ELECTION SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH GREEN CANDIDATE KAT BOETTGE / OFFICIAL CANDIDATE LIST ANNOUNCED

We have the first of our candidate interviews today with the Green Party Candidate, Kat Boettge and its a cracker: rare you’ll see a politician so candid (beware! many swears!) and funny; plus she took us behind the scenes of the episode of Wife Swap she starred in which is a real eye opener. It’s our rookie journo Faith Pring’s first piece for us, so smatter of applause her way, please. Or better still, donate towards our crowdfunding for this election special: every penny will go to cover expenses and wages of our new team of citizen journalists: click here: it will take a minute of your time and a few quid out of your account, but do great things for the future of preserving insight and scrutiny into the oft-neglected world of local politics. After the article, we have the full candidate list – the complete runners and riders for the hard slog ahead. Over to Faith…

CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS #1: KAT BOETTGE GREEN PARTY

The upcoming general election on December 12^th is nothing short of controversy. The Broxtowe elections are looking to be some of the most interesting in the country, with candidates swapping parties, stepping down and stepping up, so we spoke to green party candidate Kat Boettge to grasp her opinions of it all.

Originally from Germany, Kat has been living in the UK for twenty years and decided to join the Green Party as soon as she felt her daughter was old enough to be left alone for a couple of hours a day.

“My mother was a Green Party politician, so I grew up with that. Once my daughter was old enough, I joined [the Green Party], and that was seven years ago. Only half a year later I was selected as the lead candidate for the European elections for the East Midlands,” Kat Boettge said.

After admitting that the Green Party has changed her life for the better and she doesn’t regret a thing, we began talking about the current climate change emergency and whether she agrees with the highly controversial actions of climate activism group Extinction Rebellion.

“I think they’re doing an excellent job. I’ve spoken at demonstrations, but because I’m working full time, I can’t do everything,” she revealed. “I think the momentum has definitely grown in the UK, and I think people are finally realising that a climate emergency is real and that everything is going to be affected by this. I know I would not be able to look my daughter in the face in twenty years and say that I didn’t even try and do something to help.”

When talking to Kat, it’s obvious that if there’s one thing she’s passionate about, it’s helping to solve the world’s climate emergency. But does she share the same amount of passion for the NHS?  A psychotherapist by trade, Kat has seen first-hand what a lack of funding and staffing can do to the health service and how it can affect the people that need it most.“I’m a great fan of the NHS, and I think if we get a bad service, it’s due to a lack of funding.”

“Only 3% of the NHS budget is dedicated to mental health which is appalling, doctors work fifteen hour shifts and if patients don’t hit a certain recovery rate, the therapist is thrown out. It shouldn’t be like this but it’s because of the pressure,” she added.

During the interview, Kat also believes that a large majority of the funding given from the government is directed to the wrong causes. “How funny is it that we have the money for HS2, for Trident, but not enough for the NHS? It’s not just sad, it’s fucking crap.”

Electoral reform, social justice and, of course, climate change, are just some of the Green Party’s policies, but why does that mean you should vote for Kat in the upcoming elections? “In the UK, it’s one side and the other, it’s based on a two party system and it’s time to stop that. A climate emergency is absolutely urgent; we’ve been on the right side of history for 40 years saying this.”

“our voters would be quite pissed off if we’d stood down. It’s not a personal thing, it’s just simply that” -Kat on standing against Soubry

“You should vote for something else other than the two parties to show that we need electoral reform, and that’s what we stand for.”

Despite all her views, many people have been questioning lately why Kat Boettge is still standing in the Broxtowe elections, despite the recent Remain alliance. This alliance has seen the Liberal Democrats stand down in Broxtowe, to theoretically enable a single Remain candidate to stand. However, both Anna Soubry and Kat Boettge are active Remainers, and Kat Boettge has refused to step down. Why?

“Locally, we weren’t made aware of any alliance, nobody asked us. Anna Soubry didn’t ask us, the Lib Dems didn’t ask us, our national party didn’t ask us to stand down.”

“If they had asked me to stand down, I would have said no because Anna Soubry, in regards to environmental politics, is so far away from where we stand, our voters would be quite pissed off if we’d stood down. It’s not a personal thing, it’s just simply that,” Kat explained.

“If you look at the last European election, which is the most relevant, in Broxtowe it was the Brexit party first, Lib Dem second, and I was third. Now, because the Lib Dems are not standing, I am the strongest remain candidate in Broxtowe and I am not going to stand down.”

Finally, something we can’t avoid: a couple of years ago Kat appeared on Channel 4’s

Kat among the pig-ignorants: Wife Swap

Wife Swap in a slightly odd Brexit special. What was that like?

“You only see snapshots of it. On the first evening I was at this social club, and I was literally surrounded by twenty or thirty drunk men shouting at me. They didn’t even know you could vote for an MEP, this was the level of discussion we were having. And I was standing my ground, and as I said the director said he couldn’t watch the footage fully because he thought it was so abusive and upsetting, and I was trying to be as diplomatic and withstanding as I could be, but it was constantly abuse towards foreigners, and they’re threatening, and this guy took me to wherever it was in London, where there were a lot of Bangladeshis, and they threw a lot of comments that were not shown. I was saying ‘there’s nothing wrong with Muslims, but what has this to do with the EU?’. The level of discussion was on such a low and uneducated level, I didn’t want to say anymore. What wasn’t shown was that I persuaded three of the men there to become Remainers, and they got it, but they didn’t show it because they didn’t want to be biased”.

Phew. Whatever your politics, Kat is a welcome splash of colour –albeit it shades of green- into what could otherwise be a pretty grey election season. Faith Pring

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CANDIDATE LIST ANNOUNCED

Here it is folks! The list of candidates that made the cut: we’ve explained the absence of the Lib Dems and the Brexit Party, so there are no great surprises but the immediate take-away is thus:

• Labour, Conservative, Green, Soubry all there as expected.
• Dave Bishop, aka Militant Elvis, got his ten signatures, so can stand!
• A disillusioned, possibly out-of-pocket former Brexit Party who really should delete his Twitter feed is standing as an Independent.
• A hateful dangerous candidate is standing in the form of Amy Beth Della Mura. Lets take a little look at this rather awful human.

She’s a full on, unapologetic fascist for starters, and standing int he Midlands could be for two reasons: one, she was banned a few years ago from going anywhere near the UK coastline – an ASBO put on her through frequent bogus suicide attempts that cost rescue services over a million quid.

Two: she’s going after Anna Soubry. While this blog has never been our incumbent MP’s biggest fan, we are shocked at the level of hate and abuse she receives – the full gamut of rape threats, death threats, etc. No one deserves anything like that, and the fact a professional troll is standing raises some grave questions: she has verbally abused Soubry while the MP was live on air, calling her a ‘traitor’ and the usual vile stuff that seems fine to spout these days due to the whipping up work of Farage, Johnson et al.

She is a dangerous, possibly deeply unwell person, and it is important that the police and public keep a very close eye on this potentially dangerous candidate.

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We’ll be taking a closer look at a few surprises that have come our way in tomorrow’s blog: stay tuned! Lord Beestonia