*London Green News/'Stop and Kill'

Apologies to the readers out there. I have not been posting much lately. With only 22 weeks to the GLA elections, things are just hectic. In fact, last night was my first at home in eleven days. Even then, the last e-mails were sent out after midnight. Two events stand out over the last week:

1) BRIEFING on ‘STOP AND KILL’ from the Metropolitan Police:

This was conducted by two senior policemen at Scotland Yard. In preparation for it, I studied the Stockwell 1 report (180 pages) and the Stockwell 2 report (140 pages). Fascinating, and scary stuff!! While some of the reports are repetitive, I would urge anyone interested in the subject to read them – available on the Met website.

I came away from the briefing even more scared than before:-) For one thing, an armed policeman can shoot to kill at any time if he thinks his life or the life of a member of the public is in danger. This, apparently, has always been the case! Being Irish I knew this already.

The officers also stated that Tony Blair was not involved in the attempt to gag the independent investigation, contrary to what is in the Stockwell 1 report (section 17.21)

Reading the report, one can see that it could have happened to you or me or anyone if you are ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’, as in the Pogues song about another miscarriage of Justice – The Birmingham 6. It is quite obvious from the report that John-Charles did absolute nothing wrong and had not acted in a suspicious manner.


2) LONDON GREEN NEWS:
On Thursday last I was involved in the signing-off of the first ever issue of the London Green Party’s new tabloid newspaper London Green News. This was the culmination of a long held dream of mine. On the first issue, we have a print run of 170,000. That’s about the same as the Guardian in London. It will be hitting the streets this coming weekend. Volunteers for distribution are very welcome. E-mail me at noellynch@lineone.net