Archive for April, 2010
Green Party Westminster candidates signing pledge Adam McGibbon, Cllr Cadogan Enright & Steven Agnew
The Green Party today launched its Older People’s Pledge for the 2010 general election – with, at its heart, the promise of support for the National Pensioners’ Convention’s demand for a £170-a-week basic state pension. The Greens will be launching their Older People’s Pledge around the UK as part of their general election campaign, but today the Greens unveiled the pledge in Belfast.
South Down Westminster election candidate Cllr Cadogan Enright said: “After a lifetime of hard work and contributing to society, pensioners deserve much more than having to scrape by on an inadequate state pension. It is only fair that the basic state pension should be enough to live on – and this is why the Green Party would ensure that all pensioners receive a non-means-tested £170 per week, as well as free social care for all who need it, as is currently offered in Scotland.”
The figure of £170 per week is calculated as the minimum required to keep the basic state pension above the official poverty line, according to the National Pensioners’ Convention, in its Pensioners’ Manifesto, which calls for a range of measures to improve conditions for older people.
A spokesman for the NPC said: “The NPC welcomes the Green Party’s commitment to improving the basic state pension for Britain’s 11 million older voters and hopes that other parties will see the economic and moral sense in tackling pensioner poverty. This is something no political party should ignore.”
The Greens have spelled out how the £170 basic state pension would be funded.
End the default retirement age, say Greens – In addition to raising pensioners above the poverty line, the Green Party’s Older People’s Pledge promises to end the default retirement age, so that people would have the freedom to go on working and contributing to society if they wished to, free from discrimination on the basis of age.
Michelle Mitchell, Age Concern and Help the Aged’s Charity Director, said: “We welcome the Green Party’s focus on older people and desire to address the challenges of ageing as we head towards the general election. Abolishing the default retirement age and increasing the basic state pension are absolutely key to improving the retirement prospects for millions of older people.”
The Green Party has also pointed out that under its policy of free insulation for every home in Britain, pensioners would benefit from warmer homes and would be less reliant on winter fuel payments.
Download the Green Party’s Older People’s Pledge by Clicking Here.
If you thought that the MP’s expenses scandal was bad, you have seen nothing yet! The mystery of party funding and corporate donations to political parties in N. Ireland is only now bubbling to the surface.
The only way in which we can clean up politics in Northern Ireland is if all political parties refuse to accept corporate donations, and publish all personal donations in full.
Over the past few months concern has risen about the relationships which have developed between senior politicians and property developers. Such relationships bring politics into disrepute at a time when all political parties really need to be encouraging people to believe in politics.
The Green Party does not accept corporate donations, relying instead on individual donations and fundraising, which is the fairest and most transparent way to fund political activism. Big corporate donations have a corrosive effect on politics, by making elected members beholden to their donors rather than their voters.
Never has public confidence in the political system been so low following the MP’s expenses scandal and this election should be an opportunity for all parties to restore the faith of the electorate in the political process. We politicians must remove even the hint of impropriety in our dealings with the business community. The ending of corporate donations to politicians would be a great step in this direction, and the publishing of all individual donations in full would complete the picture.
The major UK parties have stalled the reform of Party funding for the last 9 years. We are campaigning across NI, Scotland, England and Wales for a tighter and more transparent expenses system along the lines adopted by the Scottish parliament where even the purchase by an MSP of a pint of milk for their office is a matter of public record.
