News
Thursday, February 25, 2010
I attended the first hustings event in Luton South this evening organised by Transition Luton with a focus on environmental issues and creating a new, vibrant, low carbon economy.
All 8 currently declared candidates attended this event.
We were all given 3 minutes to make a short introductory speech and then took questions from the audience on a range of matters including the Luton Busway, Student fees, apprenticeships, ethnic tensions and the reputation and barnd of Luton as a whole.
A very enjoyable event. Thank you for all who turned out and to tranistion Luton for their flawess organization.
My speech is below:
Thursday Evening Speech at the Transition Luton Event
We have just 70 days until the election if – as most of us assume – Gordon Brown calls if for May 6th.
So - how important will environmental issues be to Lutonians in the election campaign?
From extensive surveys I’ve done, 2,700 responses and counting, I can tell you it’s important to Lutonians, but it’s not top of the list. Jobs, the NHS, crime, education and care for the elderly consistently come higher.
But I don’t believe we can divorce environmental issues from jobs, from regeneration, from education. It’s a very complex issue.
Luton has a lot going for it – and we’ve taken a lot of hard knocks recently. But the town has proud history of reinventing itself – from hats, to cars, to aviation. We need to rebrand Luton again – make it an even greater place to live and work. It will not be an easy. But that is where I can help - because helping businesses grow and creating jobs– is what I do as a day job NOW.
And working together we can regenerate Luton in a low carbon way. If we lay our bets now we can be the beneficiaries of thousands of new green collar jobs. We should encourage the university to work even more closely with local firms, incubate and grow new businesses and establish Luton as a centre of excellence for the low carbon economy.
We are ideally positioned to take advantage of the low carbon economy here in Luton because many of our local firms are being so creative and innovative in tackling the issue - like GM Vauxhall with their new electric car range, and Easyjet with more environmentally friendly planes, with packaging companies etc.
My party has a slogan: ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’ – based on the achievements of Tory councils up and down the country; and on policy commitments such as:
• Using intelligent networks to manage power supply and demand,
• Installing smart meters in homes and businesses;
• Establishing a recharging network for electric cars;
• Establish new marine energy parks – harnessing wind and way power
• Provide financial incentives not just penalties for recycling...
Locally as many of you know, I’ve been campaigning to save our greenbelt from destruction for several years – especially as we have acres of brownfield land crying out for redevelopment in central Luton .
But at all the Rally’s and events on the greenbelt, on airport noise and pollution, at meetings to set up a conservation area in Luton South – I hardly ever came across Margaret Moran and only very recently saw one of the other candidates. So I am not just putting on these green credentials for election time, I have been spending my time on these issues for years.
So- at the upcoming election, you will have plenty of options but the real choice is crystal clear: EITHER re-elect this tired, incompetent Labour government, OR vote Conservative and put David Cameron in Downing Street. A vote for any other party or candidate other than the Conservatives risks five more years of Gordon Brown.
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