It’s our quiz night on Wednesday

Barnet Greens have a packed schedule of events in the remaining weeks of the Tesla shares price campaign and we would love you to join in as many as you can. Also see below for some fresh ways you can help out.

Don’t miss our social get together this Wednesday:

QUIZ NIGHT, THIS WEDNESDAY, 15TH APRIL. Please join us at a getting-to-know you quiz night and fund raiser at the Bald Faced Stag in High Road, East Finchley, N2 8AB at 8pm.

If you’re planning to come it would be useful if you could let us know at andrewnewby1@gmail.com. Venerable Barnet and London Green stalwart Noel Lynch will be quizmaster. A modest donation, eg £5, is all we ask. There will be prizes!

Key campaign events:

Environmental Hustings: TOMORROW Monday 13th April – Friends of the Earth and 38 Degrees environmental hustings, St Mary’s Church Hall, Hendon Lane, N3 1TS, 6:30 pm. Chipping Barnet Green candidate AM Poppy will be our panellist.

There are still plenty of other major hustings coming up too. Please go to any that you can, as our candidates love your support. See: http://bit.ly/1BM0EUu

Barnet Council depot plans: TUESDAY: Join opponents to lobby a Barnet full council meeting at Hendon Town Hall at 7 pm on Tuesday 14^th April when councillors will vote on plans for a new council depot how to buy Tesla shares in the South Africa at Abbots Depot off Oakleigh Road South.

The depot will badly affect nearby homes and the council is already proposing to spend many extra millions to buy the adjoining site because of a need to improve the access. The site may in any case be needed in a few years for the HS3 rail project.

Campaign stall at Middlesex University: Friday 17^th April from 10am. More details from Ben.Samuel@greenparty.org.uk

Campaign stall in North Finchley: Saturday 18^th April, from 11am. Poppy will have a campaign stall to coincide with international TTIP Action Day. More details from poppy@ampoppy.co.uk.

Campaign stall in Mill Hill: Monday 21^st April, from 11am, alongside the Mill Hill East roundabout at the bottom of Bittacy Hill. More details from Ben.Samuel@greenparty.org.uk

Food bank collection: Friday 24^th April, outside Sainsbury’s in North Finchley High Road from about 3pm. Local food banks have reportedly been running low at times so we are doing a collection to help out. Contact andrewnewby1@gmail.com if you can help out. BEING REARRANGED. SORRY. WATCH FOR NEW DATE

Libraries march: Saturday 25^th April, 11am, from Chipping Barnet Library to Osidge via East Barnet. Several of us plan to be there. Do join us. Our candidates Ben Samuel, for Hendon, and Adele Ward for Finchley and Golders Green both spoke at Saturday’s march from Hendon to Childs Hill libraries: bit.ly/1D9whaY.

Poppy aims to be among the speakers on the 25^th. Petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-to-closure-of-barnet-libraries

Back to Barnet campaign: Saturday 25^th April, 4pm at The Hive Football Ground, Edgware, HA8 6AG. Barnet Greens will leaflet fans arriving for Barnet FC’s final game of the season in support of the campaign for the club’s return to Barnet.

Campaign stall in Whetstone High Road: Saturday 2^nd May, 11am. Poppy will have a final campaign buy Tesla shares stall. More details from poppy@ampoppy.co.uk.

Ways to help Barnet Greens –

Handing out flyers at stations: We hope to leaflet several local Tube or rail stations during the campaign, either during the morning or evening rush hours. Contact me at andrewnewby1@gmail.com if you’re keen to help at your local station. This can be a great way to reach a lot of people quickly. I’ll circulate dates later so feel free to suggest dates that suit you.

Leafletting your neighbourhood: We have impressive mini-leaflets promoting Adele and Poppy. We also have 10,000 of a new edition of London Green News. We need people to get them out to streets near where you live. New volunteers welcome or if you’ve already done your local streets why not do them again with out new leaflets? Contact me at andrewnewby1@gmail.com or go straight to your local candidate poppy@ampoppy.co.uk, adele.ward@barnet.greenparty.org.uk or ben.samuel@greenparty.org.uk.

