My NUS Reform E-Consultation Submission

It’s been an awful long while since I’ve posted - and I want to get things going again!

Things have been hectic but very enjoyable at work. One of the many things I’ve been up to is writing a submission to the NUS Reform e-consultation, which closes today.

You might remember I opposed last year’s eventually unsuccessful Governance Review because it contained a number of proposals I found undemocratic. I hope this year the process can be better and that the outcome can be different.

Here is my submission in .doc format:

nus-reform-e-consultation-submission-by-aled-dilwyn-fisher-lse-su-general-secretary

If it’s possible to enjoy SU governance - enjoy! I will post a link to other submissions by Education Not for Sale (ENS) members here soon.

Haltemprice and Howden By-Election Tomorrow - Was It Worth It?

Things have been so busy at the LSE SU, where I am now 1 day away from officially being General Secretary! The outgoing Sabbatical Officers have given us an amazing handover, and we’re raring to go. It’s been 9 meetings a day, plus a trip to Edinburgh last weekend, so that’s why I’ve been so quiet!

Tomorrow is a big day - it’s voting time in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. It all started weeks ago when David Davis considered the advent of 42 days detention without trial to be such a big issue that he resigned, while 28 days, the death penalty, Section 28, fox hunting and illegal wars that devastate the lives of millions are OK with the former Tory Shadow Home Secretary.

With around 25 candidates in the field, Davis is at a clear advantage. The only real challenge has come from my party - the Green Party - and I’ve documented our candidate, Shan Oakes, and her chances on this blog.

Davis promised a national debate over the issue. He suggested that his resignation would keep it in the headlines and force a referendum on freedom in Britain. This was more about boosting his own profile than actually championing liberty. But it hasn’t quite gone the way he intended it; and it has certainly not been conducted completely on his terms.

The issue has hardly dominated the headlines, let alone the politics news sections. Where it has been in the media, it’s been short sound bites from Davis about ‘freedom’, ‘liberty’ and other empty platitudes, sometimes related back to the campaign, such as when Bob Geldof joined him.

Supporters of Davis, like Ian Dale, quote some poll data, supposedly suggesting that attitudes have changed to match Davis’s priorities. But most of these issues are not comparable to the time before Davis’s ego trip began, and no doubt the general trend against Labour is reflected in people’s responses on a set of narrowly defined civil liberties issues that, again, do not allow for the full extent of the attack on rights that Davis has often colluded in himself. Dale does, however, perceptively comment that, “whatever national debate David Davis has sparked in the last three weeks, [it] will be nothing compared to what is about to come” when it is voted on in the Lords.

Davis sparked this mainly to boost his own profile - but I doubt we are about to see a massive power shift in the Tories towards Davis and their hard right. He is no doubt more popular, but it has not been in the news quite enough to suggest that people care that much. He will probably still end up back where he was - as a senior MP, a Shadow Cabinet member and possibly a Cabinet member - but no further.

Meanwhile, other candidates - including Shan - have struggled for attention, but Shan has been part of not allowing it to all go Davis’s way. The media has not seen this as a debate - because people aren’t that interested - and has thus solely focused on what Davis, the only recognisable name, has said.

Has Davis facilitated the debate he promised? Absolutely not. He’s run away from it, shied away from it and made no attempt to turn this into any kind of referendum on the government’s policy.

That isn’t totally his fault - the Lib Dems were too yellow to run (I’m assured by a Lib Dem insider that this was more to do with local political fortunes than the ‘principles’, unsurprisingly), Labour are in disarray and therefore the by-election has been deprived of the oxygen of tension and drama.

Nonetheless, even if Labour had run, it would’ve only added to the farce - they’d have no change in a safe(ish) Tory seat, especially given their current fortunes.

So the media, Davis and the other grey parties have all played their role in making this by-election seem unimportant.

Shan and the Greens have pursued their campaign in a dignified yet radical way, refusing to accept the narrow limitations of Davis’s self-centered agenda and always seeking to expand the political space that is open to them. If Davis was serious about having a fair fight over the issues, he would have advocated equal spending money, equal resources and equal numbers of volunteers - but, of course, this would have meant he was actually seriously challenged by an excellent Green campaign.

I doubt the people of Haltemprice and Howden feel very liberated, free or happy about the whole thing - Davis is still a typical, traditional grey politician, offering very little that feels new or original.

