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| Sunday, June 5th, 2011 | | 8:00 pm |
Spent much of the day dealing with construction drawings for the framework of a 40 panel PV system for the roof of the Buddhist Centre - 9.8 KW if we go for all 40 in one hit. The price is a bit eye watering at just shy of £15000 for the modules, though just an environmental assessment can leave no change out of £12K and upwards at last year' prices. Steelwork totted up to around £1500 if I were to do it in Unistrut (for Unistrut read "Meccano for Grown Ups". to put matters in perspective the vat exclusive price of each module giving 245 watts is just shy of £400. Back at thye end of 2004 when I started setting up my own generator a module producing 125 watts was somewhere between 400 and 500 notes, so in the six years since then prices have fallen by nearly one half. Not Moore's law quite yet, but a trend in the right direction. | | Monday, April 25th, 2011 | | 3:35 pm |
Cycling yesterday. Weather quite agreeable, not to warm, lots oflight and the roads very quiet. The bluebells were out in the woods  And while oficially CTC stands for "Cyclists' Touring Club" it can also stand for cofee tea and cakes.  Return home went past a traditional wooden chiltern farm building.  | | Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 | | 10:37 pm |
The solar re-fit
Outside jobs today while I had a day off and some daylight, and also a 50 metre drum of 3 core 2.5 SWA which has been cluttering the house for two years (surplus from a job between Christmas and new year 2008 putting illuminated temporary hight warning signs on a new railway bridge. Off the the trade counter mid morning to buy five IP66 adaptable boxes for waterproof junctions, SWA glands, stuffing glands and new site boots then into the garden for the afternoon. First target was the brambles. The security is great but today I want to get to the PV array and to the wiring and they are in the way. There is a large heap now for transfer to the brown bin over the next few days. A shrub which by autumn each year is shading a deal to uch of the array was hacked down. I can now get from one end of the garden to the other. First job is to disconnect the array sections and recover the tails which go to MC connectors. the panels are half and half MC connectors and junction boxes on the back of the panels, requiring a bit of sketching out to make a wiring scheme for the re-furbished system. Next walk down the garden with the SWA paying of the reel (running on the hoe which was balanced on pair of kitchen chairs), cut to length, mark up the function on bits of tape and then pre-fabricate all the junction boxes inside in the dry and run out the complete cable assemblies to each array section. Last job, out with the SDS and drill two new holes through the wall for the new position for the base station. If all has gone to plan I should now have an array with two sections and a working voltage of 60V maximum power and 84 volts open circuit which can re-configure as one single section with a nominal voltage of 120V when feeding direct to the grid. Orders can start being placed from tomorrow, the art being to time deliveries around my shift pattern. First off will be the two equipment cabinets to give me time to do the internal woodwork ready for the batteries on the one and have the second drilled out and the various bits and pieces like inverters mounted and ideally wired, and the batteries and charge controllers being the final piece of the jigsaw. Using armoured cable means that once I am happy with all the array positioning etc I can be=uty the cable and just have a short riser into each array section on view | | 10:35 am |
Solar re-design
Having been both working full time in the day job and for the last 18 months full on also in a "Pro Bono" job involving the renovation of the former Spa Road Library in bermondsey, the solar power research project has taken a back seat. With the prospect of some new research funds in the form of a long service award from the day job - yes 25 years in the firm, things are due for a bit of a good stirring up and re-building. The system which basically settled into shape in 2007 gave some good years being off grid for around 8 to 9 months each year. The main weaknesses were having a series - parallel battery bank, chosen to allow scaling up as budget allowed, combined with a charge controller is just a fairly clever shunt stabiliser. The consequences of these decisions have been these : Any battery which deteriorates from age and fails to hold charge, or develops and leak or short accross a cell then starts draining energy from the good sections in the battery bank. Current sharing under charge or discharge has been at the mercy of the general health of the worst battery in each of the three pairs. The solar output voltage has been hauled down to the battery bank voltage, a mis-match which has left around twenty percent of the available power unrecoverable. A consequence of this has been that the batteries have not always been given the best charging conditions and have aged rather more quickly than I would accept for a system which was to have any possibility of being a commercial proposition. The experience with the system which was installed in 2009 in southern Scotland (derived from the system here in London) has been encouraging. This system replaced the shunt stabiliser for one which both tracks the maximum power point of the solar array and performs a voltage step down / matching process between the array voltage and the battery voltage. This has three consequences. Firstly all the potential power from the aracy is recovered. there is a small loss in the conversion electronics, a few per cent, which is outweighed by not having the 20 percent loss from the electrical