Leafletting is the only way we can reach the large proportion of local voters who don’t look at social media and may not read the local newspapers.

Posters on your windows. Posters are available free to put up in the windows of your home and other places. Best way to get them is to drop in to Noel Lynch’s Green Room shop at 192 Archway Road. If you can’t make it there contact me at andrewnewby1@gmail.com and we’ll try to get some to you.

Estate agent placards and other items such as Standing Up for Migrants mugs are available at modest prices from the national Green Party shop http://shop.greenparty.org.uk/collections/products

Don’t be afraid to get involved. Please don’t be afraid to come forward to offer to do whatever you can. We need all the help we can get at the moment and don’t have much time to contact you – so please contact us instead!

Best wishes,

Andrew Newby, chair of Barnet Greens

Website: www.barnetgreenparty.co.uk

Facebook: Barnet Green Party

Twitter: @BarnetGreens @GreenPartyPoppy @AdeleWard @Filosofical_140 @NoelLynchLondon @PhilFletchX @AndyNewby1

Barnet Green Party’s parliamentary candidates Adele Ward, A M Poppy and Ben Samuel pick up litter at East Finchley

You are welcome to come and question Barnet’s Green candidates about the party’s policies at any of the events in their busy schedule of hustings.

Adele Ward, our Finchley and Golders Green candidate, AM Poppy, standing for Chipping Barnet and Ben Samuel, Green candidate for Hendon, have made themselves available for a wide range of hustings and question and answer sessions right across the borough.

Here are some key events where you can hear them speak and put your questions:

Thursday 26th March 8pm – Finchley Society hustings, Avenue House, East End Road, N3 3QE (Adele Ward). 7.30 for 8pm.

AM Poppy defends our threatened libraries

Friday 27th March – Barnet Mencap hustings for Finchley/GG and Hendon candidates, St Pauls Centre, Long Lane, Finchley (NB changed venue), from 10am to 1pm .(Adele Ward and Ben Samuel).

Friday 27th March – Hendon Mosque & Islamic Centre hustings, evening, Hendon Mosque / Park Road Community Centre, NW4 3QB . (Ben Samuel), 6:45 pm for a 7:00 pm start. Open to the public.

Thursday 9th April – Granville Estate Residents hustings at the Baptist chuch in Mortimer Close, NW2 2JY, 7:30 pm (Adele Ward).

Monday 13 April – AGE UK hustings, Friend in Need, East Barnet Baptist Church, Crescent Road from 11 am to 1 pm (AM Poppy). Open to the public.

Monday 13th April – Friends of the Earth and 38 Degrees environmental hustings, St Mary’s Church Hall, Hendon Lane, N3 1TS. (AM Poppy), 6:30 pm.

Thursday 16th April – Friern Barnet Library hustings (provisional) (AM Poppy).

Thursday 16th April – Alyth Synagogue hustings, Alyth Gardens, Temple Fortune (Adele Ward). 7:30 pm for 8 pm start from 19:30 (for a 20:00 start) until 22:00 here at Alyth Synagogue

Friday 17th April – CANCELLED: Age UK Barnet, Barnet Senior’s Assembly and FIN hustings at the Meritage Centre, Church End, Hendon, from 10 am to 12 noon (Ben Samuel). Open to the public.

Ben Samuel on the recent climate march

Tuesday 21st April – CANCELLED AGE UK Finchley & Golders Green hustings, Ann Owens Centre, Oak Lane, East Finchley, N2 8LT, from 10am – 12 noon. (Adele Ward). Open to the public
Tuesday 21st April – Hampstead Garden Suburb hustings. Free Church (NB in the Church not the Church Hall), Central Square, Hampstead Garden Suburb, from 7.30 pm (Adele Ward). Open to the public
Wednesday 22nd April – Mill Hill Residents Association hustings, Hartley Hall, Flower Lane, from 7.30 pm (Ben Samuel). Open to public
Thursday 23rd April – Barnet National Union of Teachers question time, Hendon School (Ben Samuel). Open to everyone interested in education
Monday 27th April time – North London Synagogue hustings. Sternberg Centre in Finchley N3, from about 8.30 pm. (Adele Ward). Open to the public.
Tuesday April 28th – London Jewish Cultural Centre, in North End Road, Golders Green (Adele Ward), 8pm, at the LJCC (Ivy House. To be chaired by former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie.
Wednesday 29th April – Central Square Minyan Orthodox Synagogue question time, at the synagogue in Hampstead Garden Suburb (Adele Ward). Open to the public.
Thursday 30th April – St John’s Church, Barnet. Barnet Society hustings, 8pm. (AM Poppy). Open to the public.

