1DS Cheques should be made out to ‘UNISON Oxford City Branch’ You can contact the branch on unison@oxford.gov.uk, or call 01865 252672.

As for the Peers Academy plans? Well, its hard to know what to say to such a stupid scheme - so typical of this government and its bizarre determination to involve the private sector in everything, regardless of common sense. For a small investment, BMW, Oxford Brookes and the Diocese of Oxford will be able to appoint the majority of governors to the new school, manipulate the curriculum and gain control of £22 million of public funding for education. The mind boggles. Why on earth New Labour want to further gut local democracy in this fashion is beyond me.

See www.antiacademies.org.uk for more details on the idiocy of schemes like this!

Motorways vs renewable energy

2007-05-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, once I start posting again, you can't stop me. Mostly because I remember all the idiocies of the current political system that I wanted to blog about. Top of the list is this:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2073611,00.html

Right - so - £21 million for 1 mile of motorway widening. The sum total of the entire Low Carbon Buildings grant programme? £18 million.

Vote Labour. Get an apocalypse.

Matt

Local elections

2007-05-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

We have entered a time of change in British politics, and no doubt about it. The Green Party are, of course, still a relatively small element in the political scene, and it would be foolish to claim otherwise. We do, however, have the potential to rapidly expand to fill the space 'left of Labour' that is such a gaping hole at the moment - and personally I certainly hope that we manage to do so. British politics desperately needs a left party that also has a functioning internal democracy, and that believes in local democracy and participatory economics.

However, we Greens have to be honest. Most Green bloggers have been hailing the local election results (with even the obvious regret over the number of returning Green MSPs tempered by a conclusion that 'at least we avoided wipeout like the other small parties) - and yes, they are pleasing. Brighton doubling its representation to twelve, Lancaster gaining five, Norwich continuing to expand, and a whole host of new councils with Green representation - of course I'm happy too. After all, we were the only party to have a net gain of councillors in double figures, apart from the Tories. HOWEVER - we have to recognise that we are still nowhere near the influence that we need to have, given the depth of the ecological and social crisis gripping our planet. 110 councillors is decent...more than decent, given our resources. But the fact remains that 110 councillors is where we should have been in the 80s. Given public awareness of 'our issues', given the widespread yearning for an alternative - we need to up our game, and do it fast.

That is one of the reasons that Oxford East Greens have selected Peter Tatchell as our Parliamentary candidate. We need a dynamic, eloquent, experienced campaigner, to catalyse ourselves into doing more than we ever thought we could. No longer should we be satisfied with the 'balance of power' on the City Council - though of course it is a powerful position - we must aim to become the main opposition party, and then control the Council, along with representation in Parliament. An astonishingly difficult and ambitious goal - don't think, as Elections Co-ordinator for Oxfordshire, that I don't realise this - but also the only goal that is going to begin to establish us as a serious, credible, powerful alternative to politics as usual.

We need to up our game across the country. Lets start today.

Matt

Apologies!

2007-05-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

OK - I doubt anyone is reading this blog anymore, given the criminally long time since I have last posted anything. I have two excuses - the first involves becoming Oxfordshire Green Party Elections Co-ordinator during the run up to the local elections and when we were selecting our candidate for the next General Election in Oxford East...the second involves getting progressively more frustrated with Blogger and its (being polite) 'eccentricities'.

However, May 3rd has passed, and I am back! First coherent post tomorrow, I hope...

Matt

Whats wrong with the Stern Report?

2007-01-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all!

This is the best analysis of the Stern Report that I have read so far, and one with which I almost entirely agree:

http://caractacus.wordpress.com/2006/12/31/2007-will-brown-do-anything-about-climate-change-or-just-try-to-make-money-off-it/

In fact, I'd recommend reading the entire blog - excellent stuff!

Matt

Doomed, I tell you...

2006-12-19T03:32:00.000-08:00

And, as if we need more proof about why we really shouldn't be building massive carbon intensive new retail developments, the following article provides it. I normally don't like cutting and pasting things - but this is serious enough to warrant it:

This year will be Britain's warmest since records began, say scientists

· Surge in temperature astounds weather experts
· Man - not nature - is to blame, researchers say

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian

Britain is on course for the warmest year since records began, according to figures from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia yesterday. Temperatures logged by weather stations across England reveal 2006 to have been unusually mild, with a mean temperature of 10.84C. The record beats the previous two joint hottest years of 1999 and 1990 by 0.21C.

Temperatures in central England have been recorded since 1659, the world's longest climate record, and they indicate the trend towards warming weather across Britain as a whole.

Experts are convinced that the warming can only be explained by rising greenhouse gases from human activity and rule out the impact of natural variations, such as the sun's intensity. "Our climate models show we should be getting warmer and drier weather in the summer, and warmer and wetter in the winter, and that's exactly what we're seeing," said Phil Jones, director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. "I cannot see how else this can be explained."

Soaring summer temperatures and an exceptionally warm autumn were the main forces driving annual temperatures to record levels, with July being the warmest month ever recorded at 19.7C and September an exceptional 16.8C. The summer heatwave was caused by a high pressure weather system loitering over the Alps from July to August. Highs are associated with air currents that spin clockwise, so on the western side Britain was warmed by air sucked up from north Africa. The high brought chilly northerlies down to east European countries.

In July, temperatures reached 33C (91F) across an area of central and southern England from Hereford to Bedfordshire, with 29.5C recorded at Prestwick, near Glasgow, and 30C in Castlederg, Northern Ireland. The heatwave put the Department of Health on level three alert - one away from emergency levels - and elderly and vulnerable people were advised to drink lots, stay out of the sun in the afternoon and wear loose clothing.

In the autumn, predominantly south-westerly air currents brought warm air to southern Britain from Spain and Portugal.

The record year has astounded scientists. "What's phenomenal about this year is that some of these months have broken records by incredible amounts. This year it was 0.8C warmer in autumn and 0.5C warmer between April and October than the previous warmest years. Normally these records are broken by around one tenth of a degree or so," said Prof Jones.

A study this year by Peter Stott at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change found that warming over the past 50 years could only be explained by climbing emissions of greenhouse gases. A 1C rise in the past five decades was only reproduced by climate models when human-induced greenhouse gas emissions were included.

In 2004 Dr Stott and scientists at Oxford University showed that human emissions of greenhouse gases had more than doubled the risk of record-breaking heatwaves such as the one reckoned to have killed 27,000 people across Europe in 2003. The Met Office figures show that 2006 is set to be 1.37C warmer than the mean temperature logged over the four decades from 1961. The previous two hottest years, 1990 and 1999, both recorded mean temperatures of 10.63C.

All of the 10 warmest years in Britain have occurred in the past 18 years, except the fourth hottest, when in 1949 the year's mean temperature reached 10.62C.

Other figures released by the Met Office yesterday reveal that global temperatures have risen too, with 2006 on track to become the sixth warmest year since records began in 1850. The latest figures mean that the 10 warmest years ever have all occurred in the past 12 years. Some scientists already predict a warmer year in 2007, in large part because of a natural phenomenon called El Niño in the eastern Pacific, which is expected to have a profound effect on climate.

Mild warming is not expected to be overly problematic for the UK, but the trend towards drier summers has already seen a two-year drought devastate groundwater supplies in southern England, while sudden downpours have triggered flash flooding. Though scientists are not able to pin a single year's record temperatures on global warming, the long-term trend towards a warming climate is now irrefutable, they claim, and should be taken seriously by policy makers.

"The government is making many of the right noises, but we really should be doing more," said Prof Jones. "We were the first country to industrialise, why can't we become the first to really reduce our emissions? I despair when I hear the government talking about extensions to airports, when air travel is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. It's as if there's a belief in government that this will sort itself out."

I cannot properly express how worrying this is. Not only are things steadily getting warmer (which we already knew) - but they are getting warmer *fast*. As Professor Phil Jones from UEA puts it in the article: "What's phenomenal about this year is that some of these months have broken records by incredible amounts. This year it was 0.8C warmer in autumn and 0.5C warmer between April and October than the previous warmest years. Normally these records are broken by around one tenth of a degree or so."

Temperature jumps of half a degree C and more in one year? Welcome to the future.

Matt

Westgate - the final chapter?

2006-12-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

So - Ruth Kelly has declined to 'call in' the Westgate application for a public inquiry....and it looks as if the centre is going to be built - and sod the human rights of the people living at Abbey Place. Why am I not surprised at that decision by a Labour minister? Ah well - at least no-one can accuse us of not giving the effort to stop this idiocy our all.....

You win some, you lose some. It's just a shame that people fighting for cohesive local communities, environmental sanity and an end to retail addiction seem to lose more than they win these days.

Labour and BAE

2006-12-15T02:39:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I helped to do the research with CorporateWatch that led to the production of their report on BAE Systems - available at: http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=183

Having immersed myself in the dirty world of BAE and their corrupt dealings with mass-murdering dictators, I couldn't quite work out why I was surprised by the news that Tony Blair has ordered the Serious Fraud Office to discontinue its investigation into the Al-Yammamah arms deal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6181977.stm). After all, Its hardly news to anyone who knows anything about Labour that they are completely in thrall to big business.

Having thought about it for a few moments, though, I've decided that it has to do with the sheer, obvious corruption behind this decision. Labour have always at least had the decency to shroud their moral bankruptcy in a sheen of PR - no longer, it seems. An ethical foreign policy is not only dead, it has been exhumed, drawn and quartered, and cremated. Meanwhile the pitiful shell of the Labour Party staggers onwards, totally bereft of even the thought that accomodation to massive business corruption might not be a good idea. Reclaiming the Labour Party? Don't make me laugh.

Matt

Public cynicism

2006-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

OK, I'll admit it. I was grumpy today even before I saw the Oxford Mail - having gone to bed with England cruising towards a comfortable draw in the Second Test, I woke up to find them having collapsed to defeat. Enough to send any cricket lover slightly around the bend. However, it was the Oxford Mail that really put me in a bad mood. 'Is Your Councillor Worth Their Expenses?' asked the blatantly leading headline, with the main body of the article full of quotes bemoaning the 'grossly overpaid' councillors and their fat cat lifestyles.

Utter, complete and total codswallop - and what is worse, the Oxford Mail journalists, who get closer to the process of local government than most, know that to be true. I'd be the first to admit that there are many things wrong with local politics, and that not every councillor is as effective or competent as they should be - but to suggest that an average allowance of just £5,000 per annum is too much to pay councillors is ludicrous. I probably put in a good 15 hours in an average week on council work - the equivalent of two days pay. If I was being paid pro-rata, I'd be on £12,500 - in Oxford, with a mortgage to pay. Such low allowances already make it difficult for anyone except rich, retired people to get involved in local politics - just look at the average age of Oxfordshire County Council, or the constant attrition of younger councillors who begin to feel the need to (shock, horror) get paid for work. Is the Oxford Mail really advocating a return to the days when only those who could afford to be elected should represent the population of Oxford? It was noteable that, in a throwaway sentence in the middle of the article, the journalist noted that Oxford's councillors already receive allowances that are significantly below the average for the rest of the South East of England - and that recommendations for allowances are set by an independent panel, not councillors.

Really, though, I'm not as surprised as I sound at the sensationalism of the Oxford Mail - you get used to things being inaccurately reported as a councillor. What I am concerned at is not so much the individual story, though it was galling...but more the atmosphere of public cynicism that papers such as the Mail seem determined to engender. When there is so much good reason for the public to distrust politicians and the political process, creating another reason not based on the facts seems even more dishonest. From reading the local paper, you'd think that most councillors are greedy, indolent imbeciles who delight in wasting public money. In fact, far from it. I disagree (often virulently) with many council colleagues - but the majority are public-spirited, hard working, genuinely altruistic people who are doing their best to give something back to the community - and spending time doing it that could easily be used to earn much much more money than their council allowances provide. Why can't the media let us disagree on policy issues, and generate a real debate about the future direction of our city - rather than focusing on which councillors use their childcare allowances, or attend Rememberance Sunday?

Matt

P.S. I'll get off my high horse as soon as the Oxford Mail runs a story along the lines of 'Many journalists fail to research stories properly, shock probe reveals....'. I won't hold my breath.

89th Best Green...

2006-11-26T16:34:00.000-08:00

...or 89th best Green blog, at least, is my official rating - according to www.jimjay.blogspot.com

Apparently where I slipped up is frequency of posts (its a fair cop, guvnor) and unimaginative design (also fair). However, I am preparing to make my annual New Years resolution to improve my posting regularity - I promise, I will try harder!

For now, if you'd like some interesting Green thoughts, check out the 88 Green bloggers who are better than me - the full list is available at http://socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/activate/greenbloggers.htm

Also - an intriguing, close and ultimately surprising election result this week - fellow 'Green Left' supporter Derek Wall has become Male Principal Speaker of the Green Party, defeating Keith Taylor by about 750 votes to 700 (with Ashley Gunstock coming in third place). I must admit that my appalling record of predicting election results continues - I thought the Lib Dems would take control of the Council in May, that the Republicans would keep control of the Senate earlier this month, and that Keith would be re-elected as Principal Speaker. If you ever want to know how things are going to go - just ask me to make a prediction, and the opposite will invariably happen!

Matt

P.S. I confidently predict that Tony Blair will certainly NOT be indicted for war crimes. Oh no.

Green Party Students

2006-11-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

I feel that I should snap out of my Westgate irritation for a few moments to let people know about the really good work that OU Green Party Students are doing this year. We've already had two GPS talks - Paul Ingram talking about Green Party foreign policy, and Cllr Keith Taylor from Brighton talking about nuclear energy and renewable power. Both of them took place during our Friday organic lunches - 12.30 pm every other Friday, with free organic soup, bread, cheese and fruit...without a doubt the best meal that I get to eat all week!

The next two promise to be really interesting as well...on November 10th we are hosting Sian Berry (the Party's new Female Principal Speaker and hopefully soon to become a Camden councillor), and on the 24th we will have a speaker from Oxford-based Corporate Watch, speaking on the topic 'Is corporate social responsibility a contradiction in terms?'

If you're interested in getting involved, or just being added to our email list so that you can hear about these kinds of events in the future, then email our Co-ordinator at thomas.lowe[at]hertford.ox.ac.uk

Best wishes,

Matt

Westgate approved

2006-10-31T02:27:00.000-08:00

NEWSFLASH - The Westgate application was approved yesterday evening by the City Council's Strategic Development Control Committee, 7 votes to 4. I'm pleased to say that both Greens voted against it.

I'd hope that the Leader of the Council's proclamation that 'we are all environmentalists' now is turning to ashes in his mouth - but, in reality, I doubt he even sees the contradiction...

Matt

Westgate

2006-10-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised a proper post, and here it is. Apologies as ever for my sporadic blogging habits - but I hope that the last post but one explains why things have been quite hectic and difficult with me lately! As usual, when I am busiest with council work is exactly when I have least time to blog....and so appear like I'm not doing anything...

Lots of stuff has been happening in the last month, including the resignation of the Council's Chief Executive, the reordering of the Green Group's 'shadow portfolios' and the usual whirl of campaigns and motions. HOwever, without a doubt the biggest thing that I have been involved in has been the application to massively expand the size of the Westgate shopping centre. I have been purposefully keeping quiet on this one, so that I could have my say having considered all the evidence in the Officers Report - but now that I have voiced my opinion in the Area Committee (I was the only councillor to vote against the application in the final vote, which was 4-1 in favour of the plans due to the barring of my fellow Green Sushila Dhall) I can explain my reasoning.

I think that approving the Westgate expansion (the binding vote is due to be taken on 30th october by the Strategic Development Control Committee, and it is then sent to the Secretary of State for her approval) would be a strategic blunder of the highest order for Oxford. Simply put, we are a medieval city, with historical charm and historical infrastructure to match - we are not Milton Keynes, nor are we reading, and 'competing' in simple retail terms with them is insanity. THis might seem obvious, but believe it or not such arguments of 'the need for competitiveness' (shades of WTO advocates, writ local) are the main drivers for the Westgate development.

There are literally scores of reasons to oppose this development, but my objections really centre around three areas - the transport implications, the environmental implications, and the housing implications. Needless to say, all of these are underpinned by my belief that ever increasing retail and never ending economic growth is counterproductive.

1) Transport implications. As mentioned above, Oxford is a medieval city, with infrastructure to match. It is already creaking at the seams, and anyone who regularly travels around Botley Road, Abingdon Road, or Magdalen bridge, will be able to tell you that. Trying to cram in tens of thousands more people to service this massively expanding retail centre (three times as big as the current site!) is insanity. Botley Road will completely grind to a halt, the railway bridge will become all the more dangerous, and life actually *living* in the city centre will be made miserable. This is not to mention the fact that the application makes it almost impossible to ever remove buses from Queen Street - a stated goal of the City Council, but one that other councillors seem able to simply forget when the juicy apple of the Westgate is dangled in front of them.

2) Environmental implications. Well, where do I start? Air pollution, perhaps - we have a statuatory obligation to reduce the appalling levels of NO2 in the atmosphere....so, of course, approving an application which will increase bus and car movements in the city centre is the move of a genius. Places like Tennyson Lodge will become almost unliveable. And then there's climate change - the topic that I spent most of my speech at Area Committee talking about. This application drives a coach and horses through our recently adopted NRIA policy (which regular readers will know I spent years helping to push through the Council). The *first* application that we consider with the new NRIA, and it doesn't even come CLOSE to meeting the renewable energy requirements. It fails on all scores - it doesn't meet the overal minimum score, it fails individual elements of the NRIA completely - the approval of this application reveals the support of other councillors for our radical NRIA policy for what it really is. A sham. When it comes to putting their money where their mouth is on climate change, non-Green councillors have failed, pitifully.

The officers reply to this rant was that such a development cannot be made environmentally sustainable under the terms of the NRIA and 'remain economically viable'. Other councillors seem to accept this - while my reply is, if it cannot be made environmentally sustainable then IT SHOULD NOT BE BUILT.

3) Housing implications. As if the above wasn't enough, the application will demolish 18 purpose built homes for elderly and vulnerable people in Abbey Place - a community that has been built and developed over decades. In return, on this massive site in the city centre, worth tens of millions of pounds and largely owned by the City Council, the application will deliver just over 120 homes...only half of them 'affordable units', owned by housing associations (not the council). This will not be enough even to meet the housing need of the people coming into Oxford to *work* at the Westgate - far from alievating housing need in the city, the development will make it even worse, and tear apart one of the few functioning housing communities remaining in the city centre.

Overall, this application is a disaster. It is a disaster not because the Westgate Partnership are a particularly evil example of rapacious capitalists - but because of what it is. It is an attempt to build a massive, unsustainable retail behemoth in the middle of a medieval town - and it will not work. If SDCC approve the application, they will be doing Oxford an enormous disservice.

Matt

John Denham goes mad

2006-10-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

OK - a proper post soon, I promise. But for now, just enjoy the sheer lunacy of this suggestion by Labour MP John Denham (who, formerly, I had some time for due to his principled resignation over Iraq):

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1932173,00.html

The poor should get longer sentences because they have more time on their hands?

Words fail me. I honestly can't think of what to write to properly comment on the idiocy of this proposal - or what it says about the depths to which the Labour Party has sunk.

My favourite bit is this:

'Mr Denham's comments are likely to enrage civil liberties campaigners on the grounds that they amount to discrimination against the poor.'

Those crazy, lentil eating, sandal wearing civil liberty campaigners - now they're against discrimination versus the poor? Whatever next? A ban on public beheadings? John Reid for PM!

We live in a very very strange political climate, and no mistake.

Matt

RIP Richard Sexton

2006-09-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Richard Sexton was my colleague and friend, as well as an inspirational activist for social justice and the environment. His tragic death from cancer at the age of only 46 is not only a blow to the Climate Outreach and Information Network, but to everyone working on these issues. His wisdom and calm inspiration will be greatly missed.

RIP Richard. We'll miss you.

Matt

Solidarity needed

2006-09-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

It'd be great if you could sign up to the solidarity statement below. I knew Robin in my first year at Oxford - but even if I hadn't met him, this would be completely unacceptable. I'm glad to say that a good number of Green Party members have already signed up - it'd be appreciated if you could too!

Matt

*******************************************************************************

On 7 September, Tony Blair and Education Secretary Alan Johnson visited Quintin Kynaston school in north London to announce the first wave of 28 "trust schools" run by business, charitable and religious organisations - of which QK will be one of two in London. They were met by a demonstration, supported by Unison and NUT locally and School Students Against the War, and composed mainly of students from the school, expressing opposition to government policy on trust schools, privatisation and the wars in Iraq and Lebanon.

The initiator of this demonstration, QK classroom assistant Robin Sivapalan, has now been suspended from his job for "insubordination" and "breaching confidentiality" by informing people of Blair’s visit.

The attempt to victimise Robin is an attack on freedom of speech and the right to protest. We are not prepared to see public service trade unionists silenced when they dare to express opposition to government policy.

We the undersigned call on the management of Quintin Kynaston to immediately reinstate Robin Sivapalan and drop all disciplinary charges against him.

To sign email robin@free-education.org.uk. For more information and list of initial signatories see www.workersliberty.org/node/6909.

Back in circulation....

2006-08-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the near month-long hiatus - it wasn't the byelection that did for me (though I was knackered after it!) so much as some very bad news about a work colleague. I'm afraid to say, for those of you who know him, that Richard Sexton (my boss at COIN) is very ill...and unlikely to recover. Needless to say that has been emotionally draining, and has also meant greater responsibility for me at COIN. In between that and 'holding the fort' while most of the Green Group take well deserved holidays, blogging dropped off the end of my priorities for a little while...

I thought I had best post a little something though - and its about my old friends Capita. Regular readers will remember my kicking up a massive fuss about (failed) Labour/Lib Dem plans to privatise the Council's council tax collection service, with Capita being a prime candidate for the outsourcing contract. You might also remember that about six months ago, I was very uneasy about the awarding of a contract to Capita to chase the Council's old debts.

Well, surprise surprise, it didn't work out particularly well. Out of £1 million of debts, Capita managed to find just over £75,000 in six months - and only a small percentage of that went to the City Council (most of it to the County). So, as a City Council, we made a loss....the County refusing to contribute towards the collection expenses. Obviously, the rational and responsible response to this is to - continue the contract for another six months (???). Yes, thats exactly what the Executive Board decided to do yesterday, 6-1, with Labour voting for and only me (again!) voting against.

It is true that the Capita contract, while making a loss for the City Council, has made a profit for 'the people of Oxford'. However, one assumes that the £75,000 recovered in the last six months was the *easiest* debt to recover...and that the takings may well be lower this time, leading to even more cost to the Council. Secondly, no alternatives were presented to EB - we weren't told how much it would cost to employ staff 'in house' to do the same job, or how much 'value for money' we had gotten out of Capita. Lastly, and most worryingly, there was no mention (apart from mine) about the *principle* of being against giving public money to private corporations, especially ones with extremely poor records on labour rights. Apparently, thats not now part of Labour thinking. It certainly doesn't seem to be part of a Lib Dem worldview....

The Green Party, the only party willing to vote against forking out money to Capita. You heard it hear first (well OK, here and the Oxford Mail...)

Matt

By election disappointment

2006-07-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Ah well - not the result that we Greens were hoping for in the Hinksey Park byelection - our share of the vote stayed much the same (29%) while Labour's only dropped a couple of percentage points (46%). The Lib Dems came third rather than fourth this time...with the one ray of sunshine being the hilarious news that the Tory candidate (who is on the 'A-list' of Tory MP candidates) came dead last.

