http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIBKwRHvkV8

Labels: Local Respect

;:The ‘No Mill Road Tesco’ campaign is a fantastic illustration of how the community can work together – we must now turn the energy into victory and build the confidence to stand up for our public services and the whole communities needs.

The threat of Tesco opening a store in Mill Road has sparked a vibrant and broad campaign - which Respect fully support.

The campaign has also shown that the community can make a difference if we act together. We can stop Tesco but the battle must not stop there!

Tesco’s is just one multinational that benefits from the cosy relationship big business has with government.

Defend Public Services
New Labour touts for cash from the wealthy – In return the government continues to sell them our public services at a bargain prices. Gordon Brown has cut corporation tax, bailed out private investors and let business bosses like Digby Jones into the Cabinet.

Romsey could loose Brookfield’s Hospital. The PCT is cutting back whilst privately outsourced services reap record profits.
In Cambridge Community education and library facilities have been cut. several local schools including Parkside Federation are seeking trust status- a move that will hand over assets to business and end any democratic accountability.

Free dentistry and eye care has long gone – the government is talking about supermarkets and high street chemists like ‘Boots’ taking over other parts of our health service too.

The Lib Dems are selling the sheltered housing. It seems every last corner of Romsey is being developed for private flats, yet no investment has been made in new council housing.

6000 families are on the housing waiting list. Yet of 10,000 homes proposed at Marshall only 40% are supposed to be ‘affordable’ -none are council!

Stop Privatisation
The transport infrastructure is stretched but not satisfied with selling the buses and trains they now want to hand over the roads so we can be charged for them too.

Cost of living rises but government announces a pay freeze holding down public sector wages below inflation until 2011. In the case of the post office the government aim is to dismantle it in order to sell of the profitable bits.

Tesco maybe the most visible multinational in this process of ‘neo liberal Globalisation’ but others corporations are queuing up in order to take profit from our services and put nothing back. It is the public that looses.

Fight Back
We need to build movements that can take them on. We can fight back in community struggle like ‘No Mill Road Tesco’. Through trade union activity and in movements like Stop the War and defend council housing.

However we also need political representation. We must link these movements as well as raising the fight in the council chambers. That is why building the Respect Coalition is a first step to closing this democratic gap.

Labels: Local Respect, No Tesco

Defend Local Traders/defend choice
Respect is not opposed to those who shop in supermarkets, we are opposed to the supermarket monopoly. Their power limits choice and jeopardies diversity.

Demand good food for working people
The use of additives, colouring a flavouring has enabled supermarkets to increase profits and lower the quality of food by increasing shelf life and enhancing its taste and appearance.

Reduce food miles
The way Tesco seeks maximum profit, as well as the 'just in time' distribution strategy, increases the transportation of products all over the globe as well as up and down the country.

Solidarity with Global South
The worlds poor are getting poorer. The multinational agro-industrial complex forces many farmers off land and into sweatshops or worse. Many farmers are forced into debt and suicide is far to common. Multinationals also divert vital water sources away from local people in order to maximize farming or food production.

For Workers rights
The average Tesco employee earns £11,000 a year, the chief executive earns £4m. Tesco exploit vulnerable people - many part times, on a high turnover with little of few benifits and paid just above the minimum wage.

Stand up for migrant Labour
Supermarkets make enormous profits (Tescos up by £13bn last year) by pushing producers to cut corners, employ gang masters and create unacceptable working conditions.

Environmental Impact of Agribusiness
Intensive farming of cash crops using fertilisers and without long them planning is having a huge impact on important ecosystems. Switching crops on global demand often leads to massive over production in one crop. In the case of Bbio-fuels this has lead to staple food shortages in some countries.

Too close to government
The big supermarkets maintain and increase their monopoly through huge lobbying power and many have long histories of funding the three main parties. Tesco's fund the Lib Dem's and the Tory Party and Lord Sainsbury is in the New Labour Government.

Labels: Local Respect, No Tesco

Labels: Local Respect, No Tesco

Respect proves we can build an electoral challenge to privatisation and war!