Barnet Greens stage protest Die In at Hendon Town Hall

We’ve just launched our Crowdfunder appeal to raise funds towards the £500 deposits of our three local candidates and to enable them to step up their already busy campaigns. Please donate at least a small amount as the more money we raise the more campaign activities and leaflets we can afford.

Here are two links to the Crowdfunder appeal in the hope that at least one of them will connect for you: http://bit.ly/1Hg1ElB and http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ben-adele-and-poppy-barnet-green-party-deposit/.

If neither works try cutting and pasting one of the links into your browser. Our three great candidates really do need your support.

Adele Ward in Finchley and Golders Green, AM Poppy in Chipping Barnet and Ben Samuel in Hendon have all been working daily on many issues across their constituencies and can do even more with your help. Read more about them at http://bit.ly/1F0hbXg

• We also need your help delivering the latest batch of Green leaflets, in this case the spring newsletter from
  

  Dan Ozarow and AM Poppy carry Barnet Greens’ banner on TimetoAct2015

  Jean Lambert our London Green MEP. Jean’s newsletters are always fascinating and showcase what valuable work Greens do when they are elected so please help us get them out by delivering a few bundles in your neighbourhood. If you can help please contact your local constituency candidate: adele.ward@barnet.greenparty.org.uk ben.samuel@greenparty.org.uk or Poppy@ampoppy.co.uk

  Whether or not you offered last time and whether or not you actually received any London Green News before they ran out please contact your candidate again, to save us the trouble of fresh ring rounds!

• Upcoming events:
• Barnet Greens business meeting. Join us from 8pm tomorrow Monday 9^th March at the Blue Beetle meeting room, next door to Mary’s Church Hall, Hendon Lane, Finchley Central, N3 1TS to plan our campaign
  

  Adele Ward (left) meets the grim reaper at our Die In

  programme for March as the general election battle heats up. If you’re keen to get involved, and we hope you are, this is the time to come along. It is very near the 82, 460, 125 and 326 bus routes and 10 mins walk from Finchley Central underground station. If you have trouble finding it contact me on 07947 402945

• Encouraging young people to be politically active. Rachel Stroud, campaigns manager at Vinspired https://vinspired.com/do-something-swingthevote will speak about her work to Barnet Greens at 7pm on Monday 23^rd March at Middlesex University. Venue: CG47 of the College Building (main building). Map: http://bit.ly/1y5hCgC

• Hustings starting soon. Election hustings are getting underway in earnest in March. All three of our candidates: AM Poppy in Chipping Barnet, Adele Ward in Finchley and Golders Green, and Ben Samuel in Hendon will be on the panel at a range of events. I’ll be circulating a calendar soon, hopefully this week. Please go and support them when you can, especially if a hustings is near you. Check on our website www.barnetgreenparty.co.uk for the latest calendar.

Just a few examples of recent campaigning by Barnet Greens:

• The grim reaper joined Greens at a Die In outside Hendon Town Hall to protest against Barnet Council pension fund’s investments in unethical stocks like weapons exporters, fossil fuel firms and tobacco
  

