Interview - Green Party Candidate for the General Election - Lesley Grahame, Norwich South

In the fifth of a series of interviews with Green Left supporting candidates at the General Election, Mike Shaughnessy talks to the Green Party's Lesley Grahame, candidate for the target constituency of Norwich South.

Tell me a bit about your background and how you came to join the Green party?

I got political when I learned about nuclear weapons as a teenager, went to Greenham in my 20s, and have been campaigning on peace issues ever since. However peace cannot be achieved or maintained without justice so a big picture approach is vital. I joined the Green Party to be part of a team that collectively works on all the issues that matter.

Why did you decide to join Green Left?

I would describe myself as an ecosocialist - social and and environmental justice are inseparable, one can’t wait until the other is achieved. Climate change won’t wait until after the revolution / the downpayments on the national debt etc.  However climate change can be a powerful driver for an economy that serves the common good and revitalises the economy in a way that recognises our interdependence. Excessive wealth is no use on a planet that can’t sustain life. A beautiful sustainable planet that only a few can enjoy is not one I want to work for.

The Green Party rightly contains people with a spectrum of opinions, left to (relatively) right, authoritarian/libertarian, emphasis on social/environmental or local/global issues. I place myself to the left in terms of distribution of wealth, being libertarian on rights, valuing freedom from harm by others, along with freedom to do as you wish, with the proviso of causing no harm. On most issues, I promote integration, rather than separation of strands.

How is the Green surge playing out in Norwich?

Well, it’s anything but dull. Our membership has risen from about 200 to 700 and our office and action days are pulling in new activists each week.

We've put motions on things like the bedroom tax, Ttip, and fracking, and we've helped residents question council and various committees. These actions have been supported by the People's Assembly and other cuts activists, some of them have come our way. Small left parties have stood in Norwich wards, but not in our target seats.

The Labour candidate would like to be in a party that opposes TTIP, Trident and austerity. But he isn’t, he's in the Labour Party, as their 6th target candidate. Labour can reasonably expect considerable loyalty in return for the many kitchen sinks thrown at getting him elected.  When Owen Jones came to speak at his invitation, Owen gave his vision for a better society. It could have come from our manifesto. I pointed this out, and asked what confidence he had in Labour implementing any of our polices. All the other quesions of that night were along the lines of ‘why aren’t you a Green then?'

How are the cuts to local authority budgets affecting Norwich and Norfolk?

Youth Services have gone.

Everyone working in public services is feeling the pinch, worrying about their jobs and their clients. 

Benefit sanctions are seeing people descend into chaos, trying to hold their lives together on nowhere near enough money, sometimes no money.

The Labour council is desperate to get any kind of growth at any cost to anyone. It's fallen for government schemes like City Deal which provided 20k for Christmas lights and allowed the Lep to take community infrastructure levy (cil) money out of the city to pay for 20 miles of unnecessary development road.

What are the main issues that you will campaign on?

Reclaim the NHS, renationalise rail, and invest in jobs that stop climate change.

Education and  local democracy are closely connected too.

Current local campaigns include trying to stop the last local authority schools being forced to become academy schools.  We're fighting over-development based on road building.

Labour promotes cycling to look green, but wants growth based on aviation, road building and GM. We want to build on the climate expertise at UEA to make Norwich a centre of excellence in renewable energy, warm affordable housing and sustainable transport.

Nationally I want to reclaim public services supporting Caroline's NHS & Public Service Users bills. My personal mission is to extend the Freedom of Information Act to any company spending public money.

All the hard won gains for people and planet are threatened by Ttip. I don't believe investors deserve special privileges and I want it stopped. The Alternative Trade Mandate proposes a different framework that puts the common good first and shows that there is a better alternative.

Globally I want to work for a nuclear weapons convention.

Norwich South is one of the Green party’s top three target constituencies. How do you rate your chances – and the Green party more broadly in England ?

Fortunes go down as well as up, so no guarantees, but our vote  in Norwich has doubled at every general election since 1997, before the green surge. We really don't know how the surge will play out in votes, but we have every reason to be hopeful.

There appears to be new Left emerging in Europe, as a reaction to governments’ austerity policies, Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain at the forefront. Can the Green party here in the UK be part of this trend?

I hope so. More than a trend, perhaps a bloc that can offer solidarity, trade and experience.

I know that you have been campaigning against EU/US trade deal TTIP, what are your fears about this treaty?