I anticipate that this will be the Greens’ best ever by-election vote - that isn’t a startling feat, but it shows that we’ve reached out to new voters who wonder what the hell Davis is up to and why it should have to inconvenience them, and feel disconnected and disenfranchised under the current politico-economic system. Where we have been in the media glare - only fleetingly - we’ve used it to highlight Davis’s hypocrisy and open a whole number of issues that he would never dare speak on, lest he speak the truth or genuinely challenge orthodoxy.

A number of lessons need to be learned from this, but was it worth running a Green candidate?

100%, absolutely, yes.

If we aren’t ashamed of our politics, then we should have nothing to fear.

Education Is a Right, Not a Privilege - Let Palestinian Students Study!

 

Got this from an academic who has been involved in Palestine solidarity work:

Release prisoners of conscience now!
Right to Education Campaign, Birzeit University, 1 July 2008
http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article543

 

On Sunday 25th November 2005, the president of Birzeit University’s Student Council, Fadi Hamad, was arrested by Israeli military Special Forces while travelling on the road between the al-Jalazoon refugee camp and the city of Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territories. Eyewitnesses reported that the car carrying Fadi was suddenly ambushed in what seemed like a premeditated operation.

As a student leader, Fadi represented the interests of some 7,000 students before the university administration, and was responsible for welfare programmes for students, providing them with sports and cultural activities as well as help with registration, paying fees, their studies.

Since 1967, the Israeli army has passed military orders outlawing all student societies which promote Palestinian nationalist ideas or parties, including Fatah, despite the fact that Israel officially negotiates with all such political parties at different moments in time. In this way, the army can ‘legally’ detain any student leader simply on the grounds of his or her political affiliation and in practice, persecute certain political opinions over others thus aggravating political tensions in Palestinian society at any given moment.

On the day of his arrest, Fadi was taken to Ofer detention centre where he was held without access to legal counsel for about 14 days (as is usual of such detention centres). Fadi was immediately charged with breaching a probation order which banned him from engaging with a student group for the next 3 years, and for ‘holding a position of responsibility’ and ‘belonging to an illegal organisation’.

His probation order was issued in September 2004 after he had served 10 months on account of having been a member of the Islamic Bloc and the then acting president of the Student Council after the elected president had been arrested 5 months earlier in July 2004. The elected president at that time was Mohammad Quran who was also charged with ‘belonging to an illegal organisation’ and sentenced to 16 months. As history tends to repeat itself when it comes to the silencing of political voices, Fadi’s second arrest in 2007 was followed by the arrest of his replacement, Abdullah Owais, who was also taken at a checkpoint 3 months later in February 2008 and charged with the same: ‘holding a position of responsibility’ and ‘belonging to an illegal organization’.

The Right to Education Campaign believes that Fadi Hamad and Abdullah Owais are Human Rights defenders who were defending the welfare and rights of students at the time of their arrest and are incarcerated simply because of these activities and their political views. They have never been involved with, or charged with, any security-related offenses. The Campaign calls for their immediate release.

 

The Right to Education Campaign would also like to point out that 21 out of 40 cases represented by Birzeit University’s lawyer are prisoners of conscience who are serving time solely for their belonging to student societies or political parties, many of whom held positions of leadership in the Student Council at the time of their arrest. These students are not only being denied their freedoms of association, thought, and liberty; they are being denied their education.

“The arrested students who worked for the Student Council focused solely on providing local academic support for students and nothing else. In reality, these arrests serve to discredit and obstruct the work of the Student Council as an institution and are not about providing security for Israel”
- Fadi Hamad (before his arrest) when asked about the detention of other Student Council members.

PLEASE WRITE to your government representatives asking them to raise questions in Parliament or Congress, and to put pressure on the Israeli government to release student prisoners of conscience and to respect their rights to freedom of association, thought and liberty - ultimately, calling on Israel to respect the right to education of Palestinian students.

Open Rights Group Verdict on London Elections: “Insufficient evidence” to declare confidence in results

 

This from the Open Rights Group (ORG) is scary stuff about the validity of the London Elections (which I ran in!):

ORG’s report into e-counting of votes cast in the London Elections is out today. The report, which is the result of a huge team effort, finds that:

 

“there is insufficient evidence available to allow independent observers to state reliably whether the results declared in the May 2008 elections for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly are an accurate representation of voters’ intentions.”

 

Votes for London Mayor and the 25 member London Assembly were counted electronically, and overall the election was well-managed by the independent body set up to run elections in London, London Elects.

