promises promises

So. People are saying that Labour might reintroduce weekly rubbish collections. It's certainly true that promises were made during the election campaign. But it's hard to see how they could justify the expense, or defend weekly collection in some parts of the city and not in others.

What's often forgotten in the increasingly hysterical press coverage of rubbish and recycling is how well the new collection schemes can work, and how quickly people have adapted to them. First thing in the morning on rubbish collection days, I marvel at people's fastidiously arranged recycling bins and neatly stacked piles of cereal boxes. Incredible as it may seem, what other Europeans have been managing for years is not beyond us either.

But of course, in Daily Mail land, RECYCLING WORKS is about as attractive a headline as WOMAN SUCCESSFULLY COMBINES WORK AND FAMILY or SICK MAN GOES TO HOSPITAL: GETS BETTER.

Ray stopped play

So now the Tories support academies too. Let's not dwell on the exquisite irony of David Willetts pleading that "academic selection entrenches advantage". Surely, chorus the Tory faithful, that's the whole point of grammar schools? How far Cameron can drag the party with him is one of the few interesting questions left in national politics.

What's maybe more pertinent here is how this will play out closer to home. There's much debate about whether academies really do raise academic achievement. The disadvantages of taking control over children's education out of public control are certainly well rehearsed. But the effect on the broader local community rarely gets discussed.

The City Academy in Bristol - formerly St. George Community College - was the first academy in the South West. As a flagship project, it's got tonnes of positive press coverage, not a little government spin, and a visit from David Beckham. The headteacher, Ray Priest, is by all accounts a fine and inspirational man, although why he couldn't be equally inspiring within the state sector has never been fully explained.

The Academy opened in 2003 and quickly found itself in dispute with sections of the local community over the use of Packer's Field, a local green space. Originally used by the workers of the Packer's chocolate factory, it was sold to the city council in the 1930s, with the proviso that it should be used for the recreation of local people. In 2002, however, Bristol City Council handed the field to the newly fledged City Academy on a 99 year lease.

To cut a long story short, the Packer's Field proposals divided the local community down the middle. A consultation in 2003 saw 58% in favour of the plans and 42% against. Those in favour pointed to the problems with drug dealing and dog mess - that constant of local government - and the fact that the plans would give local primary schools access to the field. Those against wanted to see the field given town green status, and open access preserved.

Unsurprisingly, the City Academy won the day, and was given permission to go ahead with the developments, subject to a Community Use Agreement, which would give locals access to the field.

Since then, progress has been slow. The field has languished as a wet and muddy morass for much of the intervening period. The contractors given the job of remodelling this space went bankrupt. Not only were the large lakes in the inadequately fenced field a danger zone, the boundary with neighbouring Whitehall school was not properly maintained, creating a security hazard.

Work has now restarted, but a recent stroll around the field reveals that any child could easily squeeze through the gates. Standing water remains a problem, and a Community Use Agreement has not yet been finalised.

This tale of woe shows how divisive academies and related developments can be. Perhaps even more worryingly, it shows just how acrimonious such disputes can become. Opportunity for some can be loss for others. In inner city areas, with precious little green space, it's easy to understand how access for all vs. sports facilities for kids can become a zero sum game.

Such divisions are easily exploited. Once an academy is established, they become a disproportionately powerful player in local affairs. Unlike schools under local authority control, their governing bodies do not have to include representatives from the local community. In any case, a majority of governors can be appointed by the sponsor, giving them effective control.

We in the environmental movement are quick to see community and localism as the answer to almost everything (the Transition groups are a prime example of this). But we also need to recognise that locals can disagree vehemently, and that, even without an academy to stir things up, communities don't always want the same things.

Easton folkie Eirlys Rhiannon's song* about Packer's sums it up nicely:

"It's got so local's just a badge you wear
To show that you know how to care."

Rather than romanticising the "power of community", perhaps we need to start thinking about community competition too.

*(You can listen to it here.)

I snooze, you lose

To: sepp.blatter@fifa.com
From: Greengage
Subject: Something must be done

Dear Herr Blatter,

Even from your Alpine eyrie, it surely must be obvious just how boring so-called top-level football has become. We need not waste time thinking back to the negativity-fest of last year's World Cup. Saturday's FA Cup final and the ongoing snoozesome Champions League final should be enough to refresh our memories. Luckily, the valuable minutes and hours of my life spent watching overpaid primadonnas losing the ball in midfield have not been entirely in vain. I have formulated a plan to save world football, which I am prepared to share with you. For free. Contrary to my usual practice, no brown envelopes bulging with Swiss francs need change hands.