If you or I asked for a special court to allow us to pursue our interests, based on rules made by us, administered by lawyers appointed by us, and over-riding the laws of the land- we'd rightly be laughed out of court.  The fact that Ttip is taken at all seriously shows that not only money, but also power is concentrating in ever fewer hands.

Think rights at work, environmental protection - but also self-censorship by government. Senior CND people don't know whether cancelling Trident could lead to Ttip litigation. Ttip is incompatible with democracy, because it gives unequal rights to  investors.  It mitigates against one planet living because it globalises trade that should be local.

If elected to Parliament, would you vote for a Labour austerity budget?

Not for love, power or money.

I do believe that Labour would do marginally less harm than the Tories. The only scenario that would rule out the 'Never' word is one where my vote against would lead to another nightmare Tory government. I've seen councillors agonising over similar rocks and hard places, and like them I'd take guidance from the residents and party colleagues, to whom I'm accountable. 

Lesley Grahame
Parliamentary Candidate, Norwich South
Green Party Councillor, Thorpe Hamlet Ward
Norwich

Tel 01603 611909
Mob 07711 298214
Twitter @LesleyJGrahame

http://www.norwichgreenparty.org/
www.lesleygrahame.org.uk/

The Establishment is Terrified of Nicola Sturgeon

The Scottish National party’s (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon’s strong performance in the televised election party leader’s debate has put the wind up the establishment. In what looks like a classic dirty tricks operation, the Telegraph newspaper alleges in a report that a third or fourth hand Foreign Office official's ‘note’ of a meeting between Sturgeon and the French Ambassador to the UK, the SNP leader voiced a preference for the Tory leader David Cameron to remain as Prime Minister. According to the note, Sturgeon didn’t think that Labour’s Ed Miliband would make a good PM.

Sturgeon and the French Ambassador, Sylvie Bermann, and the French Consul, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, who purportedly had said this, have all denied that it is true. The civil service Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood is to investigate the leak.

In the note itself, even the writer questions the validity of the report, thinking it unlikely someone like Sturgeon would talk about things like this with foreign officials. It does beggar belief that an experienced politician like Sturgeon would say something like this, and it doesn’t add up when Sturgeon is trying to form some kind of post-election alliance with Labour. If the report had said something like Sturgeon wanted the Tories to win so as to speed up the chances of Scottish independence, it would be more plausible, although not completely. But to say that Miliband wouldn’t make as good a PM as Cameron, doesn’t make any sense at all.

Another Tory backing newspaper the Daily Mail waded in with a headline labelling Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain.’ All of this shows that the establishment is extremely worried about the SNP (and Plaid Cymru and the Greens) holding the balance of power after the election. What is scaring them so much?

Clearly, the prospect of pressure being put onto a Labour minority administration to reverse the poor bashing anti-austerity policies of the Coalition and opening up the question of why we need the Trident nuclear weapons system, has thrown them into a tailspin. The prospect of a government actually introducing policies that favour the bulk of the population over the establishment elite, and having a proper debate over our defense strategy is beyond the pale for our establishment elites. This is an eventuality that must be stopped at all costs.

It reminds me of the infamous ‘Zinoviev letter’ published in 1924 just ahead of the general election in, yes, the Daily Mail (who later went on to praise Adolf Hitler). Zinoviev whose signature was (apparently) on the document, was a senior Soviet Union official, writing to the Communist party of Great Britain. The letter called for increased agitation from workers in Britain to form a communist government. The letter was a forgery, but it did enough to collapse the Liberal party vote and give the Tories a big majority in Parliament.

Labour has been quick to denounced the ‘Sturgeon note’, seeing a tribal advantage where they are threatened with wipe out at the hands of the SNP, but few in Scotland will fall for this obvious manipulation of the voters by the establishment. In England too, I can’t see it having much effect except with the most loyal of Labourites.

But Labour’s acquiescence with these reactionary forces opens up the question of a ‘grand coalition’ between the establishment parties, to keep out the peasants from north of the border and elsewhere. If this comes to pass it will be the end for the Labour party and perhaps the Tories too. All the talk of Labour being Tories in disguise will be laid bare for all to see. It really would be the ‘longest suicide note in history.’     

Reflections on the Election TV Leaders Debate

Around 7.5 million people tuned in to see the leaders of seven of the UK’s political parties debate the issues for the general election on 7 May. Three sevens in that sentence but who will it be lucky for?

The accepted psephological wisdom with these TV events is that that they do not have much if any impact on how people vote. The example of Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems last time soaring in post TV debates is quoted, as by the time polling day arrived, the Lib Dems were back to where they were (23%) before the debates. This time is even more unlikely to have an effect, since the having seven leaders and at this distance from polling day, all insisted upon by the Tories, will surely not buck the trend?

