NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE GREEN PARTY IN THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BRENT

22 May 2012

Guest Post: Car Diet - Life After the Car by Molly Fletcher

Molly Fletcher
We gave up the family car two years ago, or rather, our car gave us up. It blew up in Chiswick, West London shortly after we’d set off to go camping. The cost of repairing it was more than the car was worth, so for the first time in thirty five years, we became car less. Surprisingly, it has not been a nightmare, and looking back over the last year, being car free has brought numerous benefits. I can trace a definite improvement in our lives that started on that day.

This is an astounding statement. All my adult life I had owned a car. In the beginning it represented independence from my parents, then later it was for carrying my own children around. Having a car gave me choices, rather than relying on lifts or public transport, which was slow, expensive and unreliable. Our culture is now totally geared to car ownership, it is what we aspire to. The car we own shows our status and marks our position in the hierarchy. But something has flipped in the equation. In the real world, cars are now the slow, expensive, stressful ones. They no longer mean freedom, in many ways they imprison us.

Cars have hijacked the idea of ‘the journey’ as a pleasant experience. We sit in endless traffic jams, crammed in our disconnected worlds, pumping out a carbon cocktail. In three minutes, a car burns as much oxygen as a human being uses in a whole day. We are pushed to our limits by the rudeness of other drivers. We are left abandoned at road works, screaming and cursing at the invisible workers on the signs. If we dare to stop and catch our breath, packs of hungry traffic wardens appear from nowhere. And all is overseen by those sinister invisible cameras, watching our every move in case we step out of line.

I thought going on a car diet would be hell, but car cold turkey wasn’t that bad. We are a family of five, with three grown up sons and, living in the middle of a city we are lucky to have plenty of other transport options. We realised that actually we were hardly using the car before it died. It used to sit outside in the street and without moving, silently drain away money in tax, insurance, parking permits and rust. When we did use the car, that little voice was always at the back of our minds, coming up with vital reasons why we just had to drive: it’s raining, I haven’t got time to walk, it’s dangerous not to, I have to carry a feather round the corner, the Big Shop, I’m paying for it anyway, so why not? Our excuses were infinite. Having a car to hop into was the dietary equivalent of having a fresh doughnut stall outside our front door.

After giving up the car, we travelled much more. We started to cycle and walk, we took trains, Tubes, buses and car-shared. Occasionally we used Streetcar when we needed to carry heavy or bulky loads or we had them delivered. Of course there are people who really do need to have a car: old and disabled people, babies, or if it’s late at night or in rural areas where there are no alternatives, the car is king. But we are able-bodied, fully-grown and most of our original car journeys were under two miles, so without a car option, we had to find alternatives.

With all the extra cycling and walking, we became fitter. At first, I thought of two miles as a long cycle but over the year, my fitness and horizons have stretched. Now I think nothing of cycling ten miles – five miles there and five miles back and I really enjoy the cycle. And bikes are fantastically fast. I once cycled 3 miles from our home in NW London to teach in a school behind Buckingham Palace in 22 minutes, yet it took me 50 minutes and £5 on public transport. We also find that Tubes and buses aren’t that reliable, but when we set off on a bike, we know we’re going to get there – punctures are rare, if you’re careful. I reckon making yourself highly visible on a bike means car drivers see you and it considerably reduces the risks. Looking up your route beforehand, you can plan a way that’s back street and cycle-lane rich with light traffic.

When you’re on a car diet, you have to get your act together with different clothing and equipment for different weather. Weather - you remember that stuff? It used to be there when we were children, weather and the Great Outdoors. Do you remember how exiting it was to step outside your front door and feel the wind blowing, the sun shining, the frost in the air? Well, it’s still all out there. The saying ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing’ is true. With bikes, you have to get your gear ready to grab and go by the front door. The list is quite extensive: hi viz, wind/rain proof clothing, bike helmet, lock, lights, and keys. Another plus for bikes, is they are like sturdy little pit ponies that can carry huge loads. I regularly carry a £100 pounds worth of shopping on my bike with the help of panniers, a back pack and basket it’s no problem.

