Film maker Ken Loach backs Respect's Paulette North for Bristol Mayor

Internationally renowned local filmmaker Ken Loach has given his full backing to Paulette North the Respect Party's candidate for the forthcoming Bristol mayoral election.

Ken Loach whose latest film is up for yet another prestigious award and whose other films include Kes, Looking for Eric and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, had this to say about why he backs Paulette North, "I am pleased to support Paulette. She would work for the ordinary people of Bristol. She would defend them against the vested interests of big business and central government. She would be the 'people's Mayor'!"

Paulette North said of the support of Mr Loach. " I am delighted that someone whose films are so inspirational, speaks so highly of me. But most of all it's an endorsement of the values and principles we both share".

Paulette North has made it clear about what she believes would make Bristol a better and fairer City, preferring straight talking to the usual bland vagueness of other politicians.

She has stated: "It is a disgrace that Bristol can be both so prosperous yet have some of the most deprived areas in the country.

Bristol should aspire to be a City of full employment. We can start by bringing all the empty housing stock back up to a living standard. It is wrong that we have thousands of empty houses whilst we have people on the waiting list and others are homeless. And at the same time there are unemployed construction workers, bricklayers, plumbers and electricians. That's ridiculous people in work pay taxes and will spend their money in the stores and shops in Bristol, making it right for everyone.

The council should bring work back 'in house' using direct labour with apprenticeships at proper rates of pay. Top quality support must be provided by the council to our elders. The cuts made in community funding must be restored. The Educational Maintenance Allowance [EMA] must be restored to give hope to the young people of Bristol. Schools should be under council control.

Privatised bus and rail transport has been a disaster - high fares, overcrowded trains and inadequate service. They need to be under the control of the council. Council tax should be replaced by a local income tax based on people's ability to pay and big business should be contributing much more."

Jerry Hicks Bristol Respect convenor said "Paulette [North] is unique in that she would not take any six figure salary but instead only accept the average working wage as Mayor. She is determined not to burden council tax payers with the costs of another layer of bureaucracy and would rely on existing council staff to support the work of the Mayor".

Respect and Labour debate - What happened in Bradford?

Next stop for the Respect 'spring' - Manchester Central

Leading Tory joins Respect in Bradford

George Galloway last Saturday welcomed the latest recruit to Respect, Qurban Malik. Mr Malik has been an active Conservative for many years and was deputy chairman of the Bradford Conservative Party. He stood for the Tories in Manningham ward in the recent local elections.

"The old parties have failed Bradford," said Mr Malik. "Respect has shown it has huge support in Bradford city from an electorate desperate for change and desperate for a positive vision for Bradford's future."

George Galloway welcomed Mr Malik to the Respect Party just before the party's national council meeting, held in Bradford for the first time. "We are attracting support from all of the major parties and from that majority in the country which is increasingly saying none of the above. Mr Malik gave me invaluable personal support in the by-election. I am delighted that a man of very considerable standing has now decided to do everything can to build the Respect Party here in Bradford."

Respect is surely due

George Galloway writes:

 

WE fairly kicked backsides last week.

In just over 50 days, Respect has arrived in ­Bradford, won a landslide parliamentary by-election victory, won five rock-solid seats on the city council, gutted the leader, come second in three other seats and held the balance of power on that council.

A group of extremist Muslims, led by Anjem Choudary, the poppy burner, were burning green and red Respect rosettes in Bradford, claiming that democracy is forbidden for Muslims and telling me to go home - the last time that was shouted at me was in Airdrie.

The same day the Liberal Democrats were declaring we were the extremists.

In fact, we are the antidote to these extremists. We have shown democracy is not only not forbidden, but that it can work, that a people united cannot easily be defeated.

While they sow ­separatism, isolation, even violence, we seek the fruits of those universal values - justice, equality, peace and amity between the people and the faiths. You decide.

Respect takes five council seats in Bradford

Respect candidates have won five seats on Bradford City Council in the process defeating the leader of the Labour group Ian Greenwood.