My plan is a simple one. Any cup match which ends in a draw should go to extra time. If, after extra time, the scoreline is still drawn, both teams should be eliminated from the competition. The result: positive, forward play and the sense that the match actually means something.

No need to thank me, virtue and innovation are their own reward.

Yours,

Greengage

P.S. I think it goes without saying that the group stage of the Champions League should be abolished forthwith.

Hodgeson's choice

Extraordinary article by Margaret Hodge in yesterday's Observer on council housing. With, one might venture, an eye to certain sections of her Barking consituency, she proposes that 'indigenous' families be given priority over immigrant families, even when their need is greater:

We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded, privately rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents.

We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.

So it seems that the concrete needs of the asthmatic immigrant children should take second place to the felt entitlement of the 'indigenous' family. Heartwarming. Where might this logic take us? Will the wheezing tots be denied inhalers on the basis of their recent arrival on our shores? Should 'native' children be given first choice of books from the school library?

In any case, as some of the comments on the article pointed out, it is based on a dishonest premise: that recently arrived economic migrants are taking up all available council housing. In fact, as a quick browse of Barking and Dagenham housing policy shows, there already considerable restrictions of the kind Hodge proposes. Those who are under immigration control, do not have a 'local connection' to the area, or are not 'habitually resident' in the UK are not presently eligible for council housing. One might think that a government minister would know better than to recycle tired old BNP propaganda, but then again, maybe not

Be Careful What You Wish For

In the absence of any grown-up behaviour from the mainstream parties, the Bristol Blogger has unveiled a cunning plan: plucky lone Green Charlie Bolton for Council Leader.

Now, the Blogger's been less than complimentary about us Greens in the past. But everybody's allowed to change their mind, and it's not hard to find reasons why the old curmudgeon might have come round to our way of thinking. Could it have been our radical 10 point manifesto for Bristol? Our snazzy dress sense? Or our wicked sense of humour?

No matter. Life's a journey, not a destination (as Aerosmith once sang), and we welcome all comers. Or, as LBJ put it rather more prosaically, 'It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.'

But I couldn't help but wonder whether the Blogger had really thought the consequences of his campaign through to their logical conclusion. Sure, a Bolton-led Bristol would a happier, greener, friendlier place, where Home Care would remain unprivatised, children would skip merrily to school munching on unusual varieties of apple, and City and Rovers would meet in the Champions League final every year.


But life's not just a bowl of locally grown cherries. What about the potential drawbacks of a Bolton administration?

• Southville to be rolled out across the city. The more observant will already have noticed this happening by stealth in parts of Bedminster and Windmill Hill. With Bolton in charge, no part of the city will be safe from affluent buggies and the £5 fried breakfast.

• All mentions of the Nazis to be expunged from the school history syllabus in favour of a thorough exploration of the life and works of Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno, leader of the original "Green Army".
  

• Car use to be eroded to the point where 'car lanes' are built to protect vehicles from the cycling hordes, and an annual Drive Your Car To Work Day has to be instituted to keep the quaint tradition alive.

Like Zinoviev and Kamenev, I'm experiencing some last minute jitters before the revolution. I hope I avoid sharing their fate.

local news values

Very interesting goings-on down at the Council House tonight.

The LibDems have lost control of the council, and Labour have refused to form a minority administration. This despite Helen Holland's pledge just a few days ago: 'We will not rest until this battle is won.' Labour's selfless struggle does not seem to involve actually taking charge of the city and sorting out the mess they created in the first place.

Not that you'd know from our local news hounds. The top story on bbc.co.uk/bristol/news and PointsWest is David Farr's criticism of the Old Vic closure, reported in the Guardian last Friday.

Over at the Evening Post, the news agenda is understandably dominated by headlines like: 'Clamped as I sat waiting for my wife'. (' A motorist has spoken of his disbelief after he claimed he was clamped as he sat in his car reading the Evening Post.' The readers' debate that follows it is the best thing about this story by a mile.)

Meanwhile, back in the mundane world of local politics, it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Labour and the Lib Dems tossing the city's governance around like a hot potato.