Although having so many on the platform did indeed dilute the event, I thought it also made it more interesting. We had a range of voices (and female ones too for a change) and the anti-austerity parties, SNP, PC and the Greens all had their say on austerity, which would have gone unchallenged by the Tories, Lib Dems, UKIP and Labour, otherwise. It turned out to be more interesting than I anticipated.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, looked a bit uneasy with the multi leader format, and although he came out around the top in the polling afterwards, I thought he looked a bit distant, he probably didn’t want to be there and it showed.

I don’t think the multi format suited Nigel Farage either and he looked less at ease than normal, he also looked a bit tired.

Nick Clegg was always on a loser really, trying to defend the indefensible of propping up the right wing agenda of the Tories, and he went largely unnoticed according to the polling.

Ed Miliband did quite well I suppose, and he does seem to be confounding the Tory, right wing media campaign against him as being ‘weak’ and ‘extreme’. Most polls afterwards put him level or slightly ahead of Cameron which Labour will be pleased about.

But the real breath of fresh air came from the women, Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Leanne Woods (PC) and Natalie Bennett (Green), not only for challenging the status quo on public spending cuts, but also breaking out from the dull men in suits trotting out the usual political ‘lines’.  Sturgeon, by far the most experienced of the trio, was the star performer. Her pitch was clever, in that she not only appealed to Scottish voters but also extended a hand to the English, Welsh and Northern Irish, of cooperation on changing the bankrupt Westminster political consensus.

This is important, because the Tories and their media friends are trying portray the SNP as anti-English, in an attempt to divert attention away from policies that trash the welfare state, towards a largely non-existent enmity between the people of the four nations of the UK. This coming election is not about national independence, although UKIP certainly want to paint it that way and it suits the big parties to avoid the real issues, it is about how we want to live our lives. Do we want to carry on getting more unequal as a society or do we want a fairer and more equal one?

One interesting issue that came out in the debate, was if we have an in out referendum on membership of the European Union, should the Scots, Welsh, Irish (and English) get a separate ballot each. Of course, even if we do hold a referendum, this will not be on offer, but the marker has been put down now. I would expect, following any out vote, for the Scots to demand another independence referendum (and maybe the Welsh too), on the basis they do not want to leave. The next five years could see massive constitutional turbulence in the country.

Despite what the Tories are saying about ‘chaos’ if they are not returned to government, in fact, it looks increasingly likely that another Tory led government will break the country up, because not everyone wants what the Home Counties do.

I am hopeful that, for want of another expression, a ‘progressive alliance’ can be built after the election and we throw the divisive Tories out. This is the most promising election of recent times, an opportunity to get back to a proper kind of social democratic government. Bring it on!   

        

REVEALED: The fat cat pay packets of the Tory-supporting bosses

A glance at the wealth of some of the signatories makes it hard to believe they care about ordinary people

How much weight the public attach to the letter by big business leaders supporting Conservative economic policy depends on whether people think the business leaders in question are motivated by altruism or self-interest.

A quick glance at the incredible wealth of some of the signatories, and the pay policies of their companies, makes it very difficult to believe they are concerned about the lives of ordinary people.

Pay details of selected FTSE 100 CEOs who signed the letter, and are compelled to disclose their pay in their companies’ annual reports, are as follows:

• Prudential CEO Tidjane Thiam was paid £11.8 million in 2014, up from a mere £8.7 million in 2013. In 2010, he struggled by on just £5.3 million, so people might not find it surprising that he thinks things have got better under the Coalition
• Andy Harrison, the CEO of Whitbread, which owns the Costa Coffee chain amongst other restaurant brands, was paid £6.3 million, over 400 times as much as his average employee. Again, CEO pay at Whitbread has increased from just £2.6 million in 2010
• George Weston, the chief executive of Primark owners Associated British Foods got a £5 million incentive payment last year, on top of a salary of around £1 million plus various other bonuses. His total pay added up to over £7 million, roughly 500 times as much as his average employee. Primark has been criticised for its refusal to pay ordinary workers the living wage
• Despite falling oil prices, BP could still afford to pay Bob Dudley around £9.4 million last year, up from about £8.8 million in 2013, though Aidan Heavey of Tullow Oil wasn’t so lucky – his company’s plummeting share price reduced his pay to just £2.4 million, compared to £2.8 million the previous year.
• In his final full year at Diageo, Paul Walsh was paid £15.6 million. Mr Walsh has previously argued that higher taxes on the rich make it harder for the UK to attract and retain top talent. Cynics might wonder if there was anyone in particular he had in mind.

