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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

"Strongest ever" Haringey Greens unveil Council manifesto, candidates and new "digital conversation"

HARINGEY GREEN PARTY NEWS RELEASE

Haringey Green Party has launched its manifesto for its "strongest ever" Haringey Council election campaign, with a 56-strong provisional list of candidates to contest every ward across the borough. The party states it is "upbeat" about its chances of getting Haringey's first-ever Green councillors elected on May 22nd, and is aiming to build a "fresh progressive alternative" to Labour's ongoing dominance of Haringey Council's after 43 years of continuous Labour control.

Haringey Greens have published an digestible five-point summary of their Council manifesto:

  • A local ‘green new deal’ – attracting new and ‘green’ industries into Haringey, refurbishing local industrial estates, supporting local retailing, community-led local energy generation, accessible literacy and life-long learning, and computer skills for all.
  • Protecting local public services – defending and promoting local public services, defending every vital service at the Whittington Hospital and St Ann’s Hospital, supporting community access to mental health care, arguing for local democratic accountability for all schools with strengthened local representation and participation.
  • A more equal Haringey – instituting a Fair Rents scheme for private tenants, promoting greater security and clout to challenge unfairly high rents, access to transport and to premises for people with disabilities, supporting families to avoid eviction for arrears caused by the Bedroom Tax.
  • A better deal for young people – working with police and communities to reduce alienation of young people, encouraging local apprenticeships and training for young people without work.
  • A greener, calmer Haringey – an active re-greening of Haringey with local energy, insulation strategies, recycling, pollution reduction and appropriate planting in bare and neglected spaces, and protecting ‘wild’ areas including Pinkham Way, further cycling safety, cycling priority routes and lane-separation, and extending 20 mph limits on most roads.

On 22nd May voters in Haringey go to the polls in two elections. They will be able to vote for up to three ward councillors. On a separate ballot paper they have the chance to vote for London's Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Jean Lambert, London's sitting Green MEP, faces a re-election fight Greens describe as "tough but winnable", stressing "every Green vote across London counts". All European Union and British Commonwealth citizens living in Haringey are entitled to vote in both elections, with Haringey Council voter registration closing three weeks before polling day.

In nine of Haringey's 19 wards - Alexandra, Bounds Green, Bruce Grove, Crouch End, Harringay, Hornsey, St Ann's, Stroud Green and Tottenham Green - the Greens are officially running in second place to Labour based on the previous set of election results for the GLA in 2012. The Green challenge for Council seats is strongest in the ward of Alexandra, where standing alongside Gordon Peters for the Greens are Lucy Craig and Tom Davidson, two former long-serving Haringey Labour councillors who have now turned to a different kind of political party they consider more progressive and responsive.

Lucy Craig, who was expelled from the Labour Party in 2005 for campaigning against MPs who supported the illegal Iraq war, commented: "Five years ago I joined the Green Party. Like many people, I had laboured under the false impression that it was a single-issue party solely concerned with the environment.  Looking closely at all its policies however, I found egalitarian and progressive policies underpinning everything from health to housing and economics to education, excellent environmental policies to protect our planet and our children, and, I believe, it is the only party committed to genuinely addressing the gross inequalities we see all around us."

Haringey Greens have also unveiled a brand new website at www.haringeygreens.org.uk. This uses the same Web platform developed by Barack Obama's election campaign team, and is aimed at "turning our website into a two-way conversation between Green Party campaigners around the borough and real Haringey people". Its innovative features include a free 'polling day reminder' service, online petitions, and 'leave a comment' facilities including a "suggest a policy" page allowing Haringey residents to suggest and comment on potential new Haringey Green policies. Local Greens have committed to considering adding the ideas they receive from the public to their manifesto before polling day.

