Sian Berry

Are you a ‘good’ cyclist or a ‘bad’ cyclist? Is the Highway Code tucked safely in your rucksack as you give way at dotted lines, signal to change lanes and wait for a full green light before setting off at junctions? Or do you speed aggressively down narrow pavements, throwing toddlers and old ladies aside before bullying Landrovers out of the way on roundabouts?

These terms and definitions aren’t my ... read more

Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan. OK, I’m in a bit of a bad mood this week, so that’s what this blog is going to be - just one long moan. Sorry ...

Turns out we didn’t win the Kentish Town by-election on Thursday. Although it would have been something of a miracle for us to move straight from third place to first, particularly with the Lib Dems wanting the seat ... read more

Last week I did a very naughty thing. I downloaded from the internet a short film that was packed full of copyrighted material, stolen from Hollywood, American and Swedish TV news programmes, and even the BBC. It was called ‘Steal this Film – part 1’ and it has been made this year by a group of Swedish internet pirates who are intent on spreading lawlessness throughout the globe.

I don’t ... read more

I’m getting a bit worried about Jeremy Clarkson. No one could enjoy being a figure of hate as much as he appears to, but he can’t seem to stop making new enemies with every column inch he writes.

A while back, I was waiting for my washing in the launderette when I picked up a copy of the Sun. I had a flick through, and eventually reached his column. ... read more

It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve had no time to muse about anything. Combine a busy week in the by-election campaign with the Queen’s speech, a crucial local planning committee and a couple of long-standing appointments for media interviews, and all I seem to have done is rush from place to place with my phone glued to my ear.

There’s no obvious way to link all this ... read more

Oddly, given that I am focusing on local issues for my Council by-election campaign in North London, globalisation has been on my mind a lot in the last week or two.

A long time ago, I was first enticed into political activity by the anti-globalisation protests that started in the late 1990s. Working in Bloomsbury, I passed through Russell Square one evening in the summer of 1999 and found a ... read more

If there are climate talks, then we must be marching. I’ve been coming to the big, annual Campaign Against Climate Change march for years, and it has been exponentially bigger every time. This year’s event on Saturday was no exception.

The focus of CACC is to press for international agreement on effective carbon dioxide emissions cuts. So, with the US holding this up ever since George Bush took power, the ... read more

It’s official then. Less than six months after the hurly-burly of the May local elections, the Labour councillor for my home ward of Kentish Town has resigned leaving two Lib Dems and a vacancy, so we will be having a by-election in December for which I have been selected as the candidate.

It couldn’t have come in a better area for us in Camden. Kentish Town was our second best ... read more

As a member of a genuine grassroots campaigning group, I have been riveted by the recent articles and Newsnight report by George Monbiot trailing his new book, Heat (now high on my growing reading list). These have been exposing what he calls the denial industry, a wide-ranging “network of fake citizens’ groups and bogus scientific bodies” funded by the oil and motor industries to cast doubt on climate science and ... read more

I’m getting used to the jet-set life of a Green politician. This weekend it was the National Express up to Scotland to protest at the Faslane naval base against the renewal of the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system.

After a very short night’s sleep in Edinburgh, our group from the English and Welsh Greens set off at 4am on the Sunday with members of the Scottish Green Party, including Mark ... read more

Last week was a milestone in the battle against gas guzzlers - the first ever international conference of anti-4×4 campaigners.

Since the Alliance Against Urban 4×4s started two years ago, groups have been springing up in cities across Europe as the deadly 4WD trend has spread. We have been sharing ideas and artwork by email for a while and on Wednesday arranged a meeting, labelled it grandly ‘a summit’, and ... read more

London’s new Low Emission Zone is the kind of sophisticated, targeted legislation I love. Neither a blunt instrument nor an ineffective swipe at the problem of air pollution, Ken Livingstone’s latest initiative will start to tackle a problem that most Londoners are unaware is chipping away at their lifespan every time they take a breath.

He knows how to generate headlines does Ken. In Los Angeles for a star-studded shindig ... read more