These pay packages do not necessarily invalidate the opinions of the CEOs (though we should be wary of crediting them with the wisdom of Solomon) or have any bearing on whether they are right or wrong about Labour and Tory economic policies.

But such vulgar sums of money do make it easier for critics to argue that the letter’s authors are a bunch of self-serving racketeers concerned only with preserving an economic system that facilitates their own enrichment, rather than public-spirited entrepreneurs who genuinely want what’s best for the country.

Many sensible businesspeople have argued that the culture of executive greed – and the public contempt that it engenders – threatens the long-term sustainability of a capitalist system. The damage that such colossal pay packages do to the credibility of the authors of this letter is a very good case in point.

Luke Hildyard is a contributing editor at Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter

And here Political Scrapbook reveals Telegraph letter signatories and companies have given £7.4 million to the Conservative party

Tory – Lib Dem Coalition 2010 – 2015: A Record of Nastiness and Incompetence

The odious Tory/Lib Dem Coalition government has ended (for now at least), we look back on what this has meant for Britain.

The banks have been re-financed with tax payers money, and the good times in banking, if not for the rest us, are well and truly back. Hefty bonuses are once again the norm for those with their snouts in the trough, even at government owned banks, you wouldn't know that these people crashed our economy. Royal Mail sold off at a huge discount to city investors. All in it together? Risible really.

Welfare benefit sanctions up massively since 2010, cuts to benefits, including the bedroom tax, housing benefits, working tax credits, crisis loans, Independent Living Fund for the disabled and overall benefits allowed to fall as inflation rose. Food banks up by about 500% and suicides up massively for benefit claimants. Hundreds of millions of pounds wasted on IT in the botched attempt to introduce the Universal Credit benefit system.

Workfare schemes introduced which amount to little more than slave labour, benefiting big business with participants learning such valuable skills as stacking supermarket shelves. Temporary, part-time, zero hours and mainly lowly paid jobs 'created'. Public sector workers made redundant in their hundreds of thousands whilst those left have had below inflation wage increases (if any at all) and hikes in their pension contributions. All are considerably poorer than before the Coalition started mismanaging the economy.

On the other hand well paid advisory jobs in government for The Sun hacking crooks like Andy Coulson.

An unsuccessful attempt to privatise our forests and woods and the cruel and utterly ineffective badger cull that despite all the scientific evidence (and there is loads of it) saying it was at best pointless and at worse would increase the spread of bovine TB, duly proved the scientists entirely correct. Defra Secretary of State at the time Owen Paterson, claimed it would have worked out OK, if only the badgers hadn't moved the goal posts!

Vans dispatched by the Home Office to drive around areas where immigrants live to tell people to 'GO HOME' in a panicky response to UKIP gaining popularity.

University tuition fees increased to £9,000 per year for students, already burdened with debt, and despite the Lib Dems promising to abolish them altogether. Once the votes of students were bagged by the Lib Dems their policy was deemed to be too expensive.

Local government cut by around 40% leading to the closure of libraries, day centres, leisure centres, youth clubs and many other services. All under the cover of 'localism'. More freedom for local authorities to spend much less cash. At the same time a huge increase in school privatisations as many were turned into academies, run by crack pot religious individuals and wealthy business men, all funded by the tax payer.

No expense spared though when it came to bombing Libya, which has been a complete disaster as militant Islamists have taken over huge areas of the country, with plans to make it a base for attacking Europe. Thousands killed.

House building, other than for foreign millionaires who 'buy to leave' property in London, down. At the same time homelessness hugely on the rise, especially in London. Families on housing benefit evicted from their homes and sent to all parts of the country (well all parts that are cheap).

All this with wages falling, the NHS opened up to privatisation, Legal Aid cut, Corporation Tax reduced for big business to one of the lowest levels in the G8, inequality rising along with carbon emissions.

What a record. Are they ashamed? Hell no, they say they want to finish the job off. More likely finish the rest of us off. Kick them out.

  

Parliament is Dissolved – A Step into the Unknown

Parliament was dissolved at midnight this morning and the general election campaign proper has begun, also known as the ‘short campaign’. Before the 2011 Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the Prime Minister would have gone to Buckingham Palace to ask the queen to formally dissolve Parliament, but this is now unnecessary. The fact that Prime Minister Cameron still went to the Palace today is really only for the photo opportunity, there is no constitutional reason for him doing this.