mismatch. The second i it has allowed the array to operate with higher voltage and low to medium current, which reduces losses in the DC cabling from the array to the electrical equipment. For the design process, there is greater freedom in selecting the panels and aray connection scheme as there is no longer the requirement to choose panel maximum power point voltages close to but above the battery bank voltage and instead choose panels on area, and also most importantly, cost per watt, and in particular various types designed for large grid connected systems which give a significant saving. The new design is to use the same type of charge controller as the system built in Scotland. The dual inverter configuration is being retained. The major changes are at the input side. The input is equipped to take an array in up to three sections. In keeping with the guidance in BS7671:2008 both poles of the input from the array are protected with over current devices, in this instance from the large collection of circuit breakers which has accumulated from my electrical business. The first big change and improvement is incorporating the facility to work either with a charge controller and battery bank or a grid connect inverter. While I am away on holiday it won't take a great deal to keep the battery bank fully charged, and rather than not use the remaining sunlight during the day, it makes more sense to be able to dump it to the grid for a bit of beer money. Thus following the circuit breakers comes a bank of three relays. The array section outputs go to the commons, the normally closed outputs go on to the charge controller via a 40A circuit breaker, while the normally open outputs are wired so that the array sections connect in series 9the preferred configuration for a grid connect inverter and then a double pole isolator ready to go off to a G83 inverter if the budget stretches that far. The next big change is the battery choice. With the budget to go straight for the full size system a series battery bank is the better option. With the occasional loads of 2.4KW being supported (Washday) the battery bank size of 330AH on the old system was quite inadequate. The new design is aiming for at least 400 AH and going for a set of 4 6v Rolls 4000 series batteries with a capacity at C20 of 450 AH. A typical base load of the house is around 150 watts, which at a nominal 24 volts corresponds to a discharge current of 6.25 amps. The same batteries quote a capacity at C100 of 600AH. (C100 is a discharge current of 1/100 times the capacity) This is very convenient indeed as the anticipated base load current from the batteries is around that C100 figure of 6 ampere. This promises to be much kinder to the batteries than the previous system where the discharge current was rather higher than the C100 figure by a factor of 3. Having spent a fair bit on panels over the last five years, I would quite like to keep my existing array and not have to start again from scratch. This appears possible, with the following considerations. The array has to be able to connect in parallel for battery charging purposes, which require each section have the same nominal voltage output. The sections also have to connect in series for the grid connection function, for which each section must have the same short circuit and maximum power point current. The array presently mixes polycrystalline with electrical factors of 7A maximum power point current and 42 volt open circuit voltage with amorphous silicon units with comparable open circuit voltage but 3.5 A maximum power point current. The number are 6 polycrystalline panels and 4 amorphous. The first stage is an array configuration using what I have now. By connecting the amorphous units in two parallel strings I have something close enough to the characteristics of the polycrystalline panels to make an array of two sections, each with an open circuit voltage of 84 volts and a maximum power point current of 7 amps, satisfying the conditions for both series and parallel connections and the requirement of a maximum power point tracking controller which is that the array voltage needs to be significantly above the nominal battery voltage The re-design and re-build began last night with the wiring of a new equipment cubicle to house circuit breakers and related items. This gives a complete system ready to connect panels and charge controllers as the orders start to be delivered over the next few weeks. At the same time Q-cad has been busy laying out the footprints of the proposed batteries over the available space in unused cupboards, existing equipment housings and led to the choice of equipment in two housings, 1 housing 600 (w) x 400 (d) by 1000 (h) for the batteries with internal shelving in ply, and a second of the same size to hold the mcb / relay cubicle, inverters, charge controllers and output connectors. The cabinets will probably move to my kitchen to take advantage of a concrete floor and having the garden the other side of the wall to allow for ease of wiring. | | Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 | | 6:09 pm |
Bright mist
snow and ice
land sleeps
| | Sunday, September 26th, 2010 | | 11:52 am |
| | Sunday, August 15th, 2010 | | 9:54 am |
Another installment paid back
