u/taxes-or-death

As some people were pointing out in response to the dire news yesterday, we may have to confront the possibility that it falls to us as ordinary members to drive the change the party needs to ensure that party processes are fit for purpose and that candidates are properly vetted.

If we're going to submit a motion to alter existing process we'll have to understand how it works at the moment in order to see how we can add in a mandatory step that has a high probability of being actually carried out to the letter.

So a call for candidates is put out, members apply, a hustings is organised, local members vote for their preferred candidate, that candidate is registered with the Electoral Commission. Have I got this right so far? When does the vetting take place, assuming that it does, and can we make sure in a robust way that the vetting process is complete before we move onto the next step?

In terms of the vetting itself, would it be helpful to have a mandatory checklist, detailing things like scouring social media accounts, checking conflicts of interest and legal ability to stand etc, and require that to be signed off and returned to party HQ before the candidate can stand?

I'm not saying that we can fix this problem ourselves but let us consider the possibility that we can. Any thoughts and opinions, especially from people with experience of these processes would be highly useful.

>The Bay Area university town of 120,000 is the first in the US to require sellers and buyers of single-family homes to replace fossil-fuel appliances or make other green upgrades as a condition of sale. It’s one of several cities leveraging real estate transactions to achieve carbon-emissions reduction targets as the Trump administration eliminates climate action. Austin, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, are among municipalities that require home sellers to obtain and disclose the results of energy audits to encourage voluntary efficiency improvements.

>Berkeley, though, is mandating that such upgrades happen. “What Berkeley is doing holds a lot of promise in terms of being a very effective way to increase the rate of retrofits as homes are sold and turn over to new owners,” said David Ribeiro, director of local policy for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit research organization.

>The city has long pioneered environmental policies that have later been adopted across the country, from curbside recycling in the 1970s to a ban on polystyrene-foam takeout food containers in the 1980s. Berkeley voters in 2006 set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 and buildings are the city’s second-largest source of carbon pollution after transportation, according to Ammon Reagan, the sustainability program coordinator for the city’s energy office.

The Media Sovereignty Act campaign has five demands:

*Ban foreign media ownership.

*Ban the concentration of UK national media ownership by one person or corporation.

*Fund independent and local media with a social media levy.

*Require national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator.

*Require “dark-money funded think-tanks” that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time.

The King’s Speech on Wednesday (13th May) made no mention of media reform.

The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign Petition is here.

Is labour organising the most effective block on tech-oligarch/state killing power?

So long, information! If polling companies get away with this, no polling you see in media can be relied upon. That's fine for us, we just won't believe it. But for people who are not so well informed, these polling companies can just pump out misinformation with a false sense of authenticity to the tabloid-reading masses. Very concerning.