Recently in Campaigns Category

Second class response.

By

on September 23, 2008 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Some three weeks ago Robin put down a motion here which invited the Nats to offer to bear the cost of loss-making post offices, and to recognise the essential social role they provide. Currently just one other MSP has signed it, and you won't be surprised to know it's Patrick.

Next time you find yourself listening to an MSP from any other party blathering on about saving their local post offices, ask them why they didn't sign up to the only proposal yet that would have saved the lot in one go. I'll tell you why, though. It's a dirty little secret.

These people actually love post office closures. At the Meadows Festival, it's all the Liberals wanted to talk about (although I insisted they talk about airport expansion). A threatened closure is a perfect campaign opportunity, a way to get local members motivated and to get into the local media. The printers here on the fourth floor whirr with little else.

The scandal is that they don't want to fix the problem, and one way to tell is that they only want to save the specific ones in their constituencies. I don't know about you, but I sometimes find myself in other parts of the country wishing there was a post office too.

Some are more hypocritical than others - and yes, Nigel Griffiths, I mean you, because you did vote for closures and then you campaigned to save them. But the same lack of an alternative applies to Liberal, Tory and SNP campaigners. As far as I know, anyway. Perhaps they've got a great plan - I know the Liberals considered privatisation, which would be one sure way to get as many closures as possible in the shortest time.

The bottom line is this. If they don't sign the motion, and they don't come up with an alternative of their own (which I would love to hear), you can tell they have no interest in fixing the problem, and just want to profit from the consequences.

If they sign up, we could build a common campaign, and make post office closures a thing of the past. For instance, 43 closures were announced today, and Jamie Hepburn railed against them. Sign the motion, Mr Hepburn, start the ball rolling, then we'll know you're serious.

How roads are built.

By

on September 11, 2008 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our friends at the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route Inquiry bring reports of yesterday's events. First, as discussed here, the Reporter decided to ignore his responsibilities under European law, thus exposing the taxpayer to the risk of judicial review should Ministers decide to build the road.

Oh, wait, they've already decided.

Then the consultant from Jacobs took the stand. He first admitted that the road's objectives were changed to include traffic relief on the A90 after the route was selected. So you choose your route, then select your objectives? Sentence first, then trial!

He also confirmed that the route layout at Kingcausie was wrong because "of a simple mixup between East and West". These people are in charge of a massive bulldozer and are about to be let loose on the Aberdeenshire countryside. Reassured? Me too.

Despite supposedly being the lead consultants on the route, it also transpired they were told about the hybrid route which Tavish foisted on Aberdeenshire just 30 minutes before the press release went out. He will have loved the front page of yesterday's P&J - this headline, slating him, above a massive pic of protesters

Finally, many of the local community support a tunnel, some seeing it as a positive project and some on the basis that it would be less worse than the AWPR. Jacobs looked at the tunnel, and we'd always been told there was a report from them which it wasn't viable.

Astonishingly, when pressed on the nature of this report, Galbraith admitted it was "more like a few chaps around a table with a sketch who took a look and said, 'I don't think that'll work'."

I leave a review of this extraordinary statement to "Bystander", one of our pals at the Inquiry.

"So there you have it; Jacobs' definition of a report. I hope all you people in industry and commerce are taking note. Were any other 'reports' from Jacobs like that? Were the few chaps on their second or third bottle? When you are next in a town-centre pub, have a close look at the beer mats- one of them may well have the 'report' of the Murtle tunnel on it."

Coal-fired power stations ruled to be criminal.

By

on September 10, 2008 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hats off to Greenpeace - six of their activists just persuaded a jury to acquit them of criminal damage for the graffiti to the left, on the chimney of the coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.

The best bit about this is that the jury effectively said "this criminal damage was an attempt to stop a more serious crime, the criminal damage caused around the world, by coal plants like this, through climate change".

It's the same sort of defence we used in our anti-GM case, but we had to wait for the appeal to get off, not least because Kingsnorth was heard by a jury, but we just had a sheriff.

If Labour or the SNP press ahead with more coal plants, they know they will be on thin legal ice now, and the potential protesters know it too.

The witnesses for this case notably included NASA's Professor James Hansen, an absolute star of early climate change science, and more detail on his evidence, including his written statement, is available here.