Agreeable evening meal at local Indian restaurant, a pleasure to be recognised now as a regular customer, then more or less straight to bed for ten hours sleep. Still tired this morning, so will not do any work today and pay back another lump of general energy/attention. Customer cycle wheel (rear) had performed well on its proving trial (a camping trip) and there was about half a millimetre needing to be tweaked out, meaning a very satisfied punter and a cheque for the balance now ready to pay into the business account. There is a different spirit within the cycling club here compared to my old club back in Leeds. there a large section of us thought nothing of doing all our own mechanical work. Bikes were often like everlasting brooms as wheels were re-build with a new rim, worn components were replaced as and when required, sometimes when feeling particularly flush a new frame might be ordered from one of the nmany small builders and the parts alls transferred across, and at least three of us built wheels. Down here there seems a greater reliance placed on bike shops for these tasks. Perhaps we were unusual in having several memebrs who worked in one engineering discipline or another, or perhaps we were all at a stage with large parts of our finances committed to keeping roofs over our heads. Our secretary for many years was particularly fortunate in being married to a mechanical engineer. One of his claims to fame was working on thrushcross reservoir, the most upstream of the reservoir system which supplied Leeds, Thrushcross being the storage reservoir along with Fewston, Swinsty in the middle is the abstraction reservoir feeding to Eccup, and Lindley Wood at the bottom maintaining the flow of the River Washburn, compensating for the water drunk in Leeds. Eileen's husband was responsible for the cranes and earth moving equipment used for the dam construction, going up at the start of the job to errect the crane from the kit of parts which left the factory, maintaining it through the work and then supervising the safe dismantling at the end of the job. Part of the work involved exhuming the bodies from the village churchyard as the village would be lost under the waters and transfereing the remains to a new burial ground up on the moors 9it is next to the road which runs north to the top of Greenhow Hill, walled against the moorland sheep and marked by a tall wooden cross. Thrushcross Burial Ground from the air | | Monday, July 19th, 2010 | | 9:36 pm |
Geek stuff
Recently I spent £40 on the commercial version of Q-Cad and picked up various drawings for the big Dharma Centre job. I had already learned to drive the programme from the free "Community Edition", however, the latest fully supported version has smoothed off the rough edges I found in the printing department and added some export capabilities, including Export as PDF which is a boon as something which is for contractual or handover purposes is often best as PDF as them it can't easily be altered. The big drawings gave the PDF maker indigestion and either caused it all to crash or the output PDFs to be unreadable. However, there is a way round - PDFs can also be made at the print stage, so when making the print out , for example with just the layers showing walls, windows, stairs, doors and fire alarm items to go up by the alarm panel, one can also make that same drawing into a PDF for the client to put into the electronic records or print whenever they need a printout. I would like to see us with this software at work. For all the big installations the project engineers, system specialists and project managers have access to a version of Autocad, (which after all is the industry standard),but at nearly £1000 a throw one could not justify a copy on every machine used by us mere grunts and anyway the things we may need to build can often be drawn up in the drawing side of Open Office (Sadly something else we don't officially have). At £40 a throw or £200 for a reasonably large site license, and one copy of Autocad for either times we need all its functions, (which we generally don't) or to make our existing DWG files into DXF (which we should anyway as this is the accepted industry standard format for interchanging drawings) as DXF is the native format for Q-cad. Q-Cad is also a European product and they have put a fair bit into the concept of Free Licence Open Source, releasing the source code of earlier verions to form the "Community" edition which sits in a number of Linux Repositories. | | Friday, May 7th, 2010 | | 8:05 am |
| | Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 | | 10:03 pm |
To one of our target seats again today. Hustings speaking giving way to a bit of healthy exercise with the even of poll cards, reminding voters of all the candidates on the Green party ticket at the various elections - three ward candidates for the council elections, a candidate for the elected mayor of the borough and the parliamentary candidate for the general Election. lots of canvas forms coming back to the campaign office, a full telling operation tomorrow and an evening knocking up operation. One day Harrow Green Party will be of a size to mount the same practical operation. Last leaflets through local doors on the way home tonight. After all the paper which has come through the doors, a simple dignified Green Party card makes quite a contrast. It will be an interesting time for all the counters and count agents; opinions are very closely divided. We may have that excellent situation of a parliament sufficiently split that bills have to pass on their merits, not force of numbers. Democracy as opposed to elective dictatorship. Time for a little luxury, one bottle of No-Alcohol beer, before the last run through the mail box. | | 6:55 am |