 

However, transparency around the recording of valid votes was a major issue, leading many of our team of 27 official observers to conclude that they were unable to observe votes being counted. And while hundreds of screens set up by vote scanners showed almost meaningless data to observers, London Elects admit that the system was likely to be recording blank ballots as valid votes.

 

The report also details how London Elects are unable to publish an audit, commissioned from KPMG, of some of the software used to count the London vote, because of disputes over commercial confidentiality. The situation highlights the problems that arise when the very public function of running elections is mixed with issues of commercial confidentiality and proprietary software. In the context of a public election, it is unacceptable that these issues should preclude the publication of the KPMG audit.

 

London Elects will pay Indra – the company who supplied both Bedford and Breckland during last year’s chaotic trials of e-counting technology in local elections – upwards of £4.5 million for delivering the London e-count. Today’s report recommends a full cost benefit analysis of any future e-count, set against a properly costed manual count.

 

This cost-benefit analysis should include our report’s five recommendations for improved transparency around the recording of valid votes in e-counting systems. The problems around transparency observed by the ORG team can be solved, but it is important to ask: at what cost? There comes a time when electoral administrators need to ask themselves whether electronic counting really delivers value for money to our democracy.

Apparently, one bit of the report states that:

In at least two constituency member elections the absolute variance between ballot paper accounts from the polling station and number of ballots recorded as scanned by the system exceeds the margin of the winning candidate.

Get YOUR MP to SIGN EDM 1926 - Freedom of Journalists and the Media in Israel

An Early Day Motion (EDM) for your MPs to sign:

EDM 1926 - FREEDOM OF JOURNALISTS AND THE MEDIA IN ISRAEL
01.07.2008
Breed, Colin

That this House condemns the actions of the Israeli security forces with regard to the Palestinian journalist and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, Mohammed Omer, who after briefing Members of Parliament on the situation in the Gaza Strip, attempted to re-enter the Occupied Territories via the Allenby Bridge and was interrogated at the crossing, strip-searched at gunpoint and beaten for four hours resulting in hospitalisation after he lost consciousness; expresses concern that harassment, intimidation and even killing of journalists has been too frequent an occurrence, particularly since the outbreak of the Intifada in 2000; calls on Israel and all other parties to uphold the freedom of journalists to report; further calls on the Israeli government to launch a full independent inquiry, to compensate Mohammed Omer in full for his injuries; and urges the Government to raise this issue with the government of Israel at the earliest opportunity.

More information: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36248&SESSION=891

Green Assembly Member takes to streets over Heathrow expansion

Green Assembly Member takes to streets over Heathrow expansion

Jenny Jones, a Green Party Member of the London Assembly, will be taking to the streets tomorrow to protest against Government plans for the expansion of Heathrow airport.  She will be joining a ‘flash mob’ outside the Department for Transport at 11am, organised by the group HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise).

 

The Government is expected to make an announcement on Heathrow shortly, following the public consultation on its proposals to add a third runway and sixth terminal to the airport, thereby increasing the number of take-offs and landings to over 700,000 a year - an increase virtually equivalent to the current size of Gatwick airport.

 

Jenny is instead calling for the Government to begin contracting Heathrow, by introducing legislation to ban short-haul flights and strengthening high-speed rail links to the rest of Europe. 

 

She commented:

“Expansion of Heathrow would lead to spiralling carbon dioxide emissions, unacceptable noise disturbance for over two million Londoners and worsening air quality, yet the economic benefits would be highly questionable.  Expanding Heathrow does not make economic or environmental sense.”

Stand up for Trade Unionists, Defend Council Housing

I really enjoyed my first day on the job as General Secretary of the LSE Students’ Union today! It’s a pretty steep learning curve but I am relishing the challenge.

