Scottish Greens Holyrood South Region Count

Just a quick note, now that all the shouting's done bar the counting, to wish good luck to all my fellow candidates in the Scottish Greens internal election for the South Scotland Region List for the Holyrood Parliament elections in 2016.

What has struck me the most throughout this internal campaign is that I have totally confirmed my reasons for doing all of this. I started the campaign with the genuine thought that I was not doing this for myself. I genuinely believed that my main reason for doing this was to get elected so that I could become a truly participatory MSP. I have thought long and weary that most of the present crop of elected parliamentarians do not come up to this high standard and it was time for me to stop moaning about it and to put my head above the parapet, so I did.

Again I wish all of the candidates, with whom I have have made many great friendships with, the best of luck and no matter who gets the members vote, The Scottish Green Party will be assured to have great candidates on the Region Lists in 2016.

Also a big shout out to all the candidates in all the other regions too.

Scottish Green Party General Election 2015 Manifesto

At last it's here. The Scottish Green Party today launched it's General Election 2015 manifesto. As was expected it is full of very good policy and worth a read to anyone thinking of voting for The Green Party in Scotland on May 7th. In fact I would go as far to say that it is worth a read for anybody voting for any party in the 2015 General Election.

It may just surprise you how many of the Scottish Green policies you actually agree with. Just click the image below and have a read.

What's Important?

EQUALITY NOT POVERTY – £10 minimum wage

PUBLIC SERVICES IN PUBLIC HANDS – nationalise the railways

POWER TO COMMUNITIES – more powers for Scotland and local communities 

Scottish Affairs Committee - Our Borderlands, Our Future

A great piece on a recent report from the Scottish Affairs Committee by Sarah Beattie Smith our Westminster candidate for Edinburgh North & Leith.

"In the last days of this parliament came one of the most interesting and useful reports I’ve seen in five years of the Scottish Affairs Committee. Our Borderlands, Our Future sets out a vision for the South of Scotland that tackles the lack of jobs with decent wages and calls for much better connectivity, whether public transport or broadband..."

https://sarahbeattiesmith.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/time-to-transform-the-forgotten-south/

Mr. Cameron Won't Serve A Third Term As Prime Minister

In a interview today with the BBC, David Cameron, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, has said that he will not serve a third term as the head of the United Kingdom government.

My first, probably flippant, thought was "Is that a threat or a promise?" but my second thought immediately after was "I really don't want you serving a second". What was more worrying is that Mr Cameron tipped Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson as possible successors.

Whilst I can see the arrogance and presumptive nature of this interview it occurs to me there are some other worrying factors in a statement like this. We are heading slowly but surely towards the American style of politics, a place where I do not wish our nation to go.

The United Kingdom - A Democracy When It Suits The Establishment?

It appears the true nature of the United Kingdom and the Establishment have been appearing in the last few days. The above photograph is from today's Andrew Marr Show on the BBC where Anna Soubry tells Alex Salmond,

"Your plans fill me with absolute horror."

During the whole piece Anna Soubry basically goes on a rant about Alex Salmond, the SNP and indeed the Scots and their role in the possible outcomes in the coming General Election. Andrew Marr and Alex Salmond hardly are able to get a word in edge ways. A link to the piece:

https://t.co/G9ktCHxfcb

South Scotland Region Hustings - Ayr Town Hall

A great bunch of candidates and a difficult decision for the members in deciding who to pick as their representatives for the Holyrood South Scotland Region list.

I'm still looking for members to consider me for their vote as lead candidate. If you do consider me for your lead candidate, I promise you that I will work tirelessly for and on behalf of the residents of South Scotland and you can be assured that the causes of the Scottish Green Party will never be far from the spotlight if I'm elected as an MSP. 

An Economic Nonsense - "We've Taken More People Out Of Tax"

As we all recover from The Chancellor of The Exchequer's final budget of this Parliament, people far more qualified than me can analyse it to death. Individual people can try and figure out if they are better or worse off. This, of course, proves extremely difficult, as as with most sets of figures and statistics you can get "experts" to speak to completely opposite opinions. Whether the "ordinary person" in the street is better off or not, with some opinions saying "we" are £900 better off and with others saying "we" are £300 worse off is particularly unclear. One thing I do know, however, that society as a whole is not better off.

I am not a qualified economist by any means, having only studied Economics to "Higher" grade, but one thing worries me greatly. It seems that modern politics, or to be more precise the top modern political parties, seem to think that the race to the bottom is the way to go and the way to financially stimulate the United Kingdom.