Sometimes, there is no way round it and we need a car for work or to transport elderly relatives. This is where sharing a car with a friend comes in. We live close to each other and she still needs a car for her work and taxiing children around. So paying part of her annual insurance and having us use the car sometimes, helps her to not use it so often. It’s encouraged her back into cycling, something she was very nervous about initially, but she has really taken to it now. Sharing a car with her has also strengthened our friendship, in the same way sharing child care does with other parents from the same school. Car sharing means you have to be on your best behaviour. You can’t slob out and leave your apple cores and old sweet wrappers on the floor, as you would in your own car. You must leave the same amount of fuel in the tank as when you picked it up. It seems a small price to pay for what seems to us now, the luxurious privilege of driving a car.

Walking is also fast, it’s easy to walk 3 or 4 miles an hour which is the average speed of a car in London, so you might as well be walking and getting free exercise at the same time. You also see more, you start to notice the seasons changing, the buds exploding, the leaves turning and the birds singing. Walking rather than driving, has made us connect more with our local area. We have joined our residents association and our Transition Town group (transition from high carbon to low carbon). Our residents association have achieved a lot. We have got rubbish cleared, more police on the beat so the crime rate has dropped, graffiti cleaned up and trees planted, and we had a very jolly street party.

We have become born again train lovers. It feels so relaxing to be driven safely, in comfort by someone else with total responsibility. People say trains are too expensive and slow compared to the car but we have found it to be the opposite. We booked ahead last year for a friend’s New Years Eve party and got to Cumbria by train in 3 1/2 hours, half the time our car would’ve taken and for a fraction of the petrol costs. We went to Berlin by train, leaving our house at 7am and arrived in the centre of Berlin by 7pm. If you take into account travel time out to and from the airport, check in time, security checks and waiting for baggage the other end, there’s not a lot in it. Speeding smoothly along, you can see wonderful scenery out of picture windows, rather than the dreary motorway hard shoulders in a car or tiny cramped aircraft windows. We have also been to Spain, Switzerland and France by train, none of which we would have attempted by car. On a train, you can read, walk about, stretch your legs, go to the loo when you want, or go get a cup of tea. Instead of dreading long journeys as an ordeal, now I really look forward to blissful hours of reading.

Train travel means having to get much more disciplined about time keeping. Cars appear to give you more choice, but not having to decide where you’re going until the last minute, is actually more stressful. It’s false choice in the same way supermarkets appear to give you a huge range of fruit and veg from all over the planet, but they’re often unripe, tasteless and disappointing. The way cars allow you to plan multi stop offs in a day, is also an illusion of freedom. What it actually means, is that you only dip in to each, keeping an eye on the clock, rather than fully experiencing just one. Before giving up the car, we found it difficult to leave the house and so were frequently late. Now we have to decide, book the tickets and commit to an arrangement in advance. Coming by train we are able to let people know when we will be arriving and when we will be leaving. Then we don’t have to think about it again until the moment we grab a few things and leave the house to go to the station.

Luggage is much simpler without a car. When you have to carry what you take, you soon learn to whittle it down to a few bare essentials. These only take a few minutes to pack/unpack into a small bag that fits easily onto the rack above in the carriage. Trains are supposed to be unreliable but over one year, we’ve only had one journey where the train was delayed for an hour because a suicide on the tracks in a far off part of the system, ground the whole of the West country to a halt. Otherwise the trains have been on time to the minute and connections, seamless.