Respect campaigns around the county have shown that center right mainstream politics can be challenged from the left. By this morning Respect had won council seats in Preston, Chesterfield and Birmingham and a host of excellent second and third places across England. Counts in other parts of the country are still to be announced. Respect has shown that we do well where we put a socialist argument for better public services and for a planned and collective approach to tackling climate change, poverty and war.

Our candidates and campaigns have presented a positive alternative whilst center right politics has led to low turn outs and a further undermining of the established electoral process.

In Romsey ward, where we stood in Cambridge, the Respect campaign has helped move the political agenda back towards the left by creating a real debate around how we tackle housing, health, education and transport. We have put forward a robust opposition to privatization. We have started a fight back and a platform from which we can gain confidence to mount a real challenge to Gordon Browns Pay freeze and New Labour continuing cuts and marketisation of health and education.

Our 17%, up from 12% last year, has established Respect as a credible force in Cambridge . All of the other parties lost votes to us because we had a clear analysis of how local politics and national and international issues are related. The Labour vote continued to collapse in an area that was once known as Red Romsey, the heart of the local Labour movement. We feel we are begining to rebuilding the links and spirit of trade unionsim in the ward and real socialist principals go down well amoungst a constituency that has a high proportion of public sector workers, council tenants, students and pensioners.

What is significant is that we have picked up votes form across the board - with the exception of the Tories - whos vote stayed static at 11%. The Liberal Democrats are finding that the gains they have made at the expense of Blairism and Iraq have been short lived. They must now look over their slopy shoulders to find us mounting a fight against their complience with New Labour's cuts and privativation and short sited apporach to local government.

Labels: Local Respect

In last year's council elections, Respect made a number of spectacular breakthroughs, winning 12 councillors in Tower Hamlets and 3 in Newham.

Rania Khan in Tower Hamlets became Britain's youngest councillor, while in Preston Michael Lavalette is the North-West's best known councillor. In Birmingham, Salma Yaqoob won a council seat with an extraordinary 51% of the vote.

People in those areas have really felt the difference. For the first time in living memory they can easily access councillors' surgeries in their wards.

While councils under Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats all put the interests of private profit before public need, Respect councillors work tirelessly to defend council housing, schools and hospitals.

In Preston, Respect has been instrumental in passing legislation to protect the environment and to ensure employment rights for out-sourced work.

In Tower Hamlets and Newham, New Labour now find themselves facing real opposition for the first time. No longer are they able to roll over ordinary people in the interests of their fat-cat friends. Respect councillors ask the questions that need to be asked, whether it's about the budget, council housing or discrimination.

In areas like Sunderland, Calderdale, the East Midlands and Sheffield, key activists – including a number of former and sitting councillors – are leaving Labour and the Liberal Democrats to stand as Respect candidates.

Labels: Local Respect

Global issues are key in the local elections because climate change, war and privatisation are proving the greatest threat to our local communities.

Blair’s commitment to George Bush’s Oil War is in direct contradiction to sustainable development, international relations and tackling poverty at home and abroad. Gordon Brown talks of eradicating poverty yet he offers tax breaks to corporations whilst attacking workers pensions and pay.

The link to local issues is simple – capitalism and the free market! Foundation hospitals, stock transfer of council housing, city academies and trust schools means our services are being run for profit by the same multinationals who are asset stripping Iraq and the global south.

The three main parties will not be making the link between the governments policies and the local impact of the street not being cleaned, the bus route being cut, the cost of dental treatment and prescriptions or the unaffordable housing that is being built on the last bit of open space in the community. Why? Because all of the other have little or no principled commitment to democratically owned and run public services.

The majority position on the doorstep in most of the country will be - why should I vote for any of them? In Romsey we are offering a positive alternative for peace, public services, anti racism and sustainability! If you cannot vote for Respect in your area then quiz your candidates on the democratic accountability of our public services before you make your choice!

Labels: Local Respect

Last were speaking to people in Romsey about the political situation we are in nationally and globally as well as issues and concerns particular to Cambridge and to this part of Romsey.