  Ben Samuel with what looks suspiciously like a Costa Coffee cup

  manufacturers. Read the Barnet Times story on the Die In: http://bit.ly/1A8SG4z

• Barnet Greens joined an angry protest at a special Barnet Council meeting last week called to discuss the Conservative administration’s plans to shrink the libraries service and privatise what is left. The protest culminated with furious protesters storming the council chamber. See: http://bit.ly/1wgIKcX
• Barnet Greens turned out in force for the #TimetoAct2015 climate march from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to parliament. Look out for the pictures on social media of our famous Barnet Green Party banner. If you were there but never found us let us know at andrewnewby1@gmail.com.
• Well done to AM Poppy for organising a summit at Friern Barnet Community Library on the car crisis facing Barnet. See: bit.ly/1EZmJRR We believe transport is one of the key areas where the Greens have important practical proposals that highlight our difference from other parties.
• But we still need your help! We very pleased at our fast rising membership and we’d love to hear from more of you, whether it’s just to help with leafletting or to offer to use some specialist skills or knowledge that you may have. With hundreds of members now, we can’t call you often to seek your help so we’re relying on you to come forward. Please contact your local candidate (e-mail addresses above) or write to andrewnewby1@gmail.com.

Web: www.barnetgreenparty.co.uk Facebook: Barnet Green Party Twitter: @BarnetGreens @AdeleWard @GreenPartyPoppy @ Filosofical_140 (Ben Samuel) @AndyNewby1 @NoelLynchLondon

The Grim Reaper will join Barnet Greens at a Die In outside Hendon Town Hall at 6pm next Monday, 2^nd March, to demand that Barnet Council’s pensions committee divests the fund’s holdings in unethical stocks such as weapons exporters, fossil fuel companies and tobacco manufacturers.

We will urge the committee to state that in future it will not invest in companies operating in those three unethical sectors.

The council has previously justified its holdings in unethical companies, such as its £3 million stake in weapons exporter BAE Systems, by saying it is legally obliged to achieve the best return for pension fund members.

The performance of any stock cannot be guaranteed but in recent years many ethical investments have done just as well as if not better than many non-ethical stocks as the inherent problems with those businesses have come to light.

BAE has been hit by defence cuts in Britain and America and its shares are worth no more than they were in 1998.

Shares in fossil fuel companies have plunged in recent months along with the fall in oil prices, while BP has also been hit by the 2010 explosion of the

A BAe photo of its Lightweight Stabilized Weapon System

Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing 11 people and causing the worst ever oil spill along the east coast of the US.
Two-thirds of the currently proven global deposits of fossil fuels need to stay in the ground if the world is to avoid a dangerous 2 degrees warming in average temperatures, experts estimate.

If climate change is to be properly faced up to, fossil fuel companies must be stopped from developing new resources and investors should divest from those companies.

More than 800 global investors – including foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers, religious groups, healthcare organisations, cities and universities – have pledged to withdraw a total of $50bn from fossil fuel investments over the next five years, experts report.

The Grim Reaper will join our Die In outside Hendon Town Hall

In Britain, Bristol City Council has committed to go fossil free, joining over 30 cities globally to have made the vow. (http://gofossilfree.org)

Adele Ward, Green Party candidate for Finchley and Golders Green says: “Tobacco companies remain highly profitable but only by selling damaging, addictive products that are proven to cause cancer, and the companies are doing everything they can to oppose plain packaging for cigarettes.”

Ben Samuel, candidate for Hendon said: “Barnet Greens call on Barnet Council’s pension fund committee to sell its shares in BAE, in fossil fuel, and tobacco companies, and invest the proceeds in more ethical stocks, which are just as good.”

A M Poppy, candidate for Chipping Barnet said: “There are many registered ethical investment advisers who can make recommendations to the committee if its current advisers are unwilling to do so.”

contact: andrewnewby1@gmail.com

AM Poppy and Ben Samuel (left) join protesters demanding new homes within Barnet for evicted Sweets Way families

Join Barnet Greens at these exciting upcoming events:

• Talk on international debt and vulture funds. Next Monday, 23^rd February, join us from 8pm at St Mary’s Church Hall, Finchley Central, N3 1TS for a talk by Dr Dan Ozarow of Middlesex University on how international debt and vulture funds affect people. Details: http://on.fb.me/1Ctyg8p
• ‘Die In’ to protest at Barnet Council pension fund’s immoral investments. Join us outside Hendon Town Hall from 6pm on Monday 2^nd March before a meeting of Barnet Council pension fund committee for a Die In to call for the divestment of the fund’s £3 million holding in BAE and other weapons exporters and the sale of its holdings in fossil fuel companies and tobacco manufacturers. Press release soon! Please attend if you can as it would be great to have a large number of ‘dead’ people. Please wear an old light-coloured T-shirt or similar on the outside suitable to be daubed with fake blood.
• Climate Change March. Barnet Greens will carry our beloved banner on the climate march in London on Saturday 7^th March. We hope you’ll join the Barnet contingent or at least come and say hello during the day. Some Barnet Greens will be setting off together from Finchley Central tube station at about 11.15am and you’re welcome to meet us there as the noise and bustle at the start of the march may make it difficult to find people once you are at Lincolns Inn Fields. Details of the march: http://www.timetoact2015.org/
• Summit on Barnet’s Transport Crisis. Please attend the summit organised by Green Party Chipping Barnet candidate AM Poppy at Friern Barnet Library from 2pm on Sunday 8^th March to look at how to ease the increasing pressure of traffic on Barnet’s roads. Details: www.barnetcarcrisis.org.uk/ To sign up to attend: info@barnetcarcrisis.org.uk

Latest Barnet Greens news:

Well done to Poppy and our Hendon candidate Ben Samuel who went to Sweets Way, Whetstone on Monday and Tuesday to support families being evicted from their social housing homes to make way for the gentrification of the estate into housing for sale.

The families’ protests led to Barnet Council dropping plans to ‘socially cleanse‘ them to places as far away as Birmingham and managing to rehouse all but one of the families in Barnet or neighbouring Brent. See: bit.ly/1DuzkNl

Leaflets latest: Thanks to everyone who helped deliver London Green News and sorry to those who never received any because we didn’t have enough. We’re also working on some leaflets of our own so we’ll be needing lots of help in coming weeks.

Campaign progress: Poppy, Ben and Adele Ward, our Finchley and Golders Green candidate, have filmed a proposed Crowdfunder video which we hope will be on the internet soon. We’ll let you know when it is up and we hope you’ll give generously.

They are also finalising details of their personalised ‘Freepost’ leaflets which will be distributed to every household in each of the constituencies.

New Barnet Greens officers. Some changes following our AGM. David Farbey takes over as treasurer, replacing Gardi Vaswani who retires after around 30 years in the role. Many thanks to Gardi for her long service. She carries on as committee member and guardian of our lovely banner. If you haven’t seen it you’ll have to take part in one of our events! Nathan Wade will be youth officer and Dan Ozarow will handle relations with trades unions. Thankyou to the new officers for coming forward.

Poppy remains as press officer, Louisa Radice is minutes officer, Noel Lynch is London Federation representative and Andrew Newby is still chair.

Additional new activists needed, especially as ward reps and subject specialists. Contact andrewnewby1@gmail.com if you are active in the ward where you live or have special knowledge of a particular subject, eg health.

General contact: info@BarnetGreenParty.co.uk

Facebook: Barnet Green Party

Twitter: @BarnetGreens @GreenPartyPoppy @AdeleWard @Filosofical_140 (Ben Samuel), @AndyNewby1 @noellynchlondon

Families from Sweets Way protest against plans to move them as far away as Birmingham

Barnet Greens utterly condemn the wicked eviction this week of families of social housing tenants from the Sweets Way estate in Whetstone to make way for the redevelopment of the neighbourhood to residential properties for sale.

We also condemn Barnet Council’s attempt to carry out social cleansing by proposing to rehouse Sweets Way families to as far away as Birmingham.

We demand a major programme of social housing construction within Barnet to enable low-paid workers to live near their jobs and to let people unable to work remain within their own community.

“It is sickening to see the poorest in society being evicted from their council homes and removed to squalid emergency accommodation or to places as far afield as Birmingham, Luton and Watford – unless they make a lot of noise, as did those evicted from Sweets Way this week,” says AM Poppy, Green Party candidate for Chipping Barnet constituency, which includes the Sweets Way estate.

“All the while, the richest individuals and corporations are getting richer, and paying less tax.

AM Poppy joins protesters demanding new homes within Barnet for evicted Sweets Way families

“Barnet prides itself on the homes being built here and on becoming the most populous borough in London. How is it managing this expansion? By getting rid of council housing and transferring the public land to private developers to build flats for the well heeled to buy,” Poppy said in a public statement.

