Greens Killer Instinct

Rupert Read lays into Clegg, Wright and the LibDems.

Dont click here if you are politically squeamish!

Ramsay Resigns as Green Leader

I would have thought that the resignation of Adrian Ramsay as Leader of the Greens at City Hall would have made more of a splash in the media; he has, after all, led them now for many years and has taken the Greens from a rump party to the official opposition.

Adrian has made the Greens into a very acceptable organisation; his successor would well be the type of person who undoes years of work in under a day. I understand, from somebody who knows the inside of the Greens, that the party remains very much split between 2 factions - those who wish to keep the public face of the party and those who believe the ideology is what matters. We note that Cllr Rupert Read has ruled himself out of the race - Ramsay believes the next Green Leader will also be the next Leader of Norwich City Council (I'm not convinced by this) so this could matter a great deal and could, so I'm told, lead to a swift reversal of his position. If his party pleads, will Read answer that call?

Eastern Region: As You Were

Con 3, UKIP 2, LibDem 1, Labour 1

No change for the Tory, UKIP or LibDem vote; Labour decline by 6%, Green rise by 3% - but no seat for Norwich Cllr Rupert Read. I'd be interested in the figures to see how close he was.

Moment of the Day

A wonderfully ironic moment today as when I was walking down the Earlham Road, a massive petrol-guzzling estate car pulled out ... proudly displaying its "Vote Green" poster.

My first reaction was to laugh; my second was to wonder what Adrian and Rupert would say; and my third was to think if Green supporters really know what their party stands for.

Rupert Read Apology Watch: Still no sign

Various letters to the local paper and this blog have all called upon democratically elected Green Party Cllr Dr Rupert Read to apologise for backing the utterly illegal actions of the "Plane Stupid" group who bought havoc to Stansted recently.

Judging by this post on his blog it isn't coming anytime soon.

It is a disgrace that any man who seeks power via the ballot box should endorse those who seek influence via direct, destructive and undemocratic means.

My experience, from the media and the doorstep, is that most people are very unhappy with his public stance on this. It is a shame that when Ramsay has worked so hard to make the Green Party electable and decent in Norwich and beyond, that Read is undoing all that work along the political fringes. I don't know why Ramsay continues to tolerate him - unless he agrees with him?

Greens will never say "sorry"; so why should anyone who has ever flown vote for them again?

Predictably, Green Party poster-boy Rupert Read leaps on the bandwagon and backs the borderline-illegal behaviour at Stanstead today.

I feel very very sorry for the passengers whose flights have been cancelled by this irresponsible action. The Green lobby needs to campaign through the democratic process and legitimate, peaceful means rather than this.

For those people hoping to see family at Christmas, travelling on business or going home after studying in the UK, this is not something they can forgive.

This total disregard for travellers and their lives says a lot about the protestors and the contempt in which they hold people. I hope the leaders of this protest - and their supporters - apologise for their frankley quite distrurbing and very disruptive actions, but I very much doubt they will.

And if you have ever flown - think on ... this could have been your flight. How would you have felt? And it could yet be any flight you take in the future.

Any party which supports this doesn't deserve support at the ballot box - because they themselves ignore the ballot box as a means of achieveing their aims.

Reading Rupert (Part II)

Following Cllr Read's hijacking of a UEA Conservatives event for his own self promotion, along comes another example of his LibDem leanings showing through his Green colours.

According to Cllr Read, "Green Councillors in Norwich successfully won backing for a city wide 20mph zone that is to be trialled in three zones of the city from early 2009."

If anybody would like to point out the problem with that statement, I'll be sure to publish it! And here's a clue ... the motion for 20mph zones wasn't proposed by a Green . . .

Read speaks in favour ... from the sidelines

My favourite Green Rupert Read used, apparently, to be a LibDem (no, stop laughing at the back). Sometimes that is hard to believe and other times less so.

Because it seems that Read has been stealing the clothes of others. Read this press release put on his blog and especially the line "Cllr. Read will also be speaking in favour of Fair Trade at a debate this Friday 7th November at the UEA in Norwich."

You might be thinking, at this point, that he is on the panel maybe, or Chairing the debate? Neither - former MP Teddy Taylor and Stephen Roberson were the two speakers. So what was Read's contribution?

It boiled down to a question asked from the floor, which by all accounts got a lot of students either totally confused or very angry (or, maybe, both). Now I know that if you re-read it, you could have concluded this from Read's statement but it isn't clear and from both my reading and that of others, he is intending us to think that he was a major party of the proceedings. Matched by the fact that the Evening News used quotes from Read's blog to advertise the event in the paper. Who's not to think that this is Read at work?

How very LibDem to take the hard work of others and turn it into a vehicle for your own publicity. I think that Read's utterly pompous and egotistical writings might have to come under a little more scrutiny in future.

Publicity desperate politicans often do some silly things. Let's scrutinise him.

"That" debate in council

The last few days have been hectic so I haven't even had time to blog the full council meeting which happened last Tuesday; and with it, "that" debate on Norwich Airport.

