On the war in Afghanistan - Click here to link to Alan's page on The war in Afghanistan and Terrorism.
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Biotechnology patenting and GM crops - 'This is a crook's charter. It has nothing to do with how we feed the planet and everything to do with who owns the food chain. Corporations will use this to recolonise the planet; conquest by the patent rather than the sword'.
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The World Trade Organisation - 'sucks. It sucks wealth from national economies into cyber corporations, takes democracy away from citizens and hands it to shareholders, and its only interest in environmental and social rights is that there shouldn't be any (or at least none that are legally binding or interference with trade)'. [ top ]

The Single Currency - 'stands in the way of almost every important issue Europe should be discussing. There is no public support for centralised European taxation and European wealth redistribution. The 'euro' will turn out to be neither stable nor unifying. It will turn us into a continent of thieves - eager to steal the best slice for ourselves and share as little as possible with others. In Britain, it isn't that the government can't sell the case for the Euro - they couldn't give it away'.
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Socialism - 'It is so long since anyone made the case for socialism that people have forgotten their arguments against it'. [ top ]

Parliament - 'should be valued for its imperfections as much as its achievement. Its struggle to hold government to account is what gives government itself credibility. Any government that overlooks the fragile contract it has been given by the electorate, and hands increasing authority to unelected corporations and anti-democratic bodies, will find that the public will sooner or later redefine democracy in more accountable terms'.
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Democracy - ' the big struggle of the 21st Century will be between citizens and corporations. If political parties do not take their citizen's side, we will find ourselves thrown into an era of corporate feudalism. Then you can forget democracy, forget equity, forget sustainability, and forget anything that might address climate change. For all of the personal shortcomings we bring to it, a vigorous democracy is still the best imperfection we have'. [ top ]

The Third Way - 'an intellectual scam. It is little more than a cover for when governments lose the courage to govern; when they decide that managing the economy is too difficult, so hey will manage the people instead. It will all end in tears'. [ top ]

On cannabis - ' what is the point of criminalizing half of society and almost the entirety of MS sufferers? I can't stand smoking, but that's no reason to make it an imprisonable offence. We should subject cannabis to the same regulatory rules applying to alcohol and tobacco. For other drugs, we should be looking to separate dependency from criminality, offering treatment and support for addicts, with out cornering them into lifestyles of crime or prostitution' [ top ]

Action Aid Campaign - The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a terrible human catastrophe and its impact on social and economic development in Africa in particular is reversing the development gains of the past, at a time when 46% of Africa 's people are living in extreme poverty.

There is a simple solution to this very complex and globally diverse epidemic. Condoms or drugs alone are not the answer to tackling HIV/AIDS. The fight against HIV/AIDS also has to include effective public health programmes to be implemented successfully, they need to involve government, education, health, agriculture, civil society and the private sector, and this is the approach the UK promotes.

Most of the Department for International Development (DFID)'s HIV/AIDS spending goes direct to developing countries, through Government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or the private sector. Last year we invested over £250 million on HIV/AIDS related bilateral work. We are committed to increasing our activities and spending over the next five years. We also provide significant contributions to supporting the HIV/AIDS programmes of multilateral agencies, including the United Nations. The UK has played a leading role in setting up the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and want to play our part in making it an effective instrument in the fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria. We recognise that to do this, it needs predictable and sustainable financing. The Global Fund conference held in Paris earlier this year provided a good opportunity to increase and widen the partnership base and showed Europe 's commitment to the GFATM.

The EU contribution now represents 55% of the total commitment to the GFATM. The UK has pledged an additional US$80 million to the GFATM (US$40 million over a further two years). This will extend our current commitment to 2008, bringing our total contribution to the Global Fund to US$280 million. I won't pretend that this is a magic answer to the problems posed by the issues of AIDS, TB and Malaria. What I hope you accept is that it is an important step towards meeting this challenge. [ top ]

Gambling Bill - You may be aware that I am one of the leading voices in opposition to the proposal that would allow for the development of Super Casino's in Britain .

