SUELLA BRAVERMAN

Suella Braverman is the new Attorney General in Boris Johnson's 2020 cabinet re-shuffle. 

Unfortunately for Suella, the British do not have much of a reputation for dishing out justice. As the Attorney General, she might find that there are cases that undermine policing and codes of conduct during investigations that would make your hair curl.

We invented concentration camps, not the Nazis, and we have Legal Aid at such a low level that a proper defence is almost impossible for those who cannot afford to pay for representation privately.

In addition, we (via David Blunkett) have introduced legislation that violates Article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the right to a fair trial and to be treated as innocent when entering a court of law. Having fraudulently obtained convictions by denying those accused a level playing field, the United Kingdom (England) then refuse to comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in that there is no avenue to the Appeal Courts other than through the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

The CCRC's mandate is not compatible with Article 6 or Article 14, in that they openly discriminate between cases.

This is an appalling situation brought about by a degenerate legal system that underscores our potholed politics when it comes to basic human rights. Granted that Rishi Sunak is trying to do something about that. But what about mending the justice system?

For all these reasons, Mr Buckland is likely to find himself in a lose, lose situation, where he cannot hold his head up high, but will be forced to try and defend the indefensible. Time will tell as to how the gentleman proceeds to unravel the HR violations that crop up as proofs, such as Alison Saunders (Department of Public Prosecutions [DPP]) trying to stitch up 47 men for alleged sexual offences, by withholding evidence.  These incidents are of course not of his making, or before his time as justice secretary.

CARBON CAPTURE

The Conservative government is spending at around £800m establishing two or more carbon capture and storage clusters by 2030 to “store millions of tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere”. These clusters, he said, would create up to 6,000 high-skilled, high-wage jobs in areas such as Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside or St Fergus in Scotland.

ROADS

The Chancellor announced an investment of £27 billion in Britain’s roads, which includes the second round of Major Road Network and Large Local Major schemes proceeding to the next stage of development, plus a £2.5 billion fund to repair Britain’s potholes, aiming to fill 50 million potholes and resurfacing roads over the next five years.

The government is investing £4.2 billion in the transport networks of eight city regions across England from 2022-23. Funding will be delivered through five-year, consolidated transport settlements.

It will provide £83 million of funding for local road maintenance in the South East through the Potholes Fund in 2020-21. 

THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

A plastic packaging tax will come into force from April 2022 to incentivise the use of recycled plastic in packaging and help tackle the scourge of plastic in the natural environment.

Rob Morgan, investment analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, says: “The Chancellor’s new plastic packaging tax is a step in the right direction towards encouraging people to alter their day-to-day behaviour towards socially responsible investing. Government intervention is key, as demonstrated by the plastic bag campaign where more than half (56%) say they are aware of it, and 15% say they have subsequently changed their behaviour as result.” 

Fuel subsidies for off-road vehicles or “red diesel” will be scrapped for most sectors in two years’ time.

Communities affected by this winter's flooding will receive £120 million in emergency funding, plus £200 million for flood resilience.

WHAT IS AFFORDABLE - The Conservative Party's idea of affordable is not in keeping with the real meaning, it is more a spin to make it appear as if they are working for genuine sustainability. Flatpacks made of timber cost a fraction of the price of a brick built unit, lock up carbon and reduce energy bills. When Margaret Thatcher allowed councils to sell off their housing stocks as a quick-fix to boosting their income, she failed to make sure that they built new social housing.

In fact Wealden have not built any number of genuinely affordable homes, and increasingly encroach on neighbouring council's infrastructure without settling up. We would like to know where all the money collected on the basis of a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is going? Is it another slush fund that is being used to promote the interests of the upper echelon of executives looking to retire with enhanced benefits?

AFFORDABLE HOMES

The Government is investing a further £9.5 billion in the Affordable Homes Programme which in total will allocate £12.2 billion of grant funding from 2021-22 to support the creation of affordable homes across England.

In the UK thousands of houses have been built after the floodgates were opened to unsustainable development in the countryside, meaning that fat-cat landlords gained more of a foothold, not less - so promoting financial slavery. The idea was to blackmail developers into building 30% of the new stock as affordable. It never happened because there were no too many loopholes for kleptocratic councils to make a fast buck - never mind the climate emergency they were helping to fuel in building expensive houses devoid of solar panels, water heaters and charging points, etc.

The Nolan Report was supposed to change council practices to outlaw cozy positions of trust being abused. That did not work. Greg Clark made an effort to secure land for affordable housing with the 2012 National Planning Policy Document. But that did not work either. The fact is that young families cannot get on the housing ladder at genuinely affordable prices because land is not being compulsorily purchased, or otherwise earmarked for affordable housing (only). The definition of affordable is that an ordinary working man might purchase such a unit on his wage.

