Ape::Tracks

The veneer is very thin

Hmm. The BNP are declaring 'The British' to be descended from:

"Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norse and closely related kindred peoples"

My first reaction was to joke that they were anti-Beaker People, but read that list again - no Romans? I'm no fan of the Roman Empire myself, but that's insane even from a nationalist perspective. No French? Are they forgetting 1066 too? There have been Jewish communities in Britain for over a thousand years, yet they aren't on the list either. Most nationalism involves a selective view of the past, but this takes the biscuit.

That list isn't about being British at all - it's another way to say "Nordic Aryan only". The BNP's bigotry isn't just pro-'white' or 'anti-black', it's simply the Nazi party's concept of "racial purity".

Tactical Voting vs The BNP

I would prefer people to vote Green because they think the Greens are the best choice (or even just the least bad choice, really). We've got some good candidates and policies, and offer a more ethical alternative to the political establishment. However, at the European elections in the North West of England this week there's another reason to vote Green - we're battling for 'last place' with the BNP.

The simple explanation is that the top four parties will win seats in the European Parliament. The Labour, Conservative and Libdem parties dominate UK politics and even the recent expenses scandals are unlikely to change that much. It's very likely that the Labour Party will lose some seats and the LibDems will gain some, but those top three places are going to be red, blue and yellow however the positions change. It's the fourth place that's interesting: the most likely winners are either the Greens or the BNP. It's a sad fact that the North West has a worryingly high number of BNP supporters in some areas.

The Green Party and various allied anti-fascist groups are encouraging people to vote tactically, and to vote Green as a way of keeping the BNP out. This video does a good job of explaining the rather odd-looking way that seats are allocated, and encourages a vote for The Green Party as the best way to block the BNP.

My personal opinion is that tactical voting (and protest voting in general) is not good for democracy in the long term but I have to balance that with the damage to British society, and democracy, that the BNP openly propose. I think the real test is to ask that if the situation was reversed, and another Party - red, blue or yellow, was struggling for fourth place, would I vote for them in order to block the BNP? In this situation I think I would.

More info on the anti-fascist tactical campaign

Fruitful Idea

From the BBC:

The city council has a three-year plan to plant 20,000 fruit canes, fruit and nut trees and fruit bushes in all 135 of the Manchester parks.

I'm a little cynical about the timing of the announcement (I do tend to be cynical about this sort of press release...) but this is a great idea and I'm very glad the Council are adopting it. If they expect people will eat the fruit I hope they're going to be careful with sprays.

Now I'm hoping the Council will start encouraging city centre permaculture...

Link: BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | Fruits trees plan for city parks

On trees: During a hustings-style event before the council elections last year, the Labour, LibDem and Conservative candidates* all enthused about trees. Green issues cover the whole spectrum of council activities, particularly 'dull' areas like planning policies, waste disposal, property management, etc, but trees seem to offer an easy 'green' gesture. Most people like trees. Sadly this enthusiasm doesn't always translate into real action - playing fields and trees in Manchester have suffered greatly in recent years.

And cherry trees: Manchester has a surprising number of cherry trees, and other blossoming trees. Many otherwise drab urban streets in Manchester are transformed for a few weeks in spring. I passed a few streets in South Manchester last weekend that looked absolutely beautiful. I've been meaning to try to find out if planting cherry trees was once a fashionable thing in this area, or if it was part of a deliberate policy. Whatever the cause, the effect is lovely.

* I wasn't invited.

Too rotten to drink?

My local healthfood grocers Eighth Day are no longer selling Innocent smoothies as a result of Coca Cola buying a large share in the company. The sellout to Coca Cola and resulting boycott are a big disappointment to me, as I was an almost daily consumer of Innocent drinks until today.

Innocent's generally ethical stance is a stark contrast to Coca Cola's: doing business with a company that sells rubbish like Coke is one thing, but when a company is involved in the murders of rivals and trade unionists... that's not pragmatism, that's complicity.

