Fahrenheit's Blog

Just come across this appalling blog from a Labour councillor in Harnigey.

Emma Jones typifies the worst kind of patronising, idiotic politician. Somehow she manages to be both wishy-washy & ineffectual; and fingerwaggingly patronising – like an ugly school prefect shushing the boys in the library, exasperated when they misbehave, and even more exasperated because she can’t understand why none of them fancy her.

There’s a fair bit of it so I’m going to have to fisk it a few posts at a time – here’s just the current page.

Oh, and she only allows comments from her ‘Team’…

…but none of them ever do.

[Update: I should have made clearer - I've edited down her posts quite a lot, otherwise the whole thing would be so long as to be unreadable. These are just illustrative quotes. I appreciate it might not have been immediately obvious from these exactly what had irked me so much, but if you go and read the full versions on her site that should hopefully be clearer.]

Friday, December 29, 2006

La vita e bella

Merry Christmas (somewhat belatedly) and Happy New Year (almost right on time) to all of my constituents and colleagues, and anyone else who is reading this blog.

Apologies that things have all gone a bit quiet on the blog front as of late. I'm not sure why…

Is it because you jumped on this blogging bandwagon because it was the latest trendy thing to do and now you’re getting bored of it?

Christmas has been fun. And I've been working hard on having an ethical Christmas this year. All of my presents were eco-friendly and FairTrade (which proved hard for a couple of people), cards were 100% recycled from WWF, and wrap was all either reused or recycled (and has been kept for future use). Food was locally produced and organic, my tree is small and will be composted, and decorations are all from last year apart from one which was from WWF and made from recycled glass. And of course, all travel has been by train. Can anyone tell me stuff I might have missed so I can do even better next year?

So many contradictions here I barely know where to begin.

1. Let’s start with ‘eco-friendly and fair trade’

The low price of commodities such as coffee is due to overproduction, and ought to be a signal to producers to switch to growing other crops. Paying a guaranteed Fairtrade premium—in effect, a subsidy—both prevents this signal from getting through and, by raising the average price paid for coffee, encourages more producers to enter the market. This then drives down the price of non-Fairtrade coffee even further, making non-Fairtrade farmers poorer. Fairtrade does not address the basic problem, which is that too much coffee is being produced in the first place. Instead, it encourages more production.

The problem with Fairtrade is that it is an inefficient way to get money to poor producers. Retailers add their own enormous mark-ups to Fairtrade products and mislead consumers into thinking that all of the premium they are paying is passed on. Only about 10% of the premium paid for Fairtrade coffee in a coffee bar trickles down to the producer. Fairtrade coffee, like the organic produce sold in supermarkets, is used by retailers as a means of identifying price-insensitive consumers who will pay more.

In other words, Emma, morons like you are being fleeced by those wicked ‘fat cat supermarkets’ while producers in poor countries are locked into poverty through enforced inefficient farming and business methods.

Oh, and the ‘eco-friendly’ bit? By definititon anything fair trade will have been produced in the developing world and been flown several thousand miles to get here. Not particularly green is it?

2. Food was locally produced

Was it now. That’s very nice and all but rather at odds with all the ‘fair trade’ guff. What about all those poor farmers in the developing world who’s trade will be suffering because bourgeois westerners want to feel all warm and fuzzy inside for being ‘ethical’ while at the same time patronising them with pitiful, counterproductive subsidies, and Oxfam goats.

You’re messing with complex economic and developmental systems that you simply don’t understand you silly little girl.

Go an read this from the Economist for starters.

Amidst the blur of Christmas, I can just about remember some council stuff I've done in the last few weeks. One thing was a street surgery with a disappointing response (an hour and a half of delivering street surgery postcards and only three people put theirs in their window to meet us?! Well, it was exercise I suppose).

What? You’ve remembered that you’re an elected representative and not just some gadabout? Well fucking done love!

I'm off up to the Peak District for New Year - very exciting! Missing the fireworks on the river once again though. I'll see them one day, I'm sure. I'm not planning on going anywhere. I love this city, and zooming all around the country, to visit friends and family at Christmas, only serves to remind me how much I've finally found somewhere I can really call home.

You’re green but you’re ‘zooming all around the country’? Did you calculate your carbon footprint for those trips eh dear? Did you take appropriate action to offset your precious emissions? Or is it another case of ‘do as I say, not as I zoom’?

