Peter Murry Saturday,
06 June 2015
The Guardian has given lots of coverage recently to Labour party soul searching
about losing the election and what it has to do to revive its fortunes. My own
unsympathetic opinion is that Labour misses the point on major issues and seems
determined to continue to do so. Andy Burnham is reported, (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/05/andy-burnham-to-call-for-moratorium-on-fracking),
stating that “A moratorium on fracking should be imposed until
stronger scientific evidence can show it is safe to drill for shale gas,..”. Even safe
fracking, which is most likely impossible anyway, extracts fossil fuels that
are the major contributor to human caused climate change.
Not only does a senior Labour figure apparently not understand the need
to take effective action on THE major issue currently facing humanity; but
Labour also offers no real alternative to Tory austerity economics. A programme
of public investment and job creation to build a low carbon infrastructure in
the UK might be a start.
Surely the job of an Opposition is to offer alternatives to government
policies. If Labour continues not to do this it will continue to haemorrhage
support to parties and organisations offering real alternatives to human caused
climate change and austerity economics.
Yrs etc P.Murry, Secretary, Green Party Trade Union group
11/6/15
I’d like to thank Lesley and
other supportive commenters on the letter of mine which The Guardian did not publish, instead today
they published several letters, none of which as far as I can see addresses the
fact that fossil fuel extraction contributes to climate change.
The prize for sheer blinkeredness
should. Imo, go to
This
letter contains the following gems “Having
access to gas is a matter of national security. Our homes and large parts of
British industry need gas; any suggestion to the contrary is just not the real
world.” And
“Gas also
provides high-skilled employment for many hundreds of thousands of people in
this country and this has the potential to increase still further.”
The letter writers presumably refer to a “real
world” where climate change isn’t happening, not like the one we actually live in
then? Moreover arguing for something on the grounds that it “has
the potential to increase still further.” is risible, bubonic plague, war and climate
change itself all have the potential to increase and that does not mean that we
should let them do so, if we can help it. “High-skilled employment could and should be provided by the
creation of jobs building a new low carbon economic infrastructure.
This is the ‘just
transition’ which the TUC and the Green Party both advocate.
I should add
that inspite of this inane letter; I fully support the work of the GMB in
defending its members’ pay and conditions, including their future employment. I
supported them when they represented the Brighton bin-men against the incompetence
of a Green council . In this instance this letter just makes them look stupid
and short sighted and as an honest friend I have to tell them so.