I must admit to being surprised, given that the Greens were standing a community activist who has lived in South Oxford for more than 20 years - and the Labour candidate had never lived in the ward and has no experience in community activism there. However, the voters have spoken...and interestingly, Labour are now the largest group on the Council again! Things have been changing fast in Oxford over the last few months.

On a personal note, my one dilemma at the by-election count wasn't how to treat the result (was too exhausted to do anything other than sit there!) - but how to deal with the presence of New Labour MP Andrew Smith - a man who I consider to be a war criminal. Not in the rhetorical, 'Trot' style of war criminal - but actually, seriously, a mass murderer. This is a man who I spent much of 2003 intensely hating - and yet, when I come across him in an election count, English civility and reserve seem to take over. Instead of yelling at him, or attempting a citizens arrest, I simply nodded uncomfortably when he tried to talk to me and then wandered off - feeling rather like an ethical cop out.

If any blog readers have any suggestions with how something like that should be dealt with by a relatively polite English activist - do let me know. I find it all very hard - social conditioning is weird!

Matt

NRIA achieved!

2006-07-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well, regular readers of this blog will have become sick and tired of my banging on about the NRIA - the 'Natural Resources Impact Assessment'. A Supplementary Planning Document, its been one of the things I have been working on since the formation of the 2005 Green Group budget. And yesterday, at long last, it was finally approved by Full Council and signed into legislative force.

Why is that important? Well, at a stroke, Oxford City Council has just become one of the leaders in sustainable planning policy. Unlike (as far as I am aware) any other council in the country, Oxford now has a MINIMUM requirement of 20% renewable energy on site, for all large developments (10 dwellings and over). Thats not all, as the NRIA also covers minimum requirements for energy efficiency, resource use, recycling, water usage, and a whole host of other sustainability issues.

It's particularly heartening to see the NRIA come into effect, as it was almost entirely a Green Party effort. The provision for the NRIA was introduced into the Local Plan by the late Cllr Mike Woodin - and we wouldn't even have started writing it by now but for the Green Group providing extra resources in our 2005 budget for it to get under way. Then it was amended, by the Greens, to be more radical before it went out to public consultation - and all of our suggestions made it into the final document. This is a radical piece of policy, instigated by Greens, funded by Greens, and shepherded through the legislative process by Greens. I'm very proud of it.

Now, of course, the task is for councillors of all parties to *implement* the requirements of the NRIA on the ground. I hope they will all set to the task with determination.

Matt

P.S. Before anyone comments - yes, the NRIA requirements are not enough. Not nearly enough. We need to go further, faster - but this is a start...and we'll build on it, don't worry about that!

CSW Area Committee - July

2006-07-12T04:51:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday evenings Area Committee was a marathon - and we didn't get anywhere near finishing all of the business. We almost got through all of the planning items, and the public discussion on residents parking charges...and only good chairing by Colin Cook ensured that we got that far!

Perhaps I'm too mechanistic about these things, but I tend to score meetings that I have been in as positive or negative. I think this one probably came out a 1-1 draw. The positives were the large turnout (prompted by the consultation on residents car parking charges, the Jericho Boatyard fencing application and other controversial issues), the miraculous appearance of someone (none other than the Leader) from the
County Council, and the rejection of the razor wire fence around the boatyard. The negative was the (to me) utterly inexplicable decision to reject four units of zero-carbon housing in Jericho.

So - to go into more detail. The brave Cllr Keith Mitchell was first up, listening to scores of residents telling him exactly what they thought of residents car parking charges - followed by city councillors saying exactly the same! Cllr Dhall and I tried to impress on him the same point that we have been making for months - that he *could* have had Green support for his scheme, had it been fair and empowering for people in Oxford. Instead, he proposes to charge residents in Oxford while at the same time continuing to provide FREE evening and weekend parking for commuters (who happen to largely vote Tory) and taking the money raised out of Oxford to spend on road improvements in places like Abingdon and Henley. No thanks. Greens would charge for parking only if the money was ringfenced for improvements for Oxford's pedestrians, cyclists and public spaces....not to make it easier to commute into Oxford by car.

So, that was fun - and then we moved onto the police consultation, which largely consisted of us being told that we needed to 'crack down' on beggars and rough sleepers. The solution to other local authorities introducing a local connection policy (where they tell vulnerable people to bugger off if they weren't born in
their area, basically) is not to persuade them to stop it - apparently its to introduce one ourselves. Over my dead body, is what I basically said.

Then planning - and an extraordinarily heated and emotive debate over the fence at Jericho Boatyard. Philip Pullman wrote a wonderfully eloquent submission, and eight local people spoke of their shock and horror at the 'desecration' of their community. It was made even more interesting by the fact that it was being videoed by a film crew, for a documentary on the Boatyard! The officers were recommending a compromise (a fence with no razor wire and nice murals) but we rejected the fence altogether. I hope that British Waterways will see sense and not appeal - but as they haven't seen sense thus far, I have a heavy heart about it all despite this victory.

Having made myself popular by coming down on the side of Jericho residents, I then made myself unpopular by virulently opposing the Jericho Community Association on the next planning item. I am still feeling pretty passionate about it, actually. Over a year ago, Morrels Brewery shut down the Globe pub in Jericho (by all accounts a good, family place) and said that they would never run it as a pub again. Yesterday, Ray Foulks (a local environmentalist and architect) came forward with a scheme to turn the derelict building into four units of zero carbon 'showhome' housing. Astoundingly, to my mind, the Community Association chose to reject this in favour of continuing their (I fear ultimately doomed) campaign against the closure of the pub. Even more astoundingly, four of my six colleagues on the Area Committee supported this view - including (so you don't think this is a party political point) my Green colleague.

For us to be turning down the best scheme of climate friendly housing I have seen in my time as a councillor is absolutely, totally and completely insane. It flies in the face of all the Council's public pronouncements, its core planning policies, and the Area Committees own Area Plan committment towards promoting low carbon lifestyles. Of course I have sympathy with the campaign to preserve a local pub - but the pub is long dead, and I would be astounded if it ever re-emerged. It simply isn't profitable enough for Morrells to re-establish. So, zero carbon housing sacrificed for what will now remain a derelict building....I really was lost for words.

So, overall? A 1-1 draw. As in most Area Committees, some good, some bad. The main problem, of course, is the astoundingly ponderous and lengthy agenda, which meant that we didn't get anywhere close to finishing (and I've left out a number of items in this brief summary). If we want ACs to be accesible to the general public, we really do have to think about how we manage our business - here's hoping that the Lib Dems can work with Greens and other parties to improve the process and help Area Committees really achieve their potential.

Matt

The recycling saga

2006-07-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

The round of committee meetings roll on and on - and I've just come back from a special Environment Scrutiny Committee meeting, which made the much-heralded 'new and improved' recycling scheme even more confusing (if such a thing were possible). The scheme originated with 500,000 quid of investment in the Green budget of February 2005, and was developed into a fully worked up scheme by Labour for the Budget of February 2006. However, since it was quite a radical departure (fortnightly collections of 'normal' rubbish, a massive expansion in the type of materials collected, new wheelie bins and so on) it became a major election issue - the Lib Dems promised to delay the scheme somewhat to consult the public more.

I had *thought* that at Full Council a fortnight ago, we had finally established what the new scheme would look like - green waste and cardboard (already being collected in a pilot scheme in North Oxford) to be rolled out everywhere in the city in September, and the large expansion of other recyclables to be phased in - and completed across the city by April 2007.

However, it seems that the Lib Dem Portfolio Holder didn't actually ask officers if this was possible! So we were treated to the bizarre sight today of Cllr Jean Fooks advocating a course of action (as above) that her own officers were telling the committee wasn't advisable. According to their advice, collecting green waste and cardboard together isn't sustainable - and will have to end soon. So if we roll it out across the city, we will have to change the scheme AGAIN within a few months! This wouldn't be a problem - apart from the fact that the Lib Dems had already declared what they were going to do...

So, it will be interesting to see what exactly the administration decides to do. I wish they would just work out exactly what is feasible and DO it - rather than changing their minds every five minutes. If I find it difficult to follow, then god knows how an ordinary member of the public is meant to work it all out!

On top of all this is the fact that this scheme will only apply to houses anyway - most people in blocks of flats will be left with the old, restricted scheme - and that includes everyone who gets their recycling collected through the University. One of my main projects in the next year will be pushing the administration to expand recycling across the city - regardless of where people live.

Matt

NHS privatisation and by-elections

2006-06-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

My apologies for not having blogged about the numerous different committee meetings I have been in - some of them quite interesting. My excuse is that the Oxford City Council soap-opera continues, with Labour councillor Rick Muir resigning last week, and Lib Dem councillor Saj Malik 'crossing the floor' to the Labour Group a couple of days ago. Labour and the Lib Dems now have 17 councillors each, and with the by-election for Rick Muir's seat (in Hinksey Park, where the Greens came second in May and where we already have both County Council seats) swinging into gear, I haven't really had time to do anything except canvass, write leaflets and work....

However, I did have time today to note that whenever I think Labour have become as right-wing as they possibly can, they prove me wrong:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1809526,00.html

NHS running into problems? £25 billion cost of replacing Trident could provide decent healthcare and plug the deficits? Nooo...just privatise the whole shebang. Idiots!

Matt

ASDA strike

2006-06-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

As if the nightmare at Campsfield House wasn't enough, a showdown between trade unionism and one of the behemoths of multinational capitalism is looming - the GMB has just voted to strike at ASDA/Walmart's distribution centres. I note that my colleague Cllr Stephen Tall has posted at his blog (www.oxfordliberal.blogspot.com) about his support for supermarkets - I can only repeat his assessment of me...'nice guy, shame about the politics!'. Speaking personally, I think supermarkets are an ethical and environmental disaster zone. Why? I can't put it any better than Corporate Watch and their assessment of ASDA:

http://archive.corporatewatch.org/profiles/asda/asda1.htm

Of course, the Green Party is going to be up front in our support of workers struggling against ASDA (pity the poor corporation, who only made over 750 million quid of profit this year)- and we will continue to make the case that only a decentralisation and relocalisation of our economies will truly solve the problems with which they are currently faced.

GREEN PARTY SUPPORTS ASDA STRIKE

The Green Party of England and Wales today announced that it is in full
support of the strike at Asda/Walmart distribution centres, called for
a five day period between June 30th and July 4th. 74% of the GMB members
balloted approved of the strike, which has been called to demand that
Asda/Walmart allow national collective bargaining across its distribution
centres, and that conditions for HGV drivers and manual workers are
improved.

Cllr Matt Sellwood, who is a member of the Green Party National
Executive, commented: "Asda/Walmart has a long history of
anti-union activity - earlier this year it was fined £850,000 after
attempting to bribe workers into rejecting collective bargaining. The
Green Party recognises that Asda and other supermarket chains are only
interested in maximising their profit - and that this comes at the
expense of the environment, the consumer and their own workers. In the
short-term, we want supermarket workers to be allowed to organise
themselves and claim their rights - and in the long-term, we need a
shift back to local food and local employment - which will ensure that
multinational corporations stop leeching money away from ordinary people."

The GMB union has already raised concerns that Asda/Walmart will attempt
to break the strike by illegally using agency workers to replace those on
strike. Cllr Matt Sellwood added: "The Government must enforce the law
and refuse to allow Asda/Walmart to break this strike. The UK currently
has the most restrictive anti-union laws in Europe, and the Green Party
would support their repeal. Union members must be allowed to effectively
organise in the workplace."

ENDS

Campsfield House hunger strike

2006-06-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

I hope this press release speaks for itself. Campsfield House remains an
abomination.

Matt

***************************************

GREEN PARTY CONDEMNS CAMPSFIELD HOUSE - SUPPORTS HUNGER STRIKERS

The Green Party of England and Wales today reiterated its condemnation of the inhumane detention of asylum seekers across the UK, and in particular
the situation at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. Over 100 detainees,
detained without trial for an indefinite period, are currently on hunger
strike in protest at the conditions within the infamous detention centre.

Councillor Matt Sellwood, who is Deputy Leader of the Oxford City
Council Green Group and Home Affairs spokesperson for the South East
Region Green Party, commented: "The Green Party has long been opposed
to the detention of asylum seekers. By treating vulnerable people like
criminals, we are violating our obligations to provide a safe haven for
the victims of persecution."

The administration of Campsfield House was recently taken over by GEO
(Global Expertise in Outsourcing), formerly known as Wackenhut - a
multinational corporation with a reputation for harsh treatment of
prisoners. GEO have already cut the hours available to detainees for
educational activities, and reports indicate that they have been treating
detainees in the same fashion as they treat criminals in their penal
facilities.

Cllr Sellwood continued: "The Green Group has already passed a successful motion through the City Council calling for the closure of Campsfield
House, and other district councils in Oxfordshire have expressed the
same sentiment. Its existence is a stain on the conscience of our town.
We call on the government to heed the protests of the detainees and to
treat them like human beings. We would welcome them into our community,
if only Labour would let us."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Below is the letter written by the hunger strikers in Campsfield House,
with which the Green Party expresses its solidarity:

"We are detainees at Campsfield removal centre in Oxford. Most of us have been here for a long while now. There are people who have been detained for up to two years and down to three months. We are cramped in here like animals. We are treated like animals and moved around different detention centres like animals. The immigration service have taken husbands from their families and taken people who ran away from persecution in their various countries, and dumped everyone in here. Once you are put in here the immigration service forget you. There are detainees who have applied to go back to their own countries that are still being held here for months without any news about their cases, just so that the private security companies get more money.

Detainees are asked to seek asylum and then refused. The immigration service also ask detainees to apply for bail. When you get a bail hearing date all of a sudden they serve you with removal papers that are not valid. There are many of these situations. In most cases the immigration service don't take you to your court hearings. And then they tell the judges you refused to turn up, just so the hearing goes ahead in your absence. Many detainees have been served with removal papers and travel documents but nothing happens on the removal day.

Campsfield has become a slave house. We detainees are treated like slaves, to do odd jobs for officers. Detainees are handcuffed to see doctors or dentists in hospitals or clinic appointments. We have some racist security officers who make racist comments to detainees and go out of their way to make you feel like committing suicide. Detainees have to be at the point of death before they get to see the doctors.

The food is not worth eating. Even dogs would refuse to eat what we eat. But we don't have a choice; every single day we eat the same food."

Bonn Square

2006-06-14T04:29:00.000-07:00

Back from the theoretical to the practical! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend Central, South and West Area Committee last night as something came up at the last minute (however hard you try to plan, sometimes these things happen I guess). It was a shame as I wanted very much to hear the presentation about the new plans for Bonn Sqaure, and to comment on them.

I'm mostly in favour of the new plans, which were granted planning permission last night. This came as a shock to one objector, who was very annoyed that as a Green I didn't automatically object to the loss of the Bonn Square trees (albeit with replacements being planted as part of the new scheme). I must admit, I got rather grumpy at this - I can't stand the stereotype that assumes that a 'Green politician' must automatically assume an attitude of protecting trees/'nature' at the expense of any other priority. Bonn Square currently is a complete mess - and it urgently needs a new scheme of renovation. If we can come up with a new public space, which is welcoming and provides facilities for the city centre community, then quite frankly I can bear the loss of a few trees (although I would, obviously, prefer a scheme without any such loss). The current Bonn Square is horrible, and no amount of trees would make it any nicer while problems of layout and usage continue to plague it.

So no, it wasn't the trees that worried me - but the 'LED screens' that formed part of the application. For the life of me, I can't imagine why the architects want to waste yet more energy by installing massive flat-screen projectors in the middle of what is meant to be a new public space. That, combined with the fact that we are not using the Bonn Square redevelopment to *insist* on the absolute pedestrianisation of Queen Street, is my problem. If the new scheme wasn't wasting energy and doing nothing to reduce air pollution, I'd be all for it. As it is - I have some serious doubts.

Of course, the vagaries of life meant that I couldn't make these points yesterday. I hope they will none the less be taken on board when the scheme begins to be developed.

Matt

Green Left statement

2006-06-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

So, what do I get up to outside the council chamber? Things like this - helping to pull together radical, left-wing members of the Green Party into a new organisation - 'Green Left'.

Matt

***************************************************************

Green Left Press Release: Thursday, 8th June, 2006

Launch of the Green Party Left

A new initative was launched on the 4th June by members of the Green Party, when
36
members including Green Party of England and Wales Executive members and
councilors
came together to agree the launch statement of Green Left, a socialist current
within the Green Party. The declaration (full version attached) states that
‘Green
Left’ hopes “to raise Green Party politics to meet the demands of its radical
policies. Green politics needs to be based on dynamic campaigning and hard
intellectual groundwork to create workable alternatives. “

The New Labour government’s abandonment of the policies of the left has left
millions unrepresented in this country. Green Left feels that the Green Party’s
progressive agenda makes it the natural home for the left. As the statement
reads
“[t]he time has come for drawing together forces that can present a serious
challenge to the disastrous neo-liberal project. We believe that 'another world
is
possible', based on ecological and socialist values.”

The statement is supported by leading Green Party members including executive
members Richard Mallender (Chair), Peter Cranie (Elections), Sian Berry
(Campaigns),
and Matthew Sellwood (Local Party Support Co-ordinator) as well as former Party
Chair Penny Kemp, Joseph Healey (Secretary of London Green Party), Peter Tatchell and Derek Wall,
writer and former Green Party national speaker. Cllr Sarah Farrow and Cllr Matt
Sellwood were elected as the co-conveners of the new group.

Cllr Sarah Farrow said that "Activists in the Green Party have founded Green
Left
because many Greens believe the only path to an ecological, economic and
socially
just and peaceful society has to be based on an anti capitalist political
agenda.

“Green Left is where like minded people can get together to debate how to bring
about the transition to an ecologically sustainable society. It is only the
Green
Party that has the policies and the political will to make these changes and we
urge
all like minded people to join us."

Cllr Matt Sellwood added "The Green Party is the natural home for all of those
activists who have been abandoned by the Labour Party or alienated by the
sectarianism of the far left. Green Left will seek to promote the existing
radical
policies of the Green Party, while continuing to emphasise the importance of
economic equality and social justice in a sustainable society. At a time when
the
three largest parties are competing for reactionary and right-wing votes, only
the
Green Party offers national momentum for the politics of the left."

Notes for journalists

Cllr Matt Sellwood is Deputy Leader of Oxford City Council Green Group, National
Secretary of the Association of Green Councillors, and a member of the GPEW
National
Executive

Cllr Sarah Farrow is a Headcorn Parish Councillor, Chair Of Headcorn
Sustainability Group

**********************************************************

Green Left Founding Statement 04/06/2006

Green Left has been launched as a network for socialists and other radicals in
the Green Party of England and Wales. It will act as an outreach body that will
communicate the party's radical policies to socialists and other
anti-capitalists outside the party.

Green Left (GL) is based on the assumption that capitalism is a system that
wrecks the planet and promotes war. A green society must be based on economic,
political and social justice. GL in short works to promote ecosocialism as a
solution to our planetary ills.

GL supports the democratic structures in the party and encourages transparency,
accountability and engagement in all organs of the party. We also see the Green
Party as a 'bottom up' political organisation where the principles of the
membership are paramount and not a 'top down' one where a self-designated
political elite decide on policies and principles.

GL aims to increase and improve the international links of the Green Party,
building links with radical greens and ecosocialists across the planet. It will
work closely with members of other European Green Parties to reform the workings
of the European Green Party structures that must be democratised. Green
politics must realise the slogan 'think globally, act locally' by linking
practical local campaigns to global issues of ecology, democracy, justice and
liberation.

GL aims to act within the Green Party so as to raise Green Party politics to
meet the demands of its radical policies. Green politics needs to be based on
dynamic campaigning and hard intellectual groundwork to create workable
alternatives.

GL aims to build regional campaigns and contribute to coalition-building through
coherent alignments and open discussion with progressive anti-capitalists. The
movement that is required to address the issues across Britain, Europe and the
world will not be the sole preserve of one party. The movement requires the
development of united action by progressive forces including organisations
formed by working people to defend their interests in the workplace. Within
this diverse movement GL will stand firmly in favour of the libertarian and
democratic traditions of ecosocialism.

It is vitally important that the Green Party works to develop the continuing
peace, environmental and social movements. An orientation to organised working
people through the Green Party Trade Union Group (GPTU) also requires maximum
support from GL, with the emphasis on supporting radical and rank and file
currents in the unions. Likewise, GL should seek to promote organisation and
solidarity amongst currently unorganised and marginalised groups.

GL will work to enhance Green Party contributions to demonstrations, marches and
other solidarity events. Greens must be active on issues that affect ordinary
working people in their everyday lives and aim to be known as amongst their
strongest defenders.

While GL is keen to build links with members of faith communities, and to fight
alongside them against intolerance and discrimination, it will not compromise on
human rights - including issues concerning women, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender communities, and people with disabilities.

Since the activism of William Morris in the Social Democratic Federation and
Socialist League in the late nineteenth century, there has been an ecosocialist
tradition in Britain. Green Left believes that ecosocialism provides an
alternative to a society based on alienation, economic exploitation, corporate
rule, ecological destruction and wars. Our analysis demands that in the best
tradition of the historic left we 'agitate, educate and organise' to build such
an alternative.

The time has come for drawing together forces that can present a serious
challenge to the disastrous neo-liberal project. We believe that 'another world
is possible', based on ecological and socialist values. In conclusion, Green
Left would work to enable you to live in a society based on peace, ecological
balance, economic equality and inclusion. Come and join us!

Council tax privatisation redux

2006-06-07T04:21:00.000-07:00

A warning first - this post may contain a larger than usual degree of smugness and gloating. My apologies.

Regular readers of this blog may recall my incandescent reaction when, during the Budget back in February, Labour Group proposed the outsourcing of council tax collection, and were supported by the Liberal Democrats. The Green Group were the only councillors to vote against it. At the time, we pointed out that the savings presented were fantasy, that outsourced council tax collection does not significantly improve performance but does significantly degrade democratic control - and that it was generally the worst ideas since Sedgefield Labour Party decided to nominate Anthony Blair as their candidate for Parliament....

Well, after a lot of fuss, mainly caused by the Green Group and UNISON (who, amazingly, had not been consulted at all on these proposals before they were proposed for the budget) the management consultants KPMG - not known for their left wing radical views - were brought in to assess the potential of outsourcing. And here is what they say in their recently released report:

"Of the potential service delivery options, only continued in-house delivery stands any realistic possibility of improving performance and/or reducing costs in the short term"

"the private sector's performance in Council Tax collection is not demonstrably better than in-house delivery"

"Of the options identified for Council Tax collection alone, only one seems to be feasible in terms of standing any reasonable chance of meeting the Council's objective of reducing General Fund expenditure by £100,000 - that of continued in-house provision"

In other words, the Green Group position has been vindicated, the drive towards privatisation was absolute codswallop *even in its own terms of financial efficiency* and both Labour and Liberal Democrats should take a good look at how they voted. Not that I'm expecting a 'mea culpa' from either of them anytime soon, of course...

Best wishes,

Matt

Parliament Square

2006-06-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

We live in surreal times. This news from Cllr Jenny Jones AM, who is Green Group Leader on the London Assembly and sits on the Metropolitan Police Authority:

Jenny asked the Met Commissioner how much the removal of Brian Haw's placards had
cost. He told her (at an MPA meeting held in public) that it had cost £7,500 and had
taken 78 officers several hours to complete. Other members of the MPA joined Jenny
in criticising the operation, mainly on the issue of value for money. It later came
to light that he had omitted to tell us about a further cost of £20,000, which meant
the whole operation had cost £27,500, which was even worse value. There is an
(irritable) ongoing argument about whether or not he mislead the MPA deliberately.