Monday, December 04, 2006

Parking issues

I am aware that there has not been too much about the ward recently…

When are you going to fucking realise that you are an elected representative with responsibilties to your constituents. You’re not some fucking sub-Bridget Jones girl-about-town who’s antics we want to hear about. Do some fucking work!

so I thought I'd do you a brief comment on the Area Assembly meeting that took place last Thursday. One of the main issues coming from residents was about parking.

And to answer the obvious question, yes, I DO have difficulty sympathising with people's car issues, but I'm also aware that I need to break down those prejudices and ensure that I represent everyone equally. I don't think I'd have a right to do this job if I intended only to represent certain sectors of the community, or only act on certain issues

You really really just don’t get it do you?

This is what politics is about you stupid tart. You form your policy position, fight opposing positions, and execute your policy.

Don’t try and sit their like some fucking Delphic oracle being all things to all people. OF COURSE you’re going to have prejudices and opinions – why the steaming fuck did you go into politics if you didn’t have opinions and policies coming out of your ears?

Emma, it’s time for you to grow some balls, form some opinions, defend them, and then put the fucking things into practice. That’s what politics is FOR.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

MEP report back

On Saturday, I went to an event in which the three London Labour Members of the European Parliament reported on what they have been doing. The main things, unsurprisingly, were the environment (including carbon trading and emissions reduction targets), immigration (and there are 1 million Brits living in other EU countries now), and things on workers' rights.

WHAT? What did they say?

This isn’t fucking show and tell with you primary school class you silly cow, tell us some substance.

WHAT things on workers rights?

WHAT did they tell you about immigration and the environment?

What was your OPINION on what they told you, and what the cunting fuck are you intending to DO about it?

And did you know that if you buy a ticket in Brussels to go to Paris, you will automatically be put on a train cos there just aren't the flights anymore? Yay, well done them.

What a load of bollocks. I just checked this. Go to the airport, or any online travel agent, and any number of planes will take you from Brussels to Paris.

There was also some discussion on the electoral system, which is something I have been interested in for a while - I am on the executive of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform. (I actually believe that local elections should be proportional, with larger wards of around 6 councillors, but that's a story for another time).

What? Emma has an opinion? Gather round, these are rare!

Oh, she’s not going to tell us what it is.

For the last few European Parliament elections in the UK, we have used a proportional system in which everyone votes once for a party, and the number of MEPs each party gets is determined by the proportion of votes the party receives. This is good in that it's more representative, however the main flaw is that we don't get to vote for our preferred candidates. Each political party puts together a 'list' of their candidates, and it is those at the top of the list which will get elected first. For example, Labour won three seats in London, so the top three people on the list became MEPs.

Some people were arguing a return to a constituency-based system of one MEP to one constituency, voted by 'first past the post', i.e. the one with most votes gets it (like we have for the House of Commons, though MEP constituencies would be much larger). But then it's not proportional - like in the House of Commons, the number of MEPs would not be representative of the number of votes their party received, and smaller parties would have no chance. It's just not democratic.

There are several different electoral systems that could be used, and they all have their own flaws, but my preferred system for European Parliament elections would be as follows. The ballot paper would have two columns. The first column would be the same as now, in which it just lists the parties, and voters place one 'x' onto their preferred party, and this determines how many MEPs each party gets. The second column would have lists of the candidates which you could preference order, so that if you voted Labour in the first column, then you could preference order the Labour candidates in the second column. The second column would then be counted by single transferable vote which, to quote Wikipedia, "transfers votes that would otherwise be wasted. STV initially allocates an individual's vote to their most preferred candidate, and then subsequently transfers unneeded or unused votes after candidates are either elected or eliminated, according to the voter's stated preferences". Apologies that there really is no easier way of explaining that, but believe me it's fairer and it's easy to use for the voter - you just number the candidates from most to least preferred.

This system would mean that voters get to choose candidates as well as parties. The main problem with it is that you can't preference order parties, but preference-ordering parties and candidates would just get horribly complicated - you could end up ordering up to about 50 candidates in a European Parliament election in London, and who's going to do that? With the system described above, you just vote for your party, then preference order the 9 candidates in your chosen party.

Phew, that was tiring. But did we all learn something?

You patronising fucking cow. We are not your fucking primary school class.

Are you really so thick that this is the Ladybird book level of detail at which you understand the voting system? Or do you just assume that your readership is so thick that this is all we’re capable of comprehending?

Friday, December 01, 2006

Climate Change - taking a lead?

I was in my element today. Haringey Council had a climate change conference aimed at seeing what we can do to lessen our borough's impact on climate change. And there's a lot.

it is simply something that us, the richer nations, have a duty to do on behalf of the developing countries and poorer individuals around the world,

‘A duty to do on behalf of the developing countries? Do you REALLY think those noble, native, savages are just waiting for Emma Jones and Haringey council to swoop down and solve all their problems for them? You malicious patronising little cow.

