Angela Argenzio

The party she belongs to is a party which contains rabid rabble-rousers such as councillor Dimond and councillor Raouf. An extract from the profile of Councillor Raouf:

What is happening in Palestine is far worse than what is taking place in Ukraine, yet I don’t see you crying tears for Palestine.

The people he was criticizing were Sheffield Councillors. Coun Raouf was critical of a rally where councillors of all parties held Ukrainian flags.

I can only assume that councillor Raouf can't be bothered to keep up to date with the extreme realities of the conflict in Ukraine. As for his illusions about the Palestinian territories, I can't recommend that he take a look at information in the rest of the page because I'm sure he can't be bothered to take a look. The comparison he makes in this brief statement is beneath contempt. I intend making use of this opinion of his in future publicizing of the issues.

In the profile of Green Party councillor Toby Mallinson below, I mention the fact that I was a member of Amnesty International for a long time and so was Toby Mallinson. Angela Argenzio was a member for a long time too and may still be a member, for all I know. Amnesty has changed very much since I was a member and my view of Amnesty has changed very much since then. I now regard it as a discredited organization in certain areas. This is someone I  knew  quite well.

Angela Argenzio is a naive, a very naive councillor who finds some difficulty in defending her naive views, I would think. There's nothing distinctive about this - all the Green Party councillors are just the same. I'm willing to be proved wrong in this respect, of course.

 If she finds nothing wrong, or hardly anything wrong, with the accusations  repeated ad nauseam on Green Party publications - this is a representative example

https://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2023/10/14/greens-support-the-justice-for-palestinians-demonstration/

- then she's complicit in the Green Party charade, to use for once a word quite often favoured by the Green Party, 'complicit.' The piece just cited uses it: 'They are complicit in these war crimes and must be held accountable.' 'They' refers to the 'Leadership of the Conservatives and the Labour Party.'  And how exactly does the Green Party intend to hold them accountable? This is just another example of Green Party playing at politics - posturing, pretend-politics.

The more I consider the evidence, the more reason I find to criticize in the stance of Angela Argentio. Angela Argenzio is after all a member of the Sheffield Green Party which published this inflammatory piece on a page of its Website

https://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2023/10/20/
green-councillor-condemns-uk-complicity-in-israeli-war-crimes/

'Green Councillor condemns UK complicity in Israeli war crimes.'

An extract:

'Alexi Dimond spoke at the rally to Stop Genocide in Gaza at Sheffield Town Hall.

'Yesterday, the Al Ahli hospital was bombed in the single most egregious act of barbarism so far in Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza ... Now our media is scrambling to cast doubt on who is responsible, a willing accomplice in covering up for war crimes ...'

Unfortunately for Alex Dimond and Sheffield Green Party, the balance of evidence shows that the damage to the hospital was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired from Gaza against Israel. The evidence includes the small size of the crater, the lack of shrapnel evidence to show Israeli involvement, the relatively superficial damage to the hospital buildings. The number of deaths claimed was inflated by Hamas, shamelessly so.

My profile of councillor Mersereau is about her decision not to vote for sections of a motion to do with antisemitism. Councillor Argenzio made the same decision. I wonder why?

If anyone joins the Green Party for the quiet life, if anyone gets elected as a Green Party councillor for the quiet life - promoting cycling, recycling, walking, organic growing, composting and the rest - they may find that they're mistaken. It's far more likely  that they will condone by ignoring the massive faults of the Green Party. A mass of discarded, fly-tipped rubbish is no more unpleasant than the screaming, screeching toxic beliefs of people like Alexi Dimond - and so many others - in the Green Party. This isn't to minimize the unpleasantness of discarded, fly-tipped rubbish. On this site, I recount my efforts to get an enormous amount of discarded, fly-tipped rubbish removed.