£27,500!!!??? 78 officers??? Do they think Brian Haw has superpowers or something?

Dear god.

Matt

Jericho Boatyard evicted

2006-05-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it's probably not a good idea to blog whilst upset, but I will try it and see what comes out.

I was woken up at 6 am this morning by my good friend Matt Morton, with a message that scores of bailiffs had arrived at the Jericho Boatyard, and were preparing to evict its inhabitants. Those of you who have been regular readers of this blog will remember that the Jericho Boatyard was being occupied by scores of boaters and community activists, protesting against British Waterways' decison to build luxury housing on the site and their failure to provide adequate boat repair facilities in the rest of Oxford.

By the time I arrived, at about 7 am this morning, the eviction had already begun - with massive trucks bringing in fencing, steel poles and fortress-like defences, which were being rapidly erected by scores of builders, working with saws, oxyacetylene burners and all sorts of heavy industrial equipment. I tried to get access to the site to observe what was happening to the activists, but despite the Jericho Boatyard being in 'my' area of the City, I was denied access. Using a bit of lateral thinking, I hotfooted it around to the other side of the towpath, where I was able to observe the process of eviction, as well as be boated over to the yard by activists to see for myself.

I don't think I expected to be so upset as, over the next five hours, the bailiffs cleared the yard and closed it off to the Jericho and boating community. This struggle wasn't simply supported by a few 'crusties' - the vast majority of the Jericho community oppose the luxury development, and the City Council passed a resolution condeming the eviction nearly unanimously only a few months ago. Philip Pullman, the award-winning author, was also down at the Boatyard to protest against the eviction, and the people interviewed by BBC Radio Oxford were overwhelmingly outraged by it all. Not that that mattered to BW - dedicated not to the provision of adequate facilities for Oxford's boating community, but to making yet more profit, and closing off yet another community facility to the whims of a housing developer.

By the time the heavy crane had arrived at the Boatyard to lift the boats back into the water (some boaters felt so strongly about the defence of the yard that they had lifted their homes out of the water to make them harder to evict) it was all over - and a low-impact, affordable and sustainable Oxford community faces yet another hurdle to its survival. At a time when we should be encouraging the proliferation of sustainable, cheap lifestyles such as boating, British Waterways are making it harder...and for what? The site doesn't even have planning permission, so it will simply lie vacant, unused, wasted...fenced off to the community it used to serve.

A disgrace - as a sign held up by a supporter on the canal towpath said today - "British Waterways: Shame on You"

Matt

Armed Forces Bill

2006-05-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

The amount of repressive, authoritarian and plain nuts legislation that is being shoved through the House of Commons these days is such that we don't even hear about most of it. Did you know, for example, about the provision in the Armed Forces Bill that will now ensure that those who desert from the army to avoid fighting in conflicts can be given *life imprisonment*?

Life in prison, for refusing to kill....

Now, I understand that if you have an army then you need discipline - but this sentence could be applied to any deserter. It could, for example, be applied to the British squaddies who have gone AWOL after tours in Iraq, suffering from severe psychological trauma. It could be applied to any soldier who deserted after refusing to fight in that illegal, immoral bout of mass-murder. Life in prison.

And how many of our brave, upright MPs voted for this Bill? 442. How many voted against? 19! NINETEEN! Absent from the chamber (as usual on any vote that is actually important) was the odious George Galloway MP - and voting for the bill? Menzies Campbell MP (peace stalwart he), Vince Cable MP (formerly of peaceniks Shell) and a whole host of other 'liberal' MPs and Labour-Lefts (Diane Abbot being prime among the guilty).

Well done to the nineteen MPs who voted against this. Only outnumbered by over 20 to 1....

Matt

Peak Oil

2006-05-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog will probably have worked out that one of the main reasons I am in politics is my overwhelming concern about the oncoming problem of climate change - and it is one of the main policy areas that I focus on as a councillor. However, there are other reasons for a rapid switch to a more localised economy based on renewable energy - and one of the main ones is called 'peak oil'.

Simplified, 'peak oil' sounds almost obvious, and yet our society is failing completely to adjust to its implications. Peak Oil theory tells us that while oil is not running out any time soon, we *will* soon reach the point at which global oil supply peaks and begins to decline. At the same time, demand for oil will continue to skyrocket - leading to the price of fossil fuels going through the roof. Since our entire society is based on cheap energy from oil, this could cause a depression that makes the 1930s look like a picnic.

Most people's first thought is - so what? We might have to drive a little less, invest in some renewables - isn't that what you want, Matt? Well, yes, it is - but as I wrote above, our *entire society* is based on cheap oil. The current level of investment in alternatives is pitiful - and to replace our entire energy use with renewables would be nigh on impossible. Oil doesn't just underpin the majority of our electricity usage - it is EVERYWHERE. Food is dependent on it - both for transportation and for the manufacture of chemicals that allow us to 'massproduce' our agriculture. Trade is based on cheap transport fuelled by oil, as is the manufacture of medicines, plastics, and most of the things that we take for granted. What is more, if we reach the 'peak' within the next ten years (as many experts, including BP's former Reserves Co-ordinator and the editor of Petroleum Review, believe we will) there simply isn't time to avoid the 'economic crunch'. Even if we start NOW, we don't have time to adjust our energy usage sufficiently to wean ourselves from oil.

Many authors are now, finally, starting to talk about this problem - and I'd advise very strongly that people go out and read up on it. Jeremy Leggett's book "Half Gone" is perhaps the most readily available work on the subject, although I prefer Paul Mobbs' excellent "Energy Beyond Oil" - more technical, and with more empirical analysis of what the world has to look like once the era of cheap energy is over. If you want a longer explanation of what peak oil means, then check out www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net - apocalyptically named perhaps, but full of information.

I cannot stress enough the imperative need for our society to begin to come to terms with the fact that oil will not last forever - and that our industrial/capitalist system is massively over-centralised and over-globalised given the oil spike that is approaching. The fact that only the Green Party is talking about this problem is extremely worrying...politicians of all new parties need to be planning for our 'energy descent'.

Yours worried,

Matt

Lib Dem minority administration

2006-05-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well, we've got a new administration - and the Liberal Democrats it is. Just to add a pinch of spice to the occasion of Annual Council, Cllr Paul Sargent (former Chair of Central Area Committee) announced that he was resigning from the Liberal Democrats and becoming an Independent - so the Lib Dems lost a councillor before they even formed an administration! With this putting the difference between the Lib Dems and Labour down to 1 councillor, it makes the Council even more 'hung' and difficult to manage than before.

The Committee Chairs and Vice-Chairs are to be decided at the first meeting of each committee, but I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that we will have at least three Chairs and two more Vice-Chairs...the best that the Greens in Oxford have ever managed. I was reappointed to the Executive Board as 'Green opposition' member, along with two Labour councillors (Antonia Bance and Dan Paskins, both of whom I know, and with whom I look forward to working) and seven Lib Dem Portfolio Holders.

I must admit, the last week has not salved my worries about the forthcoming two years. With the Council on a knife-edge, it will take constructive opposition and a sensible administration to avoid complete gridlock. Whether we can achieve those criteria is still an open question - for our part, the Green Group is determined to behave in as responsible a fashion as we have for the last two years...while still pursuing our policy priorities.

After Annual Council we had the mayor-making, which as always was a slightly surreal experience. With the exception of the Green Group (and a couple of Lib Dem councillors too) everyone else was wandering around in robes and hats and chains that made them look like something out of Hogwarts. To be honest, normally I find such ceremonies alienating - a process of mystification that shouldn't be a part of a City Council that needs desperately to get *closer* to ordinary people, not further away. However, I attended this year because I had the happy task of seconding the nomination of Labour councillor Mary Clarkson as Deputy Lord Mayor. If we are going to have someone in robes and chains and all that, there are few better or more generous people to do it than Mary - as I said in my speech, she is one of the councillors who is able to cast aside party political sectarianism and behave with compassion even to her political opponents. I think she'll do a great job!

So - now we embark on two intriguing years. I hope to be able to play my part in continuing to steer City Council policy in a sustainable, socially just direction...fingers crossed that it doesn't take too many late night meetings and contentious votes!

Best wishes,

Matt

No rest for the wicked!

2006-05-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

Well, negotiations on the future administration of the City Council have been going on all week, and the first committee meetings of the new Council year took place yesterday - not much rest for those of us still on the Council...

It looks very likely, as the Oxford Mail reports today, that we will end up with a Lib Dem minority administration by the Annual Council meeting on May 18th. We Greens have offered both Labour and Lib Dems the prospect of a 'traffic light coalition' (where we all run the Council together in proportion to our representation) but neither seem very keen. Labour, with their new leader Bob Price, will want to retreat into opposition and challenge the Liberal Democrats to make good on their election promises. For our part, we are committed to continuing the same course we have followed for the last two years - one of constructive opposition, supporting the administration when we agree with them, and pressing for our priorities to be made into reality.

As happens so often when a councillor, I encountered both the positive and negative aspects of committee meetings yesterday. On the positive side, the third meeting of the cross-Council Climate Change Team was excellent, with attendance from almost all of the key Business Unit managers, chaired by a Strategic Director, and the beginnings of a radical, hard-hitting and precise Action Plan for reducing carbon emissions. It was only slightly spoilt by the fact that I was the only councillor present, with neither the Labour Group nor the Lib Dems (for the second time out of three!) bothering to turn up. It is my hope that as the Team gets moving and achieves results, the other parties will hop on board. I must admit though, it was great to go through the current carbon-reduction activities being undertaken by the Council and seeing almost all of them being a result of Green budget bids or motions to Council. We really are making a difference on the Council's attitude to climate change, which makes me proud.

On the negative side, we had our first Area Committee since the elections yesterday - a special session, called to comment on the planning application for a massive new Primary Care Trust Development on the Radcliffe Infirmary site. It was negative because it once again brought home to me the ludicrous contradiction at the heart of our development control system. On the one hand, councillors are expected to be political, to express their opinions on major developments in their area, and to stake out their position for the electorate. On the other, we are expected to be completely neutral drones, with minds completely empty of opinion until the beginning of the planning meeting. Of course, this is an impossible dream, and as a result Cllr Paul Sargent and Cllr Sushila Dhall had to sit out the meeting. Paul had chaired the Health Scrutiny investigation into the RI proposal, while Sushila had made so bold as to express an opinion on it (shock, horror) during the election. Their being forced to sit out the session was doubly ironic, as they are probably the two councillors on the Area Committee who know most about the proposal and its potential impacts.

If there is one thing the government could do to make local government less frustrating (well, apart from introducing significant local taxation powers and massive devolution of course!) they could sort out this ridiculous requirement to be 'impartial'. No councillor ever is, and the current system is a charade...lets change it - please!

I hope to be updating this blog more regularly, especially as my fellow ward councillor is a voracious blogger. No doubt we will cross Internet swords every so often...but I hope it will all be friendly.

Best wishes,

Matt

City Council results

2006-05-05T03:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I've woken up after a hard election day and an extraordinarily hectic few weeks - with mixed feelings. Nationally, the Greens have done well, and look set to do even better after the late results and recounts are settled. We have currently gained 18 councillors (71 to 89) in the UK, including five in Norwich, five in Lewisham, our first in Southwark, Islington and
Camden, and our first in Bristol. So, Green politics continues to grow in the UK. It also continues to go from strength so strength in Oxford - we held all the seats we were defending yesterday (some of them with huge margins - Cllr Craig Simmons got over 60% of the vote in his ward!) and gained Iffley Fields from Labour with a big victory in this previously marginal seat.

So why are my feelings mixed? Well, to be honest, the result in Holywell Ward was awful for us. Richard Huzzey (Lib Dem) got 564 votes - and we got 276. I never expected to lose by 300 votes, although by election day I was fairly convinced that we would lose. Why? Because the Lib Dems succeeded in making the election a referendum on the construction of the animal lab, rather than on the things that the City Council can actually effect. Despite my best efforts, issues of safer cycling, climate change, air pollution, simply didn't get a look in. Of course, when the entire election becomes about one issue on which the Green position is in disagreement with the majority of students, it never bodes well for the result.

Although I think Richard Huzzey will make a good councillor, I can't avoid my disappointment that Matt Morton won't be joining me in Holywell Ward. His enthusiasm, his compassion and his genuine concern on ecological issues will be sorely missed even in the newly expanded Green Group - I honestly think that the voters of Holywell have missed out on a great representative. However, having said that, the voters have spoken...and I look forward to working with Cllr Huzzey - I hope we can do more than simply argue about the lab! There's much to be done.

Best wishes from a tired cllr,

Matt

Cameron and Brown - hot air

2006-04-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

OK, I know that I should be out leafletting and not typing away at a blog - and I know that I shouldn't let the petty hypocrisies of mainstream politics get to me. But, every so often, they really do. Like today for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4925560.stm

So, lets ignore the fact that Gordon Brown has been a major figure in a Government that has done pitifully little on climate change, has just admitted that it will not meet the 20% CO2 reduction target for 2010, and whose Environment Secretary has taken over 30 internal flights in the last two years. Lets also ignore the fact that David Cameron's own MPs have been filibustering the Sustainable Energy Bill in Parliament, that his own Oxfordshire County Council has group members who don't believe that climate change exists, and that John Redwood MP reckons that global warming is caused 'by sunspots'.

Let's just focus on this one sentence, first of all:

"As Tory leader David Cameron JETS TO NORWAY to see the effects of global warming up close, Chancellor Gordon Brown has FLOWN TO NEW YORK where he will deliver a speech calling for a new global deal to combat climate change."

Oh, dear god.

The sheer scale of denial about the problem of climate change, the sorts of changes we will need to make in our own lives, and the effects that our emissions have on the poorest and most vulnerable people on our planet - I can hardly begin to fathom it. Gordon Brown, however, has the problem licked - he has revealed that among his actions to mitigate climate change, he "doesn't leave his mobile phone charging overnight".

Well, that's alright then.

I suppose I should be glad that 'my issues' are getting an airing, and I am grateful that they are pushing up the political agenda - but if people are taken in by these snake oil merchants, then we are in serious trouble. We need to do something serious about climate change, we need to do it now, and neither of these two jokers are going to get us anywhere near beginning to tackle the problem.

Ah...steam let off....I feel better now. Back to leafletting and canvassing for council candidates who *will* take this problem seriously - Green Party candidates.

Election fever #4

2006-04-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it's always the way, isn't it - the more busy you are and the more interesting the stuff that you get up to, the less time you have to blog about it! Nominations are in, and the 'runners and riders' of Oxford's local elections 2006 have been revealed - no real surprises for Holywell, of course. Our candidate is now confirmed as the excellent Matt Morton, while all three main parties also have people standing. Remember to keep checking out www.greenoxford.com for updates as we get closer to election day - especially the release of our manifesto (to which I and others are putting the finishing touches right now) just after Easter.

This will be the fourth election year in which I have been heavily involved in the Green campaign in Holywell - it's very odd to think that there are perhaps only 100 to 150 voters still around from that first election campaign in 2002! Holywell is an exciting, vibrant and thrilling place to represent....and also frustrating, as it's so hard to build a profile in an area where one third of the voting population leaves every year! It helps keep elected representatives on their toes, as you have to keep working if you expect people to recognise you....but wow, it can be exhausting...

Of course, the stress levels aren't helped by the fact that this year I am also a member of the Green Party Executive, and taking a role in the national Green campaign too. Our campaign launch was today (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4899144.stm for some coverage, of which we got a pleasing amount) - and with almost 1300 candidates, its a pretty sizeable effort for a party the size of the Greens. To put it into perspective - we are standing
over 20% of our membership as candidates!

Despite it all though, I'm looking forward to it - partly because elections are the one time that you can really engage with people and debate the issues with them without appearing to be a total loon (an occupational hazard for me, I'm afraid!), and partly because I have a good feeling about these elections. We are contesting to many highly marginal seats for my liking in Oxford, and things could always go wrong - but I think we have a good chance of getting into double figures on the City Council for the first time, and continuing to make big changes for life in Oxford. I'm looking forward to it.

As always, please do get in touch with me if you have any issues, ideas or questions - matt [at] greenoxford.com

Matt

Crossing picket lines + ID cards

2006-03-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked in the least that Gordon Brown saw fit to cross a picket line on Tuesday to give a speech with Bill Clinton. Any sense of solidarity he had with grassroots struggle disappeared long ago. I wasn't surprised, either, that two Liberal Democrat councillors chose to cross the Oxford Town Hall picket line on Tuesday - at least they weren't being hypocritical, never having claimed to support trade unionism. I *was* surprised, however, that at least two Labour councillors (including the Leader of the City Council) chose to break the strike on Tuesday.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I had thought that solidarity with striking workers might remain one of the few codes unbroken even by New Labour councillors. Obviously, the UNISON pickets were a protest against central Labour government policy - but I thought that our local councillors, at least, might respect a central principle of the labour movement. Apparently not. I've sometimes been accused of being a cynic about the Labour Party - but on this occasion, it seems that I was too little of one.

Before people comment that perhaps these councillors don't agree with the UNISON strike, I'd point out that *that doesn't matter*. The principle of not crossing a picket line is not that you choose to do so based on whether you agree or disagree with the particular dispute - you don't cross a picket line because you understand that to do so erodes the capacity of *all* workers' struggles, everywhere. If you don't agree with the aims of the strike then you discuss, debate, argue with the strikers - but you don't erode their capacity to organise, because one day someone will be trying to cross *your* picket line...because they need to get to a meeting, or because they need to take a shortcut, or because they don't agree with your cause.

I hope that the Labour councillors were rushing across a picket line to rescue someone in imminent danger of serious injury - because that's the only excuse I can think of for them. I suspect, however, that they just don't care about workers capacity to organise - another indication that the soul of the Labour Party expired a long time ago.

Matt

P.S. The ID cards Bill was expected to gain Royal Assent soon, after the Lords finally caved in on the principle of voluntarism. Clearly, I really *was* being naive about the Labour Party - any political party that could bring in a scheme such as this deserves the benefit of doubt about *nothing*.

Local elections soon....

2006-03-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

....and I'm pleased to say that Holywell Ward Greens have an excellent candidate to work for. At the risk of jinxing things (we still need to get our ten nomination signatures into the returning officer, but one hopes that should be a formality!), I'm happy to announce that the Green candidate for the election on May 4th will be Matt Morton - yes, another Matt!

Matt is one of the co-ordinators of the Jericho Boatyard community campaign, which I have written so much about, and I like to think his candidature is a good example of effective Green Party work in Oxford - when progressive campaigners see what we are doing in Council, they want to get involved. In fact, people involved in the boatyard campaign were so impressed by Green support for it that we have not one but two boating campaigners standing for us this year - Matt, and John Keyes in North Ward.

As well as being a campaigner for the boating community, Matt is a long-standing anti war and social justice campaigner - he ran for Oxford Brookes Student Union President a couple of years ago, and currently makes his living through gardening and the study of ecology.

The Liberal Democrat candidate seems to be (again, barring nomination signature disaster) my fellow blogger Richard Huzzey - Matt and I are looking forward to a hopefully positive campaign where we can debate ideas....because, as Richard and I often find out, we tend to have a lot of disagreements over ideology! Holywell Greens have won the last two elections in the ward (I was elected in 2004, and County Cllrs Deborah Glass-Woodin and Chip Sherwood in 2005) and I hope that we will be able to repeat the feat in 2006. We will only do that, however, with support of grassroots students who want Oxford to continue making a difference....here's looking forward to a vibrant election campaign!

Matt (Sellwood!)

UNISON suspends Labour support

2006-03-23T15:23:00.000-08:00

Could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back when it comes to the automatic union support that the Labour Party still enjoys, despite its support for privatisations, anti-union laws and so on? Sadly, I doubt it, but it is a positive move - perhaps signifying that the unions are finally waking up to what this Labour government has been doing, and the impossibility of convincing this arrogant Cabinet that they should listen to anyone, on anything....

As far as I know, the Green Party is the only political party to explicitly support the LGPS strike on Tuesday (I guess that the Respect coalition does too, but I've not heard anything from them about it). I'll be on the picket line - I hope that some of the few remaining 'progressive Labour' elected representatives will be too!

UNISON SUSPENDS LABOUR LINK

"In the circumstances of the union taking national industrial action
against the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, named as Regulator and
decision maker regarding the LGPS, in is felt that it is not appropriate
or politically sensible to be organising, on one hand, for industrial
action by the union while sending out letters and leaflets to many of the
same members asking them to vote Labour.

The decision has been taken to suspend our election campaigning work for
Labour in the May elections while the industrial action is going on.

Labour Link will not be giving any further donations or support to the
campaign until we reach a solution to the present LGPS issue.

This is a decision that affects our work for Labour's election campaign in
May nationally and locally."

Green World article

2006-03-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

I know that I am not doing much 'original blogging' at the moment - I will try to change that, honest!

But for now, I thought you might be interested in the first draft of an article I
am helping to write for 'Green World' on the political situation in Oxford....

**********************

Oxford has been a focus for Green Party campaigning for decades, and ever since the election of its first Green County Councillor in 1993 (Caroline Lucas) and its first Green City Councillor in 1994 (Mike Woodin), it has been stacking up successes. The last two years, however, have seen a growing list of achievements – which are particularly impressive given that Oxford Greens are not part of the City Council’s administration.

Oxford City Council is in ‘No Overall Control’, with 21 Labour councillors, 17 Lib Dems, 7 Greens and 3 councillors from the Independent Working Class Association. This position gives the Green Group the ‘balance of power’ between the two largest parties, and has allowed Green councillors to score success after success through negotiation and discussion. The Green Group also has one member on the Council’s ruling Executive Board, who has a vote and is able to speak out on important Council decisions, but who does not take part in the day-to-day running of the City.

The main bargaining tool of the Green Group (much like the situation in the Greater London Assembly, albeit smaller) has been the annual Council budget. In order for the Labour administration to pass a budget, the Greens must be persuaded not to vote against it. In return, over the 2005/6 and 2006/7 budget cycles, the Greens have secured over £2 million pounds of ‘Green spending’. However, this is only the ‘tip of the iceberg’. Often, ideas which had formerly been dismissed by the other parties have been accepted wholesale, before negotiations have even begun! One good example is the recent 15% increase in car parking charges in the overly polluted city centre, along with an increase in fines for those parked illegally – a move which was adopted by Labour after years of Green pressure. Similarly, pushed towards environmental issues by constant Green successes, the Labour administration has recently instituted an expansion in recycling, which appeared in the Green Party manifesto in 2004. These, along with many other successes, were achieved simply by the Green presence, without even the pressure of formal negotiations.

The formal Green Party amendments to the budget have included ideas from across the spectrum of green political thought. In the 2006/2007 budget alone, three new officers were employed as a result of Green amendments (a Local Food Officer, a Sustainable Energy officer and a Climate Change Officer), £250,000 was invested in energy efficiency and sustainable energy for council tenants, £110,000 was secured for an Oxford Renewable Energy Supply Company, free insulation was guaranteed for those living in fuel poverty, and the devolved ‘Area Committees’ received a large increase in funding. The Council also agreed to support a community campaign to oppose the closure of the Jericho Boatyard – Green support for which has led to two of the leaders of the campaign standing as Green Party candidates in the 2006 elections!