The decline in the quality of Green and Blacks chocolate following their 'merger' with Cadburys shows what else can go wrong. The post-Cadburys Green and Blacks 'vegan' chocolate ended up with enough milk in it to make people will dairy allergies ill, so they've now abandoned claiming it's vegan. I've read unsubstantiated claims that this is due to machines no longer being cleaned out between production runs of different products in order to boost profits.

The silver lining (chocolate wrapper?) of the Green and Blacks sellout was that Montezuma's far superior chocolate filled the niche. I'm hopeful that something similar will happen with the niche Innocent have abandoned.

Update: Green and Blacks have sent me an email saying that although their dark chocolate's packaging lost the 'vegan' label and gained milk on the ingredients, the actual recipe didn't change following Cadburys ownership - what changed was a more cautious policy regarding traces of milk from previous production runs. They plan to produce proper vegan choc in the future. I've asked if I can reproduce their email here as a comment.

(I do sometimes eat choc that's labelled vegan and has warnings of possible trace amounts of milk, because 'traces' implies incredibly small amounts - I think the appearance of milk on the ingredients list gives the impression of much larger amounts. Restaurant plates may have traces, but I wouldn't eat a meal containing it as an ingredient.)

Here's the email (comments are locked now...)

Dear Pete,
Your blog at http://apetracks.binary-ape.org/2009/04/fruit-thats-too-rotten-to-drink.html has recently been brought to my attention and I hope you don't mind me taking this opportunity to address your comments about Green & Black's recent changes to the dairy allergen and vegan labelling of our dark chocolate products.

I would like to assure you that there has been no change to the recipe of our dark chocolate; the change is simply in the way in which the risks of dairy cross contamination are being communicated on bar wrappers. I will outline the background behind this decision below:

As you may be aware, there are no milk ingredients in the recipe of our Dark chocolate bars and this continues to be the case. However, the bars are produced on the same production line as Milk chocolate bars within our range. The bars have previously, therefore, carried the following statement to reflect this: ‘Manufactured in a factory that handles dairy ingredients.’

A recent audit revealed that traces of milk residues can still be found on manufacturing equipment despite intensive cleaning. Therefore, in order to ensure that consumers are at minimum risk, our allergen statements will be changed and we will clearly state on pack that milk residues may be present in dark chocolate bars across the range. This will be indicated by the inclusion of ‘Organic Whole Milk Powder’ within the ingredients list itself and a ‘Contains Milk Ingredient’ statement on pack. The Vegan labelling was also consequently removed from pack, as you have noted.

Therefore, there is actually no change to the risk to allergy-sufferers as the recipes and ingredients that go into the making of the bars have not changed. What we are now clearly stating on pack is that we cannot guarantee the absence of milk. It is almost certainly going to be present – albeit at a low level. This packaging change ensures that consumers, especially milk allergy sufferers, are aware of the possibility and this represents a positive step in consumer communication.

We are eager to inform consumers of this change to prevent any possible concern that may arise. Therefore, this information is displayed clearly on our website at www.greenandblacks.com and we have been working with organisations such as Allergy UK, the Anaphylaxis Campaign and the Vegan Society to ensure that this may be clearly communicated to allergy sufferers and vegans alike.

Separate dedicated lines for our dark and milk chocolate bars would be the only way to eliminate the risks of dairy cross contamination in the dark chocolate. At present, the restrictions for organic segregation and the design of plant we need for our type of chocolate restricts the availability of equipment. We are very certain however that we must work towards alternative equipment and we are planning to provide a dedicated production line by the end of 2009. Our hope is that we can make product available early in 2010.

I hope that this information, along with the attached FAQ’s and image of the new labelling, is of some help to you to further clarify our position.

<<Milk allergy FAQs.doc>> <<Image of new labelling Dark 85%.doc>>
However, if you have any further queries or comments at all, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Green & Black's also intend to update any consumers concerned about this issue to inform them of our updated position when the separate lines are up and running- if you would like to be contacted at this time, please do let me know and I will gladly add you to the list.

