In the last week before the election I want to offer some of the reasons why I think a Green vote is a positive vote for the future…
I was chatting to a local resident very active in his community, particularly with regards to combating anti-social behaviour. He mentioned that he thought a party should be set up which would have as a core policy legalising drugs. “In essence, that's our policy,” I responded much to his surprise. I've had police officers privately also wish for an end to the drugs prohibition too.
Drug addiction is a public health issue, not a criminal one. Greens would take the drug trade out of criminal control and put it in a regulated, legal environment. This would cut out the criminal gangs and move us towards treating addiction – not pushing vulnerable people into an underground, unsafe black market.
Green policy is about creating a true 'health system' focussed on prevention and healthiness, rather than the current 'sickness system' which tends to intervene when problems are acute and so focus on processes to deal with sick people.
By reversing the privatisation of the NHS and reducing defence spending Greens would be able to:
Abolish prescription charges,
Increase community based services,
Bring services like hospital cleaners and cooks back into the NHS.
We would also do much more to research and prevent the environmental causes of illness, such as from pollution or from agrochemicals in our food.
Through education, urban planning and eco-taxes we would strongly promote walking and cycling which would help prevent diseases, increase well-being and reduce pollution which is linked to childhood asthma. We'd also cut our carbon foot-print, a win-win policy!
By focussing on people and their right to be healthy, Greens promote lifelong health.
My latest video blog entry has already started causing a stir in the YouTube comments with BNP supporters coming out of the woodwork. It just proves that the vast majority of people who welcome our multi-cultural, open society which respects peoples rights and responsibilities need to get out and vote to support a positive vision for the future, not the hate spread by the BNP.
I've always been in favour of reforming our political system to make it muchre more fair and more representative of our society. The key steps to acheive that have in my view always been the introduction of proportional representation, removing the monarch's constitutional role and an elected upper house to replace the anachronistic House of Lords.
Tied up with these would be additional reforms to enable much greater transparency and openness – strengthening the Freedom of Information Act, individual voter registration to improve the resilience of elections to fraud and a complete overhaul of how elected representatives are paid. This final point, clearly the centre of attention at the moment, is only one part of the wider reforms needed.
What I often hesitated over, uncertain as to the implications, is eliminating ministers and the Prime Minister from the Parliamentary system. In other words, electing the Prime Minister separately so that he is not brought into power on the back of an overwhelming majority (made worse by the current unfair electoral system) of MPs from his party.
It is hard to imagine divorcing the Executive, Her Majesty's Government, from the Houses of Parliament. But I have come to the conclusion that this is a step we must take. Why? Let us look at what we gain from having the Executive inside Parliament:
They are part of the legislature so can quickly and decisively enact laws;
They are within the chambers and so can easily be questioned and challenged;
They are relatively accessible to their colleagues in Parliament.
But what are the disadvantages:
Laws get passed without decent scrutiny due to the pressure the Government has through the whips on their own colleagues;
We get the ugly spectacle of governing ministers briefing against each other and the Prime Minister because they could all technically get the top job or boost their position within their Parliamentary party;
On becoming Ministers the MPs inherently become distracted from their real jobs of representing their constituents which is taken on by other MPs and staff;
A critically-minded legislator is lost as the member must vote with the government at all times or forfeit their job for 'disloyalty';
Politicians aren't usually the best qualified people to manage large, often technocratic, government departments.
There is growing consensus that there are too many people in both Houses of Parliament. This is undoubtedly true and cutting the numbers down will help in all sorts of ways from the practical (more room in the chambers) to the financial (lowered costs to us taxpayers). But Government now also requires a huge number of Ministers which absorbs much of the majority party in business which isn't directly scrutiny or legislating. There is room for paring down some parts of government (for example Greens would eliminate the majority of various tax credits and benefits into one simple citizens' income and similarly would hugely simplify the number of taxes such as merging income tax with national insurance). But modern day government is complex and cannot be oversimplified so the need for a good number of ministers will remain.
