The courts may have turned down the judicial review of the Scottish Government’s decision to include the proposed Hunterston power station in the National Planning Framework (http://bbc.in/rfHQUg), but the fight goes on to stop this mad scheme. You can still comment on North Ayrshire Council’s planning portal - http://bit.ly/nlVKjD – 20,000 people have objected to the plans in one way or another and CONCH will be giving evidence on 24th Oct, before the Council meet to make a decision on 9th November. Keep up to date with the campaign on the CONCH website - http://www.conchcampaign.org/

Over the next few weeks, we’re planning to meet up with as many of the local MSPs as we can, to introduce ourselves to the newbies and make sure the re-elected ones haven’t forgotten us. Let us know if you fancy joining us to meet your local MSP and remind them of the importance of global poverty and injustice…

In just a few hours at Festival Sunday in the West End of Glasgow, 161 people signed a campaign card telling the Secretary of State for International Development that they don’t agree with locking the world’s poorest people into more unjust debt.

Time to listen up, Mr. Mitchell – the Daily Mail might be ranting about the ‘shame’ of the UK giving aid to poorer countries, but the Glasgow public think it’s only right that we should give grants to tackle the effects of climate change.

Just in case you were in any doubt about the validity of the science behind climate change, we recently observed concrete (or rather sponge) evidence at our climate cafe hustings.

Oh, and we talked to some politicians too, whilst we were eating the world. They all seemed committed to tackling climate change here in Scotland. We’ll see what the public make of their promises on 5th May…and then it’s up to us to hold them to account once they’re in Holyrood.

It’s funny how often people agree with you when you suggest that bankers aren’t perfect. Now all we need to do is keep the pressure on the politicians to understand this basic point…

Dressing up as a Barclays banker in Argyle St certainly attracts some attention – from shoppers and the press… Let’s just hope the politicians take some notice too.

WDM Glasgow members went on the anti-cuts march in London to join the mass protest against cuts here in the UK. Along with other WDM Groups, we wanted to highlight the links between austerity measures here and similar policies being imposed on poorer countries around the world.

Ayrshire Power have now submitted their planning application for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston in Ayrshire. This is a mad plan and we need to stop it now!

• It’s completely unnecessary – ‘The Power of Scotland Renewed’ showed that Scotland can meet 60-143% of its energy needs from renewables by 2030. See http://bit.ly/cQtqC9 for the full report
• It will completely undermine Scotland’s world-leading climate change legislation – even Ayrshire Power are only claiming that 15% of the CO2 will be removed from day one with Carbon Capture and Storage. And they haven’t even said how they will do this!
• The proposal is being handled in an anti-democratic way - it was shoe-horned into the National Planning Framework after the public consultation period, Ayrshire Power are doing everything they can to avoid proper consultation, and the Scottish Parliament has already voted by 66 to 26 calling on the Scottish Government to throw the plan out.

Take just a couple of minutes to send in an objection and stop this madness  – http://www.wdm.org.uk/scotland-campaign-actions or go to the Communities Opposed to New Coal at Hunterston website for lots more info and a sample objection letter – www.conchcampaign.org/

The final table...

A late rally from Spain led them to victory in the West End Festival mini-football World Cup. Thanks to the ingeniously designed ‘moving goalposts of justice’, the trophy was always more likely to go to a country with a better social justice record. And Spain’s position at number 9 in the ‘Who Should I Cheer For?’ league table ensured them plenty of support, although there were strong challenges from Brazil and Cameroon.

Despite strong support on the day (who said Glaswegians would rather support anyone but…) England only managed a parlous 3 wins, hampered by their position at number 27, whilst the USA at number 31 only  managed one win all day.

GOOOOALL!!!!

Now all we need is for FIFA to recognise the result…