The campaign makes a shift this week. Up to now the flag has been waved in Harrow, and virtually everyday last week it has been a case of speaking to my position at Hustings, etc. Focus now shifts to the nearest "Target Seat". Over a number of years some seats have seen a steady rise in the Green vote to the point where third and second places have resulted (never mind just keeping the deposit). Here there is a possibility of returning a Green MP for the first time. Our national agent, and the co-ordinator of the London Federation have urged as many people as they can to put their efforts into those target seats, and so it is of to Lewisham-Deptford to joint their big push. A stupendous effort in a new constituency (IE where the choice has not been on the paper before) may still leave a result which disappoint and leave a handful of activists exhausted and frustrated.. That same number of votes in the target seat may make the difference between third and second place or second place and returning a member. Lewisham is one such constituency where the vote has grown year on year and so has the number of people returned to public office. Green councilors are now a fixture on the local council. The area has returned a London Assembly member. All this has fed itself back and the resources in leafletting and canvassing effort are in place to make that big push for a member. As a relatively recent entrant to political life, thinking has to be long term. The platform of the party already has a long term focus regarding its environmental platform - one is wanting to bring in policies which can be kept up for decades, not just tiding one over for 5 years or so. This has to be pursued with both reach and depth. Every constituency which is able to field candidates give people that choice at election time. If it isn't on the ballot paper it can't be voted for. I have no hesitation to say that having been part of putting that choice on the Ballot Paper in Harrow East and Harrow West has been the right thing to do. This extends the Reach. Reach brings dividends for the party as a whole. Certain privileges, for example air time, entitlements to Party Election Broadcasts etc, are done to a formula, and one input to that formula is based on the proportion of total seats being contested. Covering those two seats has been part of securing such campaign aids as a party election broadcast. Grunt work however, will bring the best return in one of the target seats. a dedicated gang of four could run a borough wide canvass, and knocking up operation, but, the effort would be utterly exhausting, spread terribly thinly, and while over the weeks one could get round the whole two constituencies, knocking up on polling day, telling on polling day etc would not be a realistic proposition for such a small team. Putting those same efforts together with the efforts in the target seats brings the potential dividend of a high placing, and the tantalising prospect of a seat. The other long term benefit brought is training. Few things beat going round with an experienced canvasser for learning how to politely solicit an opinion at the doorstep, and how to suggest to the undecided that the candiate for whom one canvasses is a choice worth considering. This year will give us a Harrow wide baseline for the first time. One likes to know first of all how many core supporters are out their. One's core supporters are the people who share the Basis of the platform and will vote for it regrdless, and to these supporters one owes it to raise the deposit every five years even if it is many elections before it is retained, and to these same supporters one owes it to find as many candidates as one can every four years for council elections. It gives us an indication as to how wide to cast the selection net. Low support sugest recruiting someone to show the flag, high support means oneis looking for some record on public office or some equivalent acheivement in business or charitable service. The count will be a useful exercise as well. A keen eye can catch a snapshot of each ward or district, one can spot the cross in the appropriate place as the papers are counted from each box and the papers counted against the record of the number of papers issued at that polling station. One's target wards and streets become apparent. After that one joins other candidates and agents in the checking process, watching the papers being sorted into piles and bundles one per candidates, being their to spot the odd paper which ends up in the wrong pile, and also being there to join the returning officer's staff in adjudicating the doubtful papers. | | Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 | | 7:46 pm |
Candiate endorsement.
We have an endorsement in for the campaign in Harrow West. Sat near the top of my inbox this afternoon was this e-mail from "Protecting Animals in Democracy" ---------------------------------------- ---------------------- Dear Rowan Thank you very much for responding to the Protecting Animals in Democracy policy questionnaire. We are pleased to inform you that we have decided to endorse you as the best voting option in your constituency to protect millions of animals from the cruelty of bloodsports, intensive farming and painful experiments. Please feel free to announce this on your website and other media. I have attached a logo for you to use if you wish. You can view our endorsement by visiting www.vote4animals.org.uk/constituency.htm and clicking on your constituency. We believe that the way we treat animals is a fundamental indication of the state of our society, and 87% of the public agree, according to a YouGov opinion poll. Your support for measures to protect animals is, therefore, a positive sign that you have the character and values much needed to stand in Parliament and help restore the integrity of our political system. We wish you the very best of luck in the General Election, and we hope we can work with you in the next Parliament to build a more compassionate society where animals are treated as individuals worthy of respect rather than expendable objects to be exploited and abused. Kind regards Dr Dan Lyons Protecting Animals in Democracy VOTE4ANIMALS 2010 Uncaged, 5th Floor, Alliance House 9 Leopold Street, Sheffield S1 2GY United Kingdom tel: +44 (0) 114 2722220 / 07799 117695 www.vote4animals.org.uk | | Saturday, May 1st, 2010 | | 10:52 am |
TALLY HO !!