I am now of the view that the Executive should be separate with the Prime Minister directly elected. He would then appoint his Ministers (who would not be able to sit in Parliament) and they would face confirmation hearings (in the US style). Parliament would also hold the right to require Ministers to attend Committee meetings to explain themselves.
This would enable legislators to get on with the job of scrutinising, creating law, holding government to account and representing their constituents. Meanwhile the Executive could focus on governing but with decent checks and balances in place. This is the kind of radical change our country needs.
It has now been a year since the new constitution was waved in by a Tory and Labour vote. This created an all Tory cabinet who have, through grated teeth and with much complaining, tried to maintain a semblance of ‘openness and transparency’ which they said was at the core of their administration. In real terms these core values weren’t worth much.
At the last Cabinet meeting they started ruling some of my supplementary questions out of order for not being relevant…. completely specious and a blatant attempt to stifle debate.
Today’s Cabinet meeting was the final straw as Cllr G Theobald led the retreat. Yes, a complete surrender on their attempts to maintain any notion of being open or transparent. Instead of answering my four written questions Cllr G Theobald instead penned a missive (copied in full below) stating that because I had asked him too many questions he wasn’t going to answer any more. He also complained that my questions take too much officer time yet he found it appropriate to get an officer to compile a list of all the questions I have asked at Council and Cabinet meetings — bizarre!
Cllr G Theobald tells me my number of questions is unprecedented in Brighton & Hove, I’m making history, how wonderful. Perhaps it is more because he is so poor at consulting and the arrangements he governs over have been so shambolic that these questions are needed — as shown by my ongoing bulging (electronic) mailbag on the communal bins issue.
The fact is the Tories don’t really like being held to account and some of the Cabinet members particularly don’t like questions which highlight the fact that they haven’t got to grips with their portfolio. Like Ministers, I believe Cabinet members have a clear duty to provide factual answers when requested in writing by any elected member using the proper procedure, as I always do.
If you look at the questions I ask and then the claims by Cllr G Theobald that answering them takes too much officer time, one is led to one of two possible conclusions:
They really don’t want to answer questions; OR
the department isn’t in control of its affairs and doesn’t have basic management data to hand.
Either way it reflects very poorly on the Conservatives’ ability to run this Council effectively. Frankly I’m appalled that the Leader of the Council, Cllr Mary Mears, allowed Cllr Theobald to make such a dismissive response to my genuine and rather simple questions.
Cllr Theobald makes much of inviting me to speak to officers – however I do this all the time, but for the policy issues I think it’s only fair to deal with them at the political level. Similarly, if there are failings, it is the portfolio holder’s responsibility to take, I should not be directing it at officers. These are the protocols of Member/Officer relations and it is inappropriate for Cllr Theobald to keep passing the buck to his officers.
The irony of all this of course is that any resident can ask these same types of questions through the Freedom of Information Act and the Council would be required to respond. Power to the people rather than their representatives!
UPDATED 23/5/09 to include video of the Cabinet meeting.
The full questions and then Cllr Theobald’s non-answer answer (which for some reason is not yet online either):
(a) Councillor Kitcat
“Can Cllr G Theobald provide detail on the cost of the metal stoppers being added to the non-foot pedal communal bins? In particular:
The cost per bin of adding the stoppers;
The total cost to the council of adding the stoppers;
How this cost will be met and from which budget.”
(b) Councillor Kitcat
“Can Cllr G Theobald explain why a small number of non-foot pedal communal bins have rubber seals on the flaps which reduce the noise of closure whilst most do not?”
(c) Councillor Kitcat
“Does CityClean have any plans to expand the use of communal bins in the city?”
(d) Councillor Kitcat
“Could Cllr G Theobald update the meeting as to current versus previous recycling and waste tonnages in the city centre where communal bins are used?”
Response from Councillor Theobald, Cabinet Member for Environment, to all four questions.