It was pretty miraculous that Labour managed to get through the election without the collecitve penny dropping that homecare privatisation was their idea in the first place, but perhaps it will turn out to be a bit of a Pandora's box for them after all.

nettles R us

I have to say I was a bit worried about the nettles. Once I'd blanched and liquidised them, they smelled rather fishy pungent. As one of my dinner guests is vegetarian, and the other had expressed strong skepticism about the concept of eating something that stung, I did experience a moment of doubt. But once mixed in with the rest of the risotto, the effect was rather nice: a very deep green colour, and a tasty, but not overpowering, flavour.

Next stop, nettle plant food. I think I'll build up to the World Nettle Eating Championship slowly.

a sting in the tale

National Be Nice To Nettles Week is coming early to Bristol. Tomorrow, I'll be trying out this recipe for nettle risotto. I'll let you know how it goes.

a PR disaster

'Go back to 1997. Think back. No, really, think back.'

Typically tetchy it may have been, but this line was the highlight of Tony Blair's resignation speech for me.

I remember walking home in the early morning of 2 May 1997. It was a balmy night. I was a student in a seaside town. The Labour landslide was juddering into place, and I was on top of the world.

I still remember that election night as one of the most heady evenings of my life. I had abandoned my ecologically minded housemates, who must have been heartily sick of my exhortations to vote Labour, to spend the evening with my most political friends. Wine was drunk, cigarettes of various degrees of legality were smoked.

We were young, we were dumb, we were up for Portillo.

Cynicism went out the window as seat after seat fell. In retrospect, the only note of sanity was provided by a friend of a friend, recently released from prison, who grumpily told us nothing would change.

Ten years on, it certainly feels as if he was right. Where did it all go wrong? It's easy to blame 9/11 and the Iraq adventure for the nation's disenchantment with Tony, but for me at least political disillusionment set in a lot earlier.

I watched the 2001 election slumped in bed (perhaps an appropriate reaction to having voted Lib Dem for the first and last time). I was lucky to stay awake long enough to hear Mandelson's cringeworthy 'I'm a fighter, not a quitter' speech.

By 2005 I was at my first general election count, tentatively tipping my toe into Green Party activism.

Everybody has their own personal 'I've had it with Blair' moment. For me, it was the decision to renege on electoral reform. The manifesto promise of a referendum on electoral reform was a key ingredient of my post-election euphoria. Even as an avid Labour cheerleader, I believed that proportional representation would transform British politics. Barring some freak of electoral maths, leaving Labour or the Tories dependent on Ming's increasingly unconvincing troops, we're unlikely to find out in a hurry. Labour got greedy, and we all lost out. Thanks, Tony. Now piss off.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

In the aftermath of the Bristol local elections, it's all too easy to dwell on what might have been. Losing out to Labour in Southville by six votes hurt. Even coming second to the Lib Dems in Ashley, objectively a good result, felt a little bit like a defeat. Once you're in the fight, you want to win. And it's frustating to know what good councillors our candidates in Southville and Ashley, Tess Green and Daniella Radice, would have been.

So it's hard not to have a few regrets.

Could we have done more to keep our campaign under wraps? Perhaps we should have printed our leaflets in invisible ink, visible only to our core voters when exposed to the fumes from their compost bins?

Should we have taken a more aggressive approach to campaigning? What if Charlie Bolton have seized the opportunity of a chance canvassing meeting with David Milliband and challenged him to an impromtu slow bicycle race? That would have shown who's really comfortable with sustainable transport.

Maybe we could have played it just a little dirtier? If we had clandestinely replaced the LibDem office coffee with organic Barleycup, might they have missed their 4am alarm calls on election day, and failed to deliver that crucial 'good morning' leaflet?

What about our media profile? Would Green Elvis, a stalwart of previous election campaigns, have made the difference between success and failure?

We'll never know. But as Beverly Knight perceptively put it, 'shoulda woulda coulda are the last words of a fool'. Now, our Bev might not be the first person a disillusioned Green turns to for inspiration. Some might see Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedy's frontman, and former US Green Party presidential candidate, as a better choice. But frankly, for all the wisdom in the lines 'you'll work harder with a gun in your back, for a bowl of rice a day', I don't think it's going to go down that well with our leafleting team.