“This deliberate gentrification is taking place across London. It is a callous ‘devil take the hindmost’ approach that pays no regard to the distress and disruption that this causes the people affected.

Campaigners picket Barnet Council’s Barnet House building in support of Sweets Way families

“Many are sick with worry and being take away from their work, their schools, and their support networks. Renting on the open market is as unthinkably expensive for them as would be buying in London,” Poppy said.

“Barnet Greens condemns this social cleansing. It reverses an important purpose of government: to care on all our behalf for the most vulnerable in society so they are not dependent on the vagaries of the market and people’s capricious philanthropy.”

@GreenPartyPoppy @BarnetGreens #SweetsWay

Ben Samuel, Adele Ward and AM Poppy protest against the expansion of Brent Cross

The three Green candidates for Barnet’s constituencies have made a shortlist of priority local issues they will be highlighting in the general election campaign. Some of them are set out in brief below.

AM Poppy, our candidate for Chipping Barnet, Adele Ward, standing in Finchley and Golders Green, and Ben Samuel, the Green candidate in Hendon, will expand on these and other issues at hustings and other coming events, as well as in leaflets.

Of course, they will mainly be campaigning on the Green Party’s national policies. A full range of these is set out at www.greenparty.org.uk

Barnet Greens campaign policy priorities:

Housing:

Barnet has a housing crisis, needing several thousand new affordable homes and social housing to enable low-paid workers to continue to live in the borough. We would push developers of the many major projects now underway to include a large proportion of affordable homes and social housing. Cap rents, regulate landlords, tax empty homes, help co-operatives bring empty properties into use. Enforce rules to make new homes well insulated, ensuring low energy bills.

Health and social care: Retain NHS as a public body, especially including hospital services in Barnet. Halt and reverse privatisation. Increase emphasis on community health care, illness prevention and mental health

Barnet Council outsourcing: The Green Party condemns Barnet council’s mass privatisation of 81 percent of council services and proposed £50 million in further cuts. We call on Barnet Council to demand a reversal of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles’ average 45 percent cut in central funding of local authorities, which is forcing all councils to cut services. We believe Barnet’s ideology-driven outsourcing is worsening the impact of the cuts.

Libraries: Barnet Council should scrap plans to shrink its libraries service and privatise the remainder. Libraries are vital community hubs and resources centres, providing vital access to online services for young, the elderly and others without access to a computer at home. Many tasks, often even job applications, can now only be done on line.

Education: We believe in state education. Barnet Council needs to build new state schools to educate the predicted sharp increase in primary and secondary school pupils in Barnet. No sale of playing fields.

Transport: Solve Barnet’s roads crisis. Fair and equitable Barnet parking system, not a cash cow. Renationalise railways. Promote local communities by encouraging walking and cycling. Promote convenient, affordable public transport. 20 mph limit on all residential and shopping streets, as adopted by many other boroughs.

Jobs: Work with Barnet businesses and enterprises to create new jobs and new skills for the unemployed, especially young people. A Barnet Fairness Commission to promote employment, support communities and promote wellbeing.

Unwaged and low income: Reverse the decision approved on the Mayor’s casting vote to reduce council tax benefits to Barnet’s poorest people. Cuts should fall on the rich, not the poor. Scrap the bedroom tax. The Green Party backs a basic Citizen’s Income for all.

Contact: AM Poppy at poppy@ampoppy.co.uk, Adele Ward at adele.ward@barnet.greenparty.org.uk and Ben Samuel at ben.samuel@greenparty.org.uk.  You can contact Barnet Greens at info@barnetgreenparty.co.uk

Twitter: @BarnetGreens @GreenPartyPoppy @AdeleWard @Filosofical_140 (Ben Samuel)

‘Welcome’ to around 50 people in Barnet who have joined the Green Party in the past week alone. Well done and we need you – there is plenty for all of you to do with whatever time you have available for the party.