Alexi Dimond

Councillor Dimond's use of the word 'genocide' in the speech he gave outside Sheffield Town Hall amounted to gross misuse of the word. In my page on Israel there are images showing killings carried out by Nazi Einsatzgruppen, followed by this extract, which mentions the first use of the word 'genocide' in a legal context: the Einsatzgruppen Trial. The Green Party should be ashamed of giving publicity to the speech on its Website. The extract:

The Einsatzgruppen  were SS mobile death squads, operating behind the front line in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. From 1941 to 1945, they murdered around 2 million people; 1.3 million Jews,  up to 250,000 Romani,  and around 500,000 so-called "Partisans," people with disabilties, political commissars, Slavs,   homosexuals and others. The 24 defendants in this trial were all commanders of these Einsatzgruppen units and faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity ... The trial marked the first use of the term "genocide" in legal context. 

Other Green Party rabble-rousers - as well as many more genteel Green Party councillors and supporters misuse the word 'genocide' too, as well as the term 'war crimes.'

A record of the speech delivered by Alexi Dimond to the people of Sheffield - or some of them - outside Sheffield Town Hall.

https://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2023/10/20/green-councillor-condemns-uk-complicity-in-israeli-war-crimhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKm79_PzTOY&ab_channel=SheffieldGreenParty

My criticism of the article and the speech is not here but in the profile of Christine Gilligan Kubo  - for the reason that I consider Alexi Dimond a fanatic and Christine Gilligan Kubo is a 'moderate' and I take the view that moderates in the Green Party should be doing far more to prevent fanatics from damaging the party even more. I also take the view that there are misguided moderates in the Sheffield Green Party and the National Green Party, and more than just a few.

I use the tactic recommended by Comrade Dimond - but not as a result of reading about it in the grotesque Green Party article.  I've used it for a long time. I ask specific questions and publicize the Green Party responses. Since they never give responses, all I can do is publicize their failure. There's more about this man's oratory in other profiles.

I can be sure that Alexi Dimond and Toby Mallinson have their own distinctive views but their comments on the flying of the Israeli flag over Sheffield Town Hall are indistinguishable in their ignorance. From the same article in 'The Star' newspaper mentioned, with a link, in the profile of Toby Mallinson:

Brian Holmshaw

Green Party Policy Pronouncements may sound good - to Green Party activists and other supporters - but again and again collapse in the face of political and economic realities. The policy pronouncements haven't been thought through. An example: the page 'Public Administration and Government.' This emanates from the Green Party at national level, not from Sheffield Green Party.

To isolate just one strand of the argument presented, the model of concerned citizens given access to all the information they need to make informed decisions and given the power to make actual decisions. In practice, if the Green Power Party decides that it doesn't like the decisions and doesn't agree with the majority opinion of the local people, then it will disregard the decisions or do everything in its power to frustrate implementation.

I take this view: Nobody tells me what to think. In practice, the Green Party tells people what to think again and again, but the attempted control is heavily disguised, sometimes by verbiage, sometimes by a complete failure to explain and provide argument and evidence.

'Trans rights' matter a great deal to Green Party councillors, far less so to ordinary citizens. In fact, a large number of ordinary citizens would reject an order of priorities in which trans rights have a very high rating, would reject the notion that trans rights are very, very important, amongst the most important political priorities. 

Councillor Holmshaw believes that trans rights are matters of very high priority. It's doubtful if the majority of the people in the Ward he represents take the same view. He was one of the councillors who refused to accept Alison Teal as a Green Party parliamentary election candidate - one of the councillors who in effect denounced Alison Teal.

Another issue - offering sanctuary, offering migrants incentives to come to Sheffield. If the idea sounds noble and good, the realities are messy, intensely difficult and involve some very problematic decisions. To implement the policy in many cases will involve neglecting other issues. The electorate needs an honest appraisal, an honest account of the advantages and the disadvantages, but won't be receiving one if councillor Holmshaw has his way.