It is clear that the continuing privatisation of Public Services, made particularly obvious by the market-led cuts in the Health service, are a real concern for many of you. Respect are campaigning for a fully funded, publicly owned National Health service and are backing a Regional Conference on the crisis to be held at Shire Hall next Saturday from 10am –1pm (if you would like to attend, please contact: unison@addenbrookes.nhs.uk 01223 217550)

We also spoke to lots of people about the Governments Foreign Policy. Respect continues to take a very strong position on this, being the only Party calling for Troops to be withdrawn immediately from the Middle East. Between 75,000-100,000 people marched in London this weekend to end the occupation and calling on the Government not to replace Trident – Britain’s Nuclear weapons system. We believe that if troops stay in the Middle East far from ‘finishing the job’ they will cause a further escalation in violence and continue to spread the conflict zone into other countries.


The local issues that come up most often are to do with bins and parking as well as ‘rat runs’ in some areas. We feel that these issues are related to each other. Romsey is unique in Cambridge because of its narrow streets and Pavements and this exacerbates the bin collection and parking issues.

In the longer term we feel that improvements in public transport and pressure and legislation on producers to reduce packaging and waste would provide a strategy for dealing with these problems. In the short term we feel that the collection of waste should be reviewed both in the frequency and the collection days as well as the containers that are made available for residents. We have written to the council about residents parking schemes and the marked parking bays and for a review of the parking situation as part of an intergrated strategy for a sustainable city.

We welcome any response to this and any other issue that are of concern to you

Labels: Local Respect

The suggestion in Letters 29th January that immigration is the reason for a council housing shortage is racist and ill informed. These are the lies that the BNP and other fascist parties use to divide communities who are all on the receiving end of poor policy.

The shortage in council housing is because consecutive governments and councils have sold housing stock without replacing it. The shortage puts house prices and rent up and makes it more difficult for people to own their home either personally or through co-operative housing.

The council allows property development companies to throw up hundreds of one bedroom apartments for maximum profit and then lets them buy out of the social housing obligations and market the ‘homes’ at London’s overspill.

This kind of approach does not serve the interests of anyone but the developers, the bankers and the far right! Cambridge needs family and community homes that are well designed and well built with good transport, social spaces and amenities.

Our local elected representatives must campaign for more council housing as part of a city wide plan not make excuses for the pro market ideologies that create these housing conditions. They will however write to this page claiming that central governments don’t give them any money to build council housing and that the planning committee is not to cast political judgement. Well what do our councillors do? They should shout a little louder for public housing or it is their own hands they have tied.

Labels: Local Respect, No Fire Cuts, Oakington/Immigration, Unite/Anti Racism

Dear editor,

I am appalled with the British governments continuing complicity with the US foreign policy. The ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are counter productive and threaten ‘lasting global stability’. Further to New Labours refusal to withdraw the troops the British Government is now supporting a new war on a new front in Gaza and Lebanon, Tony Bair is also threatening Iran and Syria. It is a disgrace that our elected representatives, from local councillors to our MP, are not reflecting the mass of public opinion in condoning Blair’s chauvinism toward George Bush and US capitalism and his appetite for state terrorism. British political society must not turn the other cheek. Their failure to oust him for previous war crimes has led to his perpetual re offending. All of those who do not speak out against him must burden responsibility. Blair must go now!

Tom Woodcock
Cambridge RESPECT

Labels: Local Respect, Stop the War

you can link to the Results on the Respect site.
I am tired and will comment on what a great acheivment the campaign has been a little later.
Thanks for visiting the site.
Thanks for all the help you have put in
Thanks for voting and supporting what we are doing.
Please stay involved or get involved.

Labels: Local Respect

Over the last 6 weeks the Romsey Respect team has put out three excellent leaflets, we have knocked on every door and spoken to one third of the electorate in Romsey.

We have also collected over 200 signatures from council tenant, so that Tenants Against Privatisation could present the case to the council against closing sheltered housing. Sam and I have asked questions at full council meetings.