A question on Fox hunting and Blood sports in general was raised at the last hustings where I represented The Green Party. The question included killing for pleasure in their wording. An interesting split formed across the four representative : Conservative, Green, Labour, UKIP. The Liberals had been invited and accepted but their candidate did not attend and no deputy was sent in their place. The Greens were thrown first in the ring. My position is that of my party. We oppose any attempt to repeal the protection of wild mammal bill which outlaws killing of wild animals by dogs and hunting with dogs. I made the observation that pest control, and sometime killing for this purpose is part of agriculture. There is however a diference between killing as part of pest control and killing for sport and killing for pleasure. That is just wrong. Labour went next, and covered similar ground and added more detail. Hunts still meet, the chase still happens, but it is chasing a scent laid out, not chasing a sentient being. The candidate informed the audience that he understood members of the Aylesbury Vale Hunt came to town and were helping the conservative candidate with delivering leaflets. A complete reversal of position came when UKIP took up the question. Their candidate saw hunting as part of the culture of Britain, and suppressing it he viewed as wrong. Last to go was the Conservative candidate. He stated he would vote to repeal the act. he replied to the comments about members of the hunt delivering leaflets by saying he was happy for anyone to help him with the task. he viewed hunting as an important industry in the countryside. he pointed out to the audience that the fox was the only animal which would kill for pleasure rather than for food. At this format the speakers were given a second round so that all the points raised in the first round could be answered. The Green response in the second round was this. I noted the Conservative candidate's comments on the hunting industry. I informed the audience I thought the hunting legislation was in fact the second bad piece of legislation, as many decades ago the Bear Baiting industry had not been properly compensated when Bear Baiting was outlawed. I raised a point of information that in fact the cat will also kill for the pleasure of it, as does the human on occasions. Shold we hunt humans perhaps. | | Friday, April 30th, 2010 | | 9:16 am |
The opportunity arose last night to follow up my disquiet with the UKIP positions regarding race and immigration. I was deputising for our candidate in Harrow East at a hustings. A question was put drawing on the two prooests held outside the new mosque in Harrow. The chair called the Gren candidate first. My response set the tone thus. I informed the audience that The Green party, Labour party, Conservative Party and Liberal-Democrat party were all signatories to Harrow Declaration of Unity which was drawn up at the time of these events. I expressed my distaste for making a place of worship the focus of such behaviour, and cited the Harryville church picketing in Ballymena some years ago as another example of unacceptable conduct. I spoke of the opportunities I had as an electrician for learning and tolerance - my work takes me into homes of every persuasion and none. I spoke of the various ways of showing courtesy and respect which also showed an understanding of that particular traditions ways. I then started to home in "The wise.. hesitate to use a slogan such as 'End all immigration.' The wise understand how such simplistic phrases rebound and can create quite the wrong impression" Next I gave an account of how this came up in the previous days hustings. I informed the audience there was one position offered which was quite distinguishable from the one takenm by the Green, Liberal Democrat, labour and Conservative positions. I spoke of the UKIP candidate's contribution, along the line s of "Let them come and march past" I indicated how intimidating being the focus of a demonstration by the sorts of people who came into Harrow for those protests would be. The conservative candidate took up the baton next, reminding the audience that the demonstrators and counter demonstrators had come into Harrow for the event. he too was quiet clear about the unacceptability of this.behaviours. he too gave a good account of himself and his party. The UKIP candidate spoke at quite some length about immigration, quite unaware of the size of the hole he was digging. and how far out on a limb he was putting himself. When he finally finished the feeling i had, and I wonder if it was shared by the second speaker which was "He's all yours now Tony" And indeed our labour speaker gave an excellent contribution, giving accounts of the steps taken as MP and steps taken by others to ensure those coming into harrow did NOT damage the excellent relations which exist in the borough. I would conclude that there was a good cross party demolition job well done. | | Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | | 9:50 pm |
Campaign trail again
