Richard Lawson

Dr Richard Lawson qualified in medicine in 1969. He has been in general practice in Congresbury, North Somerset since 1979.

He has been a Green Party member since about 1977, holding various national offices. He was elected to Woodspring District Council in 1986.

In 1996 he wrote a significant book about the NHS. It showed that about one fifth of NHS effort is wasted in trying to cure illness caused by:
• unemployment;
• poverty;
• poor housing; and
• environmental pollution.

Richard is married, with three children. He enjoys gardening, cycling, windsurfing, sand yachting and roller hockey. He plays the flute, and is an ex-hang glider pilot. He is the inventor of a successful double film aerofoil sail, and has various other inventions under development.
Several of his poems have been published in small magazines. He is now working part time; his main project is the Index of Human Rights in the UN project.

He blogs on http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/ and his website is at: http://www.greenhealth.org.uk

North Somerset Longstanding Green Success

Richard was elected to the then Woodspring District Council in 1986. He served 6 years, and the Congresbury area has continued to elect Green Councillors since then, first Rosey Knifton, and now Tom Leimdorfer holds the position.

Local issues include:
• protection of the North Somerset environment;
• protection of the shoreline;
• extracting energy from the Severn Estuary; and
• dealing with the pockets of deprivation around North Somerset.

North Somerset Green Pilots UN Human Rights Improvements

When set up, the Global Index of Human Rights will see an annual publication by the United Nations. This will demonstrate the human rights records of every government in the world in a league table form. It will provide:
• a constant upward pressure on governments to improve their performance; and
• early warning of the very worst human rights abusers.

Richard had been working on this project steadily for many years. He has succeeded in getting it adopted by the Green Party here, as well as the European Green Party and the World Congress of Global Greens. It has also been accepted by the Conference of the UK United Nations Association, and several small NGOs.

Richard is writing a Report on the Index which will be launched by Peter Tatchell on December 8th.