Respect won in Manningham (57.5%), City (56.1%), Bradford Moor (42.1%), Heaton (39.6%) and Little Horton (47.8%).

Further details and analysis will be published later. In the meantime congratulations to all our candidates for the fantastic campaign.

Congratulations also to independent candidate Michael Lavalette who won in Preston Town Centre ward.

GALLOWAY SLAMS CAMERON ON THE ECONOMY

'David Cameron and his Bullingdon Club buddy Gideon Osborne cannot blame Europe for Britain's first double-dip recession since the 1970s,' said George Galloway today, while campaigning in Bradford for the local elections.

'It is the savage cuts to public spending that have sent us back into this disastrous recession. It is ABC that if the private sector isn't investing and the taxpayer is cutting consumption for fear of unemployment, slashing government spending will drive the economy down. That's what I predicted and it's exactly what has happened.

'The government is now going to make things even worse in Bradford. They have singled out Bradford council for some of the worst cuts in the region and they now want to introduce regional pay in the public sector which is code for pay cuts.

'There are easy ways for the government to cut the deficit if this is the problem they claim it is. We should bring all our troops home from foreign wars, scrap the replacement of Trident and we could close the tax loopholes which allow £100 billion in taxes to be avoided and evaded every year. If we did those three things, we would be quids in with no deficit."

Murdoch's rotting politics

The Murdoch Empire is the symbol of the rottenness of our political system. It used its power and huge share of the media market to wield political influence and shape government policy. The admissions at the Leveson inquiry this week demonstrate how much the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats jump to the tune of the Murdochs. Christmas Dinner with Cameron, private jets to fly him to meetings with Murdoch, Jeremy Hunt and his staff liaising with Murdoch on a daily basis when it was seeking to make a huge amount of money from the BSkyB bid.

 

The Murdoch scandal goes all the way through the British political establishment. From the revelation of News International supported hackers deleting voicemail messages on missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone, the influence wielded at the London Metropolitan Police with leaks and people hired that were pro-News International to the leaking of ministerial statements on the BSkyB bid with the request that the Murdochs help rewrite and counter opposition arguments. This is a catalogue of the disgrace of the political and state elite.

 

Gideon's economic disaster zone

Britain is suffering a double dip recession for the first time since 1975. Yesterday’s output figures show that the UK economy is nowhere near recovering from the credit crisis that started in 2007.

What does a ‘double dip’ recession mean? In jargon, it means that in six of the eight quarters (each year is split into quarters) since the ConDem coalition took office, the British economy has been shrinking. When Gideon Osborne, the 'arrogant posh boy' Chancellor, took office, the economy was growing by 1.1% per year. Once he started the drums of ‘austerity’, cutting public services to keep the rich in the City happy, that growth quickly turned negative.

In reality, a ‘double dip’ recession means that the charity UK Foodbank, which provides food parcels to people unable to pay for themselves, doubled the number of people who it helped last year. It is opening 2 new foodbanks every week at the moment. For the last six years, wages have fallen behind price rises and the cuts in benefits have made the suffering worse. If people have less money to spend, then less will be bought in shops so the service sector (a whopping 75% of the British economy) is stuck in recession.

Pass the Poorest

The madness and cruelty at the heart of ConDem austerity policies has been exposed again. The London Borough of Newham in East London, one of the poorest areas in the UK, has a housing waiting list of over 28,000 people. Last year, because of ConDem local government grant cuts, it made £100 million of cuts in services. These cuts are having a terrible effect on some of society’s poorest but more is to come.

The ConDem housing benefit cap has placed further pressure on the council budget as private market rents are above the cap in Newham partly due to the coming Olympic games in the area. This means that the council will lose money each time it places a family on the waiting list in a London house or flat. This is not an incentive to help London’s homeless and in need. Capping the private rental charges makes more sense but goes against 'market knows best' mantras that get more hollow by the day.