Politics

Banning diesel and petrol cars from 2040

In 1994 your phone would have looked like this.

If someone had told you that in 23 years time your phone would:
• Be thinner than a pencil
• Be 1000x more powerful than your 486 computer
• Able to instantly play music from over a million CD’s
• Play videos at 24x the resolution of a VHS tape
• Allow you access to more data than the encyclopaedia Britannica at the touch of a button

You would have said it’s not possible, that things don’t move that quickly?

Why are some people thinking it’s so crazy we’ll all be driving electric cars by 2040??

Politics

Greens oppose neonicotinoids

The Bassetlaw Green Party is opposed to current plans to ignore the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommendation to ban neonicotinoids. British Environment Secretary, Owen Patterson, has already indicated that the Government is likely to ignore the EFSA who said the chemicals “pose a number of risks to bee health”.

Neonicotinoids are a type of insecticide used to control pests on farmland crops, unfortunately there has been increasing studies showing that this is leading to a drastic reduction in bee populations.

The Government should be representing it’s people as a whole and not its vested interests in mega corporations. Concern about bee populations may seem ‘hippy’ but without bees we will cause bigger crop problems in the country than the pests these chemicals are designed to stop.

As someone with an allotment I deeply appreciate the job that bees and other pollinating insects provide to us. All too often we forget the intricate balance of the ecosystem that has evolved over the millions of years that the Earth has existed, we cannot just continue to plague the planet like the insects these farmers are trying to kill.

Politics

Joined the Green Party

Today I have joined the Green Party as I have had enough of just ranting online, signing petitions and pestering my MP. It’s time to take some real action in sorting out this mess we’ve got this country in to!

There are many groups that I am a big advocate of which align with the Green Party’s policies such as the Open Rights Group and Positive Money. I really don’t think this country can continue down it’s current path any more.

We are continually seeing scandals in the newspapers, the Government continually ignoring advice from scientific research and just blatantly ignoring its populace as a whole. This just can’t continue, we are supposed to have a democracy but it seems our Government is mostly there just to benefit businesses and those that are stinking rich.

I am going to do my best to get a local Green Party up and running in Bassetlaw and ensure we have a candidate for the General Election, even if it ends up being me standing!

Politics

Our money system guarantees inequality

Inequality
Inequality

I am a big follower of Positive Money and their article ‘Our money system guarantees that inequality will get worse – Here is the evidence‘ is absolutely spot on.

The problem is that the Government and the Bank of England actually have no power over how much money is created in this country, as outlined in the Bank of Englands paper ‘Money creation in the modern economy‘ and it’s amazing how many members of the public do not know these facts, and even worse how many of our MP’s do not know it!

How are we ever likely to have a fair and equal society when banks can effectively print as much digital money as they think is safe, which as we have already seen they are hardly fit to judge. It just absolutely reeks of corruption and the fact that none of the major political parties are even interested in contesting this absolute riles me, the only party that even remotely touches on this subject is the Green Party.

Still, as is becoming ever more clear the country is not run for the average citizen, it is effectively run by big business, banks and the wealthy elite. The majority of MP’s are but pawns in a complex game of chess where the rules are ever distorted, I’m sure many of them start out with grand ideals but are regularly whipped into shape by their party, this is why I am much more impressed by independent candidates and parties such as the Green Party that don’t believe in a ‘party whip’ which being perfectly honest I think goes against the whole point of democracy!