Cllr Sam Easterby-Smith

Green Party Councillor for Old Moat, Manchester. 🐝🐐💚

This account is for politics and politically adjacent things. For less-politics please head over to Sam Easterby-Smith (npub19ty…cjh7)

Promoted by Sean Duggan on behalf of Sam Easterby-Smith (Green Party) all at 36 Manchester Road, Manchester. M21 9PH

Location: Manchester, UK
Pronouns: He/him

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samsterby_at_mastodon.green@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqs90jgty3gasf9kr8e9945z407y4x43twwakv2hhp0j2mmkz29rlhsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnt52zv63

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Last Notes

2026-05-29 07:37:59 UTC

Pondering the youth unemployment crisis that is all over the news.
My employer has:
1) Cut the grad scheme
2) Eliminated junior roles
Meanwhile they ARE spending oodles of money on adopting LLMs including to “replace” customer service and software testing functions.
That’s just one employer, but I suspect it is repeated in many other workplaces.
Anyone else seeing this?

2026-05-26 12:11:03 UTC

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Sarah is a treasure, am very glad she has been selected.

2026-05-09 08:06:33 UTC

So yesterday I got elected as the new #GreenParty councillor for Old Moat in Manchester. 💚
I genuinely didn’t expect this, thinking that I’d come a good second, but as it turned out I ended up with a majority of 640.
I’m suddenly part of a group of 21 Green Councillors, an amazing team to work with. Really hoping I can be a force for good, and open many cans of worms! 🪱
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/543/462/350/292/613/original/2e10ee47fb3f85da.jpeg

2026-03-23 22:46:28 UTC

💚💚💚 ANNOUNCEMENT 💚💚💚
I am standing for the Green Party in the local elections. In the ward of Old Moat, Manchester. On May 7th 2026.
It’s time to make the rest of Manchester Green. To replace disappointment with hope. This time it’s real.
Promoted by Aatif Ati Zafar on behalf of Sam Easterby-Smith (Green Party) all at 36 Manchester Road, Manchester. M21 9PH
💚🐸🌳🚲🚶🚃🦆🦇💚
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/280/901/803/947/357/original/bda5feb096891591.jpeg

2026-02-22 10:29:48 UTC

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Another factor that troubles me is that our existing nuclear capacity is all going to go end-of-life before too long and something will have to fill the gap.
The costs of decommissioning are of course non-negotiable, we must never cheap out on nuclear safety.
We need to think about how we can meet our energy needs over much longer timespans - hundreds of years rather than tens.

2026-02-22 10:29:47 UTC

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it’s frustrating. Without a pipeline of “being good at doing new nuclear” it turns out we are bad at doing new nuclear.
The underlying question of course is “how can we get oil and gas down to zero” and we must include in that our use for heating and transportation - which means in turn substantial additional electricity needs.
If we can do that with 100% renewables, great. If we can’t, nuclear needs to stay in the mix.

2026-02-11 08:17:01 UTC

I’ve got a day in #GortonAndDenton ahead. Stanning for Han! 💚
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/051/003/624/386/705/original/90ac3d70b6ebc49b.jpeg

2026-02-08 12:40:30 UTC

Did I mention that Hannah Spencer, the #GreenParty candidate for the #GortonAndDenton by-election is the absolute best?
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/035/051/334/239/765/original/1af3dd758c2b7a55.mp4

2026-01-31 20:39:57 UTC

Truly amazing to have hundreds of volunteers with us today for the Gorton and Denton campaign, including Zack, Mothin and Rachel 🥰
The other parties are no way going to match the people power we have showing up for Hannah. 💚
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/991/633/513/482/515/original/27749b6d04b647fc.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/991/633/536/569/542/original/fdb4d9fbe4e5ba9e.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/991/633/535/540/457/original/0ff2a114c29bb2c1.jpeg

2026-01-26 21:53:45 UTC

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and OMG welcome 💚💚🥰

2026-01-26 21:47:49 UTC

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emails. Many many emails. Also WhatsApp groups. We only have the schedule for this week so far.

2026-01-25 14:28:18 UTC

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fab stuff! There’s already a hectic campaigning schedule going out via party emails.

2026-01-25 12:24:50 UTC

Ok so Burnham has been blocked from standing in the Gorton&Denton by-election.
This is a bit of a relief because it means:
1) for the by-election itself Labour will definitely lose - it becomes a two way fight between Greens and Reform.
2) if it takes place in May, Greens will a number of council seats at the same time (I think 3)
3) we don’t have the huge expense and effort of a mayoral by-election to worry about - which would likely have gone Reform.

2026-01-10 16:16:06 UTC

A bunch of us are working on persuading the Green Party (of England and Wales) and other prominent individuals therein to stop all use of X.
I’ve been adding that we should also establish a proper presence here - which may be a harder sell.
(If you are a GPEW member and want to help, drop me a DM)

2025-12-09 18:32:43 UTC

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honestly I think parliament having a debate about it should be (at this stage) mostly about exactly that shifting back of the Overton window and the start of rebuilding some trust.
But given that it’s a private members bill, it’s being treated with contempt by the governing party, and passed on a 100-100 split, isn’t sending any meaningful signals that things have changed here. Yet.
I think we are in for a long wait.