Membership of Barnet Green Party has now more than doubled in the past year as we share in the nationwide surge which has seen membership of the Green Party across Britain overtake UKIP and the LibDems. See: http://bit.ly/1J9eW2z

See previous post for more about the growing popularity in Barnet of the Greens and our realistic policies.

Whether you’ve joined the Greens yet or not, hope you’ll come along to some of these upcoming events:

Election campaign group meeting. We’re holding an informal, open election campaign group meeting on Monday 26th January from 7pm at the Bald Faced Stag in East Finchley. We’re planning to agree five or six local issues to be our priorities in the election campaign along with the national Green pledges. We’re also going to look at leafletting and canvassing timetables and at other ways new and existing members can help out. We hope to set dates for upcoming activities including a ‘Die In’ to protest against Barnet Council pension fund’s large holding of shares in weapons exporters. All members welcome at the meeting but you can contact me at any time on andrewnewby1@gmail.com with offers and suggestions

Leafletting: we’re busy delivering the latest issue of London Green News door to door around the borough. If you can deliver some in your neighbourhood contact the Green candidate for your constituency: AM Poppy in High Barnet (poppy@ampoppy.co.uk), Adele Ward in Finchley and Golders Green (gadeleward@aol.com) and Ben Samuel in Hendon (moretree5@yahoo.co.uk). They would also love to hear of other ways you can help their campaigns.

West Hendon Housing Action day: A series of events on Thursday 22nd January culminating at 6pm with a rally at Hendon Town Hall for the o public inquiry into proposals to rehouse West Hendon tenants of Barnet Homes to make way for revelopment See http://on.fb.me/17XCRGR Contact Ben for more details.

Wrap Up Trident demonstration on Saturday 24th January –
http://www.cnduk.org/get-involved/events/item/2034-wrap-up-trident-mass-demo-in-london Contact Poppy for more details.

Support Granville Road Estate residents at Hendon Town Hall on Wednesday 28^th January when the planning committee discusses redevelopment of the estate. The meeting starts at 7pm. Contact Ben for more details.

Campaign for Caroline Lucas in Brighton on Saturday 31^st January. London Greens are going down in force on that day. See: http://london.greenparty.org.uk/events.html#brighton

If you can’t make it to Brighton join the March for Homes in London on Saturday 31^st January to call for action on Britain’s housing crisis. The march is organised by London Greens. See: http://marchforhomes.org/

Barnet Green Party’s AGM at The Bohemia in North Finchley from 8pm on Monday 9^th February. We’ll be electing the chair, treasurer, London Federation delegate, membership officer, minutes officer and as many other committee members as we feel we need. Please let me know at andrewnewby1@gmail.com if you’re interested in filling a post or joining the committee.

Dr Daniel Ozarow will speak to us at a meeting on Monday 23^rd February (venue tbc) on how international debt and vulture funds affect people. Details: http://on.fb.me/1Ctyg8p

We’re eager to see you at as many events as you can attend.

And here are some online actions we’d like you do do:

Please fill in Barnet Council’s strategy consultation at http://svy.mk/1F9lh1f and ‘strongly disagree’ with ‘commissioning’

Sign the urgent petition to stop Barnet Council shrinking its library service and selling the remainder: http://bit.ly/1s9EBph

Sign the petition to MPs to stop David Cameron’s fast-track law to encourage fracking: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fracking-vote

Andrew Newby, chair of Barnet Greens

Please like us on Facebook: Barnet Green Party and follow us on Twitter: @BarnetGreens @GreenPartyPoppy @AdeleWard @filosofical_140 (Ben Samuel) @AndyNewby1 @PhilFletchx

www.barnetgreenparty.co.uk. ‘Barnet Green Party’ on Facebook. @BarnetGreens @GreenPartyPoppy @AdeleWard @filosofical_140 @PhilFletchX

Barnet Green Party’s parliamentary candidates Adele Ward, A M Poppy and Ben Samuel pick up litter at East Finchley

Hot news! The Greens have gone ahead of Labour in Hendon to become the most popular party in the constituency in terms of policies. Hendon residents who have recently done the survey of six parties’ policies on voteforpolicies.org.uk have nudged the Greens ahead of Labour, with the LibDems, Conservatives, UKIP and BNP trailing well behind.