The Budget isn’t the only time that Greens have influence however – the Green Group has passed more successful motions through the City Council than any other political party, despite their relatively small size. Green motions have ranged from moral support for positive Parliamentary Bills and opposition to Government policy (for example, on ID cards and the war in Iraq), to significant projects such as the move to construct a massive wind turbine on the outskirts of Oxford to provide new renewable capacity to power the City Council’s housing stock. Perhaps most famously, a Green motion also forced Oxford’s Lord Mayor to purchase a ‘hybrid’ Toyota Prius, rather than a gas-guzzling BMW! The Green Group also takes an active part in the generation of new policy across the Council – and most significantly, is now in the process of supporting some of the most radical planning policies in the UK. The ‘Natural Resources Impact Assessment’, the production of which was funded by a Green budget amendment, would enforce some of the most stringent sustainability conditions in the country – for example, all large developments would be obliged to generate 20% of their energy from renewable sources, on site. This extremely exciting new policy will, the Green Group hopes, be adopted in June.

All of this Council work doesn’t mean that Oxford councillors are forgetting their campaigning roots, of course! Whether it is opposition to the massive expansion of the city centre Westgate shopping centre, pushing for stricter air pollution controls, or support of Oxford’s student community in their fight to preserve the University’s “green electricity” contract, Green councillors are out there on the front line. Most recently, they have been prominent in opposing the privatisation of the city’s council tax collection function – winning praise from UNISON and public services activists. Through a combination of work in the Council chamber and on the streets, Oxford is getting greener every day!

Spring Conference

2006-03-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

Well, back from 4 days in (very very cold) Scarborough at Green Party Spring Conference. Not much time to blog now, but suffice to say it was, as usual, a fascinating experience. I had the great privilege of proposing a number of motions on important national issues, including opposition to the Government's draconian Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill and the Education White Paper - and I seconded the motion confirming the Party's support of the major strike over Local Government Pensions, due to take place on Tuesday March 28th. I shall be on the picket lines - it will be interesting to see how many Labour comrades join me....

The work of the Council continues unabated of course - and so does the election! Oxford will be the focus of much of our work in the South East Region this time around, and so our election planning is becoming even more frenetic - we are sensing a real opportunity to break through into double figures on the City Council for the first time. I think it's fair to say that a lot of people have been impressed by what we have achieved with just 7 councillors in the last two years...but perhaps, soon, we will be doing even more with new Green councillors on board...

Cross fingers - and please do get in touch if you can help in any way at all with our electoral efforts.

Matt

High Street works

2006-03-10T02:32:00.000-08:00

For those who live on the High Street, an update on the work I have been doing on the current and future roadworks. Having endured random and seemingly incessant noises from roadworks when I was at New College, I know full well how irritating it can be - and, in the case of people doing finals or mods, how seriously stressful. I've been talking to County Councillors and County Council officers, trying to get them to be as sensitive as possible with the roadworks that are planned from mid-April to mid-July, between Cornmarket and Turl Street....and I will continue to work with JCRs and MCRs to monitor problems and report them back to the County Council.

To be honest, I would have much preferred it if they could have started these works AFTER finals - it wouldn't have taken too much co-ordination. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to persuade them of that one...

Matt

Lib Dem FOCUS leaflet

2006-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

Just a brief note to my constituents. Many of you will probably have received the recent Liberal Democrat leaflet, which claims various things about my stance on animal rights. I thought about posting up a full rebuttal on this site - but realised that I had already covered the issues raised in earlier posts (titled 'An interesting day!' and 'Animal rights protestors'), and I don't want to legitimise this kind of negative politics with a detailed response.

Please rest assured that the Green Party is interested in raising positive ideas for social change - not attacking other political parties with selective quotations and inaccurate assertions. We are confident that our committment to social justice,
sustainability and peace will (once again) be the choice of Holywell students on May 4th 2006.

Much love,

Matt Sellwood

P.S. Oh, and I hope everyone has learnt by now to look twice at Lib Dem 'bar charts'. I particularly recall the example of
the Carfax by-election in 2004 (triggered by the death of Green Cllr Mike Woodin) which attempted to argue that 'only
the Lib Dems can beat the Tories here'. The result? The Greens won - the Tories came last....

A climate change day....

2006-03-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a little while since I last posted anything here - again, due to the principle that once things get really hectic, there are only 24 hours in a day to cram everything in....and blogging tends to get pushed out of my day.

Since my last posts, I've mostly been chasing around the Council making sure that everyone understands the amendments that the Green Group made to the Council budget, and laying the foundations for our schemes to be put into practice. Today was another first - the first meeting of the City Council's "Climate Change Action Team", which is aiming to bring together all the Council officers working on climate change issues and properly co-ordinate their work. As this is a product of the Climate Change Prevention Action PLan (which regular readers will remember is a proud achievement of mine as a councillor) I think I can take some of the credit - and the meeting was very productive. Officers who hadn't yet heard about the full details of the completed budget seemed impressed by the resources we have poured into sustainable energy and climate change work - the stage is set for a really successful couple of years on this issue.

Unfortunately, despite the CCA Team being an allegedly 'cross party' effort, the Green Group was the only political group to bother sending a representative. Cllr John Tanner (Labour) gets half-credit, as he had another long-standing engagement - but the 'environmental' Lib Dems get no credit at all, since they didn't turn up or even send apologies.

This was made even more galling by my next appointment - the demonstration to defend Oxford University's green electricity contract. The demo itself was great, with a good turnout and enthusiastic support for Green ideas - but I spotted several Lib Dem councillors (+ their student organisers) at the back, being photographed holding up 'Lib Dems against climate change' placards for their FOCUS leaflets. Now, I have absolutely no objection to these councillors coming along to the demonstration (indeed, it was excellent to see them) - I do have an objection to people turning up to these things for PR purposes while abandoning the actual hard work of tackling climate change. The Climate Change Action Team meeting could have really used the support of the Lib Dem group - but they were nowhere to be seen. Committment to environmental issues has to be more than skin deep, and if the 7 strong Green Group can attend climate change meetings, then so can the 16 strong Lib Dems....

Matt

An interesting day!

2006-02-25T08:58:00.000-08:00

Well, today was certainly eventful! I observed both the Pro-Test and SPEAK demonstrations today, both of which
marched through my ward - in my capacity as ward councillor, rather than as an active participant. When I was elected in
2004 I promised that I would do my best to safeguard the right to protest in Oxford (having experienced myself the
tendency of 'the powers that be' to stifle it when it is not convenient) which is why I try to attend all the major protests in
and around the city centre of Oxford, to ensure that the right to free assembly is protected. Of course, as a mere city
councillor I can't do that all on my own - but I can speak to the police at the time and make representations to the Local
Policing Board and the Superintendent after the fact - which I think does help.

I'm glad to say that both marches were generally well-policed and peaceful - the Pro-Test march had an impressive attendance of 500+, while the SPEAK demonstration had possibly a few more than at its normal monthly gatherings, at about 100. I guess a few people were surprised to see me even observing the Pro-Test march, given my opposition to the construction of the animal research centre, but I was really pleased that a couple of people actively thanked me for criticising those who advocate the 'targetting of the University' on Oxford Indymedia and elsewhere. I even had a few constructive and rational debates about animal testing, which made a great contrast to the usual level of discussion on the subject!

As is my habit these days on Oxford protests, I ran into fellow political blogger Richard Huzzey (mentioned in my last entry), who still seems dubious about the distinction between peaceful animal rights protestors and the ALF. I'm not sure how much more plain I can make it - and I'm also not sure why I've ever given Richard the impression that I would support violence or
intimidation of any kind! I have indeed written to the Guardian, praising the determination and moral purpose of activists like Joan Court (the elderly lady who conducted a 72 hour hunger strike against the lab) and I continue to respect their adherence to Ghandian principles of moral pressure. That does not in any way mean that I support the ALF. Richard's fellow Liberal Democrat, Evan Harris MP, gave a good speech (though I disagreed with a large portion of it) calling on the 'moderate anti-vivesectionists' to champion rational debate and discussion, which is precisely the point I have been trying to make. Here's hoping that increasing numbers of moderate anti-vivisectionists drown out the loons....

Indeed, had the Pro-Test march simply been on the theme of opposition to violence and intimidation, I would have happily joined in as an active participant. I marched under the banner of 'Vegetarians against the ALF' for a little while, which I happily qualify for! However, some of the chants I couldn't agree with - and some of them seemed to veer a little far into viewing animal testing as an *inherently good thing*. I hope that was a mistake in drafting, more than anything else - I'm sure that even the most pro-animal research centre voices view animal testing as a last resort. One banner saying "I couldnt give a monkeys about monkeys", while witty, summed up for me the problem with this position. Just as anti-vivisectionists shouldn't get polarised into violence, so the pro-animal testing movement shouldn't fall into the trap of supporting cruelty for the sake of it. As a Buddhist, which is at the root of my opposition to animal testing, I think that human beings have a responsibility to all living creatures - and we shouldn't view other beings as simply instruments and tools for our benefits. Animals are independent beings, and its important to keep that in mind, whatever ones views on the animal lab.

After the marches I met up with my old friend and now Vice-President (Charities and Communities) at OUSU, Hannah Stoddart. We had a really interesting discussion about how to involve the student community more with the problems of Oxford residents and the wider communities in which they live - lots of good and exciting ideas came up. They include getting students living in East Oxford much more involved in voluntary work (through organisations such as East Oxford Action and the East Area Parliament) and trying to set up regular cross-party surgeries for students to raise their problems with elected representatives. I am still trying to encourage students to tell me about their problems, so that I can do something about them - at worst, I won't be able to solve the issue, but at best, its possible that I and other 'student area councillors' might be able to make a real difference. Please do feel free to email me, anytime on matt [at] greenoxford.com.

Matt

Animal rights protestors

2006-02-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

There have been a few speculations around the local Oxford 'blogosphere' (see www.richardhuzzey.blogspot.com for one example) about my stance on animal rights and the animal research centre being built in Oxford. Sadly, some people seem to have difficulty not equating opposition to the research centre and a history of *non-violent* direct action with support for violent thugs. So - before I discuss anything else - let me make it clear. I do not, have never and will never support the intimidation or threatening of students or staff at Oxford University over the construction of this lab. Such behaviour is totally unacceptable, totally counterproductive and runs contrary to all my strongly held beliefs about civil liberties and the importance of freedom of expression - not to mention my beliefs as a Buddhist.

So, that over and done with, what are the important issues raised by the furor over the animal research lab being built in the middle of my council ward? To be honest, and depressingly, I think the most obvious issue raised by this whole affair is the inability of people to discuss this entire topic with even a hint of rationality. Both the recent discussions on Oxford Indymedia (mostly on the part of the animal rights protestors) and OxfordGossip (mostly on the part of the student 'Pro-Test' movement) have resorted to ludicrous stereotypes and generalisation - 'all protestors are on the dole/hippies/smell' on one side and 'anyone who supports the animal research centre is a deviant/enjoys torturing animals/is posh' on the other. I don't even want to link to the relevant posts, for fear of giving them any more credence than they might already have. The two sides of opinion, with a few credible examples, seem incapable of engaging in any sort of dialogue. For obvious reasons, this tendency is more harmful to the animal rights activists, as they generally (rightly or wrongly) have a 'burden of proof' placed upon their claims. Screaming and shouting, as seems so often to be the response, is unlikely to convince anyone.

It may seem strange, given Green Party policy and my own opinions, that I will be going on the Pro-Test demonstration tomorrow. For me, however, it is entirely consistent. I have spent the last year defending the civil liberties and right to protest of peaceful animal rights activists - and I want the student 'pro-research' movement to have exactly the same privileges and responsibilites. My student constituents should be able to march and demonstrate their views - and perhaps their presence (although I don't hold out much hope) might convince some of the more hysterical animal rights activists that they will have to *argue* their case to convince the majority, not just rant and rave. If they believe, as I do, that their cause is right, then they should do everything they can to expose it to others - not degrade it with behaviour more suitable for five year olds.

Matt

P.S. OK...I give in. Want to see some of the stuff that has gotten me so annoyed? Check out: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2006/02/334333.html?c=on#c143039 for one example - although thankfully the administrators have now removed some of the more totally cretinous comments...

Planning 'with an open mind'

2006-02-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

The planning process in the UK is a strange and confusing beast - it is a 'quasi judicial' affair, which means that councillors are meant to cast aside their opinions and become completely objective. Which, of course, is completely impossible. This leads to the rather hypocritical and often untrue facade of councillors declaring 'an open mind' on an application - which normally means, in practice - "I know what I think about this but I'm going to pretend to listen to all the arguments before casting my vote in the way that I decided several weeks ago"....

However, sometimes planning hearings do change your mind - and I had the odd experience of that happening twice in one day, at Wednesday's Strategic Development Control Committee.

The first application was much more 'important' than the second - it was the University's new BioChemistry complex, adding up to more than 27,000 square metres of new research facilities. Normally, this application, which was pretty decent by the standards of energy guzzling, massive research buildings, would have been a 'no brainer' - but there was the added complication of a much loved and ancient copper beech tree having to be cut down to make way for the development. Hundreds of emails, petitions and letters later, we councillors had to decide whether to refuse the application and preserve the much-loved tree (which I personally know well from my time living in the area) or sign its death warrant in the 'name of progress'.

As you can imagine, I didn't go into the hearing expecting to vote to cut down the tree. After all, I'm a Green - and my area colleague Cllr Sushila Dhall had worked very hard to stop the University cutting down the tree by getting a Tree Preservation Order slapped on it last year. As I listened to the evidence, however, it became more and more apparent that the building would have to change utterly if the tree was to be preserved. It wasn't simply a matter of a few cosmetic changes, as I had previously thought - the services for the building and the two story basement/foundations cut through the root system - unless the building was radically shrunk, the tree would be unable to survive.

In the end, I took the decision, albeit with a heavy heart, to approve the application - which ended up being the majority view on the committee. In my estimation, the benefits of getting rid of four energy inefficient, inadequate (and in the case of the Hans Kreb Tower, plain ugly) buildings and replacing them with a state of the art building incorporating new trees and solar PV panels, had to outweight the wish to preserve the copper beech - however emotive that wish might be. We might not have heard the last of the case though - councillors are trying to call it into Full Council...all the way to 'the top'! I'd be happy for that to happen if it means that a compromise can be found - sadly, my understanding from Wednesday's meeting was that no such compromise exists at the current stage.

The second application was one I myself had called in from the North Area Committee, as it not only contradicted one of our Core Planning Policies, but also went against what the officers had recommended. However, it rapidly became clear that the owners of the house (Ruskin College) were going to use the money gained from the renovation to build new student accomodation - and so I changed my mind again! I hope this can be seen as an illustration of the usefulness of the committee system when one genuinely approaches things with 'an open mind' - and not an indication of any tendency on my part to change my mind too easily....:)

Matt

P.S. Our Green budget proposals are making a media splash - and proving so popular that the Labour administration are already trying to take credit for all of them. While I was happy to work in partnership with them over many of the proposals, Cllr Hollingsworth's claim that the CLimate Change Officer and Sustainability Officer would have happened anyway (made in today's Oxford Mail) is demonstrably false - and, I suppose, quite flattering. First they laugh at you, then they ignore you...then they try to steal all your ideas!

Budget result!

2006-02-23T05:58:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not having blogged about the result of the budget meeting on Monday
until now - I must admit that since it lasted almost six hours, I was too drained
afterwards to even celebrate!

In summary, we did very well again. Most of the debate itself was less than
rivetting, mostly consisting as it did of both large groups hurling verbal brickbats
at each other in a desperate attempt to get an advantage before May's crucial local
elections. Most of the time they simply ignored us - partly because they seem to
dislike each other much more than they dislike us, and partly because they both knew
that they would need our votes if they wanted to get their ideas passed!

This time around, we got another £1 million of 'Green bids' into the budget over
three years. The result was even better than that, however, as many of the bids that
were successful last year are still in the budget - nearly £750,000 of them, to be
exact. When coupled with the numerous Labour bids that were either Green ideas to
begin with (the Business Improvement District, bi-weekly recycling etc) or worked
out in co-operation with us (increased funding for loft insultation, for example)
this is probably one of the Greenest budgets that Oxford City Council has ever
seen. :)

Of course, there are always downsides. Our attempt to get money into the capital
budget for the purchase of Jericho Boatyard was unsuccessful, although all parties
agreed with a Green amendment calling on officers to urgently draw up a detailed
report on purchasing possibilities - and, seriously, as I have covered below, the
COuncil agreed in principle to outsource its council tax collection to a private
'external provider'. More about that later.

For now, a full rundown of the budget outcomes can be found below:

****************************************************************************

Oxford's 7-strong Green Group, who hold the balance of power on Oxford City COuncil, managed to secure one million pounds (£1m) of new environmental and social initiatives during the 2006/07 budget negotiations concluded this evening (20th February) following a five hour meeting of Full Council. The Greens also had a considerable influence on the adopted Labour budget (which they successfully amended).

Highlights include:

+ Money to improve consultation on the planned new recycling scheme and address any issues arising from it (£60k)

+ Establishment of a new Oxford Renewable Energy Services Company to provide residents and businesses with affordable, secure, green energy (£110k). Will generate profit from 2008 onwards.

+ A new energy efficiency and renewable energy scheme for Council tenants (£250k)

+ Energy saving campaign targeted at Council tenants (£14k)

+ A £10k study to release potentially £000's of borrowing (technically known as Prudential Borrowing) to spend on making COuncil properties more energy efficient and install renewable energy systems

+ Two new officer posts covering Climate Change and Sustainability(£210k)

+ A new housing adviser for East Oxford (£50k)

+ A Local Food Development Officer (£105k)to development healthy eating initiatives and opportunities for local food provisions (for example, farmer's markets).

+ A new Sustainable Buildings Award (£15k) to promote best practise in Oxford

+ Funding for free cavity and loft insulation for residents (+ £85k)

* Additional money for Area Committees (+ £95k)

The Green budget also included many items which we also in the initial Labour budget. These included:

* Litter enforcement officers
* Free loft insulation for Pensioners
* Supported lodgings for young people and Housing Accommodation managers (to replace lost Government funding)
* Housing Development support - to bring forward affordable housing schemes
* Park Rangers
* Allotment Improvement Plan
* Money to continue the work of Oxford Inspires
* Improved business waste recycling service

Says Green Group Leader Craig Simmons: "This was an extremely successful budget for us. It proves what a small group of dedicated Green Councillors can achieve."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL GREEN BUDGET BELOW WITH NOTES SHOWING ITEMS WHICH WERE IN THE FINAL BUDGET

Y* = in final budget (fully funded)

Y = in final budget (at reduced funding) i.e less will be spent on this item than Greens set out in their budget

Y+ = in final budget (at increased funding) i.e more will be spent on this item than Greens set out in their budget

N = not in final agreed budget

Litter enforcement officers Y
OX1 business improvement district Y*
Oxford Inspires Y*
Allotment - 5 yr improvement plan (first three years) Y*
Recycling scheme extn (revised budget figure) Y*
Recycling (loss of interest on borrowing) Y*
Area Committees funding made permanent Y*
Supported lodgings for young people Y*
Temp Accommodation manager Y*
Children's Holiday Activities Y+
Housing Development Support Y*
IT Skills training Y*
Payroll replacement Y*
Park Rangers Y*
Events funding Y+

50% fund Police Community Support Officers Y*
Sustainable buildings award Y*
Recycling of tetrapak cartons Y*
Expand Commercial Recycling collection Y*
Recycling contingency fund to address issues arising ot of consultation on new scheme Y*
City Energy Efficiency - prudential borrowing Y*
Set-up Oxford Renewable Energy Supply Company Y
Sustainability officer Y
Climate change officer to take forward CCAP Y
Study into congestion charging and workplace parking levys N
Feasibility study into lightweight 'Parry' tram system N
More Area Committee revenue funding Y
Community Land Trust - officer N
Free cavity wall & loft insulation for 1,500 hhlds Y
City Centre bike hub feasibility study N
Local Food Development officer Y*
Housing caseworkers Y

CORRECTION

2006-02-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

On further discussion with the City Council administration (in the person of Cllr Dan Paskins) it has been clarified to me that
Capita hasn't been chosen to provide Council tax collection services for the City Council. The decision on Monday simply
enshrined in principle the decision to use 'an external provider' - the choice of which company to use will be done through
the Council's normal procurement process.

So, it's still privatisation, but I was wrong to name a specific company - apologies! Capita is just one example of the many
private companies (all driven by private profit...) that could undertake this contract.

Matt

More council privatisation

2006-02-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

A big budget success again for the Greens yesterday, which I will blog about later - but first, to focus on the negative. The issue covered in the press release below absolutely infuriated me yesterday - one of the worst decisions I have seen in my two years on the Council....

Matt

*******************************************************

GREENS SLAM COUNCIL'S OUTSOURCING DECISION

Oxford City Council Green Group today condemned the decision taken by a
combined vote of the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups to outsource the
Council's council tax collection function to a consortium including the
infamous Capita Group. The decision, taken at the budget meeting on
Monday 20th February, saw only the Green Group councillors voting against
the proposal.

Capita Group are one of the largest private handlers of outsourced public
services in the UK, and despite record profits have gained a dubious
reputation due to examples of mismanagement in the Criminal Records
Bureau, Lambeth Borough, Bromley Borough, and other major contracts. A
contract to run Oxford City Council's 'out of hours' council tax collection
service was awarded to Capita last month, and Monday's decision massively
expands their involvement in Oxford's council tax process. If the proposal
is enacted, Oxford will enter into a consortium with two other Oxfordshire
district councils, all of whom are outsourcing their collection function
to Capita.

Cllr Matt Sellwood, who is the Green Party member of Oxford City Council's
Executive Board, commented: "This is an absolutely outrageous decision.
Capita are known amongst many as 'Crapita', and for good reason - they have
an appalling record of mismanagement, and were the company responsible for
the delays and chaos of teacher vetting in the Criminal Records Bureau
several years ago. Lambeth Borough Council were forced to terminate their
multi-million pound contract with Capita because of massive problems, and
I am astounded that the Labour administration has chosen to go down this
route, with Liberal Democrat support."

Cllr Sellwood continued: "Even if Capita manage to run this contract
competently, the problems of outsourcing council tax collection cannot be
escaped. Democratic control over the conduct of their employees in
pursuing debtors will be lost, and vulnerable people will be hounded by
a private company concerned only with meeting targets and increasing its
profits. What is more, the operation is likely to be run from Capita's
Bromley and Coventry call centres, by people who have never even been to
Oxford, and who know nothing about our council. Of course the City Council
needs to increase its rate of collection, but this is entirely the wrong
way to go about it. The Green Group will fight this decision in every
way possible."

Cllr Craig Simmons, who is Leader of the Green Group, explained: "Rather
than this privatisation, the Green Group has suggested ways in which the
City Council's Revenues and Benefits operation can be made more efficient.
In our budget this year we included £50,000 worth of savings from
increasing homeworking for council tax collection employees - a step that
would increase staff morale, reduce carbon emissions, and keep the council
tax operation 'in house'. We are deeply saddened that the administration
chose to enrich a private company instead."

NRIA

2006-02-16T06:08:00.000-08:00

In all the hustle and bustle around the budget, I didn't blog about an equally
important development that occurred in Council on Monday (probably more important
in the long term, in fact). That was that Full Council passed the Natural Resources
Impact Assessment Supplementary Planning Document for public consultation.

Yes, I can see you nodding off in the back there, but stay with me! It's important.

The NRIA, as regular readers of my blog will remember, was a key part of the Green
Group's budget amendment last year. Having spent years fashioning our new Local Plan
to have the potential to become the most radical in the country, we needed to 'fill
in the gaps' with Supplementary Planning Documents - like the NRIA. Having enabled
the Planning Policy Unit to start work through our budget appropriation, we have
spent the last six months working with them to make it as tough as possible. I think
they've done a pretty good job, although we would rather that it was even more
radical - and, indeed, we passed a further four Green amendments to the NRIA on
Monday before it was sent out to public consultation.

