15th June 2008

John Marjoram responds to Labour County Councillor's call to work together on solutions. See here news on Uplands Post Office saved for the moment.

I agree with Brian Oosthuysen in his letter of the 4th June about political parties working together at a local level and I obviously endorse his tenor. I hasten to add it would be quite hard not to work with such an affable person such as Brian. Of course where difficulties start to emerge is at the point where the problem that you are trying to solve hits the buffers of Central Governments policy.

As an example I need to go no further than the issue of the closing of local Post Offices, which has been so painful for so many communities in the Stroud District and right across the country. It is known that the postal service was making a profit of £100 million a year when Tony Blair came to power. Now the Crown Post offices are making an estimated loss of £70million. In a number of countries in Europe post offices are expanding because they are tied into bank services. Here we sold off the Giro Bank and have completely complied with WTO directives (World Trade Organisation) of allowing private corporations to bid and win large contracts in the public sector. The policy is ravaging the Royal Mail structure which has seriously been cherry picked by large companies from outside this country, like HTL. It is doubtful whether the Royal Mail, in the future, will be able to offer a full delivery service.

So while Brian nails his heroic flag to “Old Labour” principles and the local situation, New Labour destroys the very essence of what he stands for-As a friend said recently, that Margaret Thatcher’s real achievement was to create New Labour and to continue her policies through that vessel. I’m sure that if my father, an ardent socialist, returned to this earth today he would find it impossible to believe that Gordon Brown wasn’t anything other than a rather awkward authoritarian figure but certainly a fully paid up Tory!

My fundamental view is that both the Tories and Labour are rather tired old political parties trying to reinvent one another’s policies and going nowhere fast. They have no conception of how to approach a future which we know will be confronted by worldwide shortages of food, scarcity of raw materials, inequality, climate change and living with the aftermath of our illegal and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nothing less than a grass root, political renaissance will suffice, pulling down power from the central government and based on the theory of co-operation and equality rather than fear and competition. One that inspires and engages the vast majority of people. Already there are signs of embryonic grass root actions in the Stroud Valleys and further afield which are facing up to the challenges of peak oil and food shortages, like the community supported agriculture (CSA) and the Transition Towns movement.

At a personal level our own lifestyles are far too complex and materially driven which often has an alienating effect on people around us. To continue to live on this crowded planet we will need to be more tolerant and less self- centred.

John Marjoram
Green Party
8,Castle Street- Stroud