Owers for the Co-operative Party

I am pleased to announce that today I was selected as the Co-operative Party candidate for Abbey ward. This is in addition to being the Labour candidate; the Labour and Co-operative Parties are sister parties, and an electoral agreement exists by which we never stand candidates against each other and one can be the official candidate of both parties.

I am a proud member of the Co-operative Party and believe that their ethos and principles are perfectly suited for the current economic climate, in which it is widely acknowledged that the short-termist, socially irresponsible neo-liberal model of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last 25 or 30 years has been fatally discredited. Co-operative solutions work on the principle that businesses and institutions should be democratically accountable to their workers and/or consumers, and should work on the basis of collaboration and concern for the wider community rather than cut-throat competition. We need to have an economy that works for people, rather than people working for the economy, and co-operative enterprises, which can be run according to principles other than single-minded dedication to profit regardless of the social cost, are the perfect way of making this a reality. Rather than just being focussed on the accumulation of material wealth, co-operatives can take into account social, cultural and even spiritual objectives because of their democratic structure. This is exactly what we need to inject an ethical socialist outlook into the economy.

Also, because co-operative enterprises are subject to the democratic control of consumers and workers who have an interest in the long-term prosperity and stable flourishing of the enterprise, co-ops, particularly in the financial sector in terms of building societies, tend to be more stable and less liable to collapse.

For these reasons and more, I urge everyone to become a co-operator and also join the Co-operative Party - their website is here: http://www.party.coop/

On a local level, I want to make sure that, if elected, the city council makes more use of co-operative solutions in its approach to policy problems. As we all know, one of Cambridge’s biggest problems is the shortage of affordable housing and the need to construct thousands of new homes. I would try to ensure that housing developments are encouraged, as much as is feasible, to look at and utilise co-operative blueprints of ownership and management, such as the ‘community housing mutual’ model that is being pioneered in parts of the country. I would also want to push the City Council to adopt a ‘Co-operative Development Strategy’.

In addition, I would like to make sure that the council and local community make use of the opportunity to use government funds to help them buy out local pubs and run them on a co-operative basis.

However, I can only bring these ethical socialist and cooperative principles to bear on our community if I am elected on May 6th - so please remember to vote for me!

We need a unitary council!

Increasingly as I talk to Abbey residents, I become frustrated at our system of local government.

Abbey residents have many eminently reasonable concerns. Some are worried about the lack of local leisure facilities for teenagers. Many have pointed out that football fans use roads in Abbey as parking space when Cambridge Utd play at home, which makes life difficult for residents. Others have expressed their concerns about the Rat Run around the Keynes Road area. Many other concerns have been raised.

However, again and again what occurs to me is that most of these issues are the responsibility of the County Council. City councillors can press the County Council to act on issues such as transport, adult and youth services, education, libraries and so on, but ultimately the City Council is largely powerless in many crucial areas. Even if elected, in many of these areas I, as a city councillor, would have little more than lobbying power.

However, because Cambridgeshire County Council is dominated by councillors from the predominantly Tory, rural areas, many crucial services and areas of policy in Cambridge city are simply dictated by people who have no interest in the wellbeing of the people of Cambridge. The Tories do not have a single county councillor from the Cambridge city area, yet they run most important services in the city. Unsurprisingly, areas like Abbey that are never going to elect a Tory councillor are very low down the priority list when it comes to allocating resources - the Tories have no political interest in doing anything else. Labour councillors on the City Council, and indeed the City Council in general, therefore get the blame for Tory neglect and incompetence without, in many areas, being responsible. This is not to say that the City Council doesn't have important areas of responsibility, in terms especially of housing and planning. However, in many crucial areas, the services of ordinary working people are run by a bunch of right-wing Tories from the sticks who have no interest whatsoever in doing anything other than neglecting estates in Cambridge.

The solution is to make Cambridge City Council a unitary council and allow Cambridge Councillors to run Cambridge services and make Cambridge's policies in areas currently the responsibility of the County Council. This way councillors in Cambridge would have the actual power to stand up for the interests of their constituents, and resources could be prioritised at the relatively impoverished areas in Cambridge city rather than squandered by Tories who have no support or interest in the city.

But, lo and behold, the Lib Dems refuse to apply for unitary status! They are content with the status quo of being ruled by a load of Blimpish Tory Thatcherites from the Fens and elsewhere in rural Cambridgeshire, while Cambridge suffers. Why? It's crazy. Only Labour has consistently argued for a unitary council that will allow Cambridge to have meaningful control over its own destiny, and only Labour councillors will fight for this if elected.