North Devon

Name: Ricky Knight
Gender: Male
Political Party:
Green
Email: rickyknight@northdevongreens.org.uk
Twitter: @greenknight49
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Ricky Knight

Background

I was born in Fremington, brought up in Bishops Tawton and Croyde and have lived in Bishops Tawton since 1976. I am married with two grown-up children.
I recently retired after 30 years teaching modern languages at Pilton School, a specialist language college in Barnstaple. I’ve been a Green Party member for 29 years and a Barnstaple Town Councillor for 11.
I stood for Parliament in 2004 and again in 2009. I was the lead candidate for the SW Green Party for the 2009 European Elections and stood again in 2014.Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) International Committee – member
GPEW Conferences Committee – Convener (2011-15)
SWGP Regional Co-ordinator – 2004-5
SWGP Committee – member 2003-8
SWGP Representative on the Regional Council – 2013-15
Founder member of Devon Green Party
Barnstaple Town Councillor – 2003 – present
North Devon Peace Council – (founder member) 1981–92
Tarka Hospital Radio – founder member
Barnstaple Junior Rugby Club – founder member
NASUWT – Devon Committee & School Rep – 1986 – 2009
‘Bikeability’ Training Instructor (since 2009)
Trustee: Barnstaple Bridge Trust / SOL (Language School) / Rock Park Trust
Taw and Torridge Estuary Forum / Tarka Rail Forum – representative
Member: Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Campaign Against the Arms’ Trade, 38 Degrees, Avaaz, Electoral Reform Society, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sunrise.

My main political concerns for the North Devon constituency are renewable energy, integrated transport, sustainable agriculture, tourism and the resilient survival of the NHS and our state education system.

So, why the Green Party? One reason: without a planet, everything we aspire towards, all our hopes and aspirations, all our economic and social traumas are both vanity and pointless. There is only one party that ticks all ten of my boxes and that is the party with a Philosophical Basis that makes the hairs on the back of my head go electric. Read this: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/core-values.html
We are the only credible alternative party to the business as usual Westminster closed shop that masquerades as democratic representative government. The so-called Big Three have presided over nearly 40 years of evolving systemic failure: economic boom/bust mayhem, financial mismanagement, casino banking melt-down, political corruption, environmental destruction, social upheaval, immoral imperialist wars and the shameful ever-widening gap between the mega-rich 1% and those in real poverty. When is enough enough?

1. What do you plan to do in order to make sure you remain ‘in touch’ with the electorate?

I was born and educated here and have lived and worked here all my life. I have been a local councillor for 11 years and politically active for over 50. I know exactly how to remain in touch with the electorate, even if they do not always agree with my message.

2. What makes you the best candidate for this constituency?

Apart from the above statement, in the absence of a credible Labour opposition regionally or nationally and the emergence of a populist party even further to the right than the Tories, the Green Party is the only truly radical, solution-driven alternative to the ‘business as usual’ parties that have driven us to the edge of economic and ecological disaster and have presided over the collapse of the post-war social consensus, allowing the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ to increase catastrophically.

3. What has the current Member achieved that you believe has been successful?

I didn’t get into politics to preside over the collapse of the Liberal Democratic Party; indeed, I keenly supported our MP Nick Harvey in his early days (the ‘anything but the Tory’ syndrome). However, I was bitterly disappointed when Clegg took his Party into this coalition government and Harvey became a minister in the Defence Department, thereby more or less losing his hitherto credible representative voice, swallowed up by the protocols of subtly whipped allegiance and ‘solidarity’. Even when re-joining the back benches (and being awarded a knighthood in the process), he failed to rediscover his independence and indeed, made some frankly dismaying voting choices in crucial lobbies, on matters of significant national interest and importance, the most recent of which was to vote against the amendment to the ‘Recall Bill’. I am sure Harvey has worked tirelessly as an MP but I fail to find anything positive to mention on the issues that concern me, the NHS, state education, climate change, immigration, public transport, equitable taxation, TTIP and so on. On the contrary, he has morphed into an apologist for government policy, obediently uncritical of the Tory masters, except when there is a local opportunity to illustrate his antagonisms to the local press and electorate over his government’s austerity cuts and the toll they are taking from the most vulnerable in our community. He works tirelessly to ensure he is re-elected, that’s for sure.

4. In your opinion, is austerity working? What should we take from the state of the economy during this Government’s tenure?

Austerity is most certainly not working, as it is only hitting the least well-off and those least to blame for the ‘boom/bust’ economic policies emanating from the closed minds of growth-fixated neo-liberals, prey to lobbyists and private profit. Regardless of how any Chancellor can spin the news or ‘fix’ the recovery curve and the cherry-picked stats and data, this will happen again and again every few years or so, fuelled by fear, ignorance and media-driven distractions.

