This government has launched an assault on our democracy. It is trying to discourage opposition voters reaching the ballot box with Voter ID; it is giving the police the power to ban protests that create “more than minor” disruption; and it is trying to by-pass parliamentary democracy by handing more power to Ministers. Continue reading “Assault on democracy”
Only a few weeks ago the Government lost a vote in the Lords on the Public Order Bill to change the interpretation of “serious disruption” of other people’s day-to-day activities to mean “anything more than minor” and now the government are now trying to reinsert this change via secondary legislation which has less Parliamentary scrutiny and can’t be amended in any way. Baroness Jenny Jones has tabled a fatal motion to stop their proposal from becoming law.
Continue reading “My petition to defend rights and democracy”
We must consider an office of the whistleblower, we need something very drastic as the current legislation is no protection at all Continue reading “Whistleblowing Framework”
This is a Government of divide and rule: they attack the leftie lawyers and judges who uphold the law, and they attack environmentalists for their common-sense demands of ensuring a safe, secure future for planet and people. Above all, they attack the immigrants, the foreigners, because they hope it will win them votes.
This Bill is not the solution to any problem, it is illegal, impractical, expensive, cruel and undemocratic
My Question for Written Answer: To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to work with international partners to establish a UN investigation into the mass poisoning of school children in Iran. Continue reading “The mass poisoning of school children in Iran”
The Public Order Bill has returned again to the Commons with Lords amendments after 2 rounds of Ping Pong. The Lords are digging in on suspicion-less stop and search having won on the protection of journalists. Details of the government defeats can be viewed here Continue reading “Public Order Bill Ping Pong”
To ask His Majesty’s Government, given the increased use of food banks, what assessment they have made of ways of reducing dependence on the charitable sector for the provision of food Continue reading “My Question on Food Banks”
The issue of shark-fins encapsulates the human problem that we have in our relationship to our planet. There is an attitude among a vast majority of people—particularly in this House—that the planet is there for us: it is there for us to rape and pillage, to use as and when we need. As a Green, I can see that simply is not true. The majority of people think that this whole world is at our disposal—animal, vegetable, mineral—and I argue that it is our lifeline. It is our home, and we ought to be looking after it better. Humans have been around, more or less in the form that we are at the moment, for about 100,000 years. In evolutionary terms, that is like being tiny little toddlers, and our behaviour is often like toddlers; we are greedy, we grab and we do not follow common sense. We certainly do not seem to understand that earth is our support system. Continue reading “Shark Fin Fishing”
In this budget the Chancellor has taken absolutely no steps on the path to a green economy. Green growth is an oxymoron. The minute you grow anything, you have to degrow in a different area. Green growth is possible but not if you do not cut somewhere else. Every time we grow the economy, we take a bite out of the planet’s resources. In the words of Professor Jason Hickel, author of ‘Less is More’ –
“Decarbonization with growth is like trying to run down an escalator that is accelerating upwards” Continue reading “Not even baby steps”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 