Press Release from West Cornwall Green Party
Monday 22nd February 2010

Justice is Theme of Green Conference

Tim Andrewes, the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for the St Ives constituency, attended the Party’s spring conference in north London last weekend, and has welcomed a raft of new policies that were agreed.

A strong theme running through the event concerned justice for ordinary citizens. New policies were agreed to curb excessive pay and bankers’ bonuses, to increase patient power within the NHS, and to defend civil liberties in the face of the growing power of the state.

Tim Andrewes commented: ‘One of the most inspiring sessions at the conference looked at how unequal our society has become. The gap between rich and poor has continued to widen under this government. This inequality is causing ill-health, increased crime, family and community breakdown.

‘Here in West Cornwall, the impact of inequality can be seen most starkly in the housing sector, where many people cannot afford to rent a home, while thousands of houses, owned by the wealthy, stand empty or underused for much of the year.

‘The Green Party has a number of policies to tackle inequality, including a fair system of taxation that would narrow the gap between rich and poor.’

The conference considered a number of other issues, including fisheries and marine conservation, creeping privatisation in the health service, and support for a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on international financial transactions.

Green Policy Supported By Fuel Poverty Expert

Euan McPhee, Green Party’s candidate for Camborne and Redruth, has welcomed the message delivered at a recent lecture on fuel poverty at the Tremough Campus. The lecture was given by Dr Brenda Boardman of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and a former government energy policy expert. She stated that 5 million UK homes are currently in fuel poverty, and are unable to afford to heat their homes effectively. This is leading to as many as 45,000 excess winter deaths per year.

“The Government has set itself the target of removing these 5 million households from fuel poverty by 2016,” says Euan. “So how will this be achieved? The Winter Fuel Supplement has been one way, but such a policy misses many of the really needy people. Also, just handing out more money for people to burn more fuel does not tackle the underlying problem of poor quality housing with low standards of energy performance.”

Letter to the Editor of the West Briton from Ian Wright, 15th February

Council staff disciplined by bosses / £200, 000pa council chief heads expenses list. One rule for one, and another for the rest of the staff..........?

I could not help but darkly chuckle when comparing the contents of two articles in last week's West Briton. On page 2 we read that 78 staff have been disciplined by Cornwall Council in the last year, and on page 4 we read of Kevin Lavery, the council's Chief Executive, who has claimed over £10,000 in expenses in his first 9 months, despite his £200,000 salary. Maybe I pick on Mr Lavery unfairly as other senior officers in the organisation do not fare too well in their expenses claims according to your report.

It is just a shame that your editorial staff did not decide to juxtapose the two articles to amplify the irony-particularly as you note there were no cases of disciplinary action taken in the Chief Executive's department.