Another benefit of leaving car world, is we have rejoined the human race. We used to go from our house box, to our car box without a nod to the neighbours but sharing transport with strangers has made us less anti-social. People are so diverse, they have different faces and hairstyles, they dress differently, they’re all ages, shapes and sizes and different cultures. Other people are not as scary as they appear when looking out from inside a small metal box. They are often surprisingly kind and polite. When occasionally they’re not, I carry earplugs with me at all times. We always used to argue in the car, it seemed to be a flash point. We’d argue about whose route would have been better and whose music at what volume to have, we’d argue about arguing. In public, you can’t argue, so we have learnt to behave.

So being car free has made us fitter, more sociable, better behaved, less stressed and we enjoy travelling now. Our present culture revolves around the car and the burden of its escalating demands on our space, air and fuel. It’s time we shook ourselves free and taking Basil Faulty’s lead, we need to show the car who’s boss. Step away from your car, there’s an all singing, all dancing Technicolor show going on out here and it’s really very lovely.

This article was written by Molly Fletcher in 2011, a resident of Kensal Green whom I met during the recent elections. I offered to post it here and she happily agreed.

20 May 2012

Robin of Birchen Grove Allotment: Perched on Bike

Robin on allotment
I have been befriended by a robin on the allotment which I keep at Welsh Harp (Birchen Grove). Perched on my bike, this weekend, it had gotten used to flying in to my patch for the tasty earthworms.

Who is responsible for PROW26?

This mound of rubbish, both unsightly and a health hazard, is a continual problem on Public Right of Way 26 - which runs behind the back of the St Andrews Church hut from the cemetery up to St Andrews Road in the Conservation Area.

I have had to make several complaints to the Council about this alleyway in the past, either the pathway itself or fly-tipping like this alongside it. The pathway has been getting cleaned more regularly, but nobody seems to want to take responsibility for these heaps alongside it. Who is responsible for clearing this rubbish, the Council or the St Andrews Church?

It is a great shame, of course, that such a beautiful environs is not being treated with due respect by all the visitors to it. That ultimate responsibility for this scene remains to be identified.

Out with the Old, In with the ... (ahem) Old?

Spot the Difference: New Brent Council Executive, taken 18 May 2012.

Earlier in the week
My colleague Martin Francis has been doing a sterling job of breaking news and reporting developments concerning the ousting of Ann John as Leader of Brent Council by Cllr Muhammed Butt over the last ten days (with the exception of reposting a badly sourced BNCTV article, for which he subsequently apologised).

Visualing the change in Brent Executive with the assistance of the Town Hall notice board above, one could be forgiven for thinking no change in direction looks imminent. Ruth Moher has been moved to the Finance role and Cllr Hirani fills her vacancy. So what can we expect of Leader Butt?

Well, we have an early indication of the promises he is likely to have made to boost his chances of internal selection in this fascinating open letter from Graham Durham (credible source) saying Butt wanted to consider "partnership with community groups" to forestall library closures and wants to reduce senior management in the Council.

If Butt is honest in his assessment that part of the problem lies in senior management - and given his acquired knowledge of the Council purse strings from his previous role - should we not expect to get an early indication that Butt does as he says (and assuming Durham's report is accurate)? When the Greens took control of Oxford City Council over a decade ago, they did indeed make some tough decisions, implementing key changes to the senior management.

An equally pressing test of Butt's leadership will be the Library closures. In the case of Kensal Rise, the Council's legal department has been maintaining that the "reverter" has been triggered in an attempt to deny themselves the very opportunity that All Souls has counselled on behalf of the community, to explore the community running the library. Is Butt going to face down his critics in the Council, and indeed some in the Labour Group, to try and reverse the fortunes of Kensal Rise Library? Or are we going to see a continuation of the washing-hands-of-ultimate-responsibility that has typified this administration? I have previously described Ann John as "a formidable politician" - certainly not because I have been anything but vociferously opposed to her implementation of the cuts locally. However, she has been pretty consistent, both in her public statements and then her follow-through. One knew where one stood with her.