Scottish Green Ballot Papers Out For South Scotland Region List

This is it folks. Ballot papers are finally here. I'm really looking forward to this election and hope that you can seriously consider me for your first preference vote.

If you need to speak to me you are more than welcome to. You can either comment on this blog or you can use either my Twitter account @greensoulscot or my Facebook Page at Stephen Dickson - Passionate, Committed, Green

As you can see in my bio and statement I do not have specific political experience, I am not a career politician, but my working life has given me more than a good grounding for a life in Holyrood. I have learned a lot in my time in the party especially as Vice Convenor of Ayrshire Greens and as a member of Standing Orders Committee.

If I could quote part of my 2 minute speech for the hustings:

Invite The Greens - Thunder Clap

Sign up to our Thunderclap, by clicking on the image below, calling on STV to invite the Greens onto their leaders' debate. Nicola Sturgeon, Jim Murphy and Ruth Davidson have all backed our inclusion, alongside 7,500 members of the public. We need to keep putting the pressure on STV to reconsider.

Dumfries & Galloway South Region Hustings

On Monday 9th March the first of the hustings for the selection of candidates for the Scottish Green Party South Scotland Region list took place in Dumfries & Galloway in the Community Centre in Castle Douglas.

As you can see in the photo above there were 12 candidates speaking and trying to convince the local members in the audience that it was worth voting for them.

All candidates spoke for 2 minutes and explained to the audience why they should vote for them. Here all the videos recorded by the branch.

I would just again like to thank Dumfries & Galloway Branch for their welcome and their cake. It was wonderful.

Ayrshire Greens Showing of "A Dangerous Game" by Anthony Baxter

Ayrshire Greens are showing "A Dangerous Game" by Anthony Baxter at 7pm, 24th March at Ayr Town Hall. All welcome.

From the official description:

"A Dangerous Game" is the jaw-dropping sequel to "You've Been Trumped" (winner of a dozen major awards). At stake is our ability to protect what's left of our vanishing and fragile natural world. Struck by the chord his first film made, director Anthony Baxter takes us on a journey to other global hot spots where rapacious developers – often in cahoots with local officials – are using golf as a smokescreen to build massive luxury resorts that end up costing the earth.

Entry is free but any donations would be gratefully received.

Reservations available at: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/scottish-greens-ayrshire-branch-7982893814?s=34285476

Vote For Policies Update 4th March 2015

The Vote For Policies site has now been up and running in its "updated for General Election 2015" state since 19th February, that's just under 2 weeks, and an amazing number, over 76,200, have completed the survey in this time.

The national results so far are as follows:

Holyrood Region List Hustings

As if things weren't exciting enough with the campaigns to support our candidates for the upcoming General Elections in May in full swing, the Scottish Green Party are in the process of deciding who their candidates will be for the Regional lists for the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016.

Scotland is broken down into 8 list Regions:

• Central Scotland
• Glasgow
• Highlands and Islands
• Lothian
• Mid Scotland and Fife
• North East Scotland
• South Scotland
• West Scotland

As with the Westminster General Election, there are an unprecedented number of candidates putting themselves forward for nomination.

Scottish Green Party Confirm 32 Candidates For Westminster 2015

It is with great joy that the Scottish Green Party have announced their biggest ever number of candidates that are standing for a Westminster election. There are 32 Candidates, including our very own Veronika Tudhope, standing in Scottish constituencies hoping that they can be elected to represent the Green interests for Scotland in our United Kingdom parliament.

Vote For Policies - 2015 General Election Update

After what feels like an age of waiting, the site at Vote For Policies has finally updated and now invites you to compete their survey with quite a few differences from their previous site.

The first and most obvious difference is that you are now asked in which of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom you are completing the survey from. This is because they have included several parties that were not represented in their last edition. The site now includes The Scottish Green Party and the Scottish National Party. Neither of these parties were included previously and although Green interests were represented as the Green Party of England & Wales were included, this was not completely satisfactory as The Scottish Green Party are autonomous.

Political Compass Party Update for 2015

UK Political Parties 2015

 At last we have an update by the site The Political Compass to include the parties standing in 2015.

There are quite a few marked differences in this new graph compared to the one from 2010. For comparison purposes here's the illustration of 2010:

Ayrshire Greens Public Meeting - 25/2/2015 - Andy Wightman

If you are in Ayrshire or nearby on Wednesday 25th February at 7:30pm, please think about making the time to come to Ayrshire Greens next meeting. This is a public meeting, with Andy Wightman. Land Reform activist and guru attending.

