In The Nick of Time?

Wanstead Police Station - Nigel Cox

Letter to The Wanstead & Woodford Guardian and The Ilford Recorder

Dear Sir

The Green Party endorses the Snaresbrook Conservative Group’s campaign, to ensure that Wanstead Police Station is kept open.

Nevertheless this important local resource has been constantly under threat of closure, in order that policing for the borough maybe centralised at Ilford Police Station, as this coalition and previous governments have continued to make cuts to frontline services.

In view of this we suggest that Councillors Cummins, Goody & Nolan should perhaps make representations to Mayor Boris Johnson at the GLA and ask him to have word with Messrs. Cameron & Osborne, to advise them that removing investment from local policing services is in no way helpful in reducing rising crime rates and maintaining law & order.

Yours faithfully

Ashley Gunstock
Lead Speaker
Green Party of Redbridge

Parking, charging and zonal marking

Letter to the Wanstead & Woodford Guardian

Dear Mr Yeatman

The Green Party wishes to again register its support for the residents and traders of Wanstead and also South Woodford.

As is well known the Greens are not great fans of the car, doing all that we can to encourage the use of public transport whenever possible. However we do not believe that Redbridge Council's latest parking charges and zone schemes have much, if anything, to do with a desire to reduce car use.

Therefore it appears that, yet again, the council is attempting to refill its coffers - which have been depleted by historic and ongoing financial mismanagement - and, as is often the case, it is the Wanstead and South Woodford targets which our local government administrators, in their infinite wisdom, have set their sights on.

In view of this we fail to see how the council can justify levying onerous parking charges, as well as introducing a harsh and restrictive parking zone. Such strategies, in effect, literally drive people to places that have free car parking which will mean that their money will be spent at, more often than not, supermarkets from where it will taken out of the local community. In these exacting times people need more (not constrained) local freedom of movement and to not have their money taken from them by stealth tactics - which they would otherwise spend on local goods and services - in order that they may take part in the regeneration of their local economies.

Unfortunately our local (just as our national) powers that be simply don't get it - insisting, as they do, on their demands for short-term financial gain - which will only cause further long-term economic pain.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Gunstock
Lead Speaker
The Green Party - Redbridge

Population! Population! Population!

Letter to the Observer

Sir

Andrew Rawnsley’s article (“Thatcher’s dream becomes a nightmare for a jilted generation”, Comment, last week) highlights an issue which I am sure that he did not intend to address. His assertion that: ‘The goal of a property-owning democracy will wither and die if Britain doesn’t start building many more homes’ initially and simply begs the answer to the most obvious of questions: Location? Location? Location?

In view of this the most important and difficult matter which this government and its opposition must address – in order to make housing more affordable, as well as for a catalogue of other positive reasons – is not whether to abolish the capital gains tax exemption and/or use the tax system to force down prices but, especially as it is a question of supply and demand, how to implement a tax incentive to confront the most pressing problem of: Population! Population! Population!

Yours faithfully

Ashley Gunstock

A sweep is as lucky As lucky can be

Small is Right?

Letter to The Observer:

Dear Sir

David Cameron's suggestion, especially being delivered in soundbites, that his ideological brainwave was fathered by Schumacher, is a mockery of a lifetime of high intellectual thought ("Small is beautiful: the father of Cameron's Big Society", News, last week).

In fact the government's programme of cuts seeks to remove the tools and dismantle the very intricate network structure, i.e. the devolved levels of responsibility and care, which would be essential if one truly wished to make Schumacher's vision a reality.

What the Prime Minister's BS will, in truth, create is a centrally managed amorphous mass, offering no light to the individual who will be left to flounder in a new dark age.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Gunstock

Cuts & Thrusts

Letter to Wanstead & Woodford Guardian:

Dear Sirs,

The Green Party completely understands the anger and frustration felt by the British population in reaction to our local, regional and national governments' handling of the economic crisis, which is chiefly of their making.

Your last two front page stories perfectly illustrate the fact that these administrations have no idea of how to address the problem of the recession - Fury as tube and bus prices soar (January 6) and Full force of cuts revealed (January 13).

We believe that now is the perfect opportunity to invest in services and green job creation, which would provide work for people who would produce an environmentally sustainable, money saving, energy infrastructure. In this way people would be able to earn and spend money in order that the economy may be regenerated. Furthermore the public should be encouraged to use an affordable public transport system, rather than (as at present) being squeezed dry for every last penny to travel on it to get to work and for our leisure. In this way our roads would be decongested, allowing everyone to travel more freely with less pollution.

However - although this quadruple whammy addresses the issues of the recession, unemployment, Climate Change and transport - the powers that be are heading (in gas guzzling mode) in exactly the opposite direction!

