Election meets Alice in Wonderland

Last night's leaders debate was strange affair. It was supposed to discuss foreign affairs but what should have been the biggest TV topic of debate was passed over with barely a flutter. The issue is, of course Afghanistan, where British soldiers continue to kill and be killed in an un-winnable war.

According to a poll in the Independent on Sunday, 77% of people in the UK want the troops brought home. Respect agrees. But sadly all the three old parties promise to keep them there - ensuring more blood is spilt needlessly. It's time to get round the table and talk peace and bring British troops home to their families.

My fellow candidate Dr Kay Phiilips in Manchester wrote the article below for her election website after the first debate. It sort of sums up the election so far: the election has been reduced, by the media, to three men and a question of who can look most 'prime ministerial'. Meanwhile our services face a decade of Thatcherite cuts. But should it really matter how 'calm and assured' they look as they wield the axe?

George Galloway on the Daily Politics show

George appeared on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics and predicted Respect will collect three seats and could have a crucial role in a hung Parliament.

You can watch the video on the BBC website here

No progress without struggle

I have always thought it crazy that 16 year olds could be sent to war, but could not vote against the politicians who wanted to send them there. I support proposals to lower the voting age. But even if such changes were introduced, how many young people would avail of the opportunity to vote?

Survey after survey shows that young people have strong opinions about politics, but very little faith in the political system. Parliament is seen as aloof, sleazy and indifferent. Many feel cynical about whether their vote makes any difference. That cynicism is understandable, but doesn’t really help much.

If we want change, we have to engage. As the great anti-slavery campaigner Fredrick Douglas said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.” That struggle is waged outside parliament, for example, by workers in trade unions campaigning for decent wages and conditions, by people trying to raise awareness and solidarity about climate change, or Third World Debt, or Palestine.

But that struggle can also waged inside Parliament as well. One of the great weaknesses of the anti-war movement was that while we had plenty of supporters on the streets, we had few inside the House of Commons. That needs to change. Parliament needs to be more representative of the people.

On May 6 this country will elect a new parliament. If you want Britain to be more committed to values of peace, justice and equality, you need to put politicians into parliament who will advocate on your behalf. But in order to vote you have got to be registered to vote. The closing date to register is April 20. The General Election is an opportunity to effect change. My advice would be, don’t waste it.

George Galloway: The fight is on

Labour is soft on the bankers. The Tories are the bankers.

So it’s not surprising that each of them is planning massive cuts to public services if they win the next election. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, promises cuts that will be “deeper and tougher” than those carried out by Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s.

Those cuts, we should remember, led to city after city in Britain becoming industrial ghost-towns, as millions were thrown on the scrap heap of the dole. Meanwhile from Toxteth to St Pauls, Brixton to Handsworth our inner cities burned as riots erupted out of anger and frustration.

So we have Labour’s manifesto in a nutshell. ‘A future fair for all’ translates as vote for us and we’ll deliver cuts deeper and tougher than the axe woman herself.

Save the NHS

Mike Marqusee is a journalist who is currently being treated for multiple myeloma, and in a recent article he contrasts the British and American health systems. It makes sober reading. I wish him a speedy recovery. In his article he writes:

“All the political parties promise to protect the NHS in the coming bout of spending cuts, but in reality the NHS is already being subject to a severe financial squeeze; services and jobs are being lost. After the election, the NHS will be asked to make bigger savings, i.e. deeper cuts. Health workers’ wages will suffer and the private sector will further penetrate the NHS at various levels, from primary care to specialist services to hospital finance. Unless we stop it, The NHS – and all that makes it better than the US system – cannot be taken for granted.” Read the full article here.

Vote for change

The revelation that three former Labour ministers were bidding for consultancy work by parading their government connections gives further insight into the shabby morality of Westminster politics.

But when politicians can get away with leading this country into wars based on lies, it is hardly surprising that they think they can get away with anything.We need greater transparency and more genuine democracy.

