London Festive Social

Enjoyable @LonGreenParty Festive Social, last night. Chatted with loads of eager new members. Thanks to Ben Samuel for organising.

Global Green Party Wins explode worldwide Membership

By Mark Wachtler

December 6, 2014. Istanbul, Turkey. (ONN) The Green Party is arguably the
second largest political party in the world with active affiliates in countries across the globe. And thanks to a slew of recent election victories in a number of countries, as well as a passionate fight for Scottish independence, the Party has nearly doubled its worldwide membership in less than a year. From Taiwan to the UK and from Denmark to Croatia, the Green Party is a force to be reckoned with.

Greens win in Taiwan
Headlines over the past few weeks show the international Green Party has not only continued its decade-long growth spurt and string of election victories, but has accelerated it, doubling the Party’s membership numbers in a host of countries just over the past year. The most recent example comes from Taiwan, or Chinese Taipei for those who don’t believe in self-determination. One week ago, Green Party candidates won elections for the first time since the Party was organized there in 1996.

---

25-year-old Wang Hao-yu won a seat in the Taoyuan City Council. And 34-year-old Jay Chou was victorious in a bid for a Hsinchu County Council seat. “In the next four years, Green Party representatives will serve as civil society’s window into Taoyuan and Hsinchu councils and maintain responsibility to all citizens,” Focus Taiwan News quoted a statement from the Taiwan Green Party immediately after last week’s surprise election victories.

The announcement to Taiwan’s voters from the country’s Green Party leaders went on to say, “We are grateful to our voters for continuing to believe in us and giving the Green Party this opportunity. We also urge all sectors of society to encourage these candidates, campaign teams and volunteers, as we believe they will continue to take root and to work with enthusiasm and motivation for opening up a new politic.”
Greens double size in UK
The Green Party of England and Wales demonstrates that, as opposition political parties, our situation and experiences are the same in every country. It’ shouldn’t be a surprise considering the ‘establishment’ in most countries is made up of the exact same individual globalists that control government and business the world over. As the opposition, if our adversaries are the exact same people, it shouldn’t be a surprise that our battles, tactics and predicaments are the same the world over as well.
The UK’s Green Party showed us what can happen when the establishment excludes political parties from election debates and important national referendums. In a report from The Guardian four days ago, the publication states that due to the highly publicized debate over Scottish independence in September, the Green Party across Britain grew by 50 percent just in the two months surrounding the unsuccessful ballot initiative.
The publication cites two main factors for the UK Green Party’s explosion in membership. First is the fact that the Party was systematically excluded from the political process over Scottish independence, including the nationally televised debates. The snub either fueled local members to step up their efforts or created sympathy among voters, or both. The second factor mentioned is the “strong” performance made by Green Party national leader Natalie Bennett on a nationwide radio show at the time.

---

---

Braveheart goes Green
‘Nearly half of the Green Party membership is aged under 40 and more than 50% of the growth in membership this year took place in October and November, possibly a spillover from the Scottish referendum or a response to the publicity the party has received as a result of being excluded by broadcasters from the TV leaders’ debates,’ The Guardian reported, ‘Although its largest membership areas are in the south and south-west, the Party’s largest percentage rise this year has occurred in the north-west, Yorkshire and Wales, suggesting it is putting down stronger regional roots.’
The outlet goes on to note that while the Green Party has grown its membership by 50% in England, it has grown 100% in Scotland, most likely due to frustrations over the failed independence vote in September. Britain’s ruling liberals, the Labour Party, are suddenly finding themselves in the same boat America’s Democratic Party is in. ‘Labour insists its membership is stable,’ the publication writes, ‘but has conceded it has a job on its hands to ensure the Green surge does not split the vote on the left allowing the Conservatives to hold seats they would otherwise have lost.’
Denmark and Croatia
Showing that the recent rapid growth of the Green Party isn’t limited to just a couple countries like Taiwan, England and Scotland, an international conference of Green Parties took place last month in Istanbul, Turkey. There, the Party’s explosive increase in international membership was evidenced by the addition of two more countries into the Green Party family of global Greens.
A recap from the European Green Party last month reports, ‘The European Greens have continued to solidify their European family, as delegates to the European Green Council meeting in Istanbul voted overwhelmingly to welcome Danish Greens Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF) as full members, and the new Croatian Green Party ORaH as applicant members.’
Denmark’s Green Party is led by Pia Olsen Dyhr and is already a powerful political force in the country. The Green Party there was actually a part of the Danish government from 2011-2013. The Croatian Greens were founded last year by Mirela Holy and have seen instant success with the election of one of its members to office in their first year. The European Greens note that the Green Party in Croatia is already the second largest political party in that country.

---

---

European Green Party Co-Chair Monica Frassoni welcomed the two new member countries with open arms saying, “We are delighted that this morning our Green family enlarged. SF has been part of the European Green Party both as an observer member, and then as an applicant member. As full member, their strong European perspective will be invaluable as we work to change Europe together. Likewise, ORaH is an asset to our family. The success of both SF and ORaH shows that people are eager to hear our Green message from North to South. We welcome SF and ORaH in our Green family and are looking forward to lively exchange and productive cooperation.”
For its part, the Green Party of the United States elected 27 of its candidates to office in elections last month. It also increased the number of states it has ‘major party’ status in, including New York where a four-fold increase in votes for their Gubernatorial candidate over 2010 boosted the Green Party of NY to the third largest political party in the state.
For more information, read the Opposition News article, ‘Greens win 27 Election Day races’. Or visit the Green Party USA at GP.org

Animal Aid Christmas Fayre - tomorrow

A reminder of the fayre tomorrow - always an excellent event, Caroline Lucas and Peter Thatchell  are speaking and we have a stall so please say hello if you do come - great food too!