We have collected nearly 500 signatures against the privatisation and development of Parkside fire station and informed people of the issues involved. We have helped promotes and supported two well attended stop the war meetings, a national demonstation against the war and a Trades Council march and Rally to defend public services.

Many of Respect's members have also been involved in the pensions campaign, organising and supporting strike action across public sector unions. We are working hard on a national and local level to resist the increase in retirement age, which we so strongly feel to be wrong and weighted so unfairly against working people. All three parties are using the 'modern world' as an exuse for worsening standards of living. We believe standards of living should be getting better - are we mad?

Whilst we are trying to inform the public New Labour and Lib Dems in Romsey have tried extremely hard to divert attention away from the issues we face in the 21st Century. They both want the electorate to think that the local council election is only about recycling and bins. This is to avoid the bigger issues at both local and national level.

Poor planning decision are being made by both Prescott and our local Lib Dem's, they lack environmental clarity and have no vision in terms of an integrated transport system. The corporate destruction of the environment, endless war and the massive privatisation of our services are all part of the political road being taken by the three main parties.

Even though local government does have less powers than it ought to this is not an excuse for keeping the public in the dark. We believe that our role is to provide information about what is going on and we will continue to raise the bigger issues and keep Romsey resident informed.

It is also not acceptable to implement central governments plans without a fight. If the local Labour party and the Lib Dem council believed in council run services then they would, and should, be protesting to central government, as well as talking to other councils and organising resistance to the mass privatisation agenda.

We have now established the beginnings of this resistance in Romsey. If all of the people who have shown supported for our ideas go out and vote for us tomorrow, we will take that resistance to both the city and county council chambers. We will then continue to builds the confidence needed to reject privatisation and war and the environmental disasters waiting to happen if the political establishment are allowed to continue.

Don’t forget to go and vote for RESPECT!

Labels: Local Respect

For the last few week Respect members in Cambridge have been leafleting for a demonstration against privatisation and cuts in public services. The demo happened this Saturday and was called by the local trades council. Many Respect members have been involved in the organisation. There was a good turn out and we built further links between the different trade unions in Cambridge and service users. We also took our message to many members of the public.

Whilst out canvassinge for the elections we have been telling people about the demonstration and asking them come along. On the occasions when we have happened on Labour supporters or members we have tried to encourage them to show solidarity with the workers from hospitals, schools, the fire station and other public services by attening the demo. The responses we have received have been telling. There appears to be very little linking Labour party members in cambridge and the Labour movement.

On Saturday morning I was standing outside the Co-op in Romsey Town giving out leaflets about the march and talking to people about public services. I gave a leaflet to one man and invited him to attend, he replied “no, I’m in the Labour Party!”. I tried to ask him again and encouraged him as a Labour party member to support public services and workers. He seemed to have little idea of the irony in the response he had given.

We have had a stall every Saturday for the last two months and the Labour party have more recently set up a stall as well – they arrive later, leave earlier and get less interest and more stick of the public.

I feel sad for them because they are taking the flack for New Labour whilst paying for Cherrie Blair’s haircuts. I also feel sad because lots of labour voters and supporters are hanging on to the idea that local Labour parties still hold some of the values of class solidarity.

I went to ask the woman who runs the stall if she was coming to demonstrate against the privatisation of Cambridge fire station and other services. Her response was to defend the decision to give the fire station to a developer. Even though it was a decision made by the Tory county council. She seemed embarrassed when I explained the real situation and my genuine desire to work together with Labour party members to resist privatisation and protect public services.

My NUT comrade and fellow Respect member Jo reported that she had the same experience with another Labour party member who happened on the rally in the town centre. What is absolutely clear is that the Labour party has lost its tradition of standing together with worker. This is because there is no formal links between the Labour group on the council and the trade unions. Thus they can not find out what is happening in the workplace let alone select candidates from the trade union movement or fight for publicly owned services. It is a party a long way from it roots.

Needless to say there were no Labour party members or councillors on the demo? There has been a right wing coup that has transfored the parlimentry labour party into a bunch of consultants and Public relations people. If those who want to regain the Labour party are going to succeed then they need to rebuild grass roots links with the trade unions. RESPECT is doing this!

