The BNP and the Christian Choice are running candidates for London mayor for the May 1st election.
Subvert - vote Green Party (Sian Berry), or Ken as London mayor, with Sian Berry as second
Subvert - vote Green Party (Sian Berry), or Ken as London mayor, with Sian Berry as second
The BNP is floating Richard Barnbrook as a candidate for the London mayoral election on May 1st. The key policies include "housing British people first", "stop immigration" (we assume immigration of persons of colour?), "build a better NHS", "zero tolerance on crime and yobs" (even though this has absolutely no practical value and is dubious even as a political rhetorical device - does this include the old lady who drops a sweet wrapper, and how does one ever enforce such a policy?). Also "British jobs for British workers" (who really is British ... or is that the whole point? white British only!), "scrap the congestion charge" (very good environmental thinking there guys), "lower council tax" (which means who pays for zero tolerance policing?), and "better education for all our people" (just who constitutes "our" people?).
The Christian Choice priorities promote marriage (yes folks, heterosexism, not "civil partnerships", sorry!), stopping other religions ("stop the mega-mosque at West Ham near 2012 Olympics proposed by a controversial Islamic sect") which is always a good example of Christian brotherly love, "champion[ing] London's most vulnerable - the unborn, the elderly, the refugee" (sorry ladies - no more abortions in London), and reducing the poverty gap between "the capital's inner-city poverty and City-bonus wealth", and to "End the (alleged) corruption at City Hall" (?) which means what, exactly?
I'm sorry. Aside from the obvious restrictions promised on immigrants and abortions, the shameless promotion of white-ness and Christian "family values", these people offer London what exactly?
Far better to vote for Sian Berry (Greens). At least the Greens have a manifesto that is worth getting interested in and excited about. Moreover, as Ken's second party, they have had reasonable exposure to the cut and thrust of London politics ... and evidently have the ear of Ken himself.
If the Greens don't cut it, then vote for Ken with the Greens as your second choice and GLA member. For all of our sake - please keep the BNP, the Christian Choice, the Tories out of London.
Thanks for listening.
The Christian Choice priorities promote marriage (yes folks, heterosexism, not "civil partnerships", sorry!), stopping other religions ("stop the mega-mosque at West Ham near 2012 Olympics proposed by a controversial Islamic sect") which is always a good example of Christian brotherly love, "champion[ing] London's most vulnerable - the unborn, the elderly, the refugee" (sorry ladies - no more abortions in London), and reducing the poverty gap between "the capital's inner-city poverty and City-bonus wealth", and to "End the (alleged) corruption at City Hall" (?) which means what, exactly?
I'm sorry. Aside from the obvious restrictions promised on immigrants and abortions, the shameless promotion of white-ness and Christian "family values", these people offer London what exactly?
Far better to vote for Sian Berry (Greens). At least the Greens have a manifesto that is worth getting interested in and excited about. Moreover, as Ken's second party, they have had reasonable exposure to the cut and thrust of London politics ... and evidently have the ear of Ken himself.
If the Greens don't cut it, then vote for Ken with the Greens as your second choice and GLA member. For all of our sake - please keep the BNP, the Christian Choice, the Tories out of London.
Thanks for listening.
Comments
Hide the following 11 comments
Doesn't work
26.04.2008 18:19
Green will get my constituency and assembly member votes in the hope we get some more of them in there.
Voting Green with your second vote for Mayor will basically just get it ignored, unfortunately.
Voter
this article contains misinformation, but has a good mesage
26.04.2008 18:42
stop the bnp everywhere.
keep out the bnp, by any means!
Shameless electioneering by the Greens.
26.04.2008 19:41
Not fooled
Anyone noticed?
26.04.2008 21:29
The main thing is to vote and look for a Dr Hunter S Thompson London to stand in the next melee at the pig trough
PRoS II
Keep the Labour party out of London
27.04.2008 00:15
kiko
Left Mayor, Left Government!!
27.04.2008 08:40
It seems that the main candidates are all massing together in order to keep the BNP and Christian Choice out...thereby publicising these parties and, at the same stroke, undermining any 'democratic' credibility they might have had.
Ken Livingstone has his problems. TfL being the most serious. Its all very well saying that TfL is an environmental initiative and that its cleaned London up but it is also a body long-mired in heavy controversy. Since its inception TfL's methods have been in the finest traditions of good 'ole fashioned conservative capitalism. Dodgy bailiffs, dodgy contracts, assaults, endemic criminality, police collusion and the endless corruption that TfL is now famed for. Look into it and you will find that the Mayor's sentiments are thoroughly free-market in practice and, in actual fact, even worse than the conservatives managed...the free-market wasn't nearly as well-developed in the conservatives day as it is now under Labour.