On the second reading of the Bill in Parliament, I decided to abstain, the reason for this quite simple. Nine tenths of the Bill involves an updating of existing laws and regulations that govern the industry. Most of these are uncontroversial and offer additional welcome protections for the public. The one part of the Bill that stands in glowing contrast is the part relating to Super Casino's. I believe this was only included at the behest of the owners of large casino's, largely from the USA . Labour has no manifesto commitment to introduce Super Casino's and there is no public demand for them. I have made it clear in writing to government whips that I will be voting against any such clauses when the Bill gets considered in any great detail.

For the record I also want to warn people against the compromise that may be offered of a limited number of pilot schemes (i.e. one per region). Under existing World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, you cannot set up a closed market. You can have a market that allows for limited gambling with defined prize levels, but as soon as you allow one company to offer unlimited prizes it becomes illegal to prevent any number of others setting up within the same market. This is why I am arguing for an outright ban.

There is abundant evidence of the damage this does in terms of the increase in ‘problem gambling'. In Australia the estimate is that a billion pounds is gambled, but that the consequent costs of dealing with gambling addiction comes to 5 times that amount. Does Britain need this? No. [ top ]

Smoking Ban - Any decision about whether to make Nottingham a no smoking City would be the prerogative of the City Council rather than Parliament. When asked about this I have simply made it clear that I would support the City Council should they make such a decision. One of our main challenges is to stop the growth of smoking among women, which is far faster-growing than among men.

It is important to recognise any such decision about smoking in public places and it does not extend to decisions people make about their own lives and in their own homes. As such it is not a breach of individual human rights because individuals still have the right to smoke. It is just that we would restrict the health damage on other people who are non smokers. In many ways this is similar to the way society approaches other forms of pollution and contamination. We know there are all sorts of noxious substances produced from industry or even in the home. Over the years society has simply produced rules about the containment of such substances and their disposal.

Cities that have decided to do the same in respect of smoking are merely applying the same logic to the cancer causing problems associated with inhalation of tobacco fumes. This is why I haven't called for a ban on tobacco or would consider the current proposals to be a violation of common rights. [ top ]

THE NHS - The NHS is the most civilising gift of my lifetime. It is the difference between society and a market place. I will be opposing all moves to sell it off.
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EU Rebate - On the subject of the Euro, I do not think we will ever join it and I will certainly campaign against doing so. On the subject of the rebate, I do not mind us looking again at this if the EU agrees first to look at the unfairness of the budget itself. If Britain got a fair share of the budget in the first place we wouldn't need a rebate to put it right. I think this is going to be an area of considerable debate over the coming months and I certainly intend to play my part in it. [ top ]

Pension Provision - I also agree with you completely about pension provision. I have argued for a long time that the best way of avoiding confusion and bureaucracy is to restore the value of the state pension and reconnecting it to rises in earnings. It is a point regularly made by the National Pensioners Convention, with whom I campaign on this issue. I enclose a copy of an article I have written on this in the hope that it is of some interest.

I have been actively involved in discussions with public sector trade unions about the far reaching implications that this would have. I am not convinced that there is a pension's crisis that warrants the changes being pushed through. I remind colleagues that 250 billion pounds was lost from the value of UK pension funds when the dot.com market crashed. In recent years Fund managers have been allowed to put pension contributions into speculative activities, treating them more like a casino that a serious investment plan. We are now asking pension scheme members to make good the cost of this speculation, either by paying more or working longer.

The starting point for my discussion with Ministers is that if they want to change pension arrangements then workers who contribute into these funds must first have the right to control what is done with them. My worry is that by pushing the changes through as they are, the government is preparing the ground not just for higher contributions from yourselves, but also to make it easier to sell public sector jobs to private providers. In the United States they are already talking about privatising public pension schemes. We should be wary indeed about taking any steps in a similar direction.

I have already offered to campaign alongside public sector trade unions on this issue, on both a local and national level. I look forward to doing so alongside you.
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Campaign to Reduce the Voting Age to 16 - Over the centuries people have fought for the right of universal suffrage. For me, this means that if you are old enough to fight for your country and old enough to pay taxes to run it, you should be able to vote on who you want to decide on both taxes and war. It probably means equalising the full range of adult responsibilities before the courts, but at least this would bring a degree of consistency to the system that is often sadly lacking.
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GM Crops - I have been involved in the lobbying over this for many years and agree with the Campaign entirely. I went with Friends of the earth to make this point at a European lobby of the European Commission in Brussels .