In any event, rather than cutting jobs and vital services, we strongly feel that the government should stop fretting over the size of bankers' bonuses and simply freeze these awards, so that it may first ensure that the most vulnerable members of our society are not being left out in the cold.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Gunstock
The Green Party
Leading Spokesperson - Redbridge

Lib Dem angst and no Tory thanks

Letter to the Observer:

Dear Sir

Andrew Rawnsley merely touched on the whips and scorns being suffered by the Lib Dems, in their time share government of Tory outrageous fortune. - David Cameron really should be sharing Nick Clegg's pain (Comment last week).

However what many fail to grasp, including some on its right wing, is that Conservative party aims could not have been better achieved if they had won the last General Election outright.

The party is back in government after a decade in the political wilderness; behind the facade of the Big Society, it is shrinking the state beyond measure and, to cap it all, Cameron & Osbourne inc. only need stand by and watch as Clegg, Cable & co. are hung out to suffer the full blast of the public's hairdryer treatment.

With their programme of cuts being borne by many essential services, as well as the poorer and most vulnerable members of our society, the Tories must be laughing every which way into bank boardrooms.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Gunstock

Top Greens

Congratulations to the top 25 green blogs as voted by readers in the Total Politics Poll for 2010.

1 The Daily (Maybe)
2 Bright Green Scotland
3 Two Doctors
4 Barkingside 21
5 Another Green World
6 Gaian Economics
7 George Monbiot
8 Rupert's Read
9 Mabinogogiblog
10 Ruscombe Green
11 Weggis
12 Jane's Political Ramblings
13 Suitably Despairing
14 Flesh is Grass
15 Green Reading
16 Greens Engage
17 Caroline Lucas MEP
18 Stuart Jeffery
19 Peter Cranie
20 Bloggy Blanc
21 Scottish Greens
22 Greening Kirklees
23 Greener Leith
24 Chadwell and Seven Kings Greens
25 A Week Is a Long Time

What do you want your MP to Fight For?

The Green Party candidate for the Leyton & Wanstead parliamentary constituency is Ashley Gunstock, picture right.

Reasonable Expenses

Letter to: Wanstead and Woodford Guardian

Dear Mr Yeatman

Edwin Northover, the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Leyton & Wanstead, is in no position to comment on Harry Cohen’s outrageous expense claims – ‘MP to make £100k on expenses scandal home’ (Guardian, February 25, print version only).

In view of his own party’s involvement in the sordid affair, what with Tory MPs’ appalling misuse of tax-payers’ money, for the building of duck houses and the cleaning of moats and the like, I find Mr Northover’s pious stance extremely hypocritical.

Ashley Gunstock

The Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Leyton & Wanstead

See follow up piece on line. Tory candidate accused of hypocrisy

Tesco hypocrisy

Dear Mr Yeatman

The Green Party ‘Boycott Tesco’ campaign that I am involved in is genuinely intended to help protect local businesses and preserve the village atmosphere in the Wanstead area, for the benefit of all.

Nevertheless I have been branded a hypocrite by Edwin Northover – the Leyton and Wanstead Conservative Parliamentary Candidate – because I was ‘caught’ shopping in the Leytonstone Tesco store: Anti-Tesco campaigner admits using one of the firm’s other stores (Guardian December 21). It appears that the cause of Mr Northover’s outburst is the pressure that he and his Tory Councillor colleagues must be feeling, due to the looming General and Council elections. I am therefore flattered that I am deemed a threat to their forthcoming political aspirations.

In any event I have never denied that I shop in supermarkets. In fact throughout our campaign I have always made it absolutely clear that I believe that the supermarket and, incidentally, the car (that I also make use of) which have been in existence since the 19th century are part of the fabric of (and have a place in) our society. The fundamental issue here – which should not be submerged by personal attacks – is that there is no need for yet another supermarket in a thriving high street, such as the one that we are fortunate to have in Wanstead.

In light of all this I am sure that the supermarket giant will appreciate that I must decline its kind invitation to shop in its Wanstead store: Tesco statement rubs salt in wound for campaigner and Tesco offers olive branch to campaigner (Guardian December 24 & 31) and that our ‘Boycott Tesco’ campaign in Wanstead will continue.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Gunstock
Leading Spokesperson
The Green Party – Redbridge

Parking, Play and Profligacy

With its introduction of charges at the Wanstead Library car park Redbridge Council has, yet again, shown its disregard for the most vulnerable residents of our borough - 'Parking fees are stealth tax on OAPs' (Guardian, November 12).

However this penny pinching exercise is not the only recent attack on public services in Wanstead, to be instigated without consultation. The children's play area on The Green is now also under threat as this administration removes but does not replace rides which, due to regular use, are now in a state of disrepair.

Therefore our mean spirited council, in order to refill its coffers – which it emptied during its otherwise too occasional acts of profligacy – in two fell swoops, on both corners of the junction of Woodbine Place and Spratt Hall Road, has managed to make the lives of senior citizens, young mothers and children still more uncomfortable in these already difficult times. Shades of ‘Bah humbug!’ methinks.

Ashley Gunstock
The Green Party - Redbridge
Leading Spokesperson