What we don't need, I would suggest, is a Leader who says one thing to the community, yet another, quite inconsistent thing, to his officers and administrators in the Council. No Leader has full autonomy to do what they like, as in a wishful wish-list, but the stated opportunities as described in Durham's letter are achievable. With the political will.

Greens on the London Assembly: Committee appointments

Jenny Jones (1st on right) and Darren Johnson (5th from right) amongst the London-wide London Assembly members, City Hall declaration, 4 May 2012.
The detailed results for the London Assembly elections were made available by London Elects on 15 May. In as many as eleven wards in Brent, Greens beat the LibDems on the List vote as follows:

GLA 2012 London-wide List Vote (GN/LD comparison):
Queens Park 511/297
Kilburn 394/243
Kensal Green 357/205
Brondesbury Park 288/246
Barnhill 196/110
Preston 182/107
Queensbury 152/107
Northwick Park 144/101
Fryent 129/126
Stonebridge 116/90

Moreover, in Harrow, we beat the LibDems in 16 out of 20 wards on the List ballot.

The London Assembly AGM on 6 May 2012 resulted in some changes to the committee structures and their membership and chairs, largely as a result of cross-party negotiations between Labour, Greens and LibDems. This means for the Greens:

Darren Johnson AM:
Chair of Assembly for 1 year and Deputy Chair 1 Year
Chair of Housing for 2 years and Deputy Chair for 2 years
Deputy Chair of GLA oversight for 1 year

Jenny Jones AM:
Joint Deputy Chair of Police & Crime for 4 years
Chair of Economy for 1 year and Deputy Chair for 1 year
Chair of Environment & Health for 1 year and Deputy for 1 year.

5 May 2012

Result for Brent and Harrow GLA Constituency, Sloppy Count Processes & Avoidable Delay in Declaration

Shahrar Ali on polling day, 3 May 2012, at Neasden underpass
The final result for the Constituency Election of Brent and Harrow is as follows:

Shahrar Ali, GREEN PARTY: 10,546 (7.27%)
Charlotte Henry, LibDem: 15,690 (10.82%)
Michael McGough, Fresh Choice for London (UKIP): 7,830 (5.40%)
Sachin Rajput, Conservative: 40,604 (27.99%)
Navin Shah, Labour: 70,400 (48.93%)

I thank the 10,546 Green voters of Brent and Harrow for their confidence in me. We have increased both our vote and vote share across the electoral constituency and we will be back for more. I look forward to receipt of the detailed results in a few days, which I think will show big advances in places where we campaigned the hardest.

I congratulate Navin Shah on his excellent win, where he will be joined by our two London wide Assembly Members Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson. Across London, the Greens came third and we have overtaken the LibDems across London for the first time in electoral history [press release].

SLOPPY PROCESSES AT BRENT AND HARROW COUNT

I think it is worth commenting on the prolongation of the count for Brent and Harrow. The count officials will have been acutely aware that the whole city was awaiting news of the result, a day after the actual poll. Given the responsibility carried by each constituency for completing the counts not just for their respective constituency elections but also for their share of the London-wide ballots for the Mayor of London and the proportional list element of Assembly Members no result could be declared by City Hall for those two ballots without completion of each and every constituency.

In the event, the count for Brent and Harrow was not only last to declare, but some three hours (by my estimate) behind the penultimate declaration for London (also at the same count centre).

As a candidate, I had something of a ring-side seat at the count. Alongside other candidates and agents, we took our democratic participation to extend beyond the narrow interpretation of seeking to win our seats, but also to the collective interest of assisting democratic outcome through observation, solicitation of information and occasional intervention.

My agent, Matthew Butcher tweeting at the dog-end of the Count,
whom I did remind of the Representation of People's Act prohibitions :) 
SPRINKLER SYSTEM SABOTAGE OF PC POWER

I arrived at Alexandra Palace, where four such election constituencies were being counted under one roof, with my agent soon after 8am. I was present until 11.15pm, with plenty of breaks in between, once key stages had got underway and I and others were satisfied that things were under control. Unfortunately, things got off to a late start due to "electrical and power problems". Of course, the lights in the building were on but why were the computers and scanners not operational?

