News & Views
Your mid-week update
I have just got in from a river walk with a Climate Officer, which was a chance for me to raise many issues and ideas. Public footpath maintenance; tree planting to secure river banks and restore wildlife environments; murals to hide ugly motorway bypass pillars in a rural area; signage; riverbank damage and litter from fishermen; placement of memorial benches; formation of community councils; preventing council hypocrisy and wasted money; protecting green areas from being destroyed for car parks; fly tipping; the problem of dumped supermarket trolleys; public engagement; community councils; and many other topics. We’ll see if anything comes from it.
On with the news!
Greens: our manifesto launch begins with ‘Greens pledge investment to mend broken Britain.’ The focus is a fairer, greener tax system to raise tens of billions of pounds by asking super-rich multimillionaires and billionaires to pay more, equalising the treatment of income from work and wealth, and ensuring top earners pay National Insurance on their higher incomes.
Workers: Workers would have legal right to request four-day week under the Green Party. Workers would have the right to request a four-day week. Greens also pledge to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour for all ages, and limit bosses to earning a maximum of ten times the amount of their lowest paid employees in both the private and public sector. (Yes to that one!) There are Green plans to repeal current anti-union legislation with a positive Charter of Workers’ Rights, ensuring unions have the right to strike. Co-leader Carla Denyer said: “Across the UK, there are 4.2 million children growing up in poverty, 70% of whom have a parent in paid work. We want these children to grow up and thrive and their parents to be fairly rewarded. Our Making Work Fair proposals do just that.”
Politics: Trust and confidence in the UK’s politics and election system has never been worse, according to analysis by John Curtice. His report for the National Centre for Social Research finds record numbers of voters saying they “almost never” trust governments to put country before party or politicians to tell the truth when in a tight corner.
Satire: “Rishi Sunak promises tax cuts for your favourite people: landlords”
Thank god someone is finally thinking of the landlords.
Palestine: Some commentaries on recent events.
“Complaints about Hamas using 'human shields' are the worst kind of bad faith”
“Why does our government keep lying?”
“The day the West defined ‘success’ as a massacre of 270 Palestinians”
“It Was Never About The Hostages”
This has led to a petition to ban Israel from the Olympics. Personally, I think all nations which have committed war crimes and injustices since the previous Olympics should be banned from the next one.Environment: petition to Save the Whale and the Snail: Stop Nuclear Waste Services Blasting the Irish Sea
Promoted by Karl Drinkwater (Green Party) at The Gate, Keppoch Street, Cardiff CF24 3JW.