You want a few headline figures? Well, if the NRIA is passed, every large development
(10 homes and over) in Oxford will have to provide 20% of its energy from renewable
sources generated ON SITE. Every large development will have to source its timber
sustainably and have water management systems in place. Every large development
will have to meet minimum energy efficiency standards way in excess of the 2006
Building Regulations. And so on and on and on.

When the NRIA is passed in July, it will propel Oxford into the forefront of
sustainable planning in the UK. Enough? Certainly not. But a big step in the
right direction - and one that I can say, with absolute confidence, would not be
happening now except for Green councillors on the City Council.

Matt

7 things....

2006-02-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

OK, so this blog is normally only for Council stuff, but I give you a fleeting insight into my odd life, due to a request from Richard Huzzey that I fill in this 'meme'....

enjoy!

Matt

P.S. Yes, I am trying to avoid work. :)

**************

7 things to do before I die:

1. Walk from Lands End to John O’Groats.
2. Summit at least one mountain in the Himalayas.
3. Write a novel – or, failing that, at least a book on political theory.
4. Go on a proper, summer long meditation retreat – none of this week long nonsense.
5. Achieve enlightenment. Easy.
6. See Nottingham Forest win the FA Cup (and England win the Ashes in Oz).
7. This is very sad, and probably shows my limitations as a human being, but I honestly would like to be a Member of Parliament.

7 things I cannot do:

1. The most basic of DIY tasks.
2. Cook edible food.
3. Run the 100 metres in under 11 seconds.
4. Fashion the Green Party into a smoothly oiled election winning machine…
5. Understand the motivation of economic conservatives.
6. Deliver a speech without ranting, a little.
7. Eat liver.

7 things that attract me to Oxford:

1. My new flat.
2. New College evensong.
3. ‘The History’.
4. Oxford Canal.
5. Port Meadow.
6. The ability to cycle (at least in places) without being yelled at.
7. The intellectual life of the city.

7 things I often say:

1. “Well, if we didn’t live under capitalism….”
2. “You smell of cheese”
3. “I like people as an abstract notion….”
4. “Well, if you ignore their launching an illegal war, engaging in mass murder, destroying our civil liberties, decimating the health service, privatising education and ignoring public opinion – then yes, the Labour Party is a progressive option. Idiot.”
5. “That makes no ****ing sense!”
6. “Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum”
7. “Human slaves, in an insect nation. Ah Aaaah!”

7 books that I love:

1. The Mars Trilogy – Kim Stanley Robinson
2. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
3. Turtle Island – Gary Snyder
4. Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro.
5. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
6. An Equal Music – Vikram Seth
7. Not Always So – Shunryu Suzuki

7 movies I watch over and over again (well, more than once)

1. Land and Freedom
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Cry Freedom!
5. Gladiator
6. Return of the King
7. Withnail and I

The budget process

2006-02-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

It is often said that there are two things that no-one wants to see made - sausages and laws. If the budget for a City Council is a kind of law, then that old adage certainly holds true. As the post below illustrates, the Green Group produced a full
budget across the whole scope of Council functions this year - General Fund, Capital Programme and Housing Revenue
Account - and it was certainly a lot of work! The mind boggles at how the indomitable Cllr Craig Simmons managed to do it
virtually by himself over the last couple of years....

The process started back in November, when we started collecting ideas from all comers - not only all the Green City
Councillors, but also our County Councillors, our grassroots members/activists, other Green councillors from across the
country and progressive groups across Oxford. Obviously every councillor has a specific sphere of interest and expertise,
and between us the Green Group covers an impressive range of knowledge. Cllr Sushila Dhall, for example, worked hard
to produce the element of our budget that proposes purchasing Jericho Boatyard in order to preserve it as a community
facility - Cllr Mary Jane Sareva worked away at the Housing Revenue Account numbers, and so on. After that process, we
started to refine our ideas, while engaging with other political groups to finalise the 'base budget' - the assumptions that
every political group starts from in assembling its budget.

Cllr Simmons and myself were the 'lead negotiators' for the Green Group on the budget, which has essentially meant
myriad meetings with different officers in order to cost schemes and to ensure that they are workable (and legal!),
involvement in the strategic assessments of different Council Business Units (which threw up some extremely worrying
facts, such as the chronic overspending and mismanagement of Lesiure and Cultural Services), and negotiations with other
political groups.

The latter is obviously much more important at a time when the Council is in No Overall Control, and when the Green
Group holds the 'balance of power' between Labour and the Lib Dems. The former group were extremely open in their
negotiations with us this year, and some elements of our budgets are quite similar as befits the extensive and constructive
discussions that we had with each other in the run up to the announcement of our budgets. I'm afraid that the same cannot
be said of the Lib Dem Group, which is an enduring disappointment for me - I was looking forward to a rational discussion
of our differing budget priorities, and the ways in which we could work together to deliver them.

Of course, there is still time, as the meeting yesterday simply laid the three Group budgets on the table (the IWCA didn't
turn up again, so didn't produce a budget). Next Monday will be 'crunchtime', when Council has to navigate passing a
budget that incorporates a large portion of our Green priorities, without becoming totally contradictory when incorporating
Labour or Lib Dem priorities as well! A big challenge - but I'm confident in saying that we are doing much better at this
stage than we were in the chaos and uncertainty of last year.

Speaking personally, I am most excited by the 'sustainable energy' elements of the Green budget - our proposals for a
new sustainability officer to boost the Council's work in this area, along with #100,000 each and every year to provide
FREE cavity wall and loft insulation to Oxford residents - a climate change AND poverty reduction measure. The proposals
for a 'Climate Change Officer' for Oxford will also break new ground, and ensure that all of the work that the Green Group
has been doing on the Climate Change Prevention Action Plan will be taken forward strategically and on an officer level.

I'm optimistic - cross your fingers for us on Monday 20th!

Now, in case you were wondering - below is our full budget, broken down into spending and saving proposals, in no
particular order. Obviously all parties take as their starting point a 'base budget' which amounts to tens of millions of pounds spending - these figures are what the Green Group would do differently. All figures refer to the period from 2006-2009.

GENERAL FUND SPENDING PROPOSALS:

Litter enforcement officers (225,000)
Oxford Inspires (300,000)
Allotment improvements (449,000)
Recycling extension (1,083,000)
Area Committees funding made permanent (100,000)
Supported lodgings for young people (80,000)
Temp Accommodation manager (270,000)
Children's Holiday Activities (150,000)
Housing Development Support (120,000)
IT Skills training (20,000)
Payroll replacement (an essential technical issue - 70,000)
Park Rangers (120,000)
Events funding (37,000)
Under 16s free swimming (125,000)
50% funding for more Police Community Support Officers (375,000)
Sustainable buildings award (15,000)
Recycling of tetrapak cartons (30,000)
Expand Commercial Recycling collection (30,000)
Recycling contingency fund to address issues arising out of consultation on new scheme (60,000)
City Energy Efficiency - prudential borrowing (10,000 for a study which will lead to millions of pounds of improvements)
OX1 business improvement district (170,000)
Set-up Oxford Renewable Energy Supply Company (400,000)
Sustainability officer (135,000)
Climate change officer to take forward CCAP (135,000)
Study into congestion charging and workplace parking levys (5,000)
Feasibility study into lightweight 'Parry' tram system (5,000)
More Area Committee revenue funding (375,000)
Community Land Trust - officer (70,000)
Free cavity wall & loft insulation for 1,500 hhlds (300,000)
City Centre bike hub feasibility study (5,000)
Local Food Development officer (105,000)
Housing caseworkers (210,000)
Improvements to Park & Ride (240,000)

GENERAL FUND SAVING PROPOSALS (remainder funded from balances while still keeping 3 million in reserves)

Halt planned expansion of street wardens (750,000)
Election services - no election in 2007 (35,000)
Increase Town Hall Revenue (225,000)
Commercial waste collection (75,000)
Additional planning delivery grant (90,000)
Revenues & Benefits Unit Review (50,000)
Legal Services Review (50,000)
Temporary accommodation (275,000)
Restructure Customer Services (230,000)
Restructure Strategy and Review Unit (75,000)
Restructure Financial and Asset Mgmt Unit (75,000)
Increase car park and enforcement charges in line with inflation (200,000)
Raise charges at City P&R from 60p to 70p (240,000)

CAPITAL PROGRAMME

Purchase Jericho Boatyard from British Waterways - 2.5 million, but working in partnership with a progressive housing
association and the local community, the Council should receive that money back within 3 years from the resale of the land.

HOUSING REVENUE ACCOUNT

An 'eco renovation' scheme for council housing, with no extra cost for tenants. (here my memory fails me - I believe the
exact amount was 250,000 over three years).

Phew! Thats it. :)

Matt

Green Budget announced

2006-02-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

So, the Green budget has been 'unveiled' - a proper post about it
to follow tomorrow. Here is the press release...see www.greenoxford.com for more coverage and our County budget too.

Matt

**************************

GREEN GROUP BUDGET ANNOUNCED

Key Points:

- £2.1 million spending in Year One, £6 million over three years.

- £450,000 on improving allotments over three years.

- Over £1 million revenue spending on recycling over three years.

- £375,000 on extra Police Community Support Officers.

- FREE cavity wall and loft insulation for 1500 Oxford households.

- Support for the Community Land Trust and new housing caseworkers, amounting to £315,000 over three years.

- £400,000 over three years to establish a Sustainable Energy Supply Company for Oxford.

- £375,000 extra funding for Area Committees over three years.

Oxford City Council Green Group today revealed its 2006/2007 budget for all aspects of the Council’s administration. With ‘Green spending’ of over £2.1 million in the first year, and amounting to £6 million over three years, the budget represents a Green vision for the whole of the city – the creation of an Oxford that is ‘Planning for the Future’.

Cllr Craig Simmons, the Leader of Oxford City Council Green Group, commented: “Our budget puts forward solutions for all of the problems facing Oxford. Extra spending on Police Community Support Officers will help deal with anti social behaviour, while our focus on improving provision of affordable housing and housing advice will improve the lives of countless Oxford residents. On environmental issues, our proposal to establish a Sustainable Energy Supply Company for Oxford will push us into the forefront of climate change work throughout the UK, and a massively expanded recycling scheme will bring us into line with the best performers in the country.”

Cllr Mary Jane Sareva, who represents St Clements Ward, further explained: “The Green proposal to provide free loft and wall insulation for 500 households a year will lift residents out of fuel poverty while at the same time helping to deal with climate change and energy waste. When combined with existing free insulation schemes for the most vulnerable, the City Council would be helping thousands of residents. When coupled with support for healthier eating through improvements in allotment conditions and a Local Food Development officer, the Green proposals would significantly improve the health of our city.”

The Green budget, tabled today (Monday February 13th) will be debated alongside the other Group budgets on Monday 20th February. The Green Group, with seven councilors, holds the balance of power between the Labour and Liberal Democrat Groups, and so expects to see many of its proposals adopted. Cllr Matt Sellwood, Deputy Leader of the Green Group, added: “We have already seen other political groups adopting Green ideas, because they are affordable, workable and make a significant improvement to the lives of people in Oxford. We expect to see many of these proposals in the final City Council budget on 20th February.”

RIP Guy Hughes

2006-02-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

As some of you will have seen in this week's Oxford Mail, former Director of Campaigns at People and Planet, Guy Hughes, died in a tragic climbing accident last week. He was 32, and his funeral was yesterday.

I only met Guy a few times, but his passing has left a large hole in the Oxford activist community, and I can see its effect on many of my friends. My condolences in particular to Lucy Pearce, his girlfriend and Campaigns Co-ordinator for Stop Climate Chaos.

Guy was the co-ordinator for People and Planet's Green Electricity campaign, which I
helped run in Oxford. He achieved a great deal in his short time - and will be missed.

RIP Guy.

Matt

Secret goings on

2006-02-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

As of last week, it seems that the Oxford Mail have become web-savvy....I was astonished to read a criticism of my not updating this blog from the local paper's "Political Insider". He achieved the mentally gymnastic feat of both criticising me for
*having* a web-log in the first place (apparently it is the sign of political egomania) and for not updating it! Of course, the reason that I have not been updating it is because I have been so madly busy (as 'The Insider' well knows, given his attendance at most council meetings) - but since a few weeks before he decided to fill his column with the exciting fact that I ate a bannana during Executive Board, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that he is searching for stories!

I can only apologise for not being more frequent in my updates, but the real problem is that almost all of the really
interesting stuff that I am involved in at the moment needs to be kept under wraps for the time being. My main Council
activity is acting as joint lead negotiator for the Green Group budget, which is turning out incredibly well. Our achievements
last year were good enough, and everything is shaping up to be even better this time around. Giving credit where credit
is due, that is partly because the Labour Group are being constructive and sensible about it all - they realise that they need
our votes, and so our discussions are going well. Apparently the GLA Green Group are also making huge strides in their
budget negotiations - so look out for budget breakdowns on February 15th (GLA) and February 20th (Oxford) and
descriptions of Green accomplishments. :) Nationally, I am also involved in discussions about our elections strategy, both for the May council elections (where we are aiming for an ambitious target of 100 councillors after the elections) and looking further ahead until 2010. Of course, I can't post most of that publicly either!

As usual, most of the things I can actually blog about openly are negative - and it doesn't come much more negative than the continuing crisis in Oxfordshire's NHS. The overall deficit in our county's NHS Trusts is now approaching 30 million, and the Government is refusing to help - despite much of the money being gobbled up by their restrictive targets and centralised control. Community hospitals are closing, mental health services are being cut, and the extortionate PFI schemes are starting to leech public money off into the private sector. According to Patricia Hewitt, all of this will be fine, as long as GPs open their surgeries in branches of Tescos (no, I'm not kidding) and we allow United Health and other American corporations to run the health service....

When combined with the Puritan, mean-spirited bullying of the most vulnerable by New Labour (through their proposed reforms of incapacity benefit) and the continuing deprivation of the children of asylum seekers through Section 9 - I fail to see how any of my genuinely progressive Labour colleagues can sleep at night...

On a positive note, I continue to try to support grassroots action by my constituents as far as I can - and for the third time in four years I will be helping to run the 'Defend Oxfords Green Electricity' campaign. This time, however, I am hoping that the University will follow the Green-inspired example of the City Council, and invest money into constructing new renewables - making a real difference to green energy capacity in the UK. Through campaigns such as this, as well as the attempt to get the University's money invested in a socially responsible manner, ordinary people can make a real difference through collective action.

Keep your eyes open for more updates - especially after February 13th, when I will be able to blog about our budget amendments....

Matt

Quarterly Update

2006-01-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

As has become my custom, I share with my loyal readers the Quarterly Update that
I send to all Oxfordshire Green Party members. As with everything I've been doing
recently, it's a bit late!

Matt

****************************************

CITY COUNCIL GREEN GROUP QUARTERLY UPDATE

Firstly, my apologies for the lateness of this update to the membership -
the last few months have been hectic for a whole number of reasons! Many
of us were involved in the City Council by-election for Jericho and
Osney, where we ran 'on our record' and recorded a large increase in
votes. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough, and as a result our efforts
in the City Centre have been setback a little - Labour winning back the
seat from the Lib Dems means that they now have a majority of 4 out of the
8 seats on the Central Area Committee, making it unlikely that Greens will
be able to hold positions of responsibility there in the immediate future.
However, we will do our best to change that situation in the May elections!

As ever, Green councillors have been busy in all areas of the Council's
work, and it is only possible to give a small flavour of what the Green
Group has been up to. As has been the pattern over the last 18 months, we
have had a number of successes in the main Council chamber, passing motions
(amongst others) condeming the continued transport of nuclear materials
through Oxford and committing the City Council to support of the principle
of 'Domestic Tradable Carbon Quotas' (also known as carbon rations). The
two motions that garnered the most press attention this quarter were
probably the successful Green attempt to have the City Council condemn the
efforts of British Waterways to evict the boaters who are occupying the
Jericho Boatyard (to preserve this valuable community resource), and the
successful motion to have Council officers investigate the erection of a
major wind turbine on the outskirts of the City. Green councillors continue
to be active in supporting both of these campaigns, following our success
in the Council chamber itself.

Following on from the successful campaign to have more cycle parking
installed in the city centre, consistent Green pressure for improvements
to the Plain Roundabout have also paid-off, with work starting as I write
on cycle improvements for this notorious safety 'black spot'. Combined
with prominent Green support for the Cowley Road traders who are
experiencing significant rent rises, and the much-improved Cowley Road
streetscene, many long anticipated Green schemes have come to fruition
this year. With work on city centre air pollution also progressing, and
the Green-funded Planning Policy Document on 'Natural Resource Impact
Assessments' (a document that will allow councillors to hold developers to
the highest sustainability standards) due to become legally binding in
July, the Green Group will be able to point to an impressive body of
achievement in the upcoming elections.

Of course, nothing is ever perfect, and there are a number of issues on
which we are 'outgunned'. They range from the superficial and irritating
(for example, the Oxford Mail's continuing yearly witch-hunt against any
councillor who chooses not to attend a militaristic Rememberance Service),
to the rather more serious - the continuing determination of other parties
to support the expansion of the Westgate shopping centre, for example, or
the continuing attempts by the PCT and NHS Trusts to expand the influence
of private finance within the health service. The upcoming Budget process
(in which, of course, the Greens hold the 'balance of power') provides
an opportunity to redress some of that imbalance, and we are working on a
number of innovative ideas to get across our election campaign themes and
make a real difference to the City Council's contribution to sustainability
and social justice. With the Council's Corporate Plan soon to be amended
to include climate change as a 'headline priority', and with Labour
announcing their conversion to an expansion of recycling that we have
been advocating for years, it seems that we are making headway - and we
will continue greening the Council as fast as we can!

Cllr Matt Sellwood

Asylum insanity...

2006-01-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought that the Government's asylum policies couldn't get more
frustratingly and infuriatingly insane, you find out that they are giving away
millions of pounds to private sector companies for *doing nothing*. If I had enough
hair left, I'd tear it out...see the press release below for a brief Green Party
take on it.

Matt

*****************

GREENS CONDEMN ASYLUM CENTRE WASTE

Oxfordshire Green Party today expressed its shock and dismay at the news
that the cancelled Bicester Detention Centre will cost taxpayers another
#12 million (1). The payment, which will be paid to private firm GSL despite
the cancellation of the centre, comes on top of a cost of #18 million that
was announced last year.

Cllr Matt Sellwood, who is an Oxford City Councillor and member of the
Party's National Executive, said: "This is simply a disgrace. Locking up
asylum seekers is morally wrong, and now we see that it is a massive
waste of money as well. This government has thrown millions of pounds
down the drain on this crazy project, which no-one in Oxfordshire wanted,
while letting our public services get heavily into debt. It's time for
Labour to stop wasting money on imprisoning people who have done nothing
wrong, and to invest properly in health and education instead." (2)

Cllr Larry Sanders, who is Leader of the Oxfordshire County Council Green
Group and who recently resigned from a Oxfordshire Mental Health Trust
in protest at proposed cuts in funding, added: "How is it possible that
the Government can refuse to provide extra funding for our over-stretched
National Health Service, but is happy to give away millions of pounds to
a private firm who never even started building this centre? At a time when
Oxfordshire NHS Trusts are cancelling operations and making cutbacks, it
defies belief that #30 million has been wasted on this project."

Notes for editors:

(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4601918.stm

(2) Oxfordshire Green Party has opposed the Bicester Centre since it was
first proposed. See:
http://www.greenoxford.com/manifesto2004/Asylum%20seekers%20and%20refugees%202.pdf

Apologies for absence....

2006-01-10T04:41:00.000-08:00

My sincere apologies to anyone who is still loyally checking this
blog for signs of life. I promise that I haven't fallen off of the
edge of the world or given up on social change - I'm just so busy with it all that I never have time to update the website! I will try to add a few things over the next couple of months, but I can't promise to be hugely productive - being a member of the National Executive and moving into a new house have put paid to that capacity, for the moment at least...

However, a Happy New Year to all who are reading this - and here's hoping that it's a Green one!

Best wishes,

Matt

High Street traffic

2005-10-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Below is just one example of the kind of thing I get up to everyday - in this case, in the form of a press release which will hopefully get some attention for a problem that I have been working on for over a year now. It just proves that getting a law passed is just the first step - then you have to get someone to enforce the bloody thing!

On another, even more serious note, Cllr Larry Sanders (leader of the County Council Green Group) resigned as a Director of the Oxfordshire NHS Mental Health Trust yesterday, due to the savage cuts they are proposing for care right across the County, and the proposals for wholesale privatisation that are currently being put forward by the government. See these
links for more details:

http://www.labournet.net/ukunion/0510/nhspct1.html
http://www.greenoxford.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=131&Itemid=2

Matt

******************

GREENS SLAM HIGH STREET INACTION

Oxford's Green councillors have criticised continuing inaction by the
government on enforcement
of the traffic restrictions on Oxford's High Street. Despite theoretically
being banned from the
High Street, private cars routinely ignore traffic restrictions, and the
problem is believed to be
getting worse.

A ban on private traffic in the daytime has been operating on the High
Street for 4 years, but has
been hamstrung by the County Council's inability to prosecute drivers who
flout it. At present,
due to a loophole in the law, only a police officer on the spot can
prosecute those drivers who
break the restrictions, and the City and County Councils remain powerless
to act.

Cllr Matt Sellwood, who represents the High Street as Green Party city
councillor for Holywell
Ward, commented: "I have now asked several official questions in Full
Council on this subject,
and every time the answer has been the same - we are waiting for national
government. Surely
the time for waiting is over. Air pollution in Oxford's city centre is
appalling, and yet the
Department of Transport won't even give us the most basic of tools to
fight the problem. When will we get the city centre we deserve?"

Cllr Sellwood is joined in his efforts to properly enforce the High Street
traffic ban by the two
County Councillors for the area, both of whom also represent the Green
Party. Cllr Deborah
Glass-Woodin, who is Deputy Leader of the County Council Green Group,
said: "Central
government is failing the residents of the city centre, and the amount of
private traffic on the
High Street is simply getting worse and worse. How much time can it take
one bureaucrat to sign a
piece of paper? Four years is certainly too long."

FMI contact Cllr Matt Sellwood at matt@greenoxford.com, 01865 455278 or
01865 727911
during office hours.

Full Council - October 3rd

2005-10-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Well, at long last we have had another Full Council! The months without one have been a little frustrating for the Green
Group, because our 'balance of power' situation is only evident in the Full Council itself - the Labour administration has
a large majority on the ruling Executive Board and so, quite frankly, they don't have to listen to us so much. It is only at
Council that our votes become relatively crucial.

Since it had been a while since last Council, we had a lot to get through. Instead of going through every single thing that we discussed, I thought it best to just pick out a few that might be of interest.

(i) I continued my habit of asking the most questions of Portfolio Holders. This opportunity is particularly useful because Portfolio Holders have to provide an answer, and because the questioner gets a 'supplementary' to ask a spontaeneous question after the prepared answer. This time, I asked about the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act on the High Street, the worrying case of a Council officer using an 'anti-leafletting' bylaw to suppress political free speech at a demonstration, the investigation of using 'whole life costings' when constructing new Council buildings, and the continued
disuse of the 'busgate' on the High Street. As you can see, I have my fingers in many pies!

