Month: July 2020

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Blog Climate and the environment Posts

Boris Johnson, GM Crops and Donald Trump

In his first speech as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson declared his wish to ‘liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules’. A compliant Conservative Party has voted to keep details of proposed trade deals out of the public domain. Yet there is little sign of public hostility to such crops waning. The effect on the agricultural and market gardening sectors – both still significant in Kent – could be extremely negative. It is the proposed deal with Donald Trump’s United States which poses by far the greatest risk.

Firstly there is significant evidence that adoption of GM crops has led to a large increase in herbicide use. Many such crops are designed to be resistant to pesticides, such as glyphosate, which can kill competitor plants in a field. This, in turn, means less biodiversity and significant leaching of the chemicals into our watercourses.  The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a research arm of the World Health Organization now believes that glyphosate is a “probable” cancer -causing substance. The dispersed pattern of housing found in semi-rural areas of Kent means that the risk to public health is even harder to contain than it would be in other areas.

Secondly, if our farmers follow public attitudes and refuse to grow GM crops it is likely that US farmers will be able to undercut them. It is even possible that properly labelling crops as GM could be banned under a trade deal. One place such products – along with chlorinated chicken and other horrors – will probably appear is on the menu in our schools, and they will probably also appear in work canteens and some other food outlets.

Britain’s farmers will also be prevented from selling food to our most important market, the European Union, if we accept GM. Ultimately this could compound the already ruinous effect of new tariffs if Britain fails to secure free movement of goods this December, together with the difficulties in attracting seasonal workers from the Continent.

It is likely that Boris Johnson will put securing a toxic Tory trade deal with Trump ahead of defending public health and supporting the rural economy. The Labour Party needs to ensure that he doesn’t get away with it.

Categories
Campaign Housing and planning Posts

1-4 River Walk Tonbridge demolition and replacement with a large block of flats – comment now

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council’s planning portal is still open for comments in respect of the proposal to demolish 1-4 River Walk in Tonbridge and replace it with 36 flats. The building is believed to have been constructed as the Urban District Council’s housing office and then was the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. Both helped house the town’s population, which makes it even more unacceptable that the proposed development makes no pretence of providing any affordable housing. It is in a conservation area and immediately opposite Tonbridge Castle.

Comments may be made here.

Our CLP Chair Julian Wilson has submitted the following letter of objection to the proposal.

1. The development contains no affordable housing and the proposal should be rejected out of hand until the developer can propose a scheme which incorporates affordable housing. The economic arguments are spurious – if the developer paid over the odds for the site and failed to take local and national policies on the provision of affordable housing into account, then they have only themselves to blame if the development proves less profitable than they had envisaged or even makes a loss. It is noted that no figures have been provided for public scrutiny. The arguments about a second core / stairwell mainly revolve around aesthetics and ultimately making the proposed flats attractive to high-end purchasers. Weakness in demanding that developers adhere to policies on the provision of affordable housing will be seen as giving a green light for other developers looking for local authorities who do not take their obligations to provide affordable housing seriously. It would be particularly regrettable if Tonbridge and Malling becomes a district in which the wealthy are able to live apart from those on low to average incomes.


2. The size of the proposed buildings are excessive. The proposed development lies just within the boundaries of the town’s Conservation Area. This is described as (sub area A1) the 13th Century castle and grounds [which] are a unique historical feature and dominant landmark in the Conservation Area. The existing small buildings allow excellent views of the castle from New Wharf Road and River Walk. All of the buildings immediately adjoining and facing the castle are domestic in scale. Reinforcing this point, the adjacent River Walk area (sub-area A5) consists of the landscaped area adjacent to the River Medway.


3. The design is extremely generic and makes no reference to its setting or the town in which it is proposed it should be constructed. It would be far better in such a central site to incorporate commercial premises as well as residential and so integrate the proposed development with River Walk, a thriving area with a bank, café and the rear of a large public house.

4. A real assessment should be made as to whether a development in this location requires private car parking. It is within a few hundred metres of bus stops and is only a little further from a railway station. These together provide regular services to Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone, London, Ashford, Sevenoaks and other places. Removal of the car parking would allow the building to lose a story and might bring the cost of the proposed flats closer to affordability for those living and working in the town. This might be combined with a smaller footprint and a handful of shared parking spaces (and a car pooling scheme) outside the development. Younger people are less car dependent and the Borough has declared a climate emergency.