A good start on the manifesto commitments, and not even elected into office yet. Second worker started today. That's two green jobs, only 999,998 left to go. Work is progressing well on what is going to be a well refurbished flat above a shop to rent, with an eye for low running costs. Three rooms with socket circuits first fixed and a start to be made on lights tomorrow. That's one home brought back into use, 299,999 to go. Interview in the afternoon with BBC Radio London from which a brief soundbite extracted promissing to use the £90billion which can be generated through closing off tax loopholes and a more proportional rate of tax both rich and poor to improve public services including funding extra school places. Husting this evening, our hosts being the Public and Commercial Services union. Absent from the hustings were the Conservative and labour Candidates. This was sad. All the views are important. Though they are not my chosen party, they are none the less constitutional parties committed to democratic means and they have a duty to make their views known, especially as they would expect to be working if only indirectly with a great many members of the union which was our host. There was an interesting divergence of opinion on the subject of two protests held outside Harrow's new mosque by a group calling itself the English Defence League. Conservative, Green, Labour,and Liberal-Democrat candidates had signed harrow's declaration of unity set up at the time of these events. All parties were represented at a vigil in solidarity co-incident with the demonstration. There was broad agreement between the views presented by the Green and Liberal Democrat candidates, while the representative of the UK Independence party expressed a completely different view of "let them march past and go home". A comment from the same candidate suggested that The Greens had also been involved in disorder in some other situation. The record was gently set straight in a pre-amble to replying to a supplemental question. On occasions Green had taken such certain actions, and had done so in a symbolic and non-violent manner with willingness to face arrest and the consequences. A member of the audience raised the matter with the UKIP candidate after the event and further took him to task over his party's anti immigration poster. In an earlier hustings he had also been taken to task after asserting that people could come to the UK and almost immediately be able secure benefits, including a pension. The audience member is professionally involved with Benefits. They administer the system, and know for a fact that what few benefits are available to someone coming into the UK are very limited indeed. Following this very impassioned exchange input was then placed in from the Green Corner that the area which deserved to be exposed was the way large companies exploited a transient workforce as a cheap, throw-away workforce, and this, not immigration or immigrants needs to be the target of criticism. | | Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 | | 11:18 am |
A briefing arrived today on Immigration, one of the highly charged topics in debate. Some useful excerpts below : "Greens understand that current immigration laws encourage large numbers of young people to come and work here for a short period of time, an arrangement which is best suited to the needs of big business. "Because these mobile workers (e.g. Italian workers at Total's Lindsey oil refinery) have few commitments they are prepared to work extremely hard for a relatively low wage, the local population who have families to support cannot compete - all of which leads to popular resentment and social unrest. "In contrast to this free movement of labour, restrictions on people who wish to move here for family reasons are extremely tight and unnecessarily intrusive. "Many families are forced to live apart because the current system does not value the contribution to society of their non wage earning members. "Not only is the current practice morally wrong, but the resulting societal imbalance actually weakens the economy (e.g. an elderly person in need of care may prefer the help of a family member, but if that person is denied entry to the UK then they will have to turn to the state for support, at a cost to the tax payer)." A Green reaction Our opposition to ID cards is well known. Citizenship tests are overly intrusive on peoples lives and costly to administer. Increased powers for border control officials can only reduce illegal immigration and as such are limited in effect. An annual limit on migration would prevent each case from being judged on its merits. Transitional controls for new EU members are short term and do not address the problem. Exit checks are costly and bureaucratic. The distribution of central government funds to local authorities is extremely complicated and there is no obvious fair alternative. A Green Green Reaction to two lobby groups There is little research on the carrying capacity of Britain. Absolute limits on migration always lead to the wrong decision being taken on individual cases. A flexible labour force is a transient society, the negative effect of this instability is often felt in unforeseen ways (e.g. increased crime where community ties are broken). The argument that migrants do not bring down wages rests heavily on the assumption that economic conditions in the migrant’s home country are improving. This is often not the case. : Summary of the two lobby groups positions below. Migration Watch 'The island of Britain is full and cannot support a population increase. The UK Government should introduce a policy of ‘zero net migration’ where the number of people entering the country is limited by the number of people who leave (one in, one out).' Institute for Public Policy Research 'A flexible labour force creates favourable conditions for business and therefore leads to job creation. 'Migrants do not bring down wages and in the long term are more likely to promote economic growth which is good for everyone.' | | Monday, April 26th, 2010 | | 6:56 pm |
