Blogposts tagged 'Politics'

So yesterday's budget was from the self-proclaimed 'greenest government ever', but was it the greenest budget ever? How could it be, when it has done nothing to break our addiction with oil, hobbled the Green Investment Bank before it's even started, and provided a windfall for nuclear power.

Image by Lee Jordan

The government recently announced it is considering selling off large areas of woodlands. Forested areas in the UK are important for local biodiversity, and while Greenpeace campaigns are focused on tropical rainforests, the Woodland Trust is all about our own trees. Guest blogger Kaye Brennan from the Trust explains what's going on in our own backyard.

For the latest news on the proposed forest sell-off, visit the Woodland Trust's website.

First of all, let me say that yes, we are worried, and no, we're not campaigning... yet!

Shocking news burst our peaceful Sunday bubble recently, as the Guardian and several other newspapers announced that Defra were considering the mass sale of at least half of the public forest estate.

Several petitions were swiftly started, between them gathering signatures from hundreds of thousands of concerned people and they are still growing in numbers. Online, views were made clear in the hundreds of comments left on articles, blog posts, Facebook pages and tweets.

Greetings from a bustling Liberal Democrat party conference in Liverpool! Team Trident (aka Simon, Zoe and me) are here to talk to people about one of the big issues of the day – whether or not the coalition government proceeds with hugely expensive plans for a new generation of nuclear weapons in the midst of the biggest cuts to public spending in living memory.

This is going to be a bit off-topic but stick with me as given the circumstances I think it's relevant for this blog. That a party can get 23 per cent of the vote but only claim 9 per cent of the seats in parliament seems grossly unfair. As does the notion that another party can garner 36 per cent of votes, and see that translated into 46 per cent of seats. Yet, more or less, that's what our electoral system has delivered.