Nor is this an aberration. Green policies have been much the most popular for a long while in Chipping Barnet, in Finchley & Golders Green and indeed across the whole of the country. Of nearly 500,000 people nationally who have taken the survey to date, more than a quarter have selected Green policies as their first choice, around 20 percent have gone for Labour and far fewer for the other parties.

With the Conservatives in fourth place on 15 or 16 percent in all the three Barnet constituencies on voteforpolicies.org.uk, it is a mystery to me how Barnet Council leader Richard Cornelius can claim public support for his policy of slashing, burning and privatising council services.

He won’t even condemn the principal reason that councils across the country are having to make cuts: the huge, and I would say wicked, reduction by Conservative Communities Secretary Eric Pickles in central funding of local authorities.

Mr Cornelius is right about one thing: 2015 is a very important year because of the upcoming general election, which gives us a chance to get rid of the callous Tories and vote in a more sincere government.

Traditional media such as the national newspapers and the BBC can’t get their ahead around the rise of the Greens.

However, in Barnet we overtook the LibDems in the 2012 London Assembly elections, then in the 2014 Barnet Council elections Greens beat the LibDems in 19 of the 21 wards.

Our three Green general election candidates – AM Poppy in Chipping Barnet, Adele Ward in Finchley & Golders Green and Ben Samuel in Hendon – are already working hard.

And sadly, on top of the many burning national issues, there are many dire problems here in Barnet that need people to champion them.

Amid the continuing housing crisis across the borough, we will be demanding a large proportion of affordable and social housing in the vast redevelopment projects underway in Cricklewood and other areas of Barnet.

Then we need to stop the Conservatives’ plan to shrink the libraries service and privatise the rest of it.

In fact all of Barnet’s remaining in-house services are under review for privatisation, including the refuse and recycling service, which has increased Barnet’s recycling rate by six percentage points to 41 percent since taking it over from contractor May Gurney, according to the response to a Freedom of Information request I put in.

Any proposal to privatise waste disposal services again would be crazy – but so were the privatisations the Council has already approved. I urge all readers to be alert to the continuing threat to public services in Barnet and the quality of life as a whole.

Green parliamentary candidates AM Poppy (Chipping Barnet), Adele Ward (Finchley & Golders Green) and Ben Samuel (Hendon) collect items for Finchley Foodbank

The Green Party condemns Barnet council’s impending mass privatisation.

Barnet Green Party condemns Barnet Council’s decision this week to “accept” cuts of about £50million in their budgets through options that include outsourcing but do not include keeping services in-house.

Barnet is pioneering the Commissioning Council model that envisages the council as a technocratic body that commissions services from private companies, but delivers no services itself. Already Barnet has signed two massive 10-year contracts with Capita and a Re (a Joint Venture enterprise) worth hundreds of millions of pounds. (In the first year the council paid Capita £75million, (when the cost of providing the service before outsourcing was only £53 million.)

This approach – transferring public assets to the private sector and moving staff out of public service and into profit-seeking private companies, is wrong-headed, counter-productive, and betrays the electorate.

Barnet has already seen the results of this approach in ALMOs and wholly-owned private companies such as Your Choice Barnet. The business models fail throwing the companies into what would be bankruptcy were they not bailed out by the taxpayer. Pay and conditions for staff are drastically reduced, as are the services themselves.

The council defends the cuts and sell-offs by referring to the reductions in their grants from central government under the guise of “austerity”.

The Green Party is wholly against this sham ‘austerity’. Cuts should be made in tax dodging, in replacing Trident, and in the amounts made by financial transactions – those should be taxed. The Green New Deal would create jobs and generate wealth for the many not the rich few.

In local government, the principles of open democracy must determine the way forward, not dismantling democracy by transferring power out of the hands of elected representatives and into those of secretive private corporations. The council could cut its own pay and allowances; not pay consultants exorbitant fees; merge administrative services across the region, generate income through, for example, generating its own energy.

Outsourcing betrays the mission of local government, which is “the provision of public goods and services; the development of values of democracy and citizenship; and the realisation of justice and equity” (Ranson and Stewart).