Upon fuller investigation it transpired that a ground staff for the building had cut power to the building in the early morning in order to use the sprinkler system outside and avoid any electrical risk of shorting the supply (an occasional, but routine operation). However, unbeknownst to that staff, the computers in the building had been set up and logged in the night before, all systems go for the following morning, precisely in order to save time. The temporary power outage resulted in all these machines having to be rebooted, with consequent delay. I haven't been able to corroborate the exact sequence of events, but it sounds too ridiculous for somebody to have made up - perhaps a case of bad luck combined with failure of co-responsibility of both venue and count staff managers to anticipate such a risk.

The late start was given as a subsequent reason for delay by a count official being interviewed by a member of the Open Rights Group, when the bigger problem of uncounted ballot papers was being addressed in the late evening (and the campaigner had rushed back to the count upon hearing the news). In reality, that would have accounted for a one hour delay, not a three hour delay.

COUNT CLERKS AND UNSUPERVISED BOXES ON WRONG SIDE OF TABLE, BOXES STILL IN CAGES AND BACKLOG OF UNSEALED BOXES.

Early in the count, I made representations to first one, then two, then three returning officers, who were taking joint responsibility for the Brent and Harrow count (I was later told there were four, taking responsibility across the twin borough constituency), not including the Chief executive, Gareth Daniel, who would be ultimately signing off the result and making the declaration. Firstly, I should say I found all these staff to be responsive, responsible and dutiful. I would even say highly competent and experienced, yet somehow processes were starting to look laxidasical, either through lack of clear line management or under- or over-staffing at that level. (Daniel I have met at numerous counts and he has seemed to perform this part of his role extremely well. He appears to enjoy both knowledge of electoral systems and knows when to use his discretion when soliciting advice from officials or interested parties.)

The main problems at the outset were to do with count clerks (some of whom were core electoral services staff and others of whom were clearly casual workers who were trained up especially for the day or days). I witnessed clerks performing the duties of opening ballot boxes and sorting papers from the wrong side of the table, ie. the side which is meant to be reserved for observers. This might sound like a trivial point, but actually, the separation of space is surely of paramount importance, both to ensure that observers are enabled to see what is going on (should they wish to do so), otherwise impeded by having the official's back toward them, and to minimise the risk of ballot papers falling on the wrong side of the table. The very reason for staff perhaps populating the wrong side of the table, ie. that there wasn't enough space on the right side of the table, was precisely a reason not to come to that side - since that would have increased the risk of crowding and papers spilling on to the floor. I made this objection known (without the explanation), and although it was not acted on immediately, or universally, it eventually was corrected after a second complaint to another manager.

Another problem was to see ballot boxes finding themselves in a path to which all and sundry non-officials could have easily gained access, ie. the wrong side of the table. At one point, I observed two boxes the wrong side of the table, unsupervised. I complained about this.

Then I observed a general commotion of activity, to do with ballot boxes being taken out of cages (that they had been stored in overnight) and unsealed (with some difficulty in some cases) and turned into a haphazard pile awaiting emptying onto a row of tables (again, inlcuding from the wrong side of the table). This was ostensibly a prelude to the stage of Registration, whereupon papers carried in numbered black boxes would be transferred to cardboard boxes and their cover sheets entered into a computer using barcoded entry.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be supervising this process, and the man who was directing other clerks, with some haste, seemed not only to be responsible for creating a backlog of unsealed boxes but also turned out not to be a manager of any sort. I established this when I asked him politely, "Are you in charge?" When it turned out that he wasn't but that I was concerned about the haphazard nature of the activity, another manager, to whom I hadn't spoken before arrived on the scene and asked me to speak with him instead. I pointed to an empty black box that had just been placed on top of another box containing ballot papers in it, both of which were next to a growing pile of discarded empties. When I asked why an empty was sat on top of a full, a clerk intervened to apologise and remove it at the same time with the explanation, "That's only there temporarily." Indeed, it was, but the scene was starting to look like one of generalised chaos, not managed count processing.

