ODC12 9TH MAY 2020. Virtual meeting via Zoom
NO GOING BACK….
INTRODUCTION
This was the first meeting since the Coronavirus and lockdown, so we had to do something different. Fifteen people joined in a zoom meeting on Saturday May 9th.
We started with a reminder that our ODC Manifesto for Local Democracy, developed from the January ODC meeting, had also become virtual. Following the cancellation of the local City Council elections on May 7th ODC sent the 5-point manifesto to all the sitting councillors inviting them to respond. We also sent it to the local media and the Oxford Times made it the front-page lead story on May 7th, with a mention on the BBC South evening news.
MANIFESTO for LOCAL DEMOCRACY
We ask all candidates/existing councillors to commit to the following:
- Working cross-party where possible, in our common interest
- Regular contact with your electors, e.g. through surgeries and/or public meetings, newsletters, etc.
- Finding ways to engage with all the diverse elements and interests in your ward
- Consulting with people in your ward about how to spend your personal budget
- Working to implement the will of the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change
Then we moved into the main issue of the lockdown Café. At this momentus time of Coronovirus and lockdown almost world wide, we addressed key issues under the heading -
ODC 12. NO GOING BACK….
Three questions were put to 3 break out groups:
- What have learned from the Covid crisis?
- What do we want to keep?
- What do we want to change?
- Things CAN be done differently
- Community co-operation
- Move fast on a new economic model - which values key workers, centred on a Green New Deal
- Globalisation/Nationalism and how Covid has underlined the need for the former-e.g. need for international support for WHO.
While some of these involved actions cooperatively and internationally, and at national government level, we also focused on localism – which was one of the main themes emerging from all the groups. What can we do here on the ground?
- Keeping the rich, valuable community and neighbourhood links and activities, nurturing and support networks is vital. These have become indispensible in a ‘new normal’ under CV-19.
- Inform ourselves more and share information and analysis about new economic models, especially Doughnut Economics [see book and broadcasts by author Kate Raworth]
- In Oxford/Oxfordshire re-image transport, travel plans; feeding into current consultations, and future ideas.
- Keeping and building on increased forms of working from home where possible, and protecting front line workers across the public sector especially
- Maintaining and strengthening the interrelatedness of the new clean air and green places with a new redistributive economic model building in equality, diversity and recognition and reward of key worker skills and values, including a Universal Basic Income.
Links:
- ‘The Tax Justice Network is an independent international network launched in 2003 (see our history here). Our core mission is to ‘change the weather’ on a wide range of issues related to tax, tax havens and financial globalisation. We push for systemic change.’https://www.taxjustice.net/
- ‘We Own It campaigns against privatisation and for 21st century public ownership. We believe public services belong to all of us - from the NHS to schools, water to energy, rail to Royal Mail, care work to council services. We Own It is an independent organisation, not connected to any political party and mostly funded by individual donations’ https://weownit.org.uk/
- Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/ Explores the economic mindset needed to address the 21st century’s social and ecological challenges, and is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries. She is a Senior Research Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, and is also Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
- Positive Money’s vision is for a money and banking system that enables a fair, democratic, and sustainable economy.https://positivemoney.org/ They have a briefing on QE: ‘This briefing, prepared 8 April 2020, outlines why the Bank of England’s corporate quantitative easing programme should exclude fossil fuels, and how big businesses are also being bailed out behind the scenes with public money through the new Covid Corporate Financing Facility.’ https://positivemoney.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Corporate-QE-and-CCFF-briefing.pdf
- Unlock democracy https://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/about-us Podcast series Democracy in Lockdown
- Compass podcast https://compassonline.buzzsprout.com/914668/3382948-episode-4-pandemics-do-discriminate-the-poverty-and-inequality-of-covid-19
- Lessons from the pandemic for addressing a climate emergency https://imaginebelfast.com/events/responding-to-our-planetary-emergency/
- Climate emergency as covid crisis https://imaginebelfast.com/events/responding-to-our-planetary-emergency/
- Irish times podcast https://soundcloud.com/irishtimes-politics/what-will-the-long-term-consequences-of-covid-19-be-with-fintan-otoole
- www.e-consultation.org
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