Greenpeace planned to write "Gordon, bin it", but I actually prefer the shorter version. Like Dennis Potter christening his cancerous tumour Rupert, after Murdoch, they renamed a grossly polluting chimney Gordon, after Brown. It's not just the dirtiest form of power generation, aside from nuclear, it's actually criminal.

Absolute Worst Possible Route.

By

on September 10, 2008 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday I had a lovely day out in Aberdeen with Greens and other activists, joining Aberdeenshire locals protesting outside the Inquiry into the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

There's little more rewarding in politics than supporting local community campaigners, although this campaign will be a hard one to win when the First Minister is prepared to bend the truth in the name of forcing a road through. Our protest pointed out that this is an Inquiry where the decision has been taken to build the road no matter what, where all discussion has been prevented about the AWPR's effectiveness on traffic reduction, its economic, social and environmental impact, and about the alternatives available.

Salmond then went on the radio urging everyone to take part, as people always find this kind of Inquiry worthwhile, neglecting to address the fact that no-one I've spoken to has ever seen an Inquiry where the answer was known in advance. It's pure window-dressing (see above).

After our protest, Road Sense's QC pointed out a flaw in the Inquiry under European law. Because of the protected nature of at least one of the environments under threat, the Inquiry has to look at all the options, including not building the road. The Reporter will rule on this today, but the road's supporters should be urging him to back this line of argument, for two reasons.

First, if your road can meet the usual tests, the same ones the M74 failed, then make the case in public. Second, if the Inquiry continues on the current path then it will be obvious how any final decision by Ministers can be judicially reviewed. Do you really want that?

Hopefully I'll be able to keep updates coming here from my friends on the inside. P&J coverage is here and here, along with an absurd editorial here. Scotsman here.

Thanks to all who turned out at such an ungodly hour, including Ben, Daniel, Lindsay, Sarah, Sarah and Tom, who also posted on this, as follows. Love the title.

Aberdeen: Landlocked by the sea.

Update: the Reporter's decision is out. They ignored the legal concerns. No surprise there.

Eight years and four months.

By

on September 8, 2008 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently this is a good timescale to make the changes we need on climate change. It is, of course, better known as 100 months. I'm not convinced by arbitrary deadines, and am not sure what is so vital about January 2017.

Also, how do you sign people up halfway through? Will the domain name count down? And one final complaint: it's not clear who's behind the site, except by reading the linked-to Guardian site.

The answer is NEF, incidentally, who I've been fond of in the past.

Having got all that snark off my chest, I did sign up, and will report back on what their monthly activity recommendations are. If they're something more substantial than urging us to turn the taps off when we brush our teeth, which surely they must be, I'll be ready to take it all back and encourage you all to sign up.

Rights, camera, action

By

on September 8, 2008 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A friend and fellow green activist

has just gone to Kenya to film part of a documentary for Amnesty about poverty and human rights, and she's blogging about it.

I'm delighted to see Amnesty broadening its work, much as the traditional anti-torture, pro-rule of law, pro-freedom of speech stuff remains depressingly vital. I just gave them a tenner, and you can do the same or better here.

Double your No2ID money.

By

on September 3, 2008 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thumbnail image for harvieIDcards.jpg

How often do I quote Liberal blogs favourably? Pretty rarely. Here's one, though.

NO2ID is an excellent grassroots political campaign, building knowledge about the ID cards and the database behind them, which quickly translates to opposition. I'm pretty sure they're going to win, too.

So, on with the quote.

From 1st September 2008, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd has generously agreed to match, pound for pound, any *new* income that NO2ID receives.

Which means that for every pound you give from 1st September NO2ID will receive TWO pounds to spend campaigning against the ID scheme and database state.

Please send your donation by cheque to the NO2ID office (please mark your envelope 'JRRT'):

The NO2ID Campaign
Box 412
19-21 Crawford Street
London W1H 1PJ

Or you can donate by credit card or via PayPal using the 'Donate' button on their website.

Maybe next time the Liberals won't abstain on ID at Holyrood too. We can hope.

Every time, a little more internet.

By

on August 13, 2008 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Each time Americans go round their protracted electoral cycle, it gets a little more internet. It doesn't seem to happen here in the same way - perhaps we're not quite at critical mass yet, or maybe we're slow learners.

Anyway, the attack ad and YouTube were made for each other. Next to zero cost to make (some dork with a copy of Final Cut), zero cost to distribute (Google pays), and easy to circulate. Also for free.