I was worried that blogging about it a few days later I might be squeezed out of the post-debate analysis, but seen as the man of the moment hasn't blogged about it himself, I may have gotten away with it. The night started with a group of protestors outside City Hall and soon enough Leader of the Council Steve Morphew was batting away public questions about the subject. Why they had to ask public questions with a debate already lined up was beyond me, but seen as it is the usual Green Party crowd (and, yes, living with a Green Councillor does count as being part of the crowd) then at least they won't be able to ask another question for 6 months. Morphew certainly didn't hold back with his support for the airport and I think facing the green-mob made a strong line easier than otherwise it might have been.

When the debate finally came, I spoke at length about the challenges facing the aviation industry in general and Norwich Airport in particular. I challenged other parties to recognise 2 issues; firstly the economic impact of the airport on the City. Also the liberty issue; would we really want to start preaching to people about where, when and how they take their holidays? Both Labour and LibDem Leaders agreed with my interpretation of the issues and made sound speeches supporting the Airport.

Then the Greens stepped forward ... when I laid down the motion I knew that the Greens wouldn't be happy (they want fewer and fewer flights, leading one day to nil I'm sure) so unlike the A11 motion where their opposition took me by surprise (I thought Ramsay's political radar would have been better) I knew what was coming. Or did I?

After his woeful ranting performance last month, Cllr Read didn't lead off for the Greens. Despite being Transport Spokesman that job was left to Cllr Gledhill - perhaps Ramsay thougth better of letting Read loose on the public again? Well, Gledhill surprised us all by being absolutely attrocious. Now I like Gledhill and think he is passionate about his issues; but my fear he may do a hatchett job was short lived. His speech was dull, badly scripted and hardly structured at all - talking from behind a list of stats rarely works. Monotone and without any real themes; I'm afraid it was a very poor job. But then they started to swop notes and let a new Councillor take over for another 3 minutes of the same. Cllrs Jeraj, Makof and Bearman all did the same (although Janet's story about her holiday did lift the gloom somewhat). And then stepped up dear Cllr Read ... I think more annoyed about the pisspoor efforts of his own party.

However, Morphew has taken away his legs before he had got up - by quoting back at Read something he said a few years back saying it was none of his concern if the airport closed. So Read had to start off by justifying his own position. Ramsay even tried coming in to say he was confused by the motion, before being rebutted by others who said the only confusion was the Green position.

Of course we won the vote but the debate was rather bitty and lacked the spark which some has predicted. The three major parties all stayed their ground and instead of letting the Greens assault our walls, we went out and met them on their ground. The Green response was not good and despite using around half their group to speak their dependence on stats and "evidence" let them down. They didn't have an alternative to sell (they couldn't, for example, say what capacity they thought the airport should have) and didn't speak with the passion which you might imagine. No matetr what other councillors said, they got their heads down and stuck to the script. No bouncing off their opposition, too rigid and too badly prepared.

So a good motion passed by a Council now determined to see the Airport work, but the debate lacked spark.

Why the Greens oppose the A11

For those of you unable to attend the City Council meeting where the dualling of the A11 was discussed, I thought I would let you know why the Green Party voted against the scheme.

According to Adrian Ramsay's party, it would encourage people to come to Norfolk including tourists and also make it easier for us to go on holiday. This shouldn't be allowed, we were told - we should all be holidaying in Norfolk, whether we want to or not.

The Greens also said it might encourage business to come and employ people in Norwich and Norfolk and trade with our businesses. This shouldn't be allowed, we were told - businesses should be kept small and local, large ones were not welcome.

And the Greens would certainly not want supermarkets bringing their produce into Norwich. This shouldn't be allowed, we were told - as people should eat locally even if they could not afford to do so.

So take note, if you have a job at a medium or large company, or shop at supermarkets or take holidays outside of Norfolk then the Green Party disapprove of you and the choices you make.

The A11 badly needs dualling - for our economy, for our tourist trade and for our safety. For the Greens, political extremism come before all of those things.

And Rupert makes two...

I am thrilled to be informed that my good friend and council colleague Cllr Rupert Read now has a blog. Regular readers will note how much I respect Rupert and find his contributions to the council fascinating.

I, however, do not fear his challenge to my domination of the Norwich City Council blogging because it appears he is focusing more on his place as a Euro parliamentary candidate and is slightly more high brow than my mix of gossip, political backbiting and general political rudeness. Rupert's deep and meaningful philosophical entries will contrast well with my grassroots approach to campaigning. Good on you, Rupert!

Greens are "ill informed" claims Clarke

Charles Clarke doesn't write to the Evening News often so when he does, it is often on a politically sensitive or crucial issue. Today his letter dominates the paper with a quite remarkable attack on the "characteristically ill informed" Green Councillors.

Labour have, for quite some time now, plodding along ignoring the Greens whilst our eco-friends destroyed the LibDem vote and stole their seats. Labour are in power in City Hall now because the Greens have won over a lot of traditional LibDem areas. So for Mr Clarke to bite back like this is quite remarkable - maybe a few jitters over the next parliamentary election but far more likely is that political heavyweight Mr Clarke is fed up of the Greens being allowed to get away with peddling any old nonsense without being held to account.

The Greens now hold 9 out of 39 council seats and, if experts and polls prove to be correct, they will at least hold onto those and maybe even grow again in 2007. They are a major political force in Norwich (at least) and we should scrutinise what they have to say. I know that the LibDems find it hard to attack the Greens, so maybe this Clarke letter is the start of a Labour offensive against City Hall's third party?