A direct question for councillor Holmshaw. Would he support the settling of a large number of refugees from Gaza in Sheffield? If so, could he give a rough idea of the numbers? 100? 500? 1,000? 5,000? 20,000? What would be the consequences for the housing stock of Sheffield? At each level of permitted settlement of migration, would it be realistic or unrealistic to attempt to take in these approximate numbers?

I'll quote now some statistics which have been very widely reported. I don't comment on them myself. I simply give the statistics. I'm sure that councillor holmshaw would interpret the statistics in a way which absolves the people convicted of crime of responsibility for the crime, perhaps by the claim that these people have been the subject of 'racism' or that the Danish police have been acting unfairly. In general, without reference to this particular issue, for every problematic issue there's a Green Party hypothesis which preserves the Green Party claim to a high degree of political and ethical purity. The Green Party is an exception to the realities of failure and bad decision making - the Green Party is the Party that can do no wrong (except for minor oversights.) Academic research on the relationship between immigration and crime has led to very varied conclusions. The evidence is mixed, with positive and negative correlations claimed.

 In 1992, Denmark gave 321 rejected Palestinian asylum seekers extraordinary residence permits. These permits were given directly by parliament by a special law. These people have been tracked since that time. Data from the 2019 follow-up:.

• • 270 of the 321 who were given asylum were still residing in Denmark.

  • 
    Of the 321, 204 (64%) had received a serious fine or jail time for crime and 71 of them had been sentenced to imprisonment. A large proportion of them were receiving  welfare, in particular  the "early pension" (førtidspension) which is usually given to people with severe physical or mental issues  but also awarded to immigrants who have little chance of obtaining a job, for whatever reason.

  •  

Douglas Johnson

Douglas Johnson is the Speaker for the Sheffield Green Party. Poor party! Poor speaker, pitifully poor speaker!

But first, a limp, hopeless, not in the least resounding call from this caricature figure, recorded for posterity by 'The Yorkshire Post:'

'The Green Party has called for an immediate end to the violence in Israel and Palestine.'

I think of some animal rights demonstrations I took part in a very long time ago, the moronic chants which made me realize that this was no way to achieve the humane objectives:  'What do we want? Animal liberation! When do we want it? Now!' What, now? This minute? Animal liberation is an unrealizable objective, to secure improvements in animal welfare needs hard work, realism. Gains can be temporary gains. This is no field for naive people, except for naive people who want to be thought of as amounting to something, perhaps even people who would like to be taken seriously - this is yet another unrealizable objective.  An easy way for nonentities to be transformed is to shout - or have published in 'The Yorkshire Post' - ridiculous simple minded claims.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is deep seated and to imagine that it can be solvedy by a Green Party call for immediate action is unadulterated garbage-thinking, if it can be called thinking. This is someone with obviously no understanding of harsh realities - with not nearly enough understanding of life and its limits, the barriers to fulfilment.

Douglas Johnson is a reliable person, a very reliable person, someone you can depend on. He can be relied upon to endorse ringing slogans that sound good - to politically tone-deaf people. He can't be relied upon to produce argument and evidence for his views. That would be too much trouble. So, when he was asked, 'Do you agree with the finding of the Government's Sewell Report stating the UK is no longer institutionally racist? The box he ticked - but of course - was the box 'Strongly Disagree.'

Of course, he ignored all the contrary evidence.  But what does factual evidence matter to ideologists like him? The mass of legislation which exists to safeguard the interests of racial minorities, the warmth and understanding of ordinary people - not all ordinary people, of course. There are ones with views that could be called toxic. But I'd describe the views of Douglas Johnson on Israeli-Palestinian relations as toxic.