Here's two very different ones against McCain. They each take a very different tone, but both make me pretty anxious about the fact that he's even still in this race (and tightening - Electoral Vote has it at 289-249 in Obama's favour today).

First, here's a TPM one about what a senile fool he is. Especially about Czechoslovakia. And timetables. Not to mention dirt, and/or Frankenstein.

Next, the really scary one, thanks to Scribo Ergo Sum. I have seen about half of the clips from this already, but the whole package together shows a terrifying whole. Seriously, if these two are the choices, wouldn't seeing this make everyone more sensible than Strangelove himself back Obama?

Anyway, it's not just the Americans who're doing this, obviously. Here's one more, presumably a TV ad just ripped for YouTube, but it was done by the Jamaican Labour Party, they posted it officially, and it has a YouTube aesthetic about it. Aaron tells me that "don't draw mi tongue" means "don't provoke me into slagging you off", roughly.

Watching the activists.

By

on July 31, 2008 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As you may know, I've a bit of history with direct action.

Most notably, Mark Ballard and I got lifted at a GM protest in 1999, along with four others. We were convicted in 2001 (the group pic there is amusing, as is the Ballard/Castro quote), and acquitted on appeal in 2003.

We always knew our colleagues really well, and never saw any of the paranoia that some activist groups get into. Still, there have been a couple of examples recently where that kind of anxiety proved justified, and where corporate interests have infiltrated campaign groups.

Last year Mark Thomas wrote about Martin Hogbin, who worked undercover at the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, on behalf of British Aerospace (Monbiot on the same story). And just yesterday MotherJones uncovered an NRA mole in the American gun control movement. Both had been in place for ten years or so, passing everything from legal advice to campaign strategy out to their handlers.

The media do something similar too: the BBC sent someone into the Climate Camp last year so they could do a tabloid style "OMG DIRECT ACTION!!1!" scare job. It's a shame they don't feel it would be as worthwhile to get undercover with BAA to see what they're planning. Perhaps it's just too much work to get near the board-room, especially when compared to wandering into a public camp.

Still, there's no point getting anxious about it. We ourselves have environmentalists undercover in corporations across the country and embedded in countless government agencies, passing information on and ready for action. You'll see.

That's a tough gig, though. As Leonard Cohen said, "they sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within". (youtube)

All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.

By

on May 16, 2008 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday the California Supreme Court did the right thing and legalised gay marriage. Even The Governator won't oppose it any more, so it should be safe, despite a ballot counter-proposal in November.

For me this is a litmus test of a good society, just proper equality (even if, as in Massachusetts, it means the occasional lesbian complaining that her granny's nagging her to get married: equality really is equality, sorry!).

My flatmate calls discriminatory legislation "code smell", being a dork. You look at software, and if parts of it smell funny, in more or less obvious ways, there's probably something more fundamental wrong. Less so, now, in California.

Biofuels - the real story

By

on April 17, 2008 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sadly, I read this only once I'd issued a press release about the problems with biofuels, otherwise I'd have included it in my notes. The Daily Mash is our Onion. Perhaps someone will do a satire site called Bangers and complete the set.

They got the dollars, we got the numbers

By

on March 26, 2008 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So The Donald (pictured at left) is unhappy at the fact that a public inquiry might take a long time. He has threatened to take the project elsewhere if the inquiry takes too long. Today, too, his representative on earth, George Sorial, one of the most arrogant people ever to appear before a Parliamentary Committee, said:

"Despite the support of the overwhelming majority of local people, there will always be those who have set their faces against this progressive and beneficial project and will refuse to back it. That's their right. But it's crucial that the size of this small but vociferous group of objectors is kept in perspective." (BBC)

In other words, we'll accept any outcome so long as it's what we want. And to hell with the 8000+ petitioners, the 1m+ RSPB members, the community campaigners and the statutory regulator, not to mention the Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group, Buglife, Friends of the Earth Scotland, the John Muir Trust, the Marine Conservation Society, Plantlife, the Ramblers' Association Scotland, the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society, the Scottish Council for National Parks, the Scottish Countryside Rangers' Association, the Scottish Raptor Study Groups, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and WWF Scotland (pdf).

Sure, that's a small group of objectors. Why should any of their views count when Donald's got the money?