While these are all important questions, the one that gets me most worked up is probably the last - simply because I have to walk up and down the High Street most days, and it drives me insane that private car drivers are breaking the law with impunity. Almost all private cars are forbidden from driving on the high Street - but to watch the road, you wouldn't think it! To cut a long story short, this is all because a civil servant in the Department of Transport is refusing to sign just *one* piece of guidance, which would allow Oxfordshire County Council to start photographing and fining the illegal car drivers. This civil servant has now held up the Oxford Transport Strategy for over 4 years! It was one of the first things I asked about when I was elected 15 months ago...and, amazingly, there has been NO progress since. You might not be surprised to know that I am now planning a press stunt to highlight this absolutely infuriating state of affairs - watch this space.

(ii) The new Housing Strategy. Cllr Elise Benjamin, my Green Group colleague on the central planning committee, and one of our housing spokespeople, laid out an excellent critique of this document - which, inevitably was ignored and misrepresented by Labour in equal measure. As we have said time and again, there are a number of solutions for the housing crisis in Oxford, none of which are being put forward by Labour. Rather than continually proposing the building of thousands of new houses on the Green Belt, Labour should be redesignating unused 'employment land' on brownfield sites, and building affordable, sustainable housing on them. Instead, they are continuing to advocate the 'high growth' model for oxford, which is only making the problem worse and driving house prices up even further. A prime example of this, of course, is the madness known as the expansion of the Westgate Centre - as if doubling the retail space in the city centre will do anything to alleviate the housing problem. Of course, Labour are justified in pointing out that building new affordable housing is difficult - but this is, of course, due to the continuing refusal of their own national government to let local authorities build new council housing. Labour are stuck in a Thatcherite time warp, where the only way to create affordable housing is to build thousands of private homes in the hope that the supply will outstrip demand - rather than intervening in the market to create a more just and fair society. As Tony Blair would put it 'we are the changemakers' - as long as nobody challenges the free market, that is....

(iii) Council motions. We passed a lot of decent policy in this Council, including an ID card motion (proposed by the very same Liberal Democrat Group that had called me a 'grandstanding gesture politician' for putting forward an almost identicial motion in january - better late than never!), and one calling for the County Council to work towards increasing cycling in oxford, not decreasing it. However, the one that has proven controversial was Cllr Patrick Murray (Lib Dem) and his 'Economic Diversity' motion, which was aimed at alleviating the terrible financial strains placed upon Oxford's independent small businesses, and which was produced in co-operation with yours truly. Basically, the City Council is charging much higher rents than it did before - and it is backdating the rents for years, in some cases, which is driving small traders out of business. We proposed that the rent only be backdated by a maximum of six months, and that the Council use its 'power of econonomic well being' to do whatever it could to soften the blow.The Green Group put an amendment mentioning the vibrant small business community in Cowley Road particularly, and all seemed well - until the Labour Group stepped in. Obviously sensing an opportunity to misrepresent their political opponents, they pointed out that (due to the regulations of the District Auditor) we would have to allow the measure to apply to all businesses that hire premises from the City Council - not only small traders, but also multinationals like Tesco and the BBC. Of course, this is true - but what they failed to point out was that if the Council does nothing, many small businesses will go to the wall - and who will benefit from that? The multinationals, of course.

I would love nothing better than to provide favourable terms to small, local businesses which keep capital in the community and have ethical employment practices. Unfortunately, once again, the Labour government won't let me! So we now have the bizarre situation of the Labour administration blaming the Greens for providing a subsidy to multinationals - when it is their own national goverment that is forcing us to! Labour's solution seems to be to destroy the local economy, and let multinationals take over the whole Cowley Road....not a chance while I'm arguing the case, I'm afraid.

And arguing the case I will be, at my first Executive Board meeting on october 10th. I have replaced Cllr Sushila Dhall as the Green Group's nominee - and to be honest, I'm greatly looking forward to it. Fighting the Green corner will be fun!

Another update soon I hope, when i recover from days of standing up for seven hours straight at Freshers Fair. :)

Much love,

Matt

Queen Street

2005-09-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

Underlying all my activities on the Council is an awareness of the pledges I made during my election campaign in 2004 - for those of you who were around then, please rest assured that I haven't forgotten them!

One of them was a pledge to do everything I can to ensure that pedestrianisation of the city centre continues, and that we get the urban spaces that we deserve in a city of historic and cultural importance. Perhaps the epicentre of that particular struggle is Queen Street - currently the most polluted street in Oxford, dangerous, dirty and full of tragically unfulfilled potential. Of course, Queen Street is also that most irritating of phenomena - the problem that every councillor and every responsible authority vows to solve, and yet which continues to persist, year after year after year.

The new proposals for an expanded Westgate Shopping Centre have been the latest occasion for every political party and local authority officer to vow to clean out buses from Queen Street - and yet, surprise surprise, it is proving rather hard to get rid of buses from the city centre through a scheme that promises to massively increase city centre traffic congestion! At the moment, the Westgate Partnership are promising to get rid of some of the buses from Queen Street by building a new 'bus turning circle' at Abbey Place (which would enable the buses from the North of Oxford and Oxfordshire to turn around without using Queen Street) and are suggesting that another bus turning circle near the Canal Basin would enable the buses from East Oxford to turn without using Queen Street as well.

Of course, we are told, such a scheme can only be achieved by the agreement of the Westgate planning proposal and a massive expansion in city centre retail space. In order to solve our current traffic problems, we must create more traffic - in order to preserve Oxford as a regional centre, we must destroy its cultural, historic and natural heritage - black is white, ignorance is strength, and so on....

When will the other political parties in Oxford realise that we aren't Milton Keynes or Reading, nor indeed, should we aspire to be? A huge shopping centre with identikit chain stores will not prove the panacea for Oxford's ills - and, indeed, I suspect it will just make them much, much worse. I am glad that the investigation into the Westgate shopping centre has led to some hard thinking about how it is possible to pedestrianise Queen Street - now lets get on and do it, regardless of whether the Westgate proposal is agreed or not. As my colleague Cllr Sushila Dhall put it in a recent letter to the Oxford Mail: "There are many ways to pedestrianise a street, and most of them don't involve a massive shopping mall." We need less traffic in Oxford's city centre, not more.

Matt

Quarterly update

2005-09-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

As usual, I share with you the Quarterly Update on Green City Council activities that goes out to all of our members in
Oxfordshire - some of these themes have already been covered on the blog, but its a useful snapshot of the last three
months. :)

Matt

*********

CITY COUNCIL GREEN GROUP QUARTERLY UPDATE

Cllr Matt Sellwood

Another three months have passed since the last Green Group update from the City Council, so here I am again. In some ways, this has been the quietest time since my election in 2004, with not many official meetings due to the summer, and not a lot of official business. We exert much of our influence through Full Council (where we hold the balance of power), which hasn’t met for months, so this quarter has mostly been characterized by individual councilors ‘plugging away’ at their areas of speciality and their ward work. However, this partial lull in activity (which still means countless meetings and casework, just not as many big decisions!) has enabled us to continue working on the ‘big issues’ for the next year, which include the Westgate development, air pollution, the next budget and Corporate Plan, and (of course) the 2006 elections.

This quarter has seen an odd mix of frustration and achievement, doled out in pretty much equal measure. While a lot of Green initiated projects have come to fruition recently, such as the long-awaited Cowley Road redevelopment, city centre cycle parking, the Climate Change Prevention Action Plan and much more, we have also seen many of our attempts to push forward new ideas stymied by a combination of officers and councilors from other parties. This has been particularly frustrating for those of us involved in the national Association of Green Councillors, as we are well aware that many of the ideas we are putting forward have been successfully implemented by Greens elsewhere. Of course, we remain obstinate and generally get our way (in the end!) – but it can be a hard and grueling process!

One of the examples of this mixture of achievement and frustration can be found in the Green Group’s engagement in planning. While the radical elements of the new Local Plan are continuing to be developed under our guidance and pressure, we also find that officers seem determined to preserve the status quo wherever necessary. Frustration at the glacial pace of change (especially as we are now armed with strong powers to enforce sustainability, the result of years of work) has even led to our seeking independent legal advice on how far we can go in forcing developers to mitigate their environmental and social impact on the community – having been told by officers that such measures were impossible. We are also finding that our radical and innovative ideas for the Westgate development are being pushed aside – and our fundamental objection to the expansion of retail space in the city centre is being dismissed. Of course, we are hardly going to take this lying down – watch this space for a loud, bold and strong challenge to Council inertia!

As well as engaging with the Council’s committees, we retain a strong commitment to defending campaigns outside the Council chamber – for example, we have been active in supporting the campaign to close Campsfield House, to highlight the human rights abuses in West Papua, and to keep the Jericho Boatyard open in the face of harassment by British Waterways. We have also spoken up strongly against the expansion of Alcohol Free Zones (which serve, as we predicted, only to displace problem drinkers into sidestreets, rather than helping them deal with their addictions) and continued to campaign for an immediate solution to Oxford’s air pollution problems. We are also gearing up to get strong Green priorities into the Council’s next Corporate Plan, and to prepare an even stronger Green Budget than last year!

Of course, we always have the upcoming elections in May 2006 in the back of our minds. I’d like to use this opportunity to appeal to anyone who has been thinking of getting involved - now is the time! With experienced Labour councilors retiring, an incompetent Liberal Democrat opposition, and an excellent result in 2005 behind us, we have a wonderful opportunity to expand across the City – but we will simply be unable to do so without sufficient resources. To put it bluntly, we will need financial backing, we will need activists on the ground, and we will need candidates who want to win. 2006 could be a pivotal year – I hope that by June, we’ll have city councilors in the double figures. To be honest, whether it happens is largely up to you.

All the best,

Cllr Matt Sellwood

Green Party Conference

2005-09-14T01:40:00.000-07:00

I was at the Autumn Party Conference from Thursday to Sunday last week, up in Lancaster, and as usual it was a refreshing and uplifting experience. I always enjoy meeting up with several hundred other Greens, swapping experience and planning for the future - especially when there is such potential ahead of us. Considering the frustration that councillors often feel at the slow pace of chance, and which I have blogged about before, it is especially good to meet up with other Green elected representatives to hear about their individual successes. Before long, it always becomes clear that nationally it is making a real difference that the Green Party's elected representation is growing. From Kirklees Council, where Cllr Andy Cooper is the Housing Portfolio Holder and the Greens are installing millions of pounds worth of renewable energy measures (including, by the way, most of the schemes that Oxford council officers continually tell me are impossible!), to Lancaster, to Norwich, to Brighton, and many other councils across the country, Green Groups are growing and making a difference.

Of course, the flipside of that coin is that they are not growing fast enough, and not making *enough* of a difference to go even part of the way towards offsetting the disastrous actions of government, big business and 'mainstream culture'. We need to do more, better, and faster - and its a big job. While the Greens now have 2 MEPs, 7 MSPs, 2 London Assembly Members and over 70 councillors, we are dwarfed by the three main parties. While our growth is accelerating (we hope to have 100 councillors by this time next year) we still represent a tiny proportion of the whole. NOW is the time, if there ever was one, to get involved and help boost the Green Party to the next level. If people of conscience don't get involved with the only party that is wholeheartedly espousing the principles of social justice, sustainability, peace and democracy, then no-one else will - and it will be no surprise that mainstream politics continues to wallow in the gutter. Only the Green Party is looking at the stars!

With that in mind, I've decided to 'step up to the plate' (my American wife must be rubbing off on me...) and increase my commitment to the Party even further. At Conference, I ran for the National Executive for the first time, and barring any unforeseen disasters, should be serving as Local Party Support Co-ordinator on 'GPEX' by the end of the month. It's a big challenge - we need membership growth, better fundraising, more focus on elections AND better media outreach, all at the same time - but it's one that we have to meet, if we are going to turn the political world upside down. And make no mistake, that is what we have to do - to survive.

The Greens are never going to be supported by big business (I'd be worried if we were!) and we are never going to be bankrolled by billionaires. Unfortunately, money talks in UK politics these days - for example, the Greens pulled out all the stops to spend 400,000 quid in the 2004 Euro Elections. UKIP spent 2.4 million! Sadly, the ratio of seats won: money spent was exactly proportionate - they won 12, we won 2. If you've ever thought that British politics needs a force for progressive social change, then please - now is the time to join up and make it happen.

Rant over - I'll post something up about what I've been doing on the council later today.

Love,

Matt

Climate change speaker meetings

2005-09-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

OK, so technically this blog is about my council work and not my day-job, but I
figure that anyone reading this weblog probably has some interest in climate change
issues, so below are some intriguing Oxford-based events for you come along to!

*****************************************************************

COMING EVENTS IN COIN OXFORD CLIMATE CHANGE SPEAKER SERIES

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22nd

SLEEPWALKING INTO DISASTER: ARE WE IN A STATE OF DENIAL ABOUT CLIMATE
CHANGE?

George Monbiot, an award winning author and broadcaster, writes
regularly on climate change for his weekly column in The Guardian. He is
a highly acclaimed and inspirational public speaker.

George Marshall is Co-Executive Director of the Climate Outreach
Information Network. He is currently preparing a book on denial and
climate change

7-9pm. Doors open 6.30. The Holywell Music Rooms, Holywell St., Oxford.
Price £2/ £1 entry on the door

When most people accept the dangers of climate change why do they keep
flying for their holidays and buying ever larger cars? Why is it so hard
for us to face up to the realities of the threats? Will new fuels and
technologies really save us, or are they just a fantasy and further
evidence of our denial?

*************************************************************************

OTHER COMING SPEAKER EVENTS

THURSDAY OCTOBER 27th
HOMES FOR THE GREENHOUSE.

7-9pm The Vaults- see Venues for details. Price £2 / £1 concessions on
the door

To meet government climate change targets houses will need to use 60%
less energy by 2050. How does government policy need to change to
achieve this target and what role will individual householders play?
Come to the talk and learn about the practical steps you can take
straight away.

Gavin Killip from the University of Oxford Environmental Change
Institute presents the research of the 40% House Project on the
combination of rebuilding and new technologies that will transform
Britain's homes.
Local pioneers will present the practical steps they took to achieve
this target in their own houses.
*************************************************************************

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 24th
"WILL THE POLITICIANS EVER SAVE US FROM CLIMATE CHANGE?"

Town Hall- see Venues for details. 7pm-9pm. Doors open 6.30. Free entry.

Two exceptional speakers who have struggled to make the political
process work share their perspectives on the importance and the
impotence of politicians.

Charles Secrett is the former Executive Director of Friends of the Earth
and is the director of Active Citizens Transform.
Caroline Lucas is the Green Party MEP representing the South-East of
England. She is one of the most powerful speakers on the environment.

*************************************************************************

THURSDAY 15th DECEMBER
I'M DREAMING OF A GREY CHRISTMAS

Town Hall- see Venues for details. 7pm-9pm. Doors open 6.30. Free entry.

Will climate change bring us a future without snowmen, Jack Frost and
icicles...or does it have some even nastier surprises for us? Two
leading experts present the long range weather forecast the UK and
around the world

Helen Young is the lead presenter at the BBC Weather Centre and appears
regularly on television, radio and web presenting forecasts and
discussing climate issues.
Dr Stephan Harrison is a Geographer in the University of Oxford
specialising in glacier melt and climate change.

The Climate Outreach and Information Network
16B Cherwell St. Oxford, OX4 4BL, UK.
Telephone 01865 727 911
E-mail info@COINet.org.uk
Web: www.COINet.org.uk

Frustration (a slight return)

2005-09-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

My apologies to those who have been checking regularly for my lack of updates in the last few weeks. While I was on holiday for one of those weeks, for the others I have been hard at work - as usual, a lack of posts and internet activity means that I am *more* busy in real life, not less. I must admit, however, that much of my activity during the last month has involved butting my head against various bureaucratic brick walls - and then doing the same thing repeatedly in the hope of something eventually giving way!

In my day job (working for the Climate Outreach and Information network) I've had plenty of time to reflect on the meaning of the floods in New Orleans, and the incredibly dangerous and irresistible power of nature that they reveal - and, I'm afraid, my increasing sense that we are hurtling towards a precipice of catastrophic climate change that we are still doing nothing to turn back from. This feeling has not been helped by the appallingly conservative and unhelpful attitude of City officers over the last few weeks to the latest Green effort to help deal with the issue. In a cross-Area initiative, Cllr Craig Simmons (Chair of the East Area Parliament, Leader of the Green Group, and all-round Green Renaissance man) and I are attempting to put 20K each of our Area Committee capital budgets into renovating two council houses so that their carbon emissions are reduced by 60% - in other words, so that they start to get close to meeting our ultimate climate change goals. Despite this tying into the City Council's obligations under the Home Energy Conservation Act, its planning goals, and basic common sense, the resistance from Council officers has been intensely depressing. Legal reasons, financial reasons, and just general inertia have all been deployed to stop the scheme from happening....and all, basically, because it is a new idea that has not been tried before. Never mind that if this was an ordinary renovation no-one would bat an eyelid - talk about climate change, and a million petty restrictions come out to prevent any action. It's my hope that this project will still go forward - but, as usual, the amount of effort required is mind-boggling. Until more City COuncil officers start looking at innovative, radical projects with excitement and energy, rather than cynicism and pessimism, we're not going to get very far.

These kind of incidents can get you down - in a way, though, its helpful to know that it doesn't just happen to us Greens. Anyone who wants to do something a little 'out of the box' encounters the same kind of stodgy attitude, and the only way to fight it is to keep on going. Cllr Dan Paskins, mentioned in this blog before, is having similar problems with Council officers over his stalwart support of the Pathways project (something I have been working on for months - see previous posts), and he's a Portfolio Holder on the Council's Executive Board! It's gotten to such a stage that the responsible Officer is recommending that the Council not give a dime to Pathways....to his credit, Dan is backing the option that I support, which is to give the Workshop 30,000 quid. While Council officers protest that Pathways 'must cut costs and streamline its business plan', some of us still believe that a charitable organisation employing over 20 disabled staff, and which gives them worthwhile work and self-esteem while supporting an impoverished East Oxford community, deserves the support of the City Council regardless of stale Thatcherite dictums about economic efficiency. What kind of situation have we gotten into where a Council without a single Conservative councillor is dictated to by the Tory assumptions of its officers?

I have to be honest, and say that in my opinion, some Council officers (and certainly not all, as there are excellent employees of the City Council) need to remember that councillors are elected to pursue a political vision, and not to follow the political philosophy of central government without thought or initiative. Some councillors do, but our municipal government is all the poorer for it. However hard it may be, Oxford's Green councillors are always going to keep pushing for our vision to become a reality, because that is why we are elected - not to maintain the status quo or accept 'the inevitable' - but to make a real difference. We'll get there in the end....and I, for one, will keep on shouting about it. :)

Matt

Taking a break...

2005-08-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Just thought I would quickly post my apologies for not having put up an entry for a week or two - I have been hard at
work at my new job, as well as dealing with a bunch of national Green Party things - and now I am going on a well earned
holiday for a week. Will post as soon as I get back. :)

Sunny (I hope) East Sussex, here I come!

Matt

The apocalypse is nigh....

2005-08-11T04:28:00.000-07:00

....if ever I feel that I am boring people by droning about climate change, articles like this (in todays Guardian) change my mind instantly. If methane deposits in Siberia start getting released at any kind of level, we are in serious *serious* trouble. We
HAVE TO start doing something about climate change - NOW!

************

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

Article continues
The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.

The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today.

The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.

Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.

Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.

"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."

In its last major report in 2001, the intergovernmental panel on climate change predicted a rise in global temperatures of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 and 2100, but the estimate only takes account of global warming driven by known greenhouse gas emissions.

"These positive feedbacks with landmasses weren't known about then. They had no idea how much they would add to global warming," said Dr Viner.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. Scientists are particularly concerned about the permafrost, because as it thaws, it reveals bare ground which warms up more quickly than ice and snow, and so accelerates the rate at which the permafrost thaws.

Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost. According to Larry Smith, a hydrologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70bn tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world.

The permafrost is likely to take many decades at least to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst, said Stephen Sitch, a climate scientist at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter.

But calculations by Dr Sitch and his colleagues show that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add around 700m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture.

It would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, he said.

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said the finding was a stark message to politicians to take concerted action on climate change. "We knew at some point we'd get these feedbacks happening that exacerbate global warming, but this could lead to a massive injection of greenhouse gases.

"If we don't take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide," he said. "There's still time to take action, but not much.

"The assumption has been that we wouldn't see these kinds of changes until the world is a little warmer, but this suggests we're running out of time."

In May this year, another group of researchers reported signs that global warming was damaging the permafrost. Katey Walter of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told a meeting of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that her team had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia. At the hotspots, methane was bubbling to the surface of the permafrost so quickly that it was preventing the surface from freezing over.

Last month, some of the world's worst air polluters, including the US and Australia, announced a partnership to cut greenhouse gas emissions through the use of new technologies.

The deal came after Tony Blair struggled at the G8 summit to get the US president, George Bush, to commit to any concerted action on climate change and has been heavily criticised for setting no targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Oxford housing - the facts

2005-08-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

I will have to apologise in advance for the amount of numbers in this post - but I hope that at least some readers will find them interesting. Work has finally been completed on the City Council's "Private Sector Stock Survey" - basically an analysis of the condition of all the non-council housing in the city. With over 1250 inspections performed, and analysis of levels of repair, energy efficiency and safety, you will probably be unsurprised to hear that - well, basically, a lot of work needs to be done!

Since another of my election pledges back in 2004 was to do everything I could to deal with the shoddy housing experienced by thousands of students every year, this is all of particular interest to me - with the Council aiming for decently ambitious energy efficiency targets as well, it becomes a very interesting read to anyone pursuing goals of social justice or sustainability in Oxford.

So here are some numbers:

52.9% of Oxford's housing stock was built before 1945

2,244 of dwellings (4.9% of the total) in Oxford are officially 'unfit for human habitation' - this compares to a national level
of 4.2% and a South-East average of 2.8%.

Unsurpisingly, rented housing (of exactly the kind used by students) is most likely to be unfit - 6.5% of all landlord owned
properties fall into the unfit for human habitation category. In Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOS), which have a massive
student population, a terrifying 70% have no proper fire exits, and 17% have no smoke detectors!

30.7% of private sector housing doesn't meet the Government criteria to be called 'decent' - and 70% of these homes fail
because they do not meet an appropriate level of 'thermal comfort'.

Obviously, the above figure has to do with fuel poverty and low energy efficiency - at 53 (out of a scale of 1 to 120) Oxford's
average energy efficiency score is almost exactly average for the South-East, but 7.2% of our private homes have scores of under 30 - a level at which heat is lost so rapidly that it is almost impossible to heat the home. To improve Oxford's score
to an average of 56 through insulation would cost 9.2 million pounds, and would represent a 28% reduction in CO2
emissions from our 1995 levels.

Basically, what all of these numbers indicate is that Oxford still has a big fuel poverty and housing fitness problem, and that we need to think big in order to solve it. Happily, this report seems to be stimulating some strategic planning on the part of the City Council administration, and it is my fervent hope that the Green Group can play our part in putting together an ambitious plan to fight fuel poverty and improve Oxford's private housing stock. Our next budget will be looking seriously at these issues, and given our success last year in budget negotiations, I am hopeful that we can work with all the other political groups to solve this problem once and for all.

If that all seemed a bit abstract for you, here's one number you can't ignore. Every winter, the UK experiences around 40,000 'excess deaths'. The vast majority of these occur through cold, due to people being too poor to heat their own houses. 40,000 deaths, in the UK, in the 21st century, through being too poor to pay for heating? Now thats something worth fighting against.