“Thank you for your questions Councillor Kitcat.
As you are aware, beginning with the Council meeting on 4 December, you have asked some 30 questions at Council and Cabinet meetings. Notwithstanding my reservations and the pressure it was putting on officers, I have, up to now, endeavoured to answer all your questions in the hope that they are the last ones. I have a list of all your questions with the answers supplied if anyone wishes to see them. However, as is obvious to any fair minded, objective and impartial observer, this number of questions coming from a single Member about a single issue is excessive by any standards and certainly unprecedented in the history of this authority.
Give the number, frequency and nature of the questions, a disproportionate amount of officer time and resources has been spent in doing the research and preparing the answers. I firmly believe that the interests of the hard working Council Tax payers of Brighton & Hove is better served with officer time and resources being spent in delivering the service rather than having to research and answer an endless list of questions that add no value to the service.
I have always treated questions from Members and the public with respect and answered them. However, given what I have just said, and having taken advice, I do not feel it would be appropriate to continue to reply to a constant and endless list of questions on this subject from one Member.
As you are no doubt aware, at the Environment CMM on 7 May, I extended an invitation to all Members to meet Officers to share any concerns they have about waste and recycling issues. I repeat that invitation again. I do not therefore intend to answer your questions on communal bins as I believe that for anyone genuinely interested in helping to improve the service, taking the invitation that I have again extended to all Members is a more appropriate way of making a difference than constantly tabling questions after questions at Council and Cabinet.
I recently received a very well put together pack from Vote Cruelty Free which asked me to pledge in support of a number of extremely sensible and desirable policies if I am elected to the European Parliament. You can read them in detail on their website.
So I signed their pledge and lo-and-behold I'm the first to have done so! So they very kindly press released it, I copy the text below. I'm currently being flooded with pledges and many are very good indeed. I particularly like to see ones where groups are working together to find a consensus position which politicians can then quickly move forward with once the elections are over.
Thank you and Vote Cruelty Free!
European election candidate to Vote Cruelty Free
Green Party South East region candidate, Cllr Jason Kitcat, has become the first person to pledge his support for Vote Cruelty Free, a new non-partisan coalition of animal protection organisations working to put animals on the political agenda.
The alliance has sent its manifesto to all candidates in the forthcoming European elections and asked them to show their support for the issues raised.
Cllr Kitcat said, “I am delighted to support the Vote Cruelty Free pledge. How we treat animals is a reflection of the state of our society. I believe that in this day and age we have a clear ethical duty to eliminate animal suffering wherever possible. This has always been a key Green policy and a strongly held personal view.”
Vote Cruelty Free comprises the BUAV, Compassion in World Farming, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), League Against Cruel Sports and Respect for Animals. It covers a broad range of animal welfare issues including wild and marine animals, animal experimentation, cruel sports, the fur trade and farming.
Vote Cruelty Free is urging all candidates to pledge their support for the initiative. Voters can track candidates who have signed up by visiting the website at http://www.votecrueltyfree.org.
As the MP expenses row continues to engulf the media bubble, life for those outside the Westminster village goes on. And for many that remains really rather grim.
Equally appalling is the news that the country is more unequal that any time since modern records began in the early 60s. Sadly this does not surprise me at all based on my experiences in Brighton & Hove, but it is tragic that after so many people put their hopes in New Labour that they have been let down. I hope they recognise the failure was New Labour’s — not politicians or politics as a whole (though I could support arguments that opposition parties failed us in sufficiently scrutinising some Labour policies over the years).
Rather than dissect all the policies, I would just like to highlight that all these issues: expenses (snout in trough disease), climate change, social justice… they all highlight the urgent, desperate, vital need for there to be vibrant and active politics in this country. I dearly hope people are not turning off politics as we need them to vote for change more than ever before. Stephen Fry’s take on this in a BBC interview I think is rather helpful and incisive.
Jason Kitcat 