Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
With Liberal Democrat credibility shattered in the eyes of York’s large student population did Dave anticipate the Green Party gaining a windfall of disaffected student votes? “Yes we do. I hardly expect many of those students will be going over to the Conservative Party and if students have a memory of who brought in tuition fees in the first place, they won’t vote for Labour either...The Green Party says tuition fees should be abolished and education should be free.” He stated his belief that education should instead be paid for out of general taxation and suggested that perhaps the top ten percent of graduate employers could help pay for it.
While the tuition fee rise is the most relevant coalition policy to students what did Dave think of the government’s across the board cuts? “The cuts in York are going to be savage” he said, anticipating a cut between six and eleven million pounds in a city which was already not well funded. “We are very concerned about the loss of jobs and the damaging of services” Dave went on, expressing his concern at the cuts to social care which threaten to further demoralise social workers who already aren’t valued by society despite the hard work they do looking after the disabled and elderly. He outlined a idea to ask council employees to take more days as unpaid holidays thus allowing the council to save enough money to save some public services. He also said that he was concerned that if lots of people are put out of work and if they are in insecure employment the local economy will be severely hurt by the fall in demand.
Dave also said that he had been impressed by student activism and the new radicalism emerging as the youth see their education and futures under threat. However while occupations of University buildings were great for discussing ideas and tactics, he said, students must take their protests to the people of York. He also said he was very pleased with the Green Party’s own student candidate Caleb Wooding who is running as a councillor for Heslington this Thursday.
As well as working with students Dave says he works “deeply and strongly with most of the other councillors” claiming that discussing ideas with his Liberal Democrat and Labour colleagues often leads to Green Party ideas being adopted. While he also says that Conservative councillors are ideologically opposed to their ideas, he also commented that some were far more open than others. Dave Taylor has also been vocal about the University’s policies regarding accommodation. He says that with the university expanding to 18,000 students with the building of Heslington East the University must build more on-campus living space for students. His reasons for this are twofold: firstly it puts pressure on family housing and secondly it risks the ghettoisation of students in certain areas which leads to targeting by criminals and abandonment during the summer months.
Dave has also been a great supporter of lowering the speed limit to 20 mile per hour in residential areas. Despite the impression that Top Gear lovers try to give the scheme has overwhelming public support with 70% supporting it according to Dave. The scheme, which has been shown in studies to reduce accidents, has been trialled in certain parts of York and the Green Party wishes to extend it to the roads outside the Fishergate Primary Schools and eventually all of the residential parts of York.
Dave Taylor has been are the forefront of the campaign to win World Heritage Status for our magnificent city. While the sheer beauty of York means that few doubt its worthiness of World Heritage Status UNESCO’s previous propensity to grant it to many other walled Cathedral cities leaving York out in the cold as they search for a greater diversity of locations. Fortunately York has a unique selling point in its land which has two thousand years of well preserved remains. The archaeological findings include the Roman settlement here and the houses of invading Vikings as well as, due to the extraordinary ability of York soil to preserve matter, the food in people’s stomachs and even a human brain leading to a depth of historical insight not seen elsewhere.
Dave’s work in heritage does not end there; he has helped to scupper plans to build a shopping mall near Clifford’s Tower to preserve the dignity of the building which sheltered Jews during one of the first anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe. He even calls his safeguarding of St Antony’s Hall in York, one of its four medieval guildhalls, his proudest achievement. In 2004 when the Borthswick Institute moved to the University of York, St Antony’s Hall was left in limbo but luckily Dave managed to secure the moving of the Quilters Guild of Great Britain into its beautiful grounds which now attracts quilting enthusiasts from as far away as Japan and the United States. Asking him to sum up his vision for York he said: “What we have to do in a city like York is to face the biggest issues facing the world, poverty and inequality. We have to look after all the members of society and not just let rampant capitalism leave some people living in mansions and leave other people living with nothing”. If you wish to vote Green then Caleb Wooding is running a close campaign against the Liberal Democrats in Heslington while Dave Talor and Andy D'Agorne are looking for re-election in the Fishergate Ward.
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