Furthermore, I have signed up to the Green Gloves pledge, to remove GM crops where they are planted if the contamination threshold is above the 0.1% and if a GM ‘liability' scheme is not in place.

I will choose where and when to break the law in this way, but hope to see you and other supporters involved in this as a mass protest. Best wishes. " [ top ]

Dept of Transports £1 Per Mile - I have deep reservations about road pricing in whatever form it takes. The £1 per mile charge would be simply a means by which the rich priced the poor off the road. We are going to have to make big changes in our transport assumptions for the 21 st Century. This means investing in public transport before you start to penalise everything else. [ top ]

Bombings in London

"There is a stillness between the flash of an explosion and the moment the blast hits you. Yesterday morning the stillness filled London with surreal movements of normality in a far from normal situation.

Those nowhere near any of the blasts knew that something had happened. Tube stations were suddenly closed. Buses passed without stopping, their seats completely empty. The sound of emergency vehicle sirens told you they were needed elsewhere.

The surreal character of the moment was that human streams of displaced travellers steadily made their own journeys into Central London ; a refusal by civil society to allow terrorism to defeat them.

Acts of terrorism are always cowardly. They are military attacks on the innocent, drawing no distinction between young and old, black and white, Muslim, Jew, and Christian. Such arbitrary and gratuitous bombing is no more acceptable in London than in Baghdad , Fallujah or Mo sul . This is what we have to reflect on in the days to come.

The most immediate temptation to resist is that of the knee-jerk reaction. There is no case for the rushing through of emergency anti-terrorist laws, or of draconian restrictions on our liberties.

The best way to defend the open society is to live in open democratic ways. We defeat fundamentalist hatreds by demonstrating our solidarity with those of different faiths. We best confront al Qaida by refusing to become like them. But some messages cannot be ignored.

The antiwar movement consistently warned that the illegal war on Iraq would increase the terrorist threat to Britain rather than reduce it. We said too, that Britain 's continued military occupation of Iraq , and the arbitrary violence to Iraqi cities resisting the occupation, would soon find echoes within Britain .

Once Iraq was a no-go zone for al Qaida. Now it is their recruiting ground. Britain cannot insist on a determination to maintain the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq without making Britain part of the war zone. When the current UN mandate expires at the end of the year British troops must leave. The government cannot credibly claim a right to pursue this ongoing war in Iraq without recognising that its opponents will bring the same war onto British soil.

There will be voices who argue that these bombings make the case for compulsory ID cards and general police stop-and-search powers. The answer is the complete opposite. We have to assert our belief in freedoms by refusing to close them down.

Londoners may have felt that such bombings were bound to happen sooner rather than later. Most will know they are inextricably bound up in the open wound of Iraq . As we raise our voices in outrage against the brutality the bombing brings with it, we should reflect on how close this brings us to families (just like our own) who face the same horrors in Iraq .

he official war in Iraq has ended. The bombings have not. In looking for answers to the threat to citizens in the UK , we cannot pretend that Britain 's continuing role in Iraq is not a central part of the problem. After the Madrid bombings the same issue confronted the Spanish people. They chose to tackle the issue of the war, rather than to extend the boundaries of the battlefield. Britain has to find the courage to do the same." [ top ]

Food Supplements - I have campaigned against the EU Directive and the particularly hard-line interpretation of it that is being pursued by the British Government. This has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the public; instead it is all about protecting the profits of the pharmaceutical industries. [ top ]

Anti Social Behviour - Labour has introduced ASBO's (anti social behaviour orders) along with parenting orders and tougher powers for both the police and the local authorities. In Nottingham this has been backed by the appointment of 75 new neighbourhood wardens and 90 patch managers. It is at the level of small scale, but seriously disrupting behaviour that we are focusing labour's campaign to build safer communities. [ top ]

Police - Nottinghamshire has added 319 officers to the police force since the Chief Constable took office in June 2000. There are also an extra 257 civilian staff to reduce the paperwork burden. Nottingham faces two big difficulties. The first is the growth in serious crime. The second is standards of performance. There is a real issue about gun and drug crime. I have made this point to eh Home Secretary, asking for national resources to help address the problem that maybe in Nottingham today, but could just as easily move to Derby or Leicester tomorrow. The extra help given to Nottinghamshire by the Home Office now is to specifically tackle this problem. [ top ]

Locally we also have to ask why Nottingham 's performance figures are still amongst the poorest in the country. The involvement of national inspectors will no doubt come up with recommendations for change that we have to have the courage to support. [ top ]

Asylum - There are two critical things we should do in relation to asylum. The first is to cease supporting wars that force people to flee for their lives. The second is to give asylum seekers the right to contribute in our society even while there case is being considered.