I moved with the manager to one side and he asked me again what my concern was. Without going into great detail I said, somewhat perfunctorily, "It's disorganised; and it's there for all to see." What was there for all to see was the following, easily comparable to the other three constitutency counts taking place in the same hall:

1. None of the other three counts had their black boxes still in cages, but all of them were in neat and tidy rows and stacks, being fed into the process in an orderly and non-hasty fashion (as in less haste, more speed).

2. None of the other count clerks at the other three counts were working from the wrong side of the table.

3. None of the other count clerks at the other three counts were without high visibility T-shirts indentifying their role and colour coded for constituency (except at our tables, some clerks chose not to wear their T-shirts).

4. None of the other three counts were leaving black boxes unsupervised in the common areas.

5. None of the other three counts were creating back-logs of unsealed boxes in piles next to or co-mingled with empties.

Within a few minutes I noticed that things had started to improve at our count.

WHY TWO THOUSAND BALLOT PAPERS LEFT TO BE COUNTED WHEN SUPPOSED TO HAVE FINISHED?

Count staff visibly concerned at the discovery of large number of uncounted ballot papers at 8.15pm
The big story was to do with the papers which had not yet entered the computer system as recordable votes, when the count was supposed to have been completed. We weren't just talking about a small number of papers that remained to be verified. This was a large number - the figure of two thousand was given by one manager when he eventually came over to candidates and interested observers to explain what the problem was. This verbal communication happened around 8.30pm. The count software had established that two ballot boxes remained outstanding, ie. that all the votes contained on the papers therein had not been counted yet. How could such a large discrepancy arise?

The explanation given, either officially or at the count, was that a number or papers that had been destined for manual entry of the votes cast into the computers had ended up in storage instead. Now at this point it is worth mentioning that each count centre had a number of shelving units, which were arranged in sequential order and clearly labeled, in full view of all staff and observers. The final shelving unit was marked STORAGE. This effectively translated into papers that had been scanned into the system and verified, having their votes thereby counted by the computer. They had more or less been finished with. A penultimate shelving unit was called MANUAL ENTRY. This was reserved for papers, which, for whatever reason could not be scanned by the scanning machine. The explanation then given for such a large number not having been scannable mechanically is that they were postal ballot papers that had been damaged by the envelope-cutting machine, or could not be read because of the particular kind of glue used on the envelopes for return of those papers. Apparently, papers cut in a certain way (even if not in half) would end up slightly less than A4 size and get thrown out by the mechanical scanners.

Now the question should arise, if such a large number of postal ballots are being rendered unreadable in this way, whether other counts had the same problem, and if not why not. It seems that other counts did not face such extensive delays across London, which raises the question whether the cutting machine was being operated incorrectly, or might require servicing or replacement. It seems more than a coincidence that Brent have had problems with postal votes cut in half by a machine in previous elections and I wonder whether this is the same device? Perhaps they should stop using it.

Unfortunately, moreover, this explanation is incomplete, only half true and too convenient. It is wishful in so far as neglects to mention that of the two boxes that needed to be counted in, only one, ie. roughly half, were not readable mechanically, ie. originally destined for manual entry. The other box, though identified belatedly, was indeed scanned in mechanically. The importance of this fact is that it compounds the prospective charge of incompetence, to have two boxes destined for different stages both find themselves in storage when they had not been completed.