As an example of councils behaving badly, Wealden have proven themselves to be one of the most corrupt councils over many years, leading to a Petition in 1997, where the police did not investigate the misuse of authority. The situation remains largely unchanged, where some of the old staff are still in residence, clearly passing on their bad habits, infecting newcomers. Lord Nolan QC was wasting his time suggesting routine flushing of the system, though Boris Johnson has seen the light in suggesting examinations of competence, where clearly many civil servants in positions of trust, have strayed from what they should be doing in the interests of what is good for them.

Tom Slingsby, chief executive of property developer Southern Grove, says: “Only sufficient provision of affordable homes in the right areas can prevent the sort of social inconsistencies that appear when high property prices put key areas of UK cities off limits to younger workers and their families. We know from conversations we have constantly with housing associations that the appetite is there to keep building through economic cycles and this fund will ensure that will happen.”

The Conservative Cabinet says that there will be almost £1.1 billion allocated from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to build nearly 70,000 new homes in high demand areas across the UK.

A new £400 million Brownfield Housing Fund aims to create more homes on brown-field land in areas such as the West Midlands.

CONTACT SUELLA

Constituency Office:

Westminster Office
House of Commons

London, SW1A 0AA

PRESSING ISSUES

We are particularly concerned with climate change, transport and affordable housing as issues that need urgent attention. Where the coastline is a feature of the United Kingdom, Blue Growth is a food security issue, especially where this side of of our local economy is under-exploited and at the same time under threat. There is no Planet B.

CABINET MPS -MARCH 2020

CONSERVATIVE MPS 2017-2020

UK POLITICS

The United Kingdom has many political parties, some of which are represented in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Below are links to the websites of the political parties that were represented in the House of Commons after the 2015 General Election:

CONSERVATIVE PARTY

CO-OPERATIVE PARTY

DEMOCRAT UNIONIST PARTY

GREEN PARTY

LABOUR PARTY

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

PLAID CYMRU

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

SINN FEIN

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND LABOUR PARTY

UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY

ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY

Conservative Party

Co-operative Party

Democratic Unionist Party

Green Party

Labour Party

Liberal Democrats

Plaid Cymru

Scottish National Party

Sinn Féin

Social Democratic and Labour Party

UK Independence Party

Ulster Unionist Party

SIX (SUGGESTED) STEPS TOWARD A COOLER PLANET

1. TRANSPORT: Phase out polluting vehicles. Governments aim to end the sale of new petrol, and diesel vehicles by 2040 but have no infrastructure plan to support such ambition. Marine transport can be carbon neutral. Zero carbon shipping is gaining ground with offshore solar boat racers reaching 35knots (Delft University @ Monaco 2019). The first solar powered circumnavigation record was set in 2012 by PlanetSolar. That record could be halved by another contender on the drawing board.

2. RENEWABLES:  Renewable energy should replace carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) in our electricity, heating and transport. We are well on the way to that with solar and wind power now price competitive to fossil fuels.

3. HOUSING: On site micro or macro generation is the best option, starting with new build homes that are affordable and built of wood for improved insulation and carbon lock. New units might not need planning consents if energy self-sufficient, or very nearly so. Planning consents should be struck for genuinely affordable/sustainable housing and self builds where cost is below £50,000. See letter to Nus Ghani July 2019.

4. AGRICULTURE: We need trees to absorb carbon emissions from a growing population, flying, and to build new homes. Reducing food waste and promoting less energy intensive eating habits such as no meat Mondays.

5. INDUSTRY: Factories should be aiming for solar heating and onsite renewable energy generation. This could be done simply by making it a 106 type (mitigation) condition of new builds that they include solar heating and photovoltaic panels. Too many units were built in the last 3 years without climate friendly features, such as EV charging points.

6. POLITICS: - National governing bodies need to adopt rules to eliminate administrative wastages, restrain local authority empire building, scale down spending on war machines, educate the public and support sustainable social policies that mesh with other cultures transparently. Ban kleptocratic policies. Open your doors to transparency and a new era of honest politics. Local authorities are famous for finding the loopholes to keep on doing favours for mates. Simply close those loopholes with binding statute. Any gray areas should be made black and white in writing. Even then councils will break the law, so introduce a task force to prosecute offending local authorities..

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eustice

https://www.georgeeustice.org.uk/

https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2020-03-11/budget-2020-ps600-billion-boost-britains-infrastructure

CLIMATE CHANGE COP HISTORY

DESERTIFICATION COP HISTORY

BIODIVERSITY COP HISTORY

UN CLIMATE ACTION PORTFOLIOS

1. Finance
2. Energy Transition
3. Industry Transition
4. Nature-Based Solutions
5. Cities and Local Action
6. Resilience and Adaptation
7. Mitigation Strategy
8. Youth Engagement & Public Mobilization
9. Social and Political Drivers