Ken clearly has the support of most of the other candidates and it seems to me that this election stinks to high heaven. What independent candidate would endorse his/her rival and expect to be taken seriously...by the electorate, even if it is just tactics and strategy.
The London mayoral elections is a bun-fight between the Labour candidate versus the, erm, Labour candidate with the Labour candidate following up at the rear.
Democracy? Free-choice? Integrity?
NO NO NO. Not under Labour.
outoftowner
It's not funny you have to vote Ken
27.04.2008 20:44
But just as Fidel Castro promised to resign if anyone could prove he had an off-shore accounts with billions stashed (as US magazine Forbes floated) so Ken lives in Willesden and travels by tube. Kens not like his Labour party comrade Blair, dipping blood soaked hands into the empire's silver and gold.
For sure if Ken does not win the London Mayoral election he won't be poor what with his writing opportunities and his public sector pension entitlements, but he won't be buying a Premiership football club either.
Who will argue against Ken's London being simply the best place in the world to live?
Yes the tube is a degrading and expensive experience. Yes the cops are spying on us through cameras. But apart from the backwoods of Essex there are no fascists in public representation roles, as there are all over Europe.
That in London racism has the social acceptability of shagging your mum is in no small way due to Ken and his fellow travellers.
And Greens are not merely recycling-Tories that is just as silly as saying that because Hitler became a vegetarian to loose weight we should be suspicious of all slimmers and all vegetarians
The more people who vote in London on May 1st. the less chance that the BNP will get the 5% share of vote needed to get a seat in the GLA.
If you have a vote and choose not to use it then you are part of the problem (which in essence is ignorance compounded with sloth)
Vote Brian, Lindsey or Sian first for Mayor if you will but please Ken second preference.
Otherwise we will have as mayor that Eton Asshole going about insulting the majority of the world’s population with his backward racism creating the fractured London society needed by endless capitalist wars.
Hu
Reductionist Politics!
28.04.2008 10:31
But Collusion by many political actors to keep out one party does nothing to separate those parties along lines of policy. How the hell are the people of London to make a clear, informed choice if the candidates are all saying the same thing..."a vote for us is a vote lost for the BNP". That isn't helpful at all. The main candidates all give the impression that they are desparate...and are willing to adopt ANY tactic to win.
And that really does say something about how the obviously Labour London Mayor plays his game. All candidates are being forced...YES FORCED...to play the fascist/rascist card to stand a chance of being noticed.
Racism is bad...but exploiting racism is even worse.
And that just sums up British politics right across the board doesn't it...ruthlessly exploititve.
Terrorism...exploited. Police State...exploited. Economy gone to pot...exploited. Racism...exploited. Religious division...exploited.
Didn't Trotsky say something about true Communism only being possible through a process of "constant revolution".
Welcome to Britain 2008! Lets look forward to a change in 2009.
outoftowner
Plugging the green vote, "nice" apart from...
28.04.2008 14:01
Don't vote is the best vote that you can do. Just write no vote on the ballot paper and it done and dusted.
loppy
misinformation
28.04.2008 22:57
from Green Party policy:-
H322 The Green Party will support a change in the law to remove the requirement for two doctors to approve a woman's decision to have an abortion, and will support a change in the law to allow the procedure to be carried out by appropriately trained nurses and midwives up to three months of pregnancy. It will support NHS provision of such nurses and midwives and will support a widening of the number of locations at which an abortion can be carried out. This should reduce delays in service provision and prevent access being obstructed by doctors with personal anti-abortion views.
The Green Party will not support any change to the current laws on abortions which would aim to make it more difficult for women to obtain them. Such a change in the law would do nothing to address the underlying factors which lead to women seeking abortions. Instead, it is likely to drive them into going elsewhere for the operations - either overseas or to illegal practitioners in this country - which will increase both the distress and the health risks for those involved.
(the section on abortion is about half way down the page)
concerned person
Interesting
29.04.2008 01:27
Cynical yes but let's be realistic, Would the BNP be a bad thing really !!! apart from the blatant face of english fascism being on display what exactly would they do that would be worse than the HIDDEN fascism / agenda lead policy making that exists currently as it has for many centuries / let alone years .... !!! ....which todays' parties claim to now shun .... Terror laws .... Policing .... the media .... come on now !!!! it would seem ridiculous to me to think that the ghost town that is now London can now be made into a modern day Utopia !?! Greens ....???? ..... well again as per the Obama Clinton race are the greens not individuals with their fingers in financial pies that merely influence who gets in within the parliamentary hierarchies ..... You decide ppl you decide ....
London / England needs dramatic change and people need to mobilise their right to challenge policymakers, they need to overcome their FEARS of the system and the laws that uphold it .......
Paul Kennedy
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