Green candidate in Tottenham Green ward Chris Henderson explained: "The Green Party is a decentralised, grass-roots party. We don't accept the corporate money that bigger parties have, but we are able to be much more flexible and human in our thinking. We don't want voters to think their only options for engaging with local politics are to go to old-style political meetings or to wait for newsletters to appear through their letterboxes. Our new state-of-the-art Web platform is allowing local Green candidates to publish their uncensored messages sustainably and for free, and local voters to publish their reactions to what we have to say. Haringey Greens are doing local politics in ways which are relevant to real people in the 21st Century, and creating a more even relationship between candidates and voters."

Tags for Forum Posts: election, green party, haringey council

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OK, different computer, all fine. So for Harringay;

  • Matt Cuthbert
  • Tristan Smith
  • Kerry Smith

Looking forward to more information about each candidate. We do know that Tristan Smith is however more interested in 2018 than 2014. Kerry stood in the 2010 elections contributing her thoughts back then on HOL (thoughts which may of course have changed in some way since then). And Matt Cuthbert was an independent candidate in the same 2010 elections.

Are the Smiths related in any way? Just curious.

Yes, lots more bios on the way!

Just about to ask what ever happened to the Three Weird Sisters who wafted their way hither from the blasted Heath or Highgate or Muswell Hill around May 2010, magicked 1,500+ votes from our local sandalistas, then made themselves air into which they vanished - so invisibly that I wouldn't know them from Adamou. Seems now that, while Bunting and Tanner have really vanished, Smith-Jefferys has morphed into Smith on the grounds that her double-barrelled moniker held her to a mere 555 votes in Harringay while this time hopes are high for 666. What's that John said about Greens being into Beasts and Birds?  And Matthew, where's your Independent streak gone to?

We are an unwhipped party. So there's not much loss of independence involved in standing for us!

I'm not sure that's true? Are you seriously telling us that the Green Group, on the Green-run Brighton and Hove CityCouncil, doesn't have a whipping system? Didn't one of your councillors get kicked out for opposing equal marriage (being gay, I am, of course, in favour of it) but that was a little harsh, I thought. (Agent and Chair, Tottenham Conservatives)

You only oppose equal marriage rights because it would benefit you? Typical Tory ;)

Good job I don't have kids, John. Might have been tempted to have given them their EMA to buy drugs... 

We are unwhipped. See http://www.brightonhovegreens.org/news/brighton-and-hove-city-budge... to get it from the horses' mouths in Brighton. 

It might be difficult for grey parties to comprehend, but we believe in such outlandish things as seeking consensus, respectful internal dialogue treating each other as equal human beings, and trusting elected representatives to listen to their constituents and make up their own minds how best to represent them. 

Without whipping, we would never have had student top-up fees and we might well not have gone to war in Iraq. Greens happen to think there are better ways of doing politics.

OAE, what do people do when the two major local supermarket chains are both incompetent, sell stale produce and every so often sprinkle water over the lettuce in a desperate attempt to make it look less wilted?

I've been begging my dear friend the completely unwhippable but totally brilliant Isa Wrappa to come home and stand for the Elvis-is-Alive-and-Living-in-Wood-Green Party. I'll keep you posted on this.

Though I regret to say that my dear brilliant old friend Nunov Theabav (who regularly tops the poll in every election) is still ignoring my pleas to stand in Seven Carpet Baggers ward. Although he and his six brothers and their seven brides are already voting members of half the Labour Party wards in Tottenham, Nunov tells me that in local elections there's some stupid rule about him having to leave Obfuscandia and come to live in Haringey.

"Why would I do that?" he asked me. "The place is full of Freedonians and Ruritanians. With the local pubs crowded with Irish people speaking Greek and Latin to one another".

Seven Dealers? Gotcha!

A better deal for young people ...

Free education for ALL 18-24 yr olds, degrees & apprenticeships. I do not see why those in England are having to pay £9000 per year whilst in Scotland it's free. And guess what, the current scheme is close to bankruptcy anyway!

How's that paid for? By taxing the wealth generators at source of use; e.g. tax per search on Google that originates from within England, that Google pays against their ad revenue. Same with Ebay, Amazon and so on ...

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