This response of D.J, was recorded on the site,

https://whoismycouncillor.co.uk/

Christine Gilligan Kubo

A political party (or branch of a political party) which values its reputation doesn't allow fanatics to ruin its reputation. Moderates in a political party (or branch of a political party) have a responsibility to take effective action to curb the excesses of fanatics and if necessary see that they don't control the party and cause serious damage to the party. Obviously, not all the moderates need to take action but there must be enough of them to ensure that the action is effective. Mainstream parties have leaders who can be replaced if they fail badly in this task. The Green Party has a different view of leadership. They view strong leaders with disfavour. Strong leaders can cause damage if they fail but strong leaders can take effective action in cases like this, whilst the decentralized Green Party has endemic weaknesses. If individual councillors  choose not  to take any action, in cases where firm action is a necessity, then they can get away with it.

Political parties have competitors, of course, just as businesses have competitors. The political parties which are the competitors of the Green Party can benefit from any Green Party failures.

In Sheffield Green Party, I'd claim that councillor Alexi Dimond is a fanatic who can inflict serious damage on the party and I'd say that Christine Gilligan Kubo is one of the moderates.

Moderation isn't enough. Moderates may have many strengths but if they're ineffectual in matters like these, they lack an essential strength. Moderates are often well-meaning, wishy-washy people who are often fluent speakers but poor when it comes to realistic action. I don't claim that councillor Kubo is well-meaning but wishy-washy.

Is Christine Gilligan Kubo aware that Alexi Dimond is playing with fire? Is she concerned, very concerned, that Alexi Dimond's words and actions can cause massive harm to the Green Party? The same questions could be asked of other 'moderates' in Sheffield Green Party.

I've taken copies of the evidence I make use of here, and other evidence.

The Green Party is very weak in matters of defence. It can't, it won't make an adequate attempt to defend itself. It won't make even a token effort to defend itself, when faced with argument and evidence. It complacently assumes that its stance is ethical, beyond criticism. 

I'd make a rough analogy with defence issues at the national level. A political party which wants to govern and has a realistic chance of winning an election may have all kinds of strengths but if its defence policies are weak, then the political party deserves not to win an election. The world is too dangerous a place to risk electing a party which is ineffectual in matters to do with defence. A country too weak to defend itself, a political party too weak to defend itself, unable or afraid to use argument and evidence.

Alexi Dimond's chant:

'Netanyahu, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.
Biden, Biden, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.
Rishi Sunak, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.
Starmer, Starmer, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.

To confine attention to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, to accuse the former Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition of genocide is gross misuse of a word which should never be misused, never used casually or thoughtlessly. A party which simply overlooked the inflammatory language of one of its councillors would be negligent enough. To actually publish the misuse of the word 'genocide' on its Website is worse still.  To accuse the other politicians of genocide is abject misuse of the word too. Killing of civilians in war is overwhelmingly common. Only some of the killing deserves to be called 'genocide.' I discuss the issues in the column to the right.

People may join the Green Party for reasons to do with wildlife, wild flowers, organic gardening and other reasons which are far removed from these unpleasant issues. But political parties have to address unpleasant issues more often than pleasant issues. Undue specialization is a liability in a party which has aspirations to exercise power. If a political power wants to be regarded as responsible and effective, it has to be far more broadly based than any of those fringe parties, single-issue parties.

Toby Mallinson

 He's someone I knew quite well. For about twenty years, I was a very active member of Sheffield Amnesty International and for most of that time, he was an active member too, as was Angela Argenzio, another Green Party councillor.. I've no knowledge of whether the two are still members of this discredited organization, which lost its way a long time ago. I intend to give the evidence in due course.

My view of Toby Mallinson is that he does a great deal of recycling. I'm not referring to the recycling of used materials, to save them from going to landfill, of course, but another form of recycling, very popular in the Green Party. I regard him as  a political innocent, a naive and ignorant recycler of commonplace illusions and delusions.

An article in 'The Star' newspaper gives the background to the Israeli Flag episode

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/council/
sheffield-council-leader-calls-out-serious-danger-in-removal-of-town-hall-israel-flag-by-palestine-protesters-video-4368239

An extract from the article,

Coun Toby Mallinson (colleague of Alexi Dimond - his comment is given in his profile) also condemned the Israeli flag decision on X. He said,

'I condemn the appalling, criminal actions of Hamas killing hundreds of civilians, and the reprisals of the apartheid Israeli regime killing hundreds more. Decades of breaching international laws and the promotion of hatred by the regime have led to this catastrophe.