With the Scottish Governments Land Reform consultation just closing it would be a great time to put your questions to Andy.

If you use Facebook you can also find the event at https://www.facebook.com/events/626738377454743/

See you there.

Scottish Government Land Reform Consultation - Final Day For Submissions

In November 2014 the Scottish Government set up a consultation to look into Land reform. The Scottish Government site says:

"On the 26 November 2014, the First Minister, as part of the Programme for Government, set out the Scottish Government's vision that Scotland's land must be an asset that benefits the many, not the few.

This vision promotes a strong relationship between the people of Scotland and the land of Scotland, where ownership and use of land delivers greater public benefits through a democratically accountable and transparent system of land rights that promotes fairness and social justice, environmental sustainability and economic prosperity.

Land reform aims to ensure the correct balance of land rights to achieve this vision. This can only be achieved through a package of measures, taken forward and understood together.

The current Consultation on the future of Land Reform in Scotland seeks views on a range of measures intended to further land reform in Scotland. Through this consultation, the Scottish Government is seeking your views on a proposed Land Rights and Responsibilities Policy to help guide the development of public policy on the nature and character of land rights in Scotland and on a range of proposals for a Land Reform Bill."

South Scotland Regional List For Holyrood

Well that's it finally done. I have submitted my nomination for the South Scotland List. I would ask that you consider me for this position and that you consider giving me your first preference vote,

I am not aware of who the other candidates are as of yet but I would very much like them to be part of this blog and I would be more than happy for them to submit a post to me and I will publish it in their name for them.

My exact submission states:
 

Veronika Tudhope - Scottish Greens Candidate for Central Ayrshire

A quick shout out to our wonderful candidate Veronika Tudhope who is standing as a candidate in the Central Ayrshire constituency in the General Election in 2015.

A short excerpt from her page:

I am hugely honoured to be standing as the Scottish Green Party candidate for Central Ayrshire in the upcoming election on 7th May 2015.

Vote For Policies Not Parties

I have long been a supporter of "radical' democracy for the basic and simple reason that ours doesn't work properly. It does not provide the framework for all the people in our country to have, as standard, a proper say in the way our country is run and as a result their lives are worse of for it.

I have often seen simple and logical ways of possibly improving our democracy. Ideas like changing the seating arrangements of parliaments. Instead of having all members of the same party together in a bunch, why not have members sit in their respective areas. For me this would lead to less partisan behaviour and more behaviour based on local issues with members banding together to sort out matters relative to their own voters patches. Is that not why we voted for them? To represent our interests? This may have only a small effect and there are possible problems with it too but why not give it a go and see if it makes a difference?

Another idea that I heard muted was that we should not get names of parties on ballot papers,  just the names of candidates. Whilst this would definitely be a radical step, I can see part of the rationale behind those who talk of it. It would certainly make the electorate seek out what the actual person stood for and also make the candidate work much harder to get their personal message over to the voters.

The above may be a step too far for most, but what about the electorate seeing all of the party's policies without seeing which party it belonged to? A blind taste test? Well that actually ALREADY exists..... at Vote For Policies.

Scottish Greens Will Split The Yes Vote For Westminster

We are going through some amazing times right now with the advent of political more awareness and activism throughout Scotland after the referendum. An unfortunate part of this, as the Scottish Greens get more popular and more people become aware of their existence, is that they become more of a threat to the incumbent political machinery and those parties that are already a major part of it.

One of the major arguments that seems prevalent, especially on social media, is that the Scottish Greens will split the vote of the SNP. I read a great answer to that today from one of our candidates for the Westminster election, Zara Kitson. In fact since I couldn't say it better myself I'll just let you read it and make up your own mind.

Is The Left versus Right Political Axis Enough?

I have learned many things over the years about many different subjects. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is definitely the fact that:

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"

During the referendum campaign Scotland's political psyche was awoken and for the first time in many many years "normal" people became politically active and took part in debates and discussion all over the country. The rights and wrongs of both sides were discussed, sometimes heatedly, in every home, pub, workplace and shop. It was enlightening that so many people engaged in politics, after all it's their lives that are being affected by decisions made by those able to make them. 

Although I believe that many people got involved through the passion of the argument, I believe one of the main reasons that the referendum lent itself to such engagement was it's singular issue nature. There were only two answers to the one question that was being asked. Yes or No. Indeed there were many issues to discuss within that but ultimately there were only two camps. Yes and No.