Kind Regards

Laura Bowyer
Customer Care Manager
Green & Black's

Manchester's Jain Community

Arteth and I went along to a Vegetarian Week event at the Jain Community Centre that had been advertised (rather minimally) on the Manchester Vegan Society mailing list. We weren't that sure what the event actually was, but it sounded interesting and we were curious about Jainism in Manchester.

I was at first surprised that Manchester even had a Jain community - Jainism is so often described as being a relatively tiny religion in India that it's easy to miss the fact that India is a very large, very populated country: in India 0.42% of the population is a lot of people. Jains are famous for their ethical, pacifist principles, Ahiṃsā (although historically there have been Jain warriors and armies). Jainism has been very influential in Indian history and culture.

The event was a series of short presentations by a variety of vegetarian and vegan speakers, from the Young Indian Vegetarians, Hare Krishna movement, Viva, Quakers, a Hindu religious/educational organisation (that I've unfortunately forgotten the name of), Joni Purmonen from MVS and veganfitness.net, and the founder of the Freshfields animal sanctuaries. The Jain community were very friendly and welcoming, and we were given a tour of the centre, including the temple. The centre is a meeting place and temple for local Jain families but is also used by other groups in the area, including for sports. The Jain religion is very keen on vegetarianism and pacifism, but also animal welfare - Manchester's Jain community funds animal sanctuaries.

Manchester City South becomes Corridor Manchester?

While reading Sir Richard Leese does a Big Fat Pipe on Manchester Confidential I thought to myself "This Manchester Corridor project reminds me of Manchester City South..." In fact, it's got almost the same website: it looks as if the Manchester City South project has been rebranded.

Rather spookily I wrote a rare blog post on Manchester City South last year and said

"Calling it "City South": A bad idea. [...] so I'll suggest calling it 'The Corridor', since people already talk of 'The Oxford Road Corridor' (and it sounds academic)"

Thanks!

Leese's Big Fat Pipe is a plan for 100MB 'broadband' to be made available to flats and offices down Oxford Road. Since most places on Oxford Road are either already on Janet (much faster) or are a takeaway, I'm not sure how much of an impact this will have (it would be better in the web-startup-filled Northern Quarter) but decent Internet access is not to be sniffed at, wherever it is. Speed is actually less of an issue than symmetric bandwidth: we need better upload speeds than ADSL can provide.

More please!

Standing

I'm standing as a candidate in the May 2008 local authority elections, in the Manchester City Centre ward. I'm the Green Party candidate.

More about this in a little while.

A New Oxford Road?

More planned redevelopment, this time around Oxford Road.

• Converting Oxford Road to be tree-lined, pedestrianised, and with it's own bus/tram: A great idea.
• Calling it "City South": A bad idea.
• Building a slow, confusing website entirely with Flash that contains almost no information: How very 1999! A bad idea.

It's common for a very well presented campaign to be nothing but hot air. This seems to the opposite: a great plan badly presented. Which makes a nice change, I suppose.

I shouldn't criticise without offering an alternative, so I'll suggest calling it "The Corridor", since people already talk of 'The Oxford Road Corridor' (and it sounds academic), and maybe presenting the idea using an accessible and usable site made with that new-fangled HTML.

Link: Manchester City South via Manchester Confidential Property - City South: where’s that?

Afflecks

Save Afflecks
Originally uploaded by BinaryApe

Another bit of Manchester under threat from corporate mundanity: Afflecks Palace might have only a few days left.

Link: The MEN's archive on this sorry saga

I tend to blame Manchester City Council for problems like this, but at least Marc Ramsbottom (LibDem, City Centre) is offering support.

Neverland

I can't really add much to this excellent article in the Guardian, based on a Manchester blog:

The RenterGirl blog, a heartfelt account of life as an urban nomad

The blog itself has far more gruesome details.

