Interview with Sheila Simpson, Green candidate in Queen’s Park, Brent

 Interview with Sheila Simpson, Green candidate in Queen’s Park, Brent

• Why a Green candidate in Queen’s Park?

I find myself very surprised to be in this place, because I don’t consider myself someone who is interested in politics. The things that matter to me are social justice and climate change, and those two things need to come together. The climate emergency is the central issue and I’m disatisfied with the other parties’ approach, so I joined my local branch which is a small group of people fairly independently minded, people who impressed me and even though I don’t think I have a chance of winning, I really felt that democracy needs proper opposition. In Brent, the majority of the seats are Labour, there’s 1 LibDem who is doing really well (so we’re not standing against him) and 3 Conservatives. The more I found out about our local politics, the more I realise that the way the Leader of the council and the small cabinet rule the organisation means there’s almost no listening. They make the decisions and tell people what they have done. My experience has been that the ordinary people are way ahead of the government when it comes to wanting action on the climate emergency, if you talk to people they make sense. It’s a bit like with COVID, when you ask them to do something they did it, because they understood that was important. It would be an honour and a huge responsibility to be a councillor. This is the ward I lived in for 30 years, this area has become very gentrified over time, and it’s very prosperous. I’m not interested in power, I’m interested in the climate, in getting something done, it’s all about getting results. I do believe in democracy, it’s the best of the systems but we need to reform it, we need proportional representation (PR).

• What are the main issues you want to prioritise?

I’m not telling the people, I’m asking them what their priorities are. A key issue is air quality in schools, the air we breath is toxic. The other thing that’s happening in our borough is there’s lots of raw sewage going into the local waterways. This year, particularly after lockdown, people began to care more about the environment and to value the green spaces. That really matters to people now, and some of our waters are dirty. Those are immediate environmental things.

There’s also the cost of living crisis, we need to do something about our housing stock, which is old. A lot of people are renting, so they rely on landlords to maintain the buildings, but landlords aren’t necessarily doing what they could to insulate those homes so there’s a huge amount of energy wasted. In terms of activism I spend time with XR campaigning with them and doing some small actions just to keep on keeping on with this, otherwise there’s no future. 

• Why are the Greens the best alternative to the other parties?

We need an active opposition to Labour, that’s my feeling, to challenge the party that’s been there for 10 years, that’s how democracy should work. All I can say is, having never joined a political party in all of my life until five years ago, I’ve always campaigned for social justice through XR and the CND, and when I read the Green Party manifesto I agreed with everything and I thought of joining the party, and that’s what happened. If that was my experience, perhaps there are people out there similarly that don’t consider themselves quite political but they do want change. That change is possible, it’s something about a real alternative but also about working with other people. 

Small interview with Simon Anthony, Green candidate in Northbury, Barking and Dagenham

 Small interview with Simon Anthony, Green candidate in Northbury, Barking and Dagenham

• Why a Green candidate in Northbury?

Well, it’s the same reason there should be Green candidates in any borough and anywhere on the planet. We all face the problems of environmental degradation and the catastrophe of the COVID attack that has forced us all to think about our lifestyles. The war in Ukraine at the moment is another example of resource force: people scrambling over the remaining oil. Greens are saying we should use alternative energies like solar power, which is particularly easy to use. We’ve been waiting forever for people to know that there is an environmental cost to everything we do, but individuals should not need to change their lifestyles. It is perfectly possible for everyone to have as much as they need and a little bit more if things are distributed correctly and not wasted. Things can be maintained and recovered, reused, and when they can’t be, they can be recycled to be turned into something else. We have all the knowledge we need to put this planet right, we just need to do it. The reason we don’t do it is because there’s an amount of money and effort put into generating the infrastructure which got us to this level of civilisation. The infrastructure that got us here is still working, it’s getting harder to maintain and to fuel and the big businesses are still trying to scrape the last pennies or billions out of the stock they invested in existing infrastructure, but they are changing. 

• Why do you think the Greens are the best alternative as a party?

We know that minor parties are only minor if the media considers us to be. The fact that I had been doing things like these, moving from being completely ignored through being laughed at to now being thought of as dangerous, and people realising we were right all along, shows there’s no alternative but to follow the Green lead. We’ve known these problems were coming for decades literally, and we’ve been doing our best to help people avoid them, but we failed and I’m very sorry, because we couldn’t make people understand or believe the dangers we were heading towards, and now we’re all suffering because of that. 

Interview with Gavin Hawkton, Green Party candidate in Castle ward, Carlisle

 Interview with Gavin Hawkton, Green Party candidate in Castle ward, Carlisle

Why a Green candidate in Castle?

Castle Ward is the ward that is right in the heart of Carlisle, yet it’s also a ward that continues to be largely ignored by the major political parties who only show up at election time when they want votes.

At this level of politics, the standard of councillors is pretty poor, they have little imagination or any real ideas how to improve the wards they are representing. It’s a shame because in the centre of the city this is a ward with huge potential.

This is also a ward that the Green Party has performed well in the past. It’s a ward we can win, despite our difficult first passed the post system. While Labour Party in Carlisle continues its slide into dysfunctional irrelevance, we need a strong Green Party to provide real opposition to what is increasingly a cruel and backwards Conservative Party. To provide a positive and progressive voice on the council, the Green Party needs to win seats and Castle Ward is a great opportunity to do so.

 

What are the main issues you want to prioritise in this campaign?

I am prioritising the need for hard working councillors, those who work with residents around the year and don’t cynically show up at election time with dodgy leaflets that contain false promises. Local elections should be about local issues, that is our central message, politicians should work with residents throughout the year and not just election time.

There is a range of issues in the ward itself, the main one is really neglect with dirty streets and anti-social behaviour on the rise. To tackle this issue our message is that a stronger voice is needed, one that works with the community and presents a positive vision for a cleaner and greener city.

Why is the Green Party the best alternative to the other parties in your area?

The trap that most politicians fall into here is wanting to ‘be somebody’ instead of ‘doing something’ for the community they will represent. As a result, nothing gets done and communities are ignored.

The Green Party is active, engaged and listening to residents. Most importantly we are getting things done for them. In that respect we are the only real alternative to politics as usual in Carlisle.