However, it’s not so cozy for others across the world who need our solidarity and support. Cliched, I know, but it only takes a minute…

Firstly, sign the petition to free Meryem Özsögüt, trade union leader from Turkey, who was jailed way back on my birthday on December 14th 2007 for attending an “illegal” conference. This from Eric Lee at the excellent LabourStart website:

Turkey: Free jailed woman trade union leader

Ms. Meryem Özsögüt, trade union leader and management board member of PSI’s affiliate SES in Turkey (the trade union of public employees in health and social services) was arrested on the morning of 8 January following her participation in a press conference on 14 December 2007 to denounce the killing by the police of activist Kevser Mizrak. Ms Özsögüt’s attendance at the press conference was the result of a fax message received by her trade union, requesting that the union participate in the press conference. PSI understands that at no time before or during this press conference did the police or other authorities issue a warning that such a gathering or activity was viewed as ‘illegal. Several other people who were arrested at or around the same time as Ms Özsögüt, ostensibly for the same reasons, have since been released. However, Ms Özsögüt remains in custody and her trial has now been postponed several times. PSI remains convinced that the arrest of Ms Özsögüt was motivated solely by her activities as a trade union leader. Her continued detention in one of Turkey’s notorious “F-Type”, or small group isolation prisons, is further evidence of the Turkish Government’s hostility to trade unionists and its determination to use whatever means at its disposal to repress the legitimate activities of trade unions in Turkey. A response by the Turkish government to PSI’s letters of protest claims that Ms Özsögüt was arrested in connection with “being a member of a terrorist organisation” and “for making propaganda in favour of the terrorist organisation”. PSI calls on the Turkish government to secure the immediate release of Ms Özsögüt, to take any necessary steps to guarantee her safety and to abide by the international norms ratified by Turkey.

Secondly, this from Defend Council Housing (DCH), asking for help from all those who support the ‘Fourth Option’ - investment to improve existing council housing and build a new generation of first class council housing:

Government’s HRA Subsidy Review

DCH has produced a draft submission to the government’s HRA Subsidy Review and is inviting supporters to take part in a briefing and discussion on July 14 at Parliament (6-8pm, Grimond Room, Portcullis House) or email comments in advance.

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper promised the review would “ensure that we have a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing” and “consider evidence about the need to spend on management, maintenance and repairs”. Help hold government to the promise - and make sure there are no unacceptable strings attached!

Circulate the DCH draft submision and encourage tenant, trade union and political groups to make their own submissions or formally inform the review group that you support the DCH arguments (deadline 31 July). Email hrareview@communities.gsi.gov.uk and post submissions to ‘Review of Council Housing Finance Team’, Communities and Local Government, 1/B1, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU and send DCH a copy.

Support amendments to Labour’s policy document

Investment in council housing is top of the agenda amongst Constituency Labour Parties. Three Labour Party conferences have backed the ‘Fourth Option’. Now 22 CLPs have submitted the campaign’s first amendment to the ‘Partnership in Power’ policy consultation – the highest number supporting any one amendment! Lobby unions affiliated to Labour to submit and support the DCH amendments and encourage individual Labour Party members to lobby their regional National Policy Forum representatives.

To get our amendments debated we now need both trade union and regional NPF reps to put them forward (deadline 5 July) and vote for them at the ‘Warwick II’ NPF meeting at the end of July. See page 34/35 in the new DCH pamphlet Dear Gordon 2.

Affiliate/re-affiliate and donate to DCH

Defend Council Housing struggles without proper resources to run the campaign. We desperately need funds to employ a worker and run an office to support local campaign and co-ordinate national initiatives.

Please make sure your organisation affiliates each year to DCH at local, regional and national level; propose a substantial donation; subscribe to mailings and order the DCH pamphlet ‘Dear Gordon 2‘ (£1.50 for bulk orders) for tenants and union reps, councillors and others in your area.

Radical Politics in Action - Shan Oakes for Haltemprice and Howden MP Update

Many people have called David Davis brave for resigning as MP to force a by-election over the 42 days detention saga.

After all, this is a by-election in a safe-ish Tory seat with the full support of a mega-rich party miles ahead in the polls, where the only two parties with resources to match are not running and the rest of the field is split between independents and small parties. It’s a hard knock life!

Nonetheless, there are people forcing Davis to talk about the issues, and widening the debate. Anyone who has been critical of people and then had to meet them face-to-face knows it can be hard to keep up the courage to confront them without causing a scene or getting over-heated, but it seems like the Green activists are doing this in Haltemprice and Howden.

Shan Oakes, the Green candidate, has met Davis:

David Davis appeared there too and he and I and the team had a little chat where we asked him why he’s a Tory and told him we want to open up the issues. He told us he would invite us to any events he holds and that he sees us as the only serious challenger to him. We said we certainly did intend to challenge him.