That’s why I am a supporter of Vote for Change. They are a lobby group campaigning for electoral reform. As they state on their excellent website ‘the only way we're going to make politicians understand their responsibilities to the people they represent is to make them more accountable at elections. It's time to kick out the antiquated First-Past-the-Post voting system that has allowed them to get away with so much and bring in a new style of elections where every single vote counts.’

Islamophobia - a threat to democracy

We are concerned by the rise of Islamophobia, the negative coverage of Muslims in the media, the violent street mobilisations of extreme rightwing organisations like the English Defence League, and the rising electoral support for the British National party (The battle for Barking, Weekend, 13 March). Following Channel 4’s recent inflammatory documentary, Britain’s Islamic Republic, which saw concentrated attacks on the East London Mosque, the English Defence League marched through central London with placards including the demand “Close the East London Mosque now”.

The East End of London is not new to having its communities attacked by fascists and the media. The 1930s saw the Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's blackshirts attempted to march into the Jewish community in the area. We cannot allow this terrible history to repeat itself. Further, the documentary, and articles since, have attacked the participation in politics by the Muslim community. We cannot stand by and watch this continue without remark or action.

In the runup to the general election, all parts of the population should be actively encouraged to exercise their votes. That is democracy. We welcome the work of organisations who work to this end. We call for solidarity and support for those organisations that work to encourage political participation from all sections of society, including Muslims, and condemn those who seek to undermine it.

Enfield's Social Housing Crisis

Shelter, the housing charity, has produced a league table of local authorities. The table ranks councils by how good they are at getting affordable homes built. Enfield ranks 199th out of 323 councils in England and 18th out of 33 councils in the Greater London. The verdict on the Borough has to be that it could do a lot better.

The housing waiting list is approaching 6,258 households and Shelter says that almost 2,916 new affordable homes are needed every year. But in 2008/9 Enfield delivered only 15% of the affordable homes needed and just 423 homes were provided. The total number of lettings made to new social tenants last year was 776. At this rate, according to experts, it will take approximately 8 years to clear the current waiting list.

Shelter says that there are things councils can do, if they make housing a priority. This includes things like selling council land at below market prices to be developed for affordable housing, rather than taking the highest offer.

Housing is a basic human need but our housing system is clearly failing. The average house price in Enfield last year was £228,500. To buy that average home, Shelter calculates that you would need an annual income of £50,622. But the average income was just £24,195 a year.

Most people are simply priced out of the housing market. It is a gap that local councils should be filling. Even within the current failed system there is room for improvement. But there needs to be a radical break at national level with a policy that has put an end to the building of council houses, and gambled everything on the private sector.

Public investment in massive house building programme would go a long way to tackling the housing crisis and at the same time help to stop the economy plunging back into recession.

Live! George vs Jim

George Galloway will be going head to head with Jim Fitzpatrick, who he's challenging for the seat of Poplar and Limehouse at the General Election, on BBC1 London on Sunday 21st any time from 12.10pm - although most likely from around 12.30pm. The programme will be live from London City Hall. Don't miss it and tell your friends.

Those outside London can watch live on the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007tjl5

An alternative to the cuts agenda

On the main issues facing the British people today, there is only the appearance of policy differences between Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Take the economy. For years, all three parties have embraced and celebrated the neo-liberal free market dogma responsible for record levels of wealth inequality and the worst recession in over fifty years. They are also united on the necessity of vicious cuts as the solution to the crisis, divided only on the timescale for the implementation of those cuts.

But their consensus is being challenged. The Robin Hood Tax is one such challenge. It’s originators argue that imposing a 'tiny tax' on bankers 'would give billions to tackle poverty and climate change, here and abroad. This tax on banks – not you or I - has the power to raise hundreds of billions every year. It could give a vital boost to the NHS, our schools, and the fight against child poverty in the UK – as well as tackling poverty and climate change around the world.’ Sounds like a lot of sense to me. Read more here.