Green co-leader and Bristol councillor Carla Denyer and Patrick McAllister
The Green Party now has more Councillors than any other party on Bristol City Council. That follows a by-election on February 2 which saw the Greens gain a seat from the Liberal Democrats.
The Greens’ Patrick McAllister won the Hotwells & Harbourside election by just 26 votes. McAllister received 537 votes to the Liberal Democrat candidate’s 511.
McAllister is now the Greens’ 25th Councillor in Bristol. With Labour having 24 Councillors, McAllister’s victory makes the Green Group the largest on the City Council for the first time ever.
Move follows allegations that third-party agents ignored vulnerabilities of customers and broke in to install equipment
British Gas has suspended the use of court warrants to force the installation of prepayment meters after evidence that agents working on its behalf ignored customers’ vulnerabilities.
MPs and consumer groups had raised concerns that elderly and disabled people were being forced on to prepayment meters and then routinely cut off from heat and power as they could not afford to top up.
Wednesday’s decision came after an investigation by the Times alleged that Arvato Financial Solutions, a company used by British Gas to pursue debts, had broken into homes to fit meters when there were signs that young children and people with disabilities lived in the property. AFS employees are incentivised with bonuses to fit prepayment meters.
“These are extremely serious allegations from The Times. We are launching an urgent investigation into British Gas and we won’t hesitate to take firm enforcement action.
“It is unacceptable for any supplier to impose forced installations on vulnerable customers struggling to pay their bills before all other options have been exhausted and without carrying out thorough checks to ensure it is safe and practicable to do so.
“We have launched a major market-wide review investigating the rapid growth in prepayment meter installations and potential breaches of licences driving it.
“We are clear that suppliers must work hard to look after their customers at this time, especially those who are vulnerable. The energy crisis is no excuse for unacceptable behaviour towards any customer, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances.”
Workers from Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker
CAMPAIGNERS have welcomed Oxford City Council’s unanimous vote in favour of calling for Thames Water to be taken into public ownership following a motion to end water privatisation.
The motion, proposed by Green Party councillors Chris Jarvis and Lois Muddiman, will also see the council writing to the firm to request that its chief executive officer Sarah Bentley attend a meeting with them.
Since water was privatised in England in 1989, over £72 billion has been paid in dividends to privateer shareholders, while infrastructure has deteriorated.
According to the GMB union’s research, Thames Water lets 635 million litres of water leak out of its system every day, equivalent to leaving a hosepipe on for 73 years.
Government rule breaches are to blame for UK’s corruption nadir, says Transparency International
Image of Elmo and former Prime Minister Tory idiot Boris Johnson
openDemocracy’s revelations of corruption in UK public life have been cited in a damning new index that ranks perceptions of Britain’s transparency at an all-time low.
A ‘poll of polls’ by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) found industry experts think the UK is more corrupt than ever.
The UK’s CPI score is based on data from eight independent sources including the Economist Intelligence Unit and the World Economic Forum, who surveyed experts and business executives for their views on abuses of public office for private gain and bribery in the UK.
Britain scored 73 this year, down from 78 in 2022, on a scale where zero means a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 means it is perceived as very clean. The NGO cited several pieces of journalism by openDemocracy as partial explanation for the slump, which saw the UK tumble in the global rankings from 11th to 18th.
They include revelations in November 2021 that former Tory Party treasurers appeared to be guaranteed peerages so long as they donated more than £3m to the party.
openDemocracy was cited as revealing four of these breaches, one of which involved the government keeping large payments to the former prime minister Boris Johnson and other ministers secret for up to eight months.
Last year, the Cabinet Office insisted it would radically overhaul an ‘Orwellian’ government unit, almost two years after openDemocracy first revealed that it was vetting Freedom of Information requests.
Only five of the 180 countries assessed by Transparency for the 2022 Index saw their year-on-year scores drop by five or more points. The UK (-5) was joined by World Cup 2022 host Qatar (-5), Myanmar (-5), Azerbaijan (-7), and Oman (-8).
The countries perceived to be the least corrupt were Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, while those ranked most corrupt were South Sudan, Syria and Somalia.
Transparency International acknowledged that most countries at the bottom of its index were either currently experiencing conflict or had recently done so. It added that although most Western European countries had been ranked higher than African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries, they in fact played a central role in fostering global corruption.
“For decades, they have welcomed dirty money from abroad, allowing kleptocrats to increase their wealth, power and destructive geopolitical ambitions,” the report said.
Climate group Extinction Rebellion plans to again block the A12 highway in The Hague on Saturday, March 11. That would be the sixth time the climate activists blocked this stretch of highway.
Extinction Rebellion activists blocked the Utrechtsebaan, the stretch of the A12 in The Hague that runs by the temporary parliament building and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, this past Saturday. The highway was impassable for hours.