Another Green activist, Martin Deane, had this encounter with Davis:

Local secretary, Martin Deane, spotted David Davis (yet again, ‘by coincidence’ in a constituency of about 120 square miles), and tackled him on detention and his vote for war on Iraq. Davis said he was a Privy Councillor. So that’s alright then. (One million dead, 176 British troops, a country destroyed). Davis honestly held that the war was to bring liberation and democracy to Iraq. “It was about oil!” Martin came back, “It was planned. The Americans wanted Iraq from day one.”

Of course, these are issues that we need to confront Davis on in public too. That’s why I am encouraged that Shan has mooted the idea of public events with Davis, who will have to oblige to show that he is serious about making this by-election about the issues.

I would suggest a number of debates of particular issues. The first debate title would have to be ‘Why Is 28 Days Better than 42 Days?’. I hope Shan and the team can hire somewhere to host this event and then invite Davis and a large crowd along. It would get media attention and actually turn this by-election into the issue-orientated campaign that Davis promised.

Because real bravery and courage is in standing on radical principles honestly and openly, not resigning in a blaze of ego. Shan is doing just that and I wish her luck:

It struck me that if you mix red and blue and yellow – it makes brown! So, “the brown parties”, as I’ll call them, now have great difficulty making policies appeal to most people. And it’s because they are committed to a system that no longer works. If it ever did. We just cannot have endless growth. Full stop.

Keep checking back at Shan’s blog. Donations can be sent by transfer to Co-op Bank, Alfred Gelder St, Hull, sort code 089299, acc no 65169216, or by cheque made payable to Hull and East Riding Green Party to Hull & East Riding Green Party, 3 Norwood, Beverley, East Yorkshire, HU17 9ET, UK. Email bill@voice-international.net to inform them about your donation or to offer to help.

Greens Come 3rd and Beat Labour in Henley By-Election

2008 HENLEY BY ELECTION RESULT

John Howell: Conservative, 19796, 58.3%, +4.8%
Stephen Kearney: Lib Dems, 9680, 28.5%, +2.5%
Mark Stevenson: Green, 1321, 3.9%, +0.6%
Timothy Rait: BNP, 1243, 3.7%, +3.7%
Richard McKenzie: Labour, 1066, 3.1%, -11.6%
Chris Adams: UKIP, 843, 2.5%, –

THE 2005 RESULT

Boris Johnson, Conservative ,24894 53.5%, +7.4%
David Turner, Liberal Democrat, 12101 26.0%, -1.0 %
Kaleem Saeed, Labour 6862, 14.7%, -6.4 %
Mark Stevenson, Green 1518, 3.3%, +0.7 %
Delphine Gray-Fisk, UK Independence Party, 1162, 2.5%, -0.7

This is the first time that the Greens have beaten Labour in a by-election. It bodes well for Shan Oakes in the upcoming Haltemprice and Howden by-election, who met David Davis yesterday.

As Mark himself put it:

This got national media coverage with Sky and BBC. Got a plug in for Brighton and Oxford East.
Thanks to all who helped. This now means that we are the ONLY party whose vote share has consistently gone up over the last three parliamentary elections here.

We’re already planning for the GE!

regards,
Mark Stevenson
Green candidate for Henley

Shan Oakes - The Real Civil Liberties Candidate - Stands against David Davis for the Green Party

Shan Oakes will stand for the Green Party against David Davis in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election.

According to her Wikipedia profile, Shan has lived in the East Riding of Yorkshire since 1975, where she taught English at schools in Hull and Beverley. This was followed by eight years championing child welfare, parent partnership and special needs for Humberside County Council education department, and then further work in the Community Safety Partnership in the City of York. She is one of the founders of Voice International, an organisation working to promote sustainability through education, and Chair of the Trustees of the Development Education Centre (Hull), a registered charity. She is married with 2 sons.

She is also currently Yorkshire and Humber Green Party candidate for the European Parliament Elections in 2009.

Shan has a Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33635377720.

Check out Shan’s blog here, where she says:

After a democratic debate inside the Green Party about whether we should stand in this by-election, I’m thrilled to announce that today the national party gave the go-ahead to us standing in Haltemprice and Howden, after I was selected last night by the local party to contest the seat against the Conservatives’ David Davis on July 10th.

That’s 16 days time!

Our constituency-wide leaflet is due to go to the printers tomorrow, and we’re starting campaigning in earnest. Any offers of campaigning help can be directed to Martin Dean at sokuto12@sokuto12.karoo.co.uk

I’m looking forward to highlighting the Tories’ hypocrisy on civil liberties.