5. Does (legal) immigration need more limitations or is it vital for the UK?

Both. If it’s legal, then any alterations in the legislation have to be done carefully and democratically, with full adherence to Human Rights and due judicial process – i.e. not driven by an ideological knee-jerk reaction to narrow-minded, xenophobic public opinion, masquerading as fact. We all know the extent to which Britain is so much better off with a fluid, healthy influx of work-hungry, young, educated, ambitious individuals, seeking to better themselves, help their families and, in our case, improve their English, the international language of communication. It’s not a platitude to say our Health Service and care systems would collapse without immigrant workers, who pay far more to the Exchequer through taxes than they cost the system via social services.

6. Many people are concerned with the cost of living in the UK, with wages having failed to rise in line with the price of food, energy and rent in recent years. How can this be corrected?

This could be corrected tomorrow, given the political will. But our Big Three parties are in thrall to Big Business, who bankroll their campaigns and help perpetuate the status quo. They make their profits through, essentially over-charging’ their customers to maximise shareholder gain. This was best exemplified with the energy-company hearings, from which very little has emerged. It is incontrovertibly the case that large multi-national organisations and super-rich individuals completely skewer the system and that the taxation system needs a complete overhaul, to close all the gaping loopholes through evasion, avoidance, off-shore banking, bonuses and over-charging and thus to place business (and politics) generally onto firm, immutable ethical foundations.

7. How would you like to see the NHS change in the future in order to become more successful?

‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ – well, nearly true! The NHS is the Jewell in our Crown – free treatment at point of need. It is the envy of the world but those who control the budget at the present time are fixated by the presumed sanctity of privatisation and the ideological mind-set that considers anything in the state sector to be inherently wasteful and lethargic. Since so many in power can afford private health care, the simple solution to ensure that something fails is to withdraw the funding stream, sell off the family silver to already-rich organisations, and then set up a sustained chorus of criticism of failure, waste and corruption to corroborate the need to ‘close it down’. The cure? More money! And extraordinarily, this is the will of the majority – so it’s not even electoral suicide. Such is the power of money.

8. What measures do you think need to be taken to decrease unemployment, particularly youth unemployment and those who have never been employed?

In three words: ‘Green New Deal’. Millions of jobs could be created, if emphasis were placed on the creation of ‘Green Jobs’ in renewables and sustainable industries; and by significant investment into infrastructure. Governments have been massaging unemployment statistics for decades – it’s an art form now. Introduce temporary, part-time or zero-hours contracts, invent new ways of removing numbers from those stats, the black economy …. the fact is, our economic system relies upon an acquiescent work-force and a pool of unemployed to keep heads down and bowed by work-load and fears focussed. What is going to happen if you raise the retirement age, especially when there is so little work anyway in a country with such a significantly reduced manufacturing base? First in last out: experience and reliability trumps the adolescent; and the state leaves it to the community and more importantly to the family, to pick up the pieces. Youth unemployment and the accompanying loss of dignity and aspiration is a ticking social time-bomb throughout the (over-)developed world.

9. Does the lack of diversity in Parliament equate to a lack of representation?

Absolutely. We live in an elective dictatorship – that’s a description, not necessarily a criticism. Our first-past-the-post electoral system is a democratic dinosaur disgrace and yet it is protected so desperately by the parties that control our destinies – and for obvious reasons: turkeys don’t vote for christmas. And yet we keep voting for …. (e.g. the AV referendum fiasco). Despite the emergence of ukip, the bastions of power are virtually impregnable, not just for so-called ‘minor’ parties, but for women and for those from ethnic minorities. The only exception being, I’m proud to note, is that LGBTIQ representation at Westminster is impressive. If the only ways to guarantee a parliamentary seat are to work your way up the ranks of the existing parties, either via the trade union movement, nepotism, the right schooling, new money or sycophantic adhesion to your party’s doctrines, (not to mention the goal of a safe seat and the extraordinary demographic phenomena of the swing-seat), then the system is indeed ‘broke’ – and this one does need fixing. STV or AMS proportionality at the very least, please.

10 . If an EU Referendum were to take place, how would you encourage your constituents to vote and why?

During the last euro-campaign, the Green Party campaigned for ‘Three Yesses’ – and we gained our first SW MEP accordingly: ‘Yes’ to remaining in the EU; ‘Yes’ to a fundamental re-write of the Lisbon Treaty; and ‘Yes’ to a Referendum. So it is logical that we would wish such a vital question to be put to the electorate – and that we would campaign vigorously for a ‘Yes’ vote. The example of the Scottish Referendum is apposite. The unknown however is the extent to which the arguments become irrational, unbalanced and divisive; worse, that lies are pushed as facts and, as with Scottish Devolution, too much money and too much influence controls the eventual result. The UK exiting from the EU would be an unmitigated economic disaster and represent a complete abrogation of our supra-national responsibilities as an ipso-facto world power, with a historic ‘duty’ to be part of the process that shapes this planet’s potential future.

North Devon

Ricky Knight

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