Our stall is upstairs. Come and have a chat. It's a really wonderful event. Ken Burgess and myself have run  the Green stall there for fourteen years. We have signed up new Green Party members at every event.

Noel Lynch

Mobile 07961 44 1722

  Animal Aid Christmas Fayre 7th December  10am to 5pm at Kensington Town Hall, Hornton Street, London W8 7NX  Admission £2, Children under 11 free.

Easy to get to -- opposite High Street Kensington tube.

 A feast of ethical festive treats awaits you at the Animal Aid Christmas Fayre. To enrich your mind, soul and stomach. If you've never been to the Fayre before, do go you will love it.

 There will be 100 ethical stands and vegan cafes bringing you an amazing array of animal-friendly merchandise, including vegan food, cruelty free toiletries and cosmetics, clothing, jewellery and information about how you can help animals and the environment. Make new friends and engage with the many different animal charities and campaigners. There will be a series of inspiring talks by guest speakers Caroline Lucas, Green MP, and Peter Tatchell human and animal rights campaigner and a children’s workshop and creche.

 For more information go to: www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/NEWS/news_living//3154/

Why Elon Musk's Batteries Scare the Hell Out of the Electric Company - Bloomberg

Here you read what really happens ...

Technologies advance so fast threatening the very business model of the utility firms!

Yesterday I read about cycle path in the Netherlands producing electricity (not much I may add), Fraunhofer Institut in Germany announces solar cell with an efficiency of over 30% surpassing the off the shelf 19% of the Panasonic hit to be in the shops by 2020,  Oxford university announced organic pv with efficiency of 10%, we have the first superconducting grid in Essen !!  Put it all together and we all going to fine... The future is bright ... Well can be....

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-05/musk-battery-works-fill-utilities-with-fear-and-promise.html

General Election candidates

Declaring the results of the selection of Green Party candidates.

L to R: Kate Simpson (Teacher), Melanie Collins (Retired Health Worker), Noel Lynch (Returning  Officer), Tony Rablen (Minister and Hospital Chaplin), Lorna Tooley (Trade Union Officer)

Following our local party hustings on Wednesday evening 12 November 2014, our ballot papers were counted and the results declared.  Just over 33 per cent of you voted by post or in person after the hustings, which is a good return for an internal election which the Greens always win.  We're pleased to tell you the following were duly selected:

               Dagenham & Rainham Constituency.

                                Kate Elizabeth Simpson

                Barking 

                                Tony Ford Rablen                            

                         

                Hornchurch & Upminster.

                                Melanie Jane Collins                      

                Romford

                                Lorna Jane Tooley

Hustings in East London

Conducting the GE candidate hustings for Barking, Dagenham and Havering Green Party last Wednesday.

The Political Slot. Channel 4. 19.15. Wed. Nov.19th

MP of the year Caroline Lucas: 'If we had more MPs, just imagine what we could achieve'

18 November 2014

* Musician Brian May: ‘We need more’ MPs like Caroline Lucas

* Columnist Mark Steel: Caroline’s “brought politics into disrepute … she’s done all the things she promised to do!”

* Caroline Lucas: Greens’ positive policies offer people “hope not fear”

* Green Party membership up almost 90% in 2014

* Greens polling at highest numbers ahead of a General Election since 1989 

Ahead of the May 2015 General Election, Caroline Lucas, recently named MP of the year (1), has urged voters to help the Greens “deliver the change we all so badly need.” 

Appearing on Channel 4’s ‘Political Slot’, Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, acknowledges that people are “fed up with politics as usual” and reminds viewers that she, like all Greens standing next May, is not “tied to vested interests” and “free to stand up for you and what I believe in.” 

“If we had more MPs, just imagine what we could achieve”, says Caroline. “All of us committed to making this country a more equal society, putting the environment at the heart of politics, working towards real economic justice and offering people hope, not fear.” 

In the film, Queen musician Brian May and columnist Mark Steel speak of their respect for Caroline’s work over that past four years as an MP. 

Caroline Lucas “is exactly what you’d want an MP to be. She’s honest, truthful, always in pursuit of fairness, never motivated by self-interest. She’s a wonderful MP and we need more like her”, insists May. 

“I think Caroline Lucas has brought the whole business of politics into disrepute really,” says Steel, “because politicians are meant to do things like pledge to abolish things and then treble the thing they promised to abolish or take the country into war on premises that turn out to be completely untrue or claim expenses for various castle-related activities and stuff like that. Caroline, instead of that, she promised to campaign to defend the NHS and to campaign against Page Three and campaign against fracking and she’s done all of the things she’s promised to do, she even got arrested for it. She’s making a mockery of democracy.” 

The ‘Green surge’ has seen Green Party membership and polling sky-rocket in 2014. Membership stands at 25,799 and is up a striking 87% since 1st January 2014. The Greens have polled ahead of the Liberal Democrats on three occasions in the past month.

May and Steel appear alongside others including ‘No More Page Three’ campaigner Lucy-Anne Holmes and Kayla Ente of Brighton & Hove Energy Services in the three minute film, which will air on Channel 4 on Wednesday 19^th November at 19:15.

NOTES:

(1) Earlier this month, Caroline Lucas was named UK MP of the year. More than 90 MPs from across the country were nominated for the award, and the winners were selected by an independent panel of judges. http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/11/06/caroline-lucas-named-mp-of-the-year/