Battle for the Bridge

The battle for the station bridge continues this week with a Residents against Station Closure meeting at Victoria Centre, Stafford Road on Tuesday at 7pm. There are two good letters on the issue in this weeks Telegraph, the first from Valerie Bayliss points out that East Midland Trains are facing both ways as they have supported an application to restore the listed restaurant room on platform 1.The application states "the pedestrian link through the station is central to the city regeneration strategy as it provides a direct route for future occupants of the Park Hill redevelopment scheme to access the Golden Route into the city centre." Recent passenger counts show an average of over 100,000 passengers (sic] passing through the station each week. Valerie says that this application has in effect been endorsed by East Midlands Trains as occupiers of the station - clearly the restoration could not happen without their co-operation. The second letter from RASC stalwart Viv Ratcliffe returns to the issue of democracy and asks who has the right to make the decision on the bridge. If EMT get away with there plans, going against the wishes of all the councillors in Sheffield from all 3 parties (Lib Dem, Lab and Green) and all the MP's, it really will show how little power politicians now have as so much of our infrastructure has been sold off.

As EMT now push forward their plans to shut the bridge I suspect we will be organising further protests.The will of the people must prevail!

The truth about the BNP

I don't often read the News of the World, but they are to be congratulated for this excellent piece of investigative journalism. Reporting on what was going on inside the BNP "family day" in Derbyshire last weekend, the reporter witnessed the burning of a gollywog, nazi salutes, and out and out racism.
Our new MEP, andrew Brons, was among the culprits. He used his stint in the political tent to compare Muslims to SMALLPOX during his speech. He declared: "I'm less concerned about the presence of mosques than the presence of the people that use them. Being worried about the presence of a particular mosque is almost like looking at a disease like smallpox and saying it's a problem with spots."

We must continue to challenge the BNP. Not only must we support groups like Unite against Fascism, but we must campaign in the housing estates and areas where the BNP are making progress, showing that our policies will reduce poverty, create useful jobs and improve the country, not just for white people but for everyone in our multi cultural society. If you'd like to help in this task, please get in touch.

Join a Union!

My Union UCU have just produced this short video encouraging people to join a Union.

Meanwhile the Green Sheffield Councillors have persuaded the Council to investigate the idea of introducing a "Living Wage". This would mean all Council employees would be paid an hourly rate above the minimum wage. It would be funded by reducing the salaries of the highest earners.

A Living Wage is already paid to thousands of workers in London and is being implemented in Glasgow and Leeds. The Sheffield Greens are asking officers to find what the living wage would be in Sheffield, calculated as £7.09 per hour outside London but dependant on the cost of accommodation amongst other things. Officers will then draw up a report on how that could be implemented in council.

For the full story see the Sheffield Green Party website. Click here to find out more about the Minimum Income Standard for Britain and use the on-line calculator to see if you earn above the minimum. To see how the Greens are successfully campaigning for a Living Wage around the country see the Green Party website

I am very proud to belong to a political party with such good social policies. It's such a shame that other parties can still get away with calling us a "one issue" party when the truth is we have policies on just about everything! (see the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society for our full policy document)I would be very interested to hear of any topics readers think are not covered by our policies!

Support the Vestas workers

Boys on the Balcony is the great new song from Seize the Day, supporting the Vestas wind turbine workers who are currently occupying their factory.



The Greens have come up with an excellent plan to make it a workers cooperative. See www.greenparty.org.uk
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