'I am ashamed that Sheffield is flying the flag of the regime. I am very concerned about the major damage being done to relations with Muslim and other communities in our city by this act.'

I don't show the complete and utter disregard of realities, the complete and utter disregard of fair-mindedness her by discussing his claims one by one. I do show his stupidity by discussion in the rest of the page. For example, the claim so often made in these circles, and made by Toby Mallinson, that Israel is an 'apartheid state.' This claim is the subject of the section The Goldstone report and 'apartheid Israel on this page.

Other material on this page amounts to a refutation of other claims he makes. He would benefit from a remedial course in history, including branches of military history, and a remedial course in stylistics (the style is the familar fraudulent, standardized agitation, in essentials plagiarism pure and simple). 

Ruth Mersereau

Councillor Mersereau was one of the councillors who abstained from voting for paragraphs of a 'Substantive Motion' at a Sheffield Council meeting.

https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=19840

These were the paragraphs. I would have thought that they were uncontroversial. What reasoning - or obscure action on impulse - led councillor Mersereau to  abstain? I'm puzzled. Perhaps she can explain - or perhaps she'd prefer not to explain. In my own experience, the Green Party finds explanation uncongenial. It prefers evasion.

That this Council:

h)  recognises that, in 2005, the EU monitoring centre on Racism and Xenophobia (now the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights) adopted the following working definition of antisemitism:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

	(i) notes that the working definition has become the standard definition used around the world; (j)  notes that this definition has been adopted by the European Parliament, the UK College of Policing, the US Dept of State, the US Senate and the 31 countries comprising the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance;
	(k)  recognises that, in 2016, the British Government also formally adopted this working definition of antisemitism;
	(l)  in view of recent controversy over the precise definition of antisemitism, this city with its proud history of religious tolerance and the first UK City of Sanctuary proclaims its support for the published international definition of antisemitism; and
	(m)  directs Sheffield City Council to formally adopt the official and international recognised working definition of antisemitism for this city.

Henry Nottage

Martin Phipps

The Green Party's Alison Teal has fallen foul of Gender Ideology enforcers such as Martin Phipps, Alexi Dimond, Brian Holmshaw and Angela Argenzio. I'm referring in particular to the 'Trans' issue.

Alison Teal has made a case. She has claimed that 'gender ideology'  has a “frightening impact” on children and has called it  “regressive”. She was heavily criticised after making use of  an article which repeatedly referred to the comedian Eddie Izzard as a ‘man’ and a ‘he’ and opposed his use of women’s toilets. She went so far as to condemn the placing of male sex offenders in women's prisons.

It isn't that often that I agree with a Green Party figure, but in this case I side with Alison Teal.

The indignation, the horror of the would be enforcers would be fitting in the case of Iranian cruelties but not at all in this case.

Maroof Raouf

This will be the shortest profile of all, a short quotation from councillor Raouf, a short comment, with a not so short link giving the source of the information.

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/ukraine-russia-sheffield-politician-claims-some-councillors-more-eager-to-support-ukrainian-children-because-of-blue-eyes-and-blonde-hair-as-opposed-to-those-in-yemen-and-syria-3596399

Councillor Raouf, quoted in this article in the newspaper:

What is happening in Palestine is far worse than what is taking place in Ukraine, yet I don’t see you crying tears for Palestine.

The people he was criticizing were Sheffield Councillors. From the article: Coun Raouf was critical of the rally where councillors of all parties held Ukrainian flags.

I can only assume that councillor Raouf can't be bothered to keep up to date with the extreme realities of the conflict in Ukraine. As for his illusions about the Palestinian territories, I can't recommend that he take a look at information in the rest of the page because I'm sure he can't be bothered to take a look. The comparison he makes in this brief statement is beneath contempt. I intend making use of this opinion of his in future publicizing of the issues.