Mountgrange tied the Council's hands

By

on March 19, 2008 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So the developers have admitted they offered the Council a share in the profits purely to make sure this abomination went through.

Mountgrange bought some council-owned land around the site it owned, a former bus garage, which was due to be developed. The council will receive a small share of the profits from the site. 'It was done to make sure the council didn't sell us short,' says Berry. 'It only has a passive involvement.' (Property Week)

As the article notes, though, this is also the reason why the project will have to come to Ministers for approval, and why campaigners are hopeful a full public local inquiry will be called. The role of the SNP will be vital. Their local MSPs are campaigning against it, but their councillors are voting for it. Classic Liberal-type behaviour: perhaps the local coalition is having that effect on them?

Abortion rights

By

on March 10, 2008 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some friends of mine set up Women's Abortion Rights Scotland. I'm proud to be hosting their site, and will continue to do what I can to help.

Oil wars, round 2

By

on March 2, 2008 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sunday Herald gave a good show to a campaign we're involved in against the massive opening up of Scotland's waters for oil and gas, threatening not just the Moray bottlenose dolphins but also 20+ other cetaceans. Thanks Rob.

Note the Labour Minister's line in the middle of it. Total spin. Still, I think this is a campaign we can win, just like ship-to-ship oil transfers. There's plenty more to come on this front, that's for sure.

Hidden in broad daylight

By

on March 2, 2008 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Observer today exposes how massive amounts of "oor money" get used by the European Investment Bank, an official organ of the EU, to subsidise oil pipelines, dams, privatisation projects and the like, all allocated by EU-style carve-ups in almost total secrecy.

My first thought was "hang on, surely a little exposure will make this stop". Then I wonder if any amount of exposure can stop a £150bn slush fund that makes a lot of friends for the right people. Let's find out. And let's spend our money backing proper sustainability, not dams and motorways.

Anyway, hats off to Greig and Anders for this one. Keep up the good work.

Ministers to do a Trump for Caltongate?

By

on February 28, 2008 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

donald trump.jpg

So The Donald's plan to trash the Balmedie dunes will go to an inquiry. Great news for the community, although we will wait and see whether they choose Jack Nicklaus or Sam Torrance to oversee the inquiry.

Salmond's on record as saying they'd abide by an Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route inquiry rejection of the road, and hopefully the same applies here.

Patrick asked the question, and John Swinney answered it (I think) for Glenn Campbell. I'll see in a minute. The last lot had a shocking record on this kind of issue.

However, this also makes it much harder for Edinburgh's sleazy decisions over Caltongate to remain unchallenged. The local campaigners agree, and it's hard to see any inquiry there not demonstrating to a national audience the scale of opposition, the absurdity of the current plan, and the dubious financial practices of Labour in particular over this issue.

Mountgrange backed Labour

By

on February 20, 2008 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course they did. What else could I assume when, back in 2006, I got hand-delivered "Vote Trevor" leaflets late one night, bundled with "Caltongate to save Edinburgh" propaganda?

However, now it's in the Times that £4000 was provided to Labour by Mountgrange, which they then spent on a champagne reception. Ah, takes me back to when "champagne socialist" was something Labour hacks used to find hurtful..

Image taken from the Independent Republic of the Canongate - thanks!

Hot air

By

on February 15, 2008 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stewart Stevenson debated my good friend Cllr Johnstone on Lesley Riddoch's show today. Challenged on how building motorways could reduce carbon emissions, he tried to broaden the issue by pointing out that "I'm breathing out carbon dioxide".

While the unkind might suggest a way to reduce those particular emissions, surely it would still be easier not to build all this soon-to-be-outdated infrastructure?

Update: 18 Feb
It's been pointed out to me that I used the wrong picture above. I should of course have used the one to the left.

Dark days

By

on February 14, 2008 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the SNP are going ahead with the M74 with indecent haste, which suggests a couple of things.

First, the review we were promised can hardly have amounted to more than a quick call to the civil servant who designed the failed procurement process. "Hello Sir Humphrey, still happy with this single bidder business? Yes? Good, thanks awfully."

Second, John Swinney isn't worried about what would happen if the European Commission voided this contract, as they have the power to do. A pretty irresponsible position to put the Government in, and one that may come back to haunt them. As Sir Humphrey himself would have said, "a brave decision, Minister."

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