Not directly campaign releated, but... The Green Party is pledged to the creation of an extra one million jobs and training places, and the renovating and bringing back into use 330,000 long term empty houses,..... and after some phone calls today I have been able to set two people to work on the electrical renovation of one such long term empty home, used for several decades as office space, and even mre pleasing, conclude a successful e-mail exchange with the client with an agreed specification which will include a high level of energy efficiency, meaning lower running costs and carbon footprints from the future tenants who will be enjoying our handiwork. Even better, I have been able to have one person started from last Sunday, and the second starting on the job on Wednesday, who has been engaged on a similar project, a house which has been empty and decaying for over 12 years in Merthyr coming back to life ready to be a home. Another hustings tonight, this time at North Harrow Methodist Church. The circle is closed by the client for the renovation being a member of one of the many churches which make up Churches Together in North Harrow. | | Sunday, April 25th, 2010 | | 9:24 pm |
Another full inbox today, amongst other things a letter soliciting my views on electoral reform, It appears a standard campaign letter and makes the point that first past the post can have a party forming a government with possibly only the second or third highest share of the total votes cast. Also in my inbox was a letter from The Better Banking Campaign, calling for : # Banks to be required to disclose where their money comes from and where it is invested # A legal “cap” on credit lending rates # The introduction of a new “Community Reinvestment Act” # Banks to be required to invest at least 1% of their profits to support public benefit. This has received support from Caroline Lucas, my party's leader and it is another cause I have no hesitation in lending support to. This week ends with a bang with a visit of one of my party's major figure, Jean Lambert, MEP for London to a husting organised by The Hindu Forum of Britain. The venue is the former cinema close to Rayners lane station, which was aquired a few years ago by Zorastrian Trust Funds of Europe and renovated to be a European centre. Jean has a style which is a world away from the spin of politics. it is direct, and when required, forthright. Five years ago Question Time Viewers were able to enjoy Jean demolishing Michael Howard. Other correspondence relevant to my campaign though not directly related was with a landlord. She has engaged us to renovate a flat above a shop, presently used as office space, and this was one set in the game of e-mail tennis which is an essential part of planning such works. What makes the correspondence gratifying is that this is not a landlord who just wants the cheapest job possible and let the tenant pick up the tab in higher running costs. In contrast, our client was keen that the flat would be energy efficient, and we spent some while exploring the options regarding dual fuel or an "all electric" installation. While I don't think our client is able to go to the lengths of Kirklees with the combinations of energy efficiency and solar hot water or electricity, the client came round to seeing the advantages of Grade A boiler plant, hot water on demand type systems and including a hight level of thermal insulation in the refurbishment. I shall enjoy being able to cite my client as an example of Best Practice should the opportunity arise during any of the hustings this week. | | Saturday, April 24th, 2010 | | 9:19 am |
The Campaign diary is filling up nicely, with hustings confirmed every day next week just about, plus a date with Radio London for their election coverage. | | Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 | | 3:18 pm |
More election post to deal with today, with surveys on candiates opinions requiring attention. recognised as one of the candidates by the local postman, with cheerful best wishes for the campaign. Tea break now, with the sun beating down on my solar power station and electricity for tea brewing thus being free and carbon neutral. Some very positive outlook from one constituent visitted this morning, a delightful old boy, now retired from book keeping and accountancy who summed things up by describing one party as good and his chosen party as better. An example of how to raise the democratic process out of the mudslinging contest it becomes from time to time. I would caution the present opposition in the blue corner from making too much about present unemployment levels. I have a long memory. I remember fiscal policies during Margaret Thatcher's time in office resulting in companies falling over like dominoes. Some places have never really recovered from those times. It is however, a good question to be turned on me as to what would I do about it. Well, I have one answer which is I am able to engage my prefered assistant and subcontractor on a job which came in and which the customer needs to have started during the election campaign,leaving me free to attend to election matters, while the person whom I engaged on my first two electrical contracts back in 2004 now runs a building firm in his own right. |
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