Responses

From Kevin Warnes, Chair, Bradford District Green Party, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Shipley

I am arguing very strongly in these elections that we do not have to accept the ‘austerity’ plans of the three main parties. In my view, we are driving levels of government spending as a proportion of GDP in this country down to dangerously low levels. Our government spending is currently 39% of GDP, and the government is determined to reduce this further in the next parliament. In contrast, German government spending is 45% of GDP and many of our northern European neighbours do not tolerate the kind of low levels of investment in our public services that we have experienced in recent years. Danish government spending actually represents about 58% of its GDP, which accounts for the higher quality of Danish public services compared to our own.

As I explained in Wrose on Wednesday, we get what we pay for in our society. Our housing, energy, transport and financial/banking markets are not working properly and it is vital that the government ensures that these critical parts of our economy are properly managed. Our education and health budgets are under strain as well, not to mention that way in which the education and health reforms since 2010 have fragmented these sectors and made it more difficult for us to manage public provision of these services. Every day, private companies cream off £16 million from the NHS and this is set to grow significantly in the years ahead unless the 2012 Health and Social Care Act is repealed.

The Green Party is committed to a government that makes decisions with the ‘common good’ in mind and does not pander shamelessly to corporate interests. We also, by the way, believe that establishing a sustainable economy that lives within our means is the best way of securing the business interests of our country for the longer term – why, for example, are we allowing the Germans, Chinese and Americans to dominate world renewable energy technology markets instead of investing in hundreds of thousands of green jobs here in the UK?

We need radical, progressive politics in this country, and I do not think that any of the three main parties will deliver this. Instead, another one of their governments will leave us with nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations, a growing and subsidised fracking industry, continued energy insecurity, a rising national carbon footprint, privatised railways, fragmented health and education provision, underfunded social care, cold homes and fuel poverty, a housing shortage, huge levels of student debt, food banks, congested road, dangerous air pollution and skies filled with subsidised flights. And much more besides.

That is not a government I can support.

Very best wishes,

Kevin Warnes

We also wrote to the local paper the Telegraph and Argus.

First published Monday 16 March 2015

SIR – For the last two years Viva! Bradford has been discussing Latin American countries that have avoided austerity during the global finance meltdown. It would seem like a dream if it weren’t for their success.

In spite of their poverty compared to the UK, Cuba has spent twice as much of its GDP as the UK on education. And it was able to send more doctors to Sierra Leone to work on Ebola cases than any other country.

Unemployment in Britain has been well over 5% since 2010. In Ecuador, despite refusing to drill for oil in Amazonian reserves, unemployment has remained under 5%.

The UK government spent £88 billion to promote “outsourcing”, leading to lower wages and loss of pension rights, while in Venezuela outsourcing is illegal, to protect social benefits.

And Latin America spends nothing on nuclear weapons and their development, which in the UK in one year could pay every nurse an extra £1,000 a year, and put £1,000 into every classroom in Britain, not just for that year but for a further 25 years.

Which of our parliamentary candidates from which parties is willing to say that these things should also happen here in Britain?

Ludi Simpson, Chairman, Viva! Bradford, Avondale Crescent, Shipley

And the Green candidate for Bradford West replied:

First published Wednesday 18 March 2015

SIR - In response to Mr Simpson of Viva! Bradford (Letters, March 16) outlining the successes of Latin America in avoiding austerity I would like to state that I, as Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Bradford West, am willing to say that we, as Greens, on election would; scrap Trident and any nuclear weapon replacement; end outsourcing in our NHS; invigorate the renewable energy market to create jobs and decentralise education to allow schools to respond to local needs.

The Bradford District Green Party is fielding candidates in all Bradford constituencies for the general election on May 7 and has seen an impressive increase in membership in recent months. I would invite Viva! Bradford and any other like-minded organisations to join us at 10am on March 28th to launch our general election campaign in Centenary Square.

Celia Hickson, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Bradford West