Tune in to Perry Barr hustings! April 27, 2010

Due to the wonderment of technology, I hope to be able to stream tonight’s Perry Barr constituency hustings from 5pm this evening.

The hustings, open to all members of the community, is being hosted at Birmingham City University in Attwood Building, room 040:

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Student Union president, Tom Thompson (affectionately named ‘Tom Tom’ by students), will Chair the  ‘Question Time’-style debate  from 5 of the constituency’s candidates for election:

• Khalid Mahmood MP (Labour - the current MP for Perry Barr)
• Councillor William Norton (Conservatives)
• Councillor Karen Hamilton (Liberal Democrats)
• Melvin Ward (UK Independence Party)
• John Tyrrell (Socialist Labour Party)

If the promise of free reign to ask the Perry Barr PPC’s anything you want and refreshments isn’t enough to get you down to Birmingham City University, Attwood Building, 040 tonight, then tune in here (this blog post) at 5pm and hopefully some footage of the hustings will be beamed right onto your computer screen!

In the meantime, ignore my previous (experimental) videos from my Qik channel!

Election coverage of Birmingham’s Ladywood constituency April 11, 2010

Ladywood (picture from Birmingham Mail)

I have recently been appointed an editor for Birmingham Recycled‘s election team. I will be covering Birmingham’s Ladywood constituency and what the candidates are up to leading to the general election on 6th May.

I will be particularly interested in where the candidates stand on ‘green’ issues like transport, conservation and recycling.

As a starting point, I got in touch with James Robertson who is standing in the local elections for the Green Party in the Ladywood ward.

Mr Robertson, a Birmingham resident, is passionate about making the country more environmentally-friendly.

He believes that Birmingham has the potential to spark widespread change and has done much for his community.

Mr Robertson established and runs local recylcing website Freegle (formally Freecycle), where people in the area are given a space to advertise things they no longer need that others might- working to reduce the effects of our ‘throwaway’ culture.

James Robertson said:

‘I’m James Robertson standing for the Green Party in Ladywood ward in the local council elections.  I am a Brummie born and bred and I am standing for the Greens because I think it is time to do something meaningful.’

‘I started Birmingham Freegle 6 years ago and from the one single, simple thing there are now 25,000 Brummies whose first instinct is to give an item away to someone else instead of throwing it into the tip.’

‘Birmingham is the biggest local authority in Europe and it would not take much to make us much greener: a council project to insulate all council housing would boost the local green sector and provide jobs in the city – as well as lowering our carbon footprint.  That’s what the Green’s are all about: policies that make sense for the environment AND for local people.’

Hopefully, I should soon be interviewing Mr Robertson about his views on ‘green’ issues. I will also be contacting other condidates from Ladywood who are standing for the general election to quiz them about their policies and how environmentally-friendly they are.