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Blog Posts

Paul Dimoldenberg’s “Cheer Churchill, Vote Labour” – buy the book here

For those who enjoyed Paul’s fascinating and thought-provoking discussion of the 1945 General Election victory, or for anyone who wishes to learn more about one of the most important elections in our history, his book can be purchased from Amazon here.

As well as an author, Paul is a Labour Councillor in Westminster who previously helped expose Conservative wrongdoing during the ‘Homes for Votes’ and ’15p Cemeteries’ scandals.

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Blog Posts

An open letter to Dawn Butler

The last online CLP meeting of the Tonbridge and Malling Labour Party agreed to write to Dawn Butler and her staff to show our solidarity following a series of racist and otherwise intimidating events experienced by them.

Dear Dawn,

We in the Tonbridge and Malling Labour Party were horrified to learn of the physical, verbal and online abuse experienced by you and your constituency staff in recent months. As one of the Constituency Labour Parties which nominated you for the deputy leadership we feel particularly distressed at what has happened. Naturally we support your decision to close your constituency office despite the difficulties that this will cause in continuing to represent your constituents.

As you have written in London’s Evening Standard, the fact that some people – however tiny a minority – feel emboldened to intimidate and physically attack elected representatives is a growing problem in our society. It is only a few months since someone attempted to burn down the Labour Party premises in Hastings while our activists in Tonbridge and Malling have faced significant aggression when leafletting and canvassing.

It is also clear that leading BAME voices within the party are disproportionately singled out for abuse. This has got worse since the Black Lives Matter campaign highlighted the toxic legacy of slavery, imperialism and racism in all its forms. We in Tonbridge and Malling believe that now is the time for the Labour Party’s national leadership to find ways to give greater support to those on the receiving end of such abuse, and also to recognise the brilliant work of BAME members at all levels in our party.

Attacks on our elected representatives are direct attacks on the democratic nature of our country. We stand in solidarity with you and your colleagues at this difficult time.

Categories
Blog Posts

Who will pay for the lockdown?

George Osborne recently declared his support for the renewal of austerity and many Conservatives will be salivating at the prospect of using this public health crisis as an excuse to cut and privatise services. Those ‘essential workers’ lauded in Downing Street press conferences will be unlikely to see real term pay rises, while redundancy payments and the value of pensions will probably be cut. Those on benefits will be squeezed even more than before.

The Labour Party and the trade union movement at all levels needs to be united in saying that such an approach is wholly unnacceptable and to resist it through all means necessary where it is imposed on local government and through Parliament and the devolved assemblies.

Fortunately the Tax Justice campaigner Richard Murphy has given us an alternative. Taxing wealth at the same rate as work would raise up to £174 billion a year. At present the average worker pays about 29.4% in tax while unearned increases in wealh only pay 3.4%. For fairly obvious reasons this distorts the economy as money flows into things like property – something which makes housing extortionate whether to buy or rent in this country – rather than productive uses such as industry or methods of green energy production.

Although the practicalities and effects of such changes to the tax system need to be considered carefully, Mr Murphy’s work makes it even clearer than before that austerity is and always was a political choice. The Labour Party needs to build on the ideas contained in our Green New Deal to set out a vision of a socially just and environmentally sustainable economy and society.

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Blog Posts

CLP History

The Tonbridge and Malling Parliamentary Constituency covers a large semi-rural area of south-west Kent and includes the towns of Tonbridge, Edenbridge and West Malling. Larger villages in the constituency include Hadlow, Borough Green and East Malling.

The borders of Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council are significantly different to the parliamentary constituency and include Snodland and Aylesford but not Edenbridge.

Please note that all Constituency and Branch meetings are currently suspended due to the current public health emergency.

The Constituency Labour Party – then the Tonbridge Division of Kent – and the Tonbridge (town) Labour Party can both trace their origins back to 1918 although socialists, trade unionists and co-operators had been active in the area for many decades previously. The present constituency dates from 1974.

Socialism – The Sole Hope Of Humanity