The developing word will be the main driving force behind the environmental and social changes of the 21st century.

Industrialisation in China, India, the Far East, and South America will increase emissions so fast it will make your head spin.

The developing middle classes in these countries will change consumption and resource usage patterns as they begin to take on the trappings of the developed world.

And it matters not one jot what Haringey does about it.

Eco-friendliness is a bourgeois concern not shared by our friends in the developing world. What for us may be a quaint allotment, is for them subsistence farming that they’re desperate to escape from. You really think they’ll slow their economic development for you or anyone else?

It has been calculated that, in 2003 (our last record), Haringey contributed 967 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. This breaks down into 50% in housing (that's you and me in our homes),

No Shit Sherlock? I was wondering what that tricky word ‘housing’ meant.

We were also shown a map that highlighted the areas of Haringey in which the highest and lowest emissions are produced. Alexandra and Highgate came out as very low emitting due to their large amounts of green space. What we weren't shown, which would have perhaps been more interesting, is the amount of emissions per household - or even per person - across the borough. I'm sure that this would have meant the west showing a much greater contribution.

What a classic lefty ploy – the statistics don’t give you anything with which to bash the rich, so you re-work them until they do. Fucking despicable.

So, a few things we can do. The obvious things are sorting out all council-owned buildings, which is already going through the motions, with insulation, double glazing etc, and putting in solar panels. Other obvious things include working on more sustainable transport, promoting car sharing and car club schemes, and reducing the need to travel by making sure people have services locally to them.

But this isn’t reflected in the council’s recent decision to continue providing free car parking spaces to council employees who could just as easily walk or get a bus.

However, all of this is quite mimimal in reducing our borough's carbon footprint, because domestic contribution is so high. But one thing discussed today that would make a huge difference could be combined heat and power (CHP). The power stations around Haringey all 'dump' enough heat to heat every household in the borough, and we could take that heat and carry it to people's homes. Heat could become another utility that we receive through underground pipes, like water.

Heat isn’t a thing you silly cow, it’s a property of something else. You can’t have heat on its own, only heated things – like hot water or hot air. And you’re not seriously going to suggest building a new network of pipes to every house in London?

And how might this work in practice? Let’s ask the experts – the Combined Heat and Power Association. Hell, even they don’t know what it means…

The biggest challenge, of course, is how to get residents to change their behaviour. Information and education isn't enough. And we're certainly not ready to start forcing people (give us 15 years or so I think for this). So it's incentives, incentives, incentives that we need to be talking now. Incentives to install solar panels on your home, incentives to travel more sustainably (let's give all Haringey employees who cycle to work a nice little bonus, shall we?),

NO, No, we fucking won’t. You’re going to spend MY council tax money paying your own employees to ride bikes? Fuck Off, you vicious grasping cow. Fuck Off, Fuck Off, Fuck Off.

I’ve cycled every single fucking day for the last 20 years so don’t you dare tell me how good it is.

People save money by cycling already, by not having to pay Labour’s extortionate bus and tube fairs. That saves me over a thousand pounds a year – how dare you even consider paying your useless work-shy cunts any more?

And I said at the meeting that we could support households in calculating their carbon footprint and in setting targets for themselves, then signing up to some sort of 'Haringey Promise' that says they commit to supporting Haringey in lessening its impact by meeting their personal targets.

And what if they don’t want to? What if they want their carbon footprints to give you and your useless cronies a carbon kick up your fat carbon arse?

Another thing I suggested, which was largely agreed with, was that climate change needs its own unit and leadership within the council structure.

What? The council agreed to increase it’s remit and add an other layer of bureaucracy? You do surprise me Emma.

Climate change should be at the forefront of our thinking in housing, schools, regeneration, planning, and everything else that the council touches. Climate change is why I am a councillor.

Well that was a stupid career move. You work 3 days a week at school and the rest on council business. You have to deal with all the niggling little problems that council casework brings with it. So I reckon the amount of time you actually get to spend tackling climate change is pretty close to zero.

Of course, if you really cared you would have got yourself a job where you could work on climate change all the time. This is just holier-than-thou posturing of the worst kind, and it stinks. Now fuck off and stop pretending you’re anything other than a patronising, attention-seeking moron.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

All my fault

One day, I would like to tell someone I've just met that I'm in the Labour Party and have them react with something other than prejudice and/or disgust. One day.

How about contempt? Contempt and a punch in the cunt?