In my eagerness to rebut Martin Francis' attempt to downplay Brent's carbon emissions efforts yesterday, I didn't get on to the Fairtrade aspect.
I have no desire to talk about identifiable individuals, but I have always regarded Fairtradeas one of the demonstrable benefits of the change of political control in Brent in 2010. The previous Tory / Liberal Democrat regime had applied, and failed to get, Fairtrade status in 2008. After that, it lost interest in the subject. Indeed, the Tory lead for that area, Irwin Van Colle, never seemed to have much interest in the first place. I have been critical of Liberal Democrat lip service in the past.
Brent Labour Party had a manifesto commitment on Fairtrade, which translated into a commitment in the Corporate Strategy, and which I pursued as lead for Fairtrade. This led to our acceptance as a Fairtrade Borough. On the way, we were able to have some quite imaginative projects to support Fairtrade including artwork and changing the procurement specification for the cafes at the Civic Centre and the yet to open Willesden Library Centre to sell Fairtrade goods.
I doubt whether any of this would have happened without a Labour administration.
UPDATE
There is a comment below that raises a whole lot of issues in terms of Palestine and Israel and the role of Brent Council. These are all quite complicated, and I shall try to unpick them in a fuller post in a few days. I should add that I understand that Veolia deny any illegality, so any assertions to that effect should be made with that in mind. As I have said before on this blog, I will not publish assertions that can reasonably be subject to libel actions.
Another update: The comment I referred to appears to have deleted by some gremlin or other. To the anonymous commentator, please repost if possible. If not, I will try, as promised, to deal with the issues in a separate post.
Meanwhile, all can read Martin's response to my blog.
FURTHER UPDATE
I have covered the whole Veolia procurement issue here.
2 comments:
The position you attribute to me was written by a Brent Council insider protected. By a pseudonym. You do mot address the main thrust of the article which is about the loss of one of the Council's most effective workers on sustainability and climate change.
Ah it wasn't censored after all but "gremlins". My original comment asked if by "Fair Trade" you include the granting of multi million pound contracts given by Brent to Veolia who are involved in supporting the illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. You might also like to address the recent note from the Foreign Office itself which advises not to trade with these illegal settlements or to offer support to firms which do.
http://martinlinton.org/2013/12/09/ukgovernmentactiononsettlements/
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