The story doesn't stop there, however. At around 5pm I witnessed another exceptional scene. Some of the count clerks started to pack the papers which had been finished with and had been duly stored in the STORAGE shelves into the black boxes from which they originally had come and then moved them to the far side of the closed off count area. However, this step had not been undertaken by a single other count in the hall, many of whom were completing their counts. Not only did none of the other three counts elect to start moving these completed papers before they had finished their counts, but Brent and Harrow was now at risk of accidentally moving papers which had not been counted in yet into black boxes. Given the proximity of the Manual entry shelving to the Storage shelving, is it an accident that one of the former boxes ended up not only in the wrong section but off all shelving entirely?

Could not this accident have been prevented were it not for the premature movement of boxes from the Storage shelving to a second location? I think it would be good, should Brent and Harrow wish to undertake a review of their processes, for them to ask why they decided to move papers in this way when no other count in the hall was doing likewise. I was apprehensive about that step as soon as I saw it. Given the amount of business going on in between those two ends of the count area, it seemed that it would increase the risk of some piles ending up in the wrong place. Some piles did end up in the wrong place.

Whilst I do have confidence in the eventual declaration at this count, I do think Brent and Harrow's handling of the count was sloppy, out-of-kilter with what others were doing in the very same hall, and could have easily ended  up miscounted were it not for the in-built checks of the computer. However, had the boxes in question not been registered into the computer at the start of the day, could they have been missed entirely?

Contrary to Mayor Johnson's quip at the eventual City Hall declaration that it would have been quicker to have counted it by hand, I aver that Brent and Harrow reputation, though damaged, was saved by the London Elects computer.

Results on London Elects here.

Barnill Byelection Result: Greens Third with 11.1%

Congratulations to Michael Pavey for winning the Barnhill by-election on 3 May 2012 (not pictured above, but Martin Francis). The count took place on the same day as that for the GLA elections, at Alexandra Palace on 4 May 2012 (to ensure that any ballot papers finding themselves in boxes meant for GLA papers could be separated out and put in the right count). The full result is:

Michael Pavey, Labour: 2326 56.5%
Kanta Pindoria, Conservative: 1180 28.6%
MARTIN FRANCIS, GREEN PARTY: 457 11.1%
Venilal Vaghela, Independent: 156 3.78%

The Brent Council result appears on-line here (although I think it is poor practice to round up or down to only the nearest integer). I have expressed percentages to one decimal place instead.

The Green vote was up significantly on the last local election of two years ago, with Martin standing as one of three candidates (vote share 2.5%). This represents +8.6% in a by-election, which is extremely encouraging for Brent Greens. Martin has appealed to the Labour group to take greater account of the negative impact of their decisions, despite this victory.

KILBURN UNEMLPOYED WORKERS GROUP (KUWG)

KILBURN UNEMLPOYED WORKERS GROUP (KUWG) will be protesting outside Kilburn Jobcentre Plus, 3 Cambridge Avenue, LONDON NW6 5AH on THURSDAY 10th MAY between 7.30.am and 10.00am. Please come along..... and bring your friends.

 Certain
KUWG members will also be attending the rally at Westminster Central 
Hall at 1.00pm later that day. Our weekly meeting will be held as it 
usually is on Thursday afternoons at 3.00pm until 5.00pm at: Kingsgate Community Centre,  107 Kingsgate Road, LONDON NW6 2JH

 We look forward to seeing you. KUWG

2 May 2012

VOTE GREEN ON ORANGE TOMORROW


The Orange Ballot Paper is the most important one in the GLA election.  It is based on proportional representation so EVERY VOTE COUNTS.  The more votes we get on that list the more Green Assembly members we get to influence and hold to account whoever is elected Mayor.

AND IF YOU LIVE IN BRENT'S BARNHILL WARD FOR THE BY-ELECTION

VOTE MARTIN FRANCIS - GREEN PARTY

BRENT AND HARROW GLA CONSTITUENCY

VOTE SHAHRAR ALI - GREEN PARTY

LONDON MAYOR

VOTE JENNY JONES - GREEN PARTY