Today, we make it illegal for a refugee to work, but require them to survive on benefits that are 30% below subsistence levels. This invites people to be part of the illicit society that exploits and abuses everyone it touches. [ top ]

The best way of speeding up asylum applications is to increase the staff available to process them. [ top ]

Iraq - Iraq was an illegal and immoral war that is ultimately un-winnable. Britain must set a date for the withdrawal of troops as other countries have done. I voted against this war on every possible occasion and will continue to do so. [ top ]

Immigration - Britain cannot survive as a siege society. We need new people as young workers in the economy. With an ageing population we need this if today's and tomorrow's tax and NI contributions are to meet today's and tomorrow's pension needs. Of course we need an immigration system with clear and fair rules. It just needs to be run on a basis that avoids the racism or prejudice of the far right would seek to turn into a social panic. [ top ]

ID Cards - I know the cost of ID cards is likely to be astronomical, but this wasn't the main reason I voted against the Bill. Britain is the only country in the whole of Europe proposing to bring in ID cards that would give the state control over the data rather than the individual. It is a deeply regressive move. In other countries citizens have control over the data on their cards and national agencies cannot search through them from one information category to another to pry into peoples lives.

The most frightening point is that there are to be thousands of access points for information into the ID system. This is the route that hackers would use to break into the data banks and steal or tamper with information. It could take us into a whole new era of Identity fraud. This measure has nothing to do with personal security and everything to do with state surveillance. [ top ]

European Union - The position I take on this is that I am deeply sceptical of the free market obsessions that underpin EU policies. These and the bureaucracy surrounding them seem to completely disregard the challenges that Climate change will confront us with. I am not against European initiatives aimed at delivering water security, energy security, or the renewal of local food systems. My objection is just that the current policies of the EU seem to disregard these. [ top ]

Sexual Orientations - My own view is that faith is a personal matter, but one which should in general be treated respectfully.  This does not however, extend into spheres where the nature of those beliefs would seek to discriminate against others in society who pose neither risk nor threat to them.  Those who would accord women fewer rights than men, on the basis of religious beliefs of cultures are just living in the wrong society.

For many years Christian churches in South Africa used their own variety of religious beliefs to justify the apartheid system.  In Israel today it is used to justify different treatment between Jews and non-Jews.  In the Asian sub-continent the same approach to religiosity can be used to justify discriminatory practices between Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians.  Does this make any of the discrimination that follows right?  No.

The absence of sexual orientation legislation has not prevented any of the major sex abuse scandals that have rocked the churches.  I suspect what this legislation will do is to force churches to have a more open debate, that they should have been having a long time ago; namely the distinction between a different sexual orientation and the practices of sexual abuse. The distinction I find myself increasingly drawing is between those who live in gentle non exploitative relationships and those who live in more combative and exploitative ones.  I just think it is helpful to spell out to constituents that this is where I stand. [ top ]

Workplace Parking Levy - It may well be that the most equitable way of addressing the taxation of vehicle use in Cities is through an increase in fuel duties.  The difference in this is that any revenues raised would go first to the Treasury.  It would not allow Cities to raise money that could go into other local transport alternatives.

As a car user, I know that the future has to be built around far more substantial public transport networks than we have now.  I know that my own use of the car will have to come a poor second to the establishment of these networks.  It may well be they also come a poor second to the development of cycle networks.  This is the pattern of what already is developing in a number of other European Cities and is something we are going to have to catch up with in Britain.

It is legitimate to complain that there is an unfairness about introducing workplace charges when the alternative public transport infrastructure is not in pace. Unfortunately we are caught between a rock and a hard place.  There is no way of raising the resources for these infrastructures unless councils are able to raise additional monies in some variation of either the workplace parking levy or congestion charging.  These seem to be the realistic choices that Nottingham has to address. [ top ]

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