Paul Turpin

Councillor Paul Turpin has his own page on the Sheffield Green Party Website. An extract:

We can make a big difference to people’s lives right here in Gleadless Valley, and across the city.

I see change coming from the ground up rather than the top down. By changing the way we do things here, we can change things in the city, in the country, in the world. That’s real Green politics.

Councillor Turpin's claims make it sound quite easy - even change in regions far distant from the Gleadless Valley in Sheffield. His claims are largely empty ones, expressing empty hope rather than anything likely to be of benefit to many people in Gleadless. Act local, transform this nation and nations in Europe, Asia Australasia, North and South America? He's living in a world of illusion. I don't claim that he's living in a world of total illusion, of course.  What he calls 'real Green politics' is full of misconceptions and falsifications.

In his article, Councillor Turpin  makes this claim, this criticism, the claim that Sheffield council has 'a relentless desire to accommodate big business at the expense of Sheffielders.'

But Sheffield, like so many other places, needs big business. Big business can generate useless or almost useless products but it also generates a very wide range of useful products. If big business which manufactures and makes available useful products moves to a town or city it can provide employment for large numbers of people. If Sheffield fails to attract big business due to the undue influence of views like the views of councillor Turpin, then Sheffielders will be disadvantaged, including, it may well be, people in the ward represented by this councillor.

I'll give just one example to show some particular obstacles, unrecognized by Green Party paid-up believers. Councillor Turpin may or may not have an interest in growing things but the lesson can be applied to other areas and other issues. It shows the gulf between Green Party theory and action in the real world.

Anyone who gardens or farms will inevitably face the problem of weeds. When food crops are grown, weeds can reduce the yield so that it becomes next to nothing. If the weeds competing with food crops reduce the yield of many food crops over very large areas, then people would go short of food and eventually starved, if no action is taken to control the weeds effectively.

I face the weed problem in the land I rent, of course. In the decades that I've been cultivating the land, I've hardly ever used the weedkiller glyphosate but I've had to put in much more work and to spend far more time on weed control than I would have if I'd used glyphosate more often.

For a long time, I used organic methods, but now I use non-organic methods as well when necessary.

I have a powerful flame weeder, which kills the top growth of weeds but leaves their roots undamaged. It's not an effective solution to bring weed infested land into cultivation.

The organic method (as advocated by the organization Garden Organic, the successor to the Henry Doubleday Research Institute, the organic organization which I used to belong to) recommends digging out the roots of weeds. This is not just impractical but impossible. A person determined to use this method to eliminate weeds would need to neglect all other responsibilities and  use all available spare time and still not succeed.

There are weeds which are comparatively harmless, although controlling them can still take up so much time. There are weeds with stubborn roots such as ground elder, creeping buttercup and couch grass which really do need a weedkiller which kills the roots and eliminates the weeds in very little time. The best known example in glyphosate. There are problems involved in using glyphosate, but they are largely exaggerated. Its toxicity is low. In a survey of the hazards of everyday life, the hazards of gardening and farming, the hazards of glyphosate are almost non-existent.

Very near to the land I rent, just across the road, in fact, there was a mass of Japanese knot-weed. Sheffield Council didn't send workers out equipped with trowels and spades to dig out the roots of the plant, prepared to spend months - years - in a futile attempt to control the weed using organic methods. It's impossible to control it in this way. The knotweed was sprayed with glyphosate and the problem wasn't solved. The knotweed hasn't come back.

Weed-control fabric can be laid down (and weighted down, to lessen the chance of wind moving it or damaging it) and this is acceptable according to organic standards. There's an element of hypocrisy here. Weed -control is a sythetic material derived from oil.

I regard his views - but not all his views - as damaging, He's failed to consider the disadvantages of his views. They're an example of the 'real Green politics' which is based on unreal thinking.