To the outsider most of the urban housing developments look similar and are advertised with the same imagery of sleek stylish models, so it's easy to assume what they're like to live in, and who lives there. In most cases this impression is wrong. Most developers also seem to seem to assume that residents have a lifestyle and requirements that simply don't exist in any real way.

Hundreds of flats have been built that don't suit real life at all. Nowhere to keep a suitcase. Nowhere to put a bin. Nowhere to dry clothes. I viewed one flat that had two tiny bathrooms but nowhere to put a television, and one where no windows opened and the only 'fresh' air was from a single pipe emerging from the ceiling. Flats without ovens, with nowhere to dry dishes, or nowhere to store dishes. Whole blocks where the combined moisture from drying clothes and cooking makes the building tropicaly humid, almost stifling.

There are blocks of big-name-designed apartments in Manchester where the corridors are spotted with dog shit and one bedroom flats cost £150,000. In the last flat we rented we had the luxury of mushrooms growing in the corridor, damp, dodgy wiring, deafening 24 hour parties and rubbish bags left in the foyer and on stairways.

Manchester Council likes to talk of Manchester becoming more like a European city, but most European cities have a mixed population in the city centre. Almost every development in Manchester is chasing the same section of the market. There's little room for people wanting to live in the city for the long term, rather than just stay for a few years before moving to Chorlton. There's nothing for families and little for elderly people. There's a shortage of GPs and don't even try to find a children's playground.

It's not all bad. The problem blocks are usually those with a high number of landlords and short-term renters. Renters themselves are usually fine, but there's often a big enough percentage of bad renters (and bad landlords) to damage life for everyone else. Flats that can't be lived in as homes, or for long periods, attract people who don't live "normally", or socially, and who don't give a damn about the area or neighbours because they'll be moving on. Many blocks effectively become unmanaged halls of residence for the recently graduated (or even wealthy students). No one plans to stay long, few people care about where they live. The term "Neverland" used by RenterGirl is very appropriate. It only takes a few people without a conscience to ruin things for everyone else. I should add that blaming bad residents is only half the story: I think bad landlords are the root cause of the problem.

Not everyone living in the city centre is like that, and not all developments are equally troubled. Many older developments tend to be less shiny but much less intensive, with functioning communities and much more respect (there's a topical buzzword...). I think that indicators of better developments can include:

* The more owner-occupiers the better.
* Built in the 1980s or 1990s and still surviving more or less intact.
* Wider than it's tall.
* A big, strict set of rules for occupants.
* Self-managed or owned cooperatively.
* Low service charges can result in poor maintenance later on, although high charges can indicate something's gone wrong.
* Be wary of upper floor flat's if there's only one lift. It will break.
* Flats of various sizes , with three bedroom properties that aren't token/trophy penthouses. People in larger flats tend to stay longer.
* Few for-sale signs. People don't want to leave the better places.
* New buyers tend to be attracted by the new developments, so the better/older places are often no more expensive

* The management fund should be growing
* If a recent developer, check the list of outstanding problems submitted to developers: the shorter the better.
* Check how responsive the management agency is: leaking pipes fixed immediately is not so bad, they could be left for months...

We were rather impressed with what we saw of Granby Village in the city centre (we failed to get a place there) and we're now very happy with Piccadilly Village. The little Smithfield estate in the Northern Quarter also interested us, but very few of the properties were for sale (some are probably still Council owned, however).

I hope that over time the developments with problems grow established communities as some sort of balanced ecosystem evolves, but in some cases whole buildings can reset: we visited one building that had become almost empty; most owners had deserted it, cutting their loses, and it was gradually being repopulated with hardy frontier settlers ready to repair both the water-damaged plasterwork and the community.

Community is key to all this. At a new development on Great Ancoats Street a sign proclaims "A thriving exciting community!". Nobody has moved in yet. A community is more than just a collection of residents, and it isn't built ready for sale.