MPs are not allowed to call themselves MPs anymore, they are candidates like any other candidates until they are re-elected or not on 7 May. Although the Prime Minister remains in post until a new government is formed..

So who is running the country for the 5 weeks (or perhaps longer, if we do not get a clear winner as looks likely)? Step forward the Civil Service. We have entered what is known as ‘purdah’ whereby the permanent Civil Service keeps the government running on a ‘business as usual’ basis, no new policies will be introduced.

Purdah is a Persian word, later adopted in northern India, meaning quite literally ‘curtain’. It was a practice where women were hidden so men could not see them, and kept separate or veiled in a burqa. What it means here for government, is that there is no openness of the workings of government, in Parliament etc.

It is undemocratic by nature but perfectly understandable whilst an election is taking place. Indeed Belgium didn’t have an elected government recently for over a year, and hardly anyone noticed, as things trundled along as normal. This probably reflects that policies don’t change much these days, with responsibility increasingly handed to technocrats, be it the EU commission or the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, for example.

The result of the election itself still looks to be extremely difficult to predict, except that it is more than likely that the Conservatives and Labour will not get an overall majority. If I’m to stick my neck out, I’ll say that Labour will win the most seats, although it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m wrong and the Tories win the most seats. But in the event of Labour winning the most seats, it is not clear what happens next.

By convention, the party that wins the most seats usually get first chance to create a majority by approaching other smaller parties and making an arrangement. But as in almost everything about the British constitution, it is not that clear what exactly needs to happen.

In 1974 Labour won a few seats more than the incumbent Tory government but Prime Minister Ted Heath (who had won more votes though not seats) tried to agree a coalition with the Liberals. Only when this wasn’t achieved did Heath resign. And 5 years ago, Gordon Brown tried to hang on when the Tories were short of a majority. My guess is something similar may happen again this time. The Tories will try to cobble together a majority with the Lib Dems and the DUP.

Another similarity with 1974 is that the minority Labour government called a second election in the autumn of that year, and it will not surprise me if we have two elections this year. Of course the aforementioned Fixed Term Parliament Act will need to be repealed first, but that is a minor problem.

So here we are at the start of a probable roller coaster ride which promises to be a psephological and constitutional feast, at least for the likes of election anoraks like me.       

General Election Target Seats - Greens

We have been using our General Election simulator to study the quality of lists made by parties regarding seats they aim to win in the election, with Labour and the Conservatives already investigated. This time we will look at the list of 12 "Campaigns to Watch" identified by the Green Party.

The Seats on the List
Unsurprisingly, the list features the current sole Green seat, Caroline Lucas' Brighton Pavilion, the retention of which has been repeatedly identified by Greens as the main priority for the party. The other 11 are presumably the seats where the party thinks it has the best chance of victory.

Below is a list of the 12 seats, with the win probabilities for the Greens and their main rivals. The final column ('GRE def') shows how far the Greens are from the favourite for that seat.

As with most other parties, it seems that seats held by the Lib Dems will be the ones most attainable, with Bristol West and Norwich South standing out as the best chances of a Green steal alongside the Labour-held York Central. The remaining 8 seats are all long shots, although with the recent "Green Surge" they certainly shouldn't be discounted just yet.

Speaking of the surge in Green support, we can compare the probabilities for the top four seats to those given in December when we unveiled the model:

Aside from Norwich South, we can see a decent increase in the chance of a Green win in each constituency, which is consistent with the party's rise in popularity across the country. If this rise increases, we might see the Greens move into very strong positions in these areas.

The Seats Not on the List
As with our analysis of the Labour hit-list, we can look at the probabilities of a Green win across all constituencies, and see whether there are some seats which the party has overlooked:

Those listed in green are ones not on the previous list. Three of these, (Lewisham Deptford, Cardiff Central and Hove), are in a similar range to the other long shots in our previous list. However, Hornsey & Wood Green, yet another Lib Dem seat, is marginally higher.

Conclusion
The collapse of Liberal Democrat support across the country has benefited almost every other party, and the Greens are no exception, with nearly all their best chances of adding to their total of MPs being in Lib Dem seats.

As with Labour, we find that our list of the best seats for the Greens to target is not quite the same as the one provided by the party. It won't be known how well the Greens would be doing in these overlooked constituencies had they chosen these in their list of key constituencies, but extra attention from the party would have been unlikely to have harmed their chances.

Written By Adrian Worton and first published at The Game is a Foot