Matt

Executive Board - August 8th

2005-08-08T03:59:00.001-07:00

Due to the ridiculous rule that members of the Executive Board (the Council's "Cabinet", for want of a better word) cannot have substitutes if they are away, I had to sit in the audience for today's EB session, despite Sushila Dhall being on holiday (and despite the fact that I am taking over as the Green Group EB nominee in October anyway!). I did, however, ask a question about the Alcohol Free Zones, the abolition of which were a key part of my election in 2004.

This Council is currently holding a review of the AFZs, with the administrations view seeming to be that they should be extended further. As the Green Group warned at the time of their introduction, they have simply displaced the problem of anti-social drinking to areas outside the zones - normally residential side streets which used to be peaceful and quiet. The Labour solution to this problem? It seems to be to make the entire City an Alcohol Free Zone, and arrest anyone they don't like the look of.

For those who think that the latter part of the above sentence is hyperbole, I'm afraid that in many instances the AFZs are being used as a licence to arrest or move-on 'undesirables', whether they are behaving anti-socially or not. I have had three different definitions of what powers the AFZs grant the police - one from a council officer, one from a fellow councillor, and one from the police. Thats why I asked a simple question at EB - what, exactly, do the AFZs permit and forbid? The official answer is (as I thought) that the AFZs DO NOT BAN THE DRINKING OF ALCOHOL. Rather, they make it an offence not to stop drinking when a police officer asks you to desist.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem, apart from the fact that this is NOT how the law is currently being applied - and such a loose interpretation and application of the scheme is *exactly* what the Green Group said would happen when the AFZs were introduced - and one of the reasons we opposed them. It isn't exactly helpful that even the name of the scheme is misleading - the zones are NOT 'alcohol free' - and yet that is how they are being treated by people (including some councillors) who see them as a licence to get 'undesirables' out of their area. It should be clear to anyone that the key to solving our anti-social behaviour problems is not a sticking plaster solution like an AFZ, but rather proper investment and attention for the solutions to the root causes of these problems - better funded social services, education, health and community work.

I will continue, as will the Green Group, to make these points to other political groups which seem much more inclined to clamp down on problems and ignore their causes.

Matt

P.S. Sorry for the rant, but this kneejerk authoritarianism (as if the police don't already have myriad powers under existing law to deal with anti social behaviour) really gets on my nerves.

Campsfield campaigning

2005-07-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

Obviously, the traditional side of being a councillor is an important part of my job - sitting in Committees, passing Budget amendments and doing ordinary casework. I have also found, however, that being an elected official is of great use in campaigning outside the legislative framework - I can never quite work out why most councillors from other parties don't seem to use the advantage it provides.

I experienced one example of the usefulness of having 'Cllr' before your name yesterday, when I joined the monthly protest outside Campsfield Detention Centre in Kidlington. The presence of Campsfield House just outside Oxford, a place where entirely innocent asylum seekers are imprisoned simply for asking for their human rights, is a constant affront to anyone with any compassion in this town. Despite all the responsible elected bodies in the area (from Parish Council to County Council) demanding its closure, however, it remains open - and the peaceful monthly protest that takes place outside it is photographed and monitored by the police as if twenty anti-Campsfield demonstrators were about to tear the place down! The protestors asked me to come along in the hope that the presence of someone 'official' would tone down the police behaviour, and apparently it worked. In this instance, I didn't have to do anything apart from provide a neutral 'liason' betwen the police and the protestors - and was able to provide a safe space for people to protest without feeling repressed, just because of those four letters before my name.

This kind of 'direct action' from elected representatives is exactly what local democracy needs, in my opinion. Its not enough for councillors to pass a decent sounding resolution on a topic (with no teeth or powers of enforcement) and then move on - they have to get involved in the campaigns, day in and day out, and provide support to the grassroots activists who are fighting for justice in their community. It's my hope that at the November demonstration, I will be able to organise scores of local councillors (not just from Oxford City, but from the County, Cherwell District, and elsewhere) to attend the Campsfield protest and take action to support the conscientious, persistent and courageous people who have demonstrated there for years.

On that note, I am also getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go down to the old Lucy's Factory site, where British Waterways have been stopped from evicting the boatyard by squatters. Contrary to the typical (and false) image of squatters as people who move in and trash a place, the squatting community in Oxford attempts to defend absolutely crucial community facilities like the boatyard (without which, most of the boating community in oxford would lose their affordable homes) and deserve wholehearted support. I'll be going down there to do just that - again, trying to back up in deeds what I have already done (with a vote against the loss of the boatyard in Planning Committee) in words.

I'll let you know how it goes! Check out www.portmeadow.org for more details on the boatyard...and let me know if there are any other campaigns that need a bit of official support. Thats what we're here for - after all, I work for *you*.

Much love,

Matt

Climate change action...

2005-07-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of long-term projects finally achieving momentum and getting off the ground, the City Council is now considering a short-list of proposals from contractors who are about to take on the Climate Change Action Plan - something I have been pushing for the Council to sort out since I got elected. Not only will it measure Oxford's impact on climate change but - finally and well overdue - it will suggest interconnected and effective ways for us to mitigate our carbon emissions.

It's rare that you can point to something that is 'yours' in the City Council - but as I was the one who unearthed the Council's obligation to write a CCP Action Plan, and asked a number of questions about it at Full Council (and provided money for it in our budget) I think I can claim this one. What a good week!

Matt

P.S. I also have a new job, having received a 2:1 in my BA - no longer a student! I will be working for the Climate Outreach and Information Network from Monday - check it out at www.coinet.org.uk

Things come together....

2005-07-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

Well, what do you know? Some weeks, things really start to get moving - although, relative to the usual glacial inertia of local government, perhaps that isn't hard! Since my time back from the G8, we've had confirmation of new cycle parking plans in the city centre, confirmation of the Plain roundabout being made safer for cyclists (finally!), a new plan to improve the Thames Towpath and stop it falling into the river, and a new cross-party group convened to discuss installing renewable energy on all major new Council buildings. Not bad for a week or two! Of course, things aren't going swimmingly everywhere - my plans for solar powered lighting are still held up in the nightmarish world of local government accountancy for example - but I do get the feeling that things are really happening. :) In more detail:

(i) Cycling. The County Council has finally (after a year of pushing) produced its response to the detailed CYCLOX demands for more city centre cycle parking, which the Green Group has been strongly backing. It doesn't go as far as I would like, but it is definitely a start (and further than I thought they would go) - and most importantly, its down on paper! Watch this space for installation before the end of the year, if I have anything to say about it. Similarly, the County has finally produced plans to make the Plain roundabout safer - essentially by widening the pavements, narrowing the road and providing segregated cycle lanes for bikes. Again, its finally on paper....and hopefully Stage 1 will be done this Autumn!

(ii) As those of you who use it will know (especially rowers and their coaches), the Thames Towpath is gradually falling into the river because of erosion. For years the various authorities responsible for it have done zilch to solve the problem - but it looks as if help might be on the way. All parties on the Council are starting to get behind a plan to stop patching-up the towpath without solving the problem, and instead to bid for millions of pounds to make it into a place that Oxford can be proud of. As it is a national cycle route, a tourist destination, AND a prime spot for the grassroots development of rowing (think 2012 Olympic money!) we are very hopeful of pulling together a good bid...and I'm proud to say that, at least in part, this was my idea. :) Here's hoping that it progresses quickly, as we don't have much time before the path becomes completely unusable.

(iii) Renewable energy. Well, this started off with a defeat - the Council, despite months of pushing from the Green Group, has started building the new swimming pool at Barton *without* any renewable energy. Luckily, we now have a new Labour Portfolio Holder for 'Capital Projects' - the excellent and progressive (for a Labourite that is) Rick Muir. He has now pulled together a cross-party group to look at how to ensure that all of our new capital projects and buildings take sustainability into account *before the building work starts*. This is, as usual, not a particularly complicated issue - it just needs the political will to succeed. Rick seems open to the possibilities, so the Green Group will be pushing hard to see solar/wind power mitigating the impact of all our new projects...and retrofitted onto our old ones, too. On that note, the comprehensive 'Climate Change Action Plan' that we got into the Council's budget is also being progressed....it really does feel like a time of movement on so many issues.

May 2006, though, could be a time of even greater movement. The Leader of the Council, Cllr Alex Hollingsworth (Labour), has announced that he is not standing for re-election next year...along with at least three other Labour councillors. With half the seats on the Council up for re-election, I am not exaggerating when I say it is entirely possible that we could become the main opposition party in 2006, with councillors into the double figures. Currently, to be honest, our potential outweighs our resources...so if you have *ever* thought about getting involvedin Green politics, now is the time, and Oxford is the place.

Check out www.greenoxford.com for more regular updates on our work, and please consider giving us your support - whether it be in time, money or votes! 2006 could be the year when all the hard work of Oxfordshire Greens pays off - with your help.

As always, please feel free to contact me at matt@greenoxford.com

Matt

P.S. Sunday was the one year anniversary of the early and tragic death of Cllr Mike Woodin from cancer - my friend and someone I admired hugely. We're thinking of you Mike.

At the G8

2005-07-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, I finally feel as if I have enough perspective to make some small comment on the events of the G8. I was up in Scotland
from july 3rd to July 9th, and as is usual with these kind of events, ran the entire gamut of emotions - from elation to total depression. I participated in some wonderful events, including the complete closure of Faslane Nuclear Base through a non-violent blockade (I had the novel experience of being interviewed for the radio while locked into two metal tubes and having no available hands!). I also saw some pretty appalling policing, which has gone almost entirely unreported, and witnessed overpaid, undertalented popstars attempting to co-opt a movement about which they know absolutely bugger all.

I was at the Stirling eco-camp which, despite some very bad press, was actually one of the best things about the entire G8 mobilisation. Run almost entirely by solar and wind energy, and organised horizontally/non-hierarchically, 5000 protestors managed to keep the camp running and dealt with increasingly stressful situations in a democratic, participatory and respectful way. Such examples of 'another world' in action are one of the most enlightening things about these alternative gatherings. Unfortunately, after the success of the blockades on Wednesday (in which thousands of people autonomously blockaded roads into Gleneagles in an effort to disrupt the farce that was the summit) the police decided to break the law and corrall us into the camp for four days. Totally illegally, anyone who entered or left the camp was forced to submit to a search, give their name and address, and be photographed. Of course, this kind of measure became somewhat understandable after the terrible events in London - but it is important to realise that it began before the bombings, and continued even when it was utterly clear that the protestors only wanted to stage peaceful marches. Even a solidarity march with London was forbidden! This kind of legitimised breaking of the law by the police has become common on demonstrations these days, but it doesn't make it anymore acceptable. Even more worryingly, reports have now been received of the Terrorism Act once again being used to repress protest in Scotland.

This behaviour from the police would have been easier to bear had we not had to sit and witness the spectacle of Bob Geldof and Bono co-opting a powerful movement for social justice. I don't want to sound like a 'holier than thou' activist - I am amazed and delighted that so many people took the time to consider the problems of global development. However, the conclusion that 'poverty is bad' is about as technical as Geldof and co got - the ban on criticising Bush and Blair from the Live 8 stage said it all for me. Instead of criticising a pathetically lukewarm communique, and concluding that the G8 was never going to 'make poverty history', Geldof felt obliged to defend his mate Tony. Blair became the friend of the poor, rather than what he actually is - a cynical Thatcherite whose aid and debt relief deals (pitifully inadequate to begin with) are entirely conditional on the privatisation of the developing world in favour of Western multinational corporations. What could have been a powerful tool for raising awareness about what the G8 actually does to the developing world was thrown away for Geldof to have canapes with world leaders. What a waste.

That is not to say the entire week was pointless - as with all of these massive summits (and why I keep going back to them, despite police repression and the like) people started to think about climate change, global development and peace issues. And thousands of people will have seen that the G8 did nothing for those concerns, and will come to the only possible conclusion - that to make a real difference on these issues you have to get involved 365 days a year. Going to one pop concert isn't enough....we need a movement that fights for these issues all year round. As a Green councillor, I take to heart the cliched but correct slogan - 'Think global, act local' - you know it makes sense!

Matt

Events in London

2005-07-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Well, I'm back from the G8, and very eventful it was too. I wil try to blog about that later today. First though, I feel I should
say something about the events in London. I know it seems almost obligatory for every blogger to give their opinion about
this - but I feel a little entitled, as I was born, raised and schooled in the city.

First off, *of course* this was a terrible act of mass murder, everyone responsible should be caught and tried, and so on. That goes without saying, and there are only so many times you can read the same sentiments. I share them - but perhaps a sentiment that you are less likely to see in the national papers is that the outpouring of quite legitimate grief that we have seen in the last few days only occurs when terror strikes *us*. When we are inflicting terror on other people, we are happy to go on a march or two, and then shut up. What is the difference between those killed in the assault on Fallujah, and those slaughtered in London?

One might say that the casualties of Fallujah are justified because we are 'fighting for freedom' in Iraq. Even if you believe
that (which is not, in my opinion, even remotely true), thousands of civilians have been killed in Iraq when we *knew* their deaths could have been avoided. Many of the deaths in Iraq didn't *need* to happen - they were brought about because it is more convenient for us to bomb from a great height than to examine our targets properly. Because it is more convenient for us to incinerate an entire village than actually go into it and risk the lives of Westerners to save the lives of innocent Iraqis. Because, to put it bluntly, our culture seems to value a European life far more highly than the life of an Iraqi, or an African, or a South American.

So of course I shed tears for those murdered in London - like so many others, I have friends and family who could have been among them if the bombs had gone off just slightly earlier - but I shed tears also for those who we killed. I wouldn't go as far as George Galloway in stridently making the link between our invasion of Iraq and the bombs in London (I don't think people capable of mass murder are necessarily that rational, and the attacks might well have occured anyway). I do go as far as to say that we will have peace only when we value the life of those we bomb and maim equally with those murdered in our own country. Let us mourn for the dead of Madrid and London along with the dead of Kabul and Bagdhad - only then will our tears seem truly genuine. I'm against terrorism *everywhere*.

Matt

Off to the G8...

2005-07-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Well, no time for putting my feet up after a hard day leafletting in Witney (one of the places in which Oxfordshire Green party is on the *brink* of electing its first councillor and breaking out of our Oxford-centric base, but we're not quite there yet), as I am off to Sheffield tomorrow for the two-day AGM of the Association of Green Councillors. One of my favourite Green Party events, it is a great opportunity to learn and be inspired from the examples of all the other (and ever growing) Green Groups across England and Wales.

Then it's off to Faslane nuclear base on the Clyde, where I will revisit the site of my first arrest - unfortunately, four years on, the abomination of our nuclear weapons programme is still there, even as Blair spouts pieties about peace and poverty. I will be joining Caroline Lucas MEP and Mark Ballard MSP, along with thousands of others, to shout his hypocrisy at the top of my voice. Then on to days of trying to get an alternative message across to the one being spun by the G8 and their political minions....

Just in case you have already been taken in by some of their spin, I would highly recommend reading this excellent piece by George Monbiot (not someone I always agree with ) at http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-06/29monbiot.cfm. In fact, explore the entire www.zmag.org site, as it is superb...and remember to check out what is *really* going on in Scotland at www.indymedia.org.uk

See you in a week - here's hoping that the police allow dissent against their political masters this time!

Another world is possible,

Matt

Quarterly update - June

2005-06-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest update that I write for the Green party membership, and share with my blog readers....amazing that I have
already been a councillor for a year!

Cheers,

Matt

*******************

CITY COUNCIL GREEN GROUP QUARTERLY UPDATE

Cllr Matt Sellwood

Well, hard to believe though it is, it has been a year since the 2004 City
Council elections. A year for some of us to find our feet, and (in my opinion
at least) a year of really excellent results. From PR successes such as the
Lord Mayor's car, to concrete achievements such as the £1 million secured in
the City Council budget for Green initiatives, we have really been 'punching
above our weight' in 2004/2005.

In many ways, we finished the year as we started it - proactively, and with
a refusal to take no for an answer. Despite the very hard work of elections,
we achieved a number of notable victories in the last few months. THese have
included a motion by Sushila Dhall which enabled the boating community of
Walton Well Road allotment to resist an unjust eviction, the beginning of the
Cowley Road improvement scheme, continuing work on air pollution, and the
confirmation that Oxford's council housing stock *will* be retained by the
Council and not privatised. We have even continued scoring budget victories -
having rejected our proposals to raise funding by increasing off-street car
parking charges by 15% during the budget process, Labour turned around the next
month and did exactly that! As is usual, they refused to give us any credit,
but it was clearly our idea, put into practice because of our pressure. As if
that wasn't enough, further confirmation that we are doing the right things
came as no less a personage than Jeremy Clarkson took time in his national
newspaper column to insult our own Cllr Craig Simmons! Craig has taken it as a
compliment...

Of course, things aren't always entirely rosy, and don't always go our own
way. The County Council is now controlled by the Tories, which has serious
impacts on the work of our city councillors, and even within the City Council
we continue to have serious problems in pushing some of our ideas through.
Sometimes the problems come from officers (as with our extreme frustration at
attempting to actually USE the radical measures contained within our new Local
Plan, in the teeth of officer resistance) and sometimes from fellow councillors.
The latter problems have been both directly malicious (the release of Cllr
Claire Palmer's personal financial details, for example) and a result of
total apathy (the continuing failure of the Labour administration to do even
the simplest things to address climate change, as illustrated by their refusal
to investigate solar energy for their 'new build' capital projects). Anyone
observing the mindset of the other political groups on the Council would agree,
I am sure, that the Green Group is absolutely vital in ensuring that issues
of sustainability and democracy get even the smallest look-in!

We have also, it is probably fair to say, not been entirely 'on our game' in
the past month, mostly due to the stress and strain of a gargantuan election
campaign. Unfortunately, in the new council year, we have lost Sid Phelps'
position as Chair of Environment Scrutiny, Matt Sellwood's position as
Vice-Chair of Central, South and West Area Committee, and several other more
minor committee positions. It is to be hoped that our Annual Review, where we
will be taking stock of the past and planning for the future on the Council,
will give us renewed focus for the coming year. In particular, we are still
'feeling our way' in how to manage a Green Group that spans both County
and City Councils - it is a challenge to include everyone without getting
bogged down in too many agendas!

As always, input from grassroots members of the Party is *absolutely vital*.
Please come along to Green Group and learn about what we do - we need your
help. :)

Cheers,

Cllr Matt Sellwood

Back from honeymoon!

2005-06-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

Well...I'm back. Still a little jet-lagged, but on the case almost immediately - just got back from a meeting of Strategic Development Control Committee, cos thats the kind of exciting guy I am...

A lot has happened since I've been preoccupied with the wedding and honeymoon, so I will try to sum it up briefly in two sections; my committee work and my work in Holywell ward.

On the committee side of things there have been (as always) ups and downs. On the up, the meeting of SDCC that I have just returned from was very productive - mostly because we have finally summoned the courage to impose 'sustainability conditions' on a development. This is where the Council uses its new powers through the Second Local PLan to *demand* that a developer use solar panels, grey water systems, and other such technology. For months, officers have been telling me that we don't have the legal power to do this - other planning experts disagree. After the meeting today we are finally going to be able to have the argument out in the open, and I am convinced that we will win. This is partly because at least some members of other political groups are as frustrated over the officers' caution as we are - giving credit where it is due, Cllr Paul Sargent (Lib Dem) was excellent in today's SDCC in pushing the conditions on officers and forcing them to take a stand.

On a less positive note, I am no longer Vice-Chair of the Central Area Committee, and Paul is no longer Chair. This is due to a mix up of epic proportions, to be honest. At the meeting which elects the Chair and Vice-Chair, I was on honeymoon...but we had hashed out an agreement with the Lib Dems to keep the status quo (a Lib Dem chair and Green Vice-Chair, to reflect the balance of members on the Area Committee). Unfortunately, Paul Sargent was unable to attend that meeting and my colleague Sushila Dhall was held up. This meant that, despite the overall balance of forces on the Committee, we have ended up with a Labour Chair (Susanna Pressel) and Lib Dem Vice-Chair (Tony Brett). To be honest, we have no-one to blame but ourselves....I suppose after the really excellent progress we have been making, we were due a slip-up. This was it! It's not the end of the world, but is irritating nonetheless.

Better news in Holywell ward, though. Firstly, thanks to those people who have been writing to me with feedback and pointing out problems - this is the *only* way I can really do what you want me to! I have been trying to get on top of all the casework that has already been put my way, and please feel free to send more! It is an important part of my job, after all, and it's a good feeling to be able to solve problems that might seem minor but make peoples lives a misery (a street cleaning device regularly being used at 5 am outside someones window, for example!).

Another good feeling was the success I had in raising almost £2000 for the Oxfordshire Youth Service's work in deprived areas of Oxford, which some of you may have seen featured in the local press. My sincere and earnest thanks goes out to all the generous undergraduates at New College who made this possible, and I know that the youth workers across the City would want me to pass on their thanks too. The press release below should explain more (in the end we raised over £1700):

**************

Monday June 6th 2005

It was announced today that New College Junior Common Room, made up of the
entire New College undergraduate body, has voted to introduce an optional levy
on students to be paid towards youth provision in deprived areas of Oxford.
The money, which amounts to £5 for every undergraduate student at New College,
will be paid to the Oxford branch of the Oxfordshire Youth Service, who provide
valuable recreational and educational programmes for young people living in
Oxford.

Green City Councillor Matt Sellwood, who is a member of New College JCR and
proposed the measure, commented: "This is a wonderful example of the way in
which the student body can work with the rest of Oxford to provide opportunities
for those less fortunate than ourselves. Too often Oxford students are
stereotyped as uncaring - this measure, among many others, shows that we want
to be a constructive part of the whole Oxford community."

While the opportunity for students to 'opt out' of the levy has not yet
expired, it is expected that the measure will raise between £1200 and £2000
for the Oxfordshire Youth Service. It will be 'ringfenced' for the provision
of youth work for deprived areas of Oxford - in particular, many of the JCR
members wanted it to go towards the much-needed youth scheme in the troubled
Wood Farm estate.

Cllr Sellwood added: "As city councillor for an almost entirely student ward,
I am delighted to see the student community 'doing its bit' in Oxford. Hopefully
this will only be the start of increased co-operation between the 'gown' and
the 'town' in this city."

**************

Well, now I am busy preparing for the Association of Green Councillor's national AGM (I am the Secretary) which is in Sheffield in a couple of weeks, and the G8. I will be up at the blockade of Faslane nuclear base with Green MEP Caroline Lucas and MSP MArk Ballard, and then will be taking part in a whole host of other activities to highlight positive alternatives to the worldview that the G8 leaders present. If you would like any more information on that, I would be happy to oblige - as always, email matt@greenoxford.com

Cheers,

Matt

Wedding

2005-06-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I can be forgiven for not blogging for a while - I'm getting married on Saturday! After that I will be on honeymoon for a week - but soon back to the Council grindstone.

Just thought I should say, in case anyone is reading that I haven't yet contacted about it, that everyone I know is very much invited to my wedding reception - Saturday June 11th, 7.30 pm, at the East Oxford COmmunity Centre.

See you there!

Matt

P.S. KNowing either the bride or the groom is a requirement tho - no absolute strangers, please!

Street lighting

2005-05-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Just to prove that I don't spend my entire time fulminating over pieces of hack journalism in the Sunday Times, I feel I should ask anyone with an opinion over increased lighting on Magdalen Bridge and Merton Street to contact me - the usual address, matt@greenoxford.com. This is something I have been exploring for some time, and having consulted with various JCR Presidents and so-on, I will be pushing throughout the summer for a scheme to be in place for MIchelmas Term, when the night starts to close in around Oxford again. I am hoping that these schemes would feature solar powered lighting (a paradox, I know!) which soak up energy from the sun during the day in order to light the streets at night - watch this space for better lighting in the city centre *and* a flagship environmental project. HOws that for bang to the buck! :)

Matt

Outraged of Oxford...