Labels: Local Respect

Public Services owned by and run for the public
we will campaign against the sale of public property to developers and oppose the three main parties privatization of schools, hospitals, public housing and emergency services.

Independent councillors accountable to local people
Unlike the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dem's Respect are not funded by big business. The role of a councillor is to represent the people and not to middle manage the Central Governments agenda.

Direct investment in local communities
We will work to protect local businesses and community facilities from multi-nationals. We will fight to reinvest in youth amenities, adult education and well resourced public spaces.

Respect for the environment
Recycling is not enough. We will propose a sustainable city charter in which businesses must not produce as much waste. Housing, planning, transport and leisure decisions will be approved by the environment committee.

Councils against war and imperialism
Along with other Respect councils we hope to declare that Cambridge council opposes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all future wars that aim to secure profits for oil companies and other corporate interests.

Labels: Local Respect

We have had another successful weekend. The stall on Saturday was buzzing and lots of people wanted to talk to us.

We canvassed 200 houses on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and the positive responses have really increased. We spoke to 40 new definite RESPECT voters on the doorstep this weekend alone and over 60 more who are possible RESPECT voters.

The canvas returns show that we are now well known and that lots of people are willing to vote RESPECT. It is clear that many now just need the confidence and reassurance to do so.

We need to do a lot more to win, but what is becoming apparent is that with your effort in the next 10 days a result is a real possibility!

PLEASE GIVE ALL THE HELP YOU CAN - SEE THE CAMPAIGN TIMETABLE OR PHONE DENISE (07921256766) IF YOU CAN SPEND TIME HELPING DURRING THE DAYS!

Labels: Local Respect

The Lib Dem Councillors voted unanimously against a motion to reconsider the sell off of the three sheltered housing schemes at Simon's house, Seymore Court and Tiverton House. Their disregard for the current and future tenants in these schemes shows a lack of commitment to affordable publicly run housing. They clearly have no commitment to the integrated and affordable way in which these schemes are of benefit to society and those most vulnerable.


We will continue our commitment to high quality publicly owned council housing.

Labels: Local Respect

Here is a picture of the three Cambridge candidates. We are in the area all of the time. Please stop to talk to us or ask questions. We will come and visit you if you get in touch. We are also outside the Co-op on Mill Road between 10.30 amd 12.30 on Saturday mornings.

Labels: Local Respect

Cambridge RESPECT have launched two addition candidates for the Romsey ward By- Elections. Denise Knowelden and Sam Caldwell have joined me to create a full slate in the ward.

We have stepped up our activities in Romsey over the last 6 weeks and have canvassed a large part of the ward. We are getting an excellent response and feel if we can visit the rest of the ward then we stand a good chance. Romsey has traditionally been a Labour seat but there is little appetite for 'New Labour' on the door step. The lib Dems now hold all four seats in the ward as many people have reluctantly switched in the last out of discust at the Blair agenda. People now feel let down by them as well. Ill thought out development, and Housing, Health and Fire Service cuts and privatisation. threats have shown people that there really is little difference between the big three Parties.

Labels: Local Respect

Canvassing has been a joy today, 40 more votes and a lot of very good responses.
There is clearly no appetite for Labour or the Liberal Democrats. They have blown all of their credibility with council tenants and there is an awful lot of ill feeling about privatisation and the war.

Labels: Local Respect

Thursday's local paper presented us with the news that Joanna Toomey and Iain Coleman, Lib Dem County and City Councillors for Romsey Ward, have fallen in love and decided to move to Scotland. The truth is that Romsey residents and others in Cambridge would not have been worse off if the Love birds had been in Scotland for the duration of their time on the council. In fact it would be fair to say, with the inept decisions the council have made, we would all have been better off.

Cambridge Respect are only standing in Romsey ward at this Election and I was our only candidate. There will now he a double by-election in a ward we feel we can win. Needless to say we will be looking to stand in the two vacant seats and build on the excellent response we have been getting. We now have a chance of making a massive breakthrough. Thank-you cupid.

Labels: Local Respect