2005-05-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

OK, so I admit it - writing that short counterblast in my blog didn't expiate my
irritation with the Sunday Times, so I wrote a letter. From now on, you can call me
'Outraged of Oxford'.

Somehow, I doubt they'll be printing it....

****************

Dear Sir,

Seldom have I read such a piece of complete drivel as I was confronted with
in this week's edition of the Sunday Times. Your piece - 'Inside the dark world
of anarchist plotters' was inaccurate in almost every detail, and portrayed
your journalist as some kind of investigative hero, rather than the laughably
biased and sensationalist hack that he revealed himself, very quickly, to be.
The meetings he attended are, very intentionally, open to the public and the
plans he discusses are hardly secret. It is extremely telling that he focuses
on the 'militaristic anarchists' who (apparently) pull the strings of all other,
naive activists - and yet devotes not a single sentence to the reasons *why*
so many people insist on protesting against the G8 despite risk to life, limb
and liberty.

I will be going to the protests against the G8, and much of it will have been
made possible by hard-working activists such as the ones Paul Lamara goes out
of his way to slander. Their concern about 'getting water to the front lines'
shows admirable logistical common sense, rather than sinister intent - and
yet, like every other line of this risible article, such common sense ideas
are made to sound negative and shadowy. I am proud to stand 'shoulder to
shoulder' with grassroots activists who strive to make the world a more just
and equitable place - and the Sunday Times should be ashamed of itself for
sidelining real debate in favour of sensationalist pap.

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Matt Sellwood,
Deputy Leader,
Oxford City Council Green Group

(01865 455278)
(New College, Holywell Street, Oxford, OX1 3BN).

Journalistic silliness

2005-05-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

It is hard to realise quite how ridiculous and uninformed most of the press are until you read an article on something you know about. Then, more often than not, you recognise with a chill down the spine that the mainstream media just makes things up. My latest experience of this was in the Sunday Times, as they penned yet another thrilling, conspiracy-ridden 'investigative' piece on the upcoming G8 summits, and the protests planned there.

I have never read such a load of tripe in all of my born days. Instead of investigating the agenda of the G8 (an organisation devoted to promoting neoliberal economics, militarism and environmental destruction), we get completely unsubstantiated accusations about good and principled activists - most of whom I know personally and who are utterly committed to building a more just society. Far from being a shadowy cabal of 'militaristic anarchists' these people are my friends -and, I hasten to add, a number of them are the very people who help to make East Oxford such a vibrant, interesting and diverse place to live. I'll be going to the G8, and I know whose side I'll be on!

The link to the article is below, for those who fancy a laugh. Ultimately, though, it is yet another sad indictment of British journalism. Why have a debate when you can tell lies about people with no right of reply....I suppose it is easier than rational discussion of objections to the G8. This journalist, like so many others, should be ashamed of himself.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1632726,00.html

Matt

This job ain't easy...

2005-05-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

Councillors with an agenda of radical social change have a very difficult job to do, and on some issues, it is nearly impossible. Trying to promote sustainability and social justice within a framework that is dictated both by government regulations and strict government funding is almost impossible at times - Margaret Thatcher wanted it that way when she gutted local government in the 1980s to break militant (far more widespread than 'Militant') councils such as the GLC - and Blair has shown absolutely no inclination to reverse this policy and give power back to councillors.

So it was that I found myself today having to vote for something with gritted teeth and an almost irresistible urge to tear off my own (raised in affirmation) arm. At Strategic Development Control Committee (the main planning authority in Oxford) we had a planning application from Oxford Citizens Housing Association, who are redeveloping the decrepit and badly constructed Orlit houses in the ROse Hill Estate. Something has needed to be done about this housing for years, and in collaboration with the City Council, OCHA have brought forward a scheme. This is the first, and fundamental, problem with the scheme. Because councils are no longer allowed to build proper *council* housing, any new affordable units have to be in some way private - in this case, a housing association. That is the ironclad rule that no council can escape...no matter how much it wants to. So, already, in voting for the scheme I would be voting for the demolition of council housing and the shifting of tenants into less secure, more expensive tenancies.

It gets worse though. Despite the Council's close relationship with OCHA, the level of social housing in the entire development is a mere 50%. This might sound OK, until one realises that this is the same level we demand from private developers with whom we have no special relationship. In this scheme, we are *giving* Council land to OCHA, working closely with them, and still we only get 50% affordable housing. Pathetic, and I am convinced that we can do much better, and that OCHA are making a killing. And yet...we've had this debate, and unfortunately the Greens lost it. The Executive BOard and a special meeting of Housing Scrutiny Committee (called by myself and Green Party Councillor Elise Benjamin among others) debated it, and we lost the vote. So I knew full well that if we refused the application, it would only condemn the people currently living in the Orlit housing to another year or two of living in substandard accomodation - after which time, OCHA would only come back with the same proposal anyway, since the City Council supports their stance.

What then, was I to do? I agonised over it....and eventually, decided to vote *for* the proposal, even though I thought it was hideously inadequate. To add vinegar to the wound, my vote tied the meeting at 4-4, and the Lib Dem Chair of SDCC, Tony Hollander, used his casting vote to support the application.

To be honest, especially given that a friend and comrade of mine (JOhn Green, editor of Green Socialist and a good bloke) had spoken passionately against granting this development, I wondered whether I had done the right thing. Yet what was the alternative? To block an application that would make things better in Rose Hill (a little) because the Council and OCHA (and central government) refuse to make things better in Rose Hill (a lot)? I honestly don't know the answer, and this kind of grey area is a serious problem in being a councillor - I don't run the government, though I wish I did!

All I can say is that you can rest assured of two things. Firstly, that I will always agonise over these kind of arguments, and make the best decision that I can in terms of allievating poverty and promoting positive social change. Secondly, that I will never stop criticising (as I did in this meeting) the kind of perverse and reactionary central government policies that bind councillors hands in this fashion in the first place.

I'm still confident that my time in the Council is well spent - I think I've made a difference in a number of areas...but sometimes, decisions like this come along when it seems there is no right answer. I hope they aren't too common.

Much love,

Matt

The little things

2005-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

One of the difficulties of being a local councillor is that while you are often motivated by grand theories about sustainability, social justice and world peace (well, that's certainly why I'm in politics - it ain't for the money, given the hours we all put in) in actual fact most of what you do is the 'nitty-gritty' of coalface politics. It's easy to get people enthused about saving the world - a little less easy to enthuse them about a few new trees around the City Centre or a new cycle lane.

I think that, here however, being a Green really helps. We're used to confronting major problems (see climate change) and knowing that the only way to start dealing with it is to take it in bite sized chunks. Of course you never stop pressuring every level of government to act, but you know that if anything is going to happen it has to be by local people taking action now. Basically, all of local politics is similar to this. Oxford City COuncil Green Group will not single-handedly change the world - but we will do our best to make our bit of it better. One step at a time!

On that note, my fellow Central Area Green councillor, Sushila Dhall (now a County and City councillor) is, as always, an inspiration. I think 'tenacious' is the word I would use, and the latest example of her tenacity is the installation of all new benches in Gloucester Green, so that we are one step closer to having the kind of pleasant public spaces we need in Oxford. This, I suppose, is an example of the kind of thing I was talking about above. On the one hand, you might think "a few new benches? so what?". But on the other, you suddenly realise that comfortable benches mean people congregating. People congregating means less anti-social behaviour, more community cohesion, more trade and more pressure for an even more pleasant Gloucester Green. These things have cumulative effects...and all we can do is keep going, one step at a time. We'll make it in the end!

Matt

P.S. Finals are going fine - four down, three to go!

P.P.S. For another view on City Council life, check out Dan Paskins' blog at www.lyevalleylabour.blogspot.com. I'm sure I won't always agree with him, but openness on the work of councillors is always much needed. IN fact, for good measure, check out Stuart Craft's web diary at www.iwca.info and Stephen Tall's at www.stephentall.org.uk too!

CSW Area Committee - May

2005-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry again for the long gaps between posts - it is surprisingly hard to get my mind to focus on anything other than my finals at this point (they start on Monday), especially with Dante quotations zooming around up there!

However, I am still managing to juggle work and council responsibilities, and was present for the latest Area Committee, last Tuesday. As mentioned in an earlier post, we approved an outside street cafe on Broad Street in one agenda item (progress!) as well as taking part in our regular public discussions with police, the 'streetscene team' and city centre managers. If you have any issues you would like to raise, please do get in touch and I will do my best to make sure that your questions get answered!

One issue that came up once again was the issue of environmental sustainability in planning. Greens are making progress in our quest to get our planning regulations to recognise sustainability - but the wheels of bureaucracy grind exceedingly slow. Now that we finally have stringent sustainability conditions for planning (much of this is down to the hard work of the late Mike Woodin, who worked on this for years) it is a struggle to get our planning officers to enforce them. We have, at least, gotten to the stage where it is acceptable for us to put an 'informative' about our hopes and expectations for developers on sustainability issues - but I am now seeking a legal opinion to prove to planning officers that we can go much further than this under our new regulations and actually *require* developers to use renewable energy, seek energy efficiency improvements, and so on. Planning officers seem to be a conservative lot on the whole - but we'll get there in the end.

On that issue, the new student housing for Worcester College (in place of their old gym and squash courts) will have just such an 'informative' urging the College to seek maximum energy efficiency and carbon savings from the new buildings. We will see if it has any effect. Another innovation that I am pursuing in developments like this is for the planning officers to consult the JCR and MCRs as a matter of course. At the moment, believe it or not, they simply consult the college authorities and assume that the students will be of the same view as the Governing BOdy! Methinks they need to spend some more time in the University....

Fraid I should go back to revising for now - thanks to all who have contacted me recently, and especially to those who congratulated the Green Group on our County gains - much appreciated!

Matt

Another (belated) budget victory!

2005-05-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would post quickly to say that, yet again, one of our Green ideas has been taken up by another political group...without mentioning that it was our idea, of course!

As of yesterday, the Labour run City Council took the decision to raise the car parking charges in Oxford's off-street car parks by 15%. This might sound like a lot, but they haven't been raised since 2001, so when you allow for inflation it's not that much at all. It raises us over £500,000 - we know, because we did the original costings when it went into our budget back in 2004. It was in our budget again this time, but Labour rejected it as unworkable and impossible, preferring to fund our spending proposals (which we forced through using our 'balance of power' position) from Council reserves. Just a couple of months later, they have suddenly realised that using charges both to reduce congestion, air pollution and volume of traffic *and* to raise much needed cash for essential services is a _good_ idea...so they've nicked it.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and Labour and the Lib Dems are never shy about nicking our good ideas! Better late than never is what I say....

Matt

Normal service resumed

2005-05-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well - the election is over...thank goodness, as I don't think I could have managed another week of such frenetic activity!

First off, I should apologise for being out of the blogging business for almost a full month. Unfortunately, as those of you who live in Oxford East will have seen, the Liberal Democrats rather took advantage of my open approach to posting my views and thoughts on the Internet and splashed a 'loose quotation' from me all over their election literature. It was a sad lesson for me in the dangers that elected politicians face in trying to engage in open discussion - and I took the decision not to post anything until after May 5th, just in case the Lib Dems were lurking to selectively quote me again!

Never fear though, I haven't stopped the hard work - in fact, if anything, it has been more hectic than ever. It was all worth it though, as we *quintupled* our County Council representation on May 5th! Cllr Craig Simmons was re-elected, and joined by Larry Sanders, Deborah Glass-Woodin, John Sherwood and Sushila Dhall - with a citywide vote of 22%, this was the most successful election result in Oxfordshire Green Party history! Amazingly, we were the only one of the four main parties whose vote went up across the County...even the Tories lost their share of the vote, despite massively increasing their representation.

Of course, the fact that the insanely pro-motoring and generally incompetent Conservatives are now in control of the County Council (despite having *no* elected representatives on any level in Oxford they can make decisions that affect our city) rather tempered our joy. There is no doubt that their control of the Council will make implementing the Green agenda difficult, but I have no doubt that our new councillors will be an effective, loud and incisive opposition. The Tories won't know what has hit them!

Meanwhile, all the other hard slog continues - from individual bits of casework like helping to sort out the malfunctioning recycling contract at New College, to more strategic aims such as getting the best deal possible out of the massive changes going on in the Council as a whole. ONe thing I am particularly happy about is the now almost certain to be approved plan for a Street Cafe on Broad Street - one of the issues that I promised to pursue when elected, and which looks like becoming a reality in time for the peak summer season! May it be the first of many...

Before I sign off, I just wanted to mention one of the very concrete ways in which having Green councillors in Oxford makes a difference. Sometimes I know that I can seem quite obsessed with rather ethereal policy concerns - and perhaps I don't focus enough on the ways that we try to help people with day-to-day problems. ONe great example was a motion put forward at last Full Council by Sushila Dhall and myself, which put a halt to the Council's attempts to evict the boating community moored to the Walton Well Road allotment bank. A group of community activists, living in their own low-impact, affordable marine housing, bothering no-one and helping out in their local community, were facing eviction simply because the Council refused to look at their individual circumstances. It was only intervention from Greens that forced other councillors to confront the situation and (all credit to them) put a stop to the eviction process. We are determined to keep protecting exemplary communities like this - and to make life easier for those who want to help others and live peacefully and affordably in this potentially great city...:)

Another installment soon, now that my self-imposed exile is over!

Matt

CSW Area Committee - April

2005-04-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

First off, apologies for once again finding it hard to update this weblog more than once-weekly. Elections are always hectic times, and if you throw in the fact that my finals begin in less than six weeks, I'm sure you'll understand how crammed my schedule is! Despite the heavy workload though, I have been enjoying canvassing
around Isis Division - there's nothing to replace just knocking on peoples doors and
having a face-to-face chat with them about their priorities and what they would like
politicians to do for them. Of course, it doesn't hurt that most people in formerly
rock-solid Labour areas are now considering voting for the Greens!

Come rain or shine, elections or finals, the City Council's round of committee
meetings continues as ever - April's Central Area Committee meeting was yesterday. It was slightly different for me in that Cllr Paul Sargent, the Chair, was delayed and so I had to Chair the beginning of the meeting. I must say I now have a lot more empathy with his monthly task! I've chaired many meetings in my time, but the atmosphere in a room full of people intent on getting their way on planning applications, coupled with the fact that it is all a judicial/legally binding process, is pretty intimidating. Luckily I got through it with the minimum of stress.

The other oddity of this Area Committee was that, contrary to our normally enthusiastic 'pro-cycling' stance, we unanimously voted against two cycling schemes; one in Fisher Row, the other in West Oxford, parallel to Botley Road. The reason for this was the usual City Council story - while people desperately want cycle improvements in Oxford, they don't want any old 'improvements', undertaken without proper consultation. The officer concerned looked surprised when both West Oxford CYCLOX and the West Oxford Community Association stood up to condemn the scheme - and it took the Greens on the Committee to suggest that perhaps the best way forward would be for the officers, councillors and community stakeholders to all get together and come up with the best way to spend the available money, rather than just lavishing it on the first, ill-thought-out scheme that comes along! You wouldn't have thought that it was rocket-science to suggest that the best schemes come out of meaningful participation by the local community - but it seems still to be news to many elements of the City Council. Don't worry though - as long as we Greens are about, schemes won't get nodded through on the quiet - it's not our style. Lets face it - we wouldn't be Greens if we wanted the quiet life! :)

On a final note, I can't resist signing off without pointing you towards the excellent National Green Party manifesto, launched yesterday with a fairly decent amount of media coverage...including Oxford Councillor Elise Benjamin on the national BBC news pointing to all of the improvements to Oxford since the Greens gained the balance of power. Long may it continue!

http://manifesto.greenparty.org.uk/

Matt

Police and planning

2005-04-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

A sign of just how sad I am getting these days is that yesterday was my birthday, and I spent the morning in a meeting with the Police Board. I didn't get any cake, any presents, or any good wishes - but I suppose that isn't much of a surprise, as I would be worried if I was best friends with the police!

Looking at my entry on the City Council's website, I realised that my responsibilities actually look relatively sparse - only a few committees and not much else. As usual, of course, the reality of life as a councillor is significantly different. On Tuesday and today I had meetings of just two of the many exterior and less formal bodies of which I am a member - on Tuesday the Local Policing Board, and this morning the City's informal Planning Policy Group.

Most people think it is bizarre that I am a member of the Police Board, but I think it is one of the best things I do. Myself and Cllr Elise Benjamin (a fellow Green) are able to bring a perspective that the police are not often exposed to - and sometimes we get things changed. My view of the police as agents of social control is pretty well known, and I am not likely to change it anytime soon - but while they exist, I am committed to working to increase their sensitivity to the local community and to those struggling for social change. Just recently I was able to meet with the Oxford Commander, Supt Paul Sullivan, to communicate the anger of local campaigners at the total over-policing of a TUC pensions march, at which 100 local government workers were met by scores of police, including mounted officers and intelligence gathering operatives. By being on that march on the streets, and then being able to go into the office of the police and tell them that their actions were unacceptable, it is possible to force a difference in behaviour. Similarly, I am sometimes able to protect the civil liberties of other campaigners, such as the animal rights activists, simply by being present with my 'councillors hat' on. I am committed to expanding the sphere of civil liberties - not destroying them as everyone else seems so intent on doing.

Elise and I were also able to raise the subject of community policing on Tuesday, through the topic of 'bicycle bobbies'. Cycle mounted police were an innovation suggested and championed by the Green Party in East Oxford and (as we predicted) they have become an absolutely massive success. Getting the police out of their cars and onto the streets to interact with people has improved community relations no end - but now the problem of funding has once again reared its ugly head. Amazingly, the local East Oxford police had to ask the local (Green dominated) Area Committee for extra funding to stop their bikes falling apart only last week! It seems that the Police Authority are happy to fund car after car after car, but when they hit on a genuinely popular and innovative scheme, they are unwilling to sustain it. We would argue that not only should the East Oxford scheme remain, but 'bicycle bobbies' should be extended throughout the city, to replace the more threatening and unwelcome motorised police presence. Hopefully, the Police Authority now have that idea firmly in their heads.

The meeting this morning of the informal PLanning Policy Group will have to wait for another blogging session, as I have to rush off to design a leaflet extolling the benefits of voting Green on May 5th. Suffice to say that progress still continues on our innovative and radical policies for sustainability in Oxford - but that we need, as always, to keep up the pressure to ensure that they are taken seriously. It's no use having the policy if it is never enforced! While we're around, it always will be.

Cheers,

Matt

Quarterly report-back

2005-03-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

This is the latest in my series of report-backs to the general membership of the Oxfordshire Green Party. As ever, I share it with my loyal readers too!

Matt

*******

QUARTERLY GREEN GROUP REPORT, from Cllr Matt Sellwood

The last three months have been perhaps the busiest so far for the Green
Group since I started writing these reports, but also the most productive.
First, I should note one change in our responsibilities -
as we grow more experienced in our roles as councillors, we are able to
take some of the pressure off
of our stalwart Leader, Craig Simmons. Sushila Dhall has just taken over
the Green Group spot on
the Council's Executive Board, which should spread the workload more
effectively across the Group and
allow us to continue to push the Green agenda forward.

The City Council Budget, voted on in February, was an absolutely massive
success for the Green
Group. Due to our 'balance of power' position on the Council, we managed
to get no less than 10
of the 15 spending proposals in our budget into the final draft, which
amounted to £1 million of
Green spending over three years! This sum included £500,000 for the
extension of recycling to
green waste and cardboard citywide, £300,000 in extra spending money for
the Area Committees,
£60,000 for a sustainability officer in the planning department, and much
much more. What is more,
the political situation will be the same next year - and now we know how
strong our position is, we
can aim for the stars...

Our balance of power position has also come in handy in being able to
amend the Council's
Corporate Plan to reflect more of our Green priorities, including energy
efficiency, meaningful
community participation in important decisions, and committment to social
justice. While on the
Budget we co-operated with Labour, on the Corporate Plan we combined with
the Liberal Democrats.
Whichever other group shows the most willingness to accomodate out
concerns without proposing
anything unacceptable to us will receive our support - a very nice
position to be in.

Previous years of hard Green party work also came to fruition this
quarter, with the Oxford Local
Plan finally receiving approval from the Planning Inspector - with all of
our radical measures intact!
It is not an exagerration to say that our new Local Plan has the potential
to be the most environmentally
radical in the country - especially now that our Budget amendments have
provided the funding for
measures such as the Natural Resources Impact Assessment to be taken
forward. A very exciting time
for all involved in the planning side of the Council's work.

We also continue to put forward motions to the Council in order to
highlight issues of concern (over
ID cards, air pollution, the plight of asylum seekers and many more) and
to work on everyday issues of
concern. For example, through working with the Council's Portfolio Holder
for Social Inclusion, the
Green Group is helping to secure £30,000 of funding for the Pathways Workshop
in Blackbird Leys, which
is a shining example of social justice work in the community. We have also
seen Oxford University
agree to renew its 'green electricity' contract, due to a strong campaign
by Green councillors and the
student body, and, crucially, it looks near-certain now that the City
Council will be *retaining* its
council housing stock rather than selling it off as was feared. On all
these issues, Green campaigning
has made a difference.

Now the challenge before the Green Group is to keep our momentum going
into the elections and to
ensure that all of our victories to date are followed through and not
forgotten. Any help, as always,
is appreciated! Check out our all-new website at www.greenoxford.com for
the full low-down on how to get involved...

Much love,

Matt

Another point of view..

2005-03-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it's good to know that some people read the blog - even if it is my political 'opponents'! Cllr Paskins contacted me shortly after the publication of my post about Val Smith's resignation, asking to set the record straight. Since I'm certainly not interested in defaming anyone without an opportunity for them to respond (well, I might do so if we were talking about Val's husband, but that's another matter - he's a war criminal), some of what he wrote follows below. While much of what he says is fair enough, I did reply to him pointing out that the timing of Val's resignation, after 18 years of City Council service and at just the time when she is facing a real challenge from another party in the Leys, hardly sends out a message that Labour are willing to stand on their record against the IWCA. I am sure that Val isn't naive enough to be surprised that negative conclusions are being drawn about her decision - it's up to her to convince everyone that they are not correct. While I trust Dan's word, I don't trust the Labour Party in Oxford more
generally - the jury is still very much out on what is going on, in my opinion!

The text below is edited so that only the stuff relevant to this issue in Dan's email
appears. :)

*************

Matt,

I was pleased
to see your blog updated, but I just thought I'd drop you a line about
what you wrote about Val Smith, which I don't think is remotely correct
and which I felt was deeply unfair.

Truth is, she's switched from city to county because she wants to stand
for the county (to work on issues like education and youth provision,
and also to argue the progressive case for social housing against the
Lib Dems and Tories on the county) and she doesn't believe in
councillors doing both city and county...I can quite see how after
that length of time (18 years) I might want to have a go at addressing some of the
issues which the county is responsible for. If you look back through
past election results, you will see that Val has an absolutely enormous
personal vote (she got half as much again in 2002 as Pat Stannard),
which she's got from eighteen years of helping people on the Leys as a
councillor - even now she can pick up half a dozen bits of casework just
from people stopping her and asking her for advice when she goes from
her home to the local shops.

I mention this only because you are usually fair about Labour people
locally in Oxford, and Val is someone who is a working-class Labour
councillor who lives in the area she represents and is really rooted in
her community (a good thing and something which I imagine that you, as
I, would like to see more of).

Take care

Dan xxx