2025-10-06 09:25:59 UTC

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The Green Party believes that the decommodification of Housing, and that the effective abolition of Private
Landlordism and the Private Rented sector, coupled with the mass expansion of Council Housing is the only way to end the Housing Crisis.
The Green Party would use policies like a Land Value Tax, Rent Controls, Ending Right-to-Buy and Buy-to-Let
and giving Councils the powers to borrow, to fund a new Golden Age of Council Housing.

2025-10-06 09:25:59 UTC

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4. Provide finance to Councils. Councils should be given the Right to Buy when Landlords sell, or property that
hasn’t been insulated to EPC rating C or fails to meet the decent homes standard, or any property that is
left empty for more than six months, with the total current tenancy discounted, tenants moved to a truly
affordable Council tenancy. Government must change prudential borrowing requirements to allow Councils
to buy back and build new housing on a massive scale. (2024 Manifesto Pg9)

2025-10-06 09:25:59 UTC

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The Green Party’s Five Step Plan to Abolish Landlords;
1. Introduce Rent Controls and Abolish Right to Buy. (HO401, HO503)
2. Tax the Landlords - move towards a Land Value Tax levied on Owners, not Tenants. No Exceptions. Business
Rates on AirBnBs/Short Lets. No Exceptions. Double taxation for empty properties. Put National Insurance
on Private Rents. (HO401, EC780-2)
3. Remove finance for Landlords - end Buy to Let mortgages. (HO521)

2025-10-06 09:25:59 UTC

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5. Establish a State owned Housing Manufacturer, to mass produce high quality mass Council Housing for
Local Authorities, and to innovate on housing design and manufacture.
Insert into PfSS;
HO204 - To minimise the number of private landlords in the Housing Market and regain public ownership of the
housing lost to the Right to Buy scheme.
/fin

2025-10-06 09:25:59 UTC

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To further this, the Green Party would establish a State Owned Housing Manufacturer, that would mass
produce high quality, affordable Council Housing for Local Authorities, providing skilled jobs and training around
the country. That company would also focus on innovating on housing design and manufacture, without the
need to produce private profits.

2025-10-06 09:25:58 UTC

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That the Private Rental Sector exists to transfer wealth from the working classes to Landlords.
The Green Party believes that the Private Sector has fundamentally failed, and is continuing to fail to provide
secure and affordable housing fit for working people.
The Green Party believes that the Housing Crisis is a crisis created by the mass expansion of Private
Landlordism, started in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher.

2025-10-06 09:25:57 UTC

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Motion
Insert into Record of Policy Statements;
The Green Party believes that secure, affordable Housing is a Human Right, and that a core goal for a Green
Government and Green MPs is to create a fairer housing market.
The Green Party believes the existence of Private Landlords adds no positive value to the economy or society,
that the relationship between Landlord and Tenant is inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative.

2025-10-06 09:25:56 UTC

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Here’s the full text of the landlords motion 💚🙌🧵
E04 ABOLISH LANDLORDS
Synopsis
The Private Rental Sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from Renters to the Landlord Class. This motion makes it clear Green Party policy is to seek the effective abolition of Private Landlordism and our support for building Council Housing.

2025-10-05 20:41:47 UTC

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Just putting this here… https://join.greenparty.org.uk

2025-10-05 20:20:05 UTC

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Basically no TERFs so no endless fucking around. The trans healthcare motion sailed through unanimously 👍🦄🏳️‍⚧️💚

2025-10-05 19:56:47 UTC

At the Green Party conference in Bournemouth we agreed to:
🏚️ Abolish landlords (the daily Mail are loving that one)
💻 Repeal the online safety act
🚂 Electrify the new varsity line
🇵🇸 further toughness re the Palestine war - against the Blair/Trump plan
🦡 end badger culling
🏳️‍⚧️ reform trans healthcare
🌍 climate strategy, natural habitat network
🌳 global biodiversity framework targets
🎈 stop all outdoor balloon releases
Plus a big bunch of internal organisational stuff. Absolutely delighted! 💚
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/323/298/889/801/942/original/6511af83e3720692.jpeg

2025-09-25 23:29:06 UTC

🗳️ Local by-election result for Woodhouse Park in Manchester!
💚 The Greens held Woodhouse Park! Massive congrats to our new Councillor Zoe Marlow.
🥶 Reform didn't turn up to the count or campaign much, but came second on 29.5%
🥀 Labour came third - that's utterly ruinous for them
May is going to be *volatile*
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/267/488/900/247/556/original/6d65f24d02ffc0f5.png

2025-08-13 09:49:56 UTC

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excellent point, the transactional cost of the action is potentially huge, and there’s zero guarantee that the data would actually be removed or the services scaled down at the cloud end.

2025-08-13 09:39:53 UTC

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Amazon, and Google, and the rest, all make money out of our data hoarding, both directly and indirectly, so why would they change unless forced to?
Of course we also need to go after corporate computation, LLMs, and all the rest of our ballooning data and computation usage. But let’s take this seriously and work for systemic change. /3

2025-08-13 09:39:53 UTC

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So the government is not wrong to say we should hoard less data to reduce water consumption, but they are employing the classic move of saying it’s our *individual responsibility*. (waves at @npub1a9j…hq52)
The question has to be *why* are we hoarding all this data, and the answer to that is because the *systems* are set up to make us do that. Take a photo, up it goes. Deleting it is friction. 2/

2025-08-13 09:39:53 UTC

Data at rest is absolutely an environmental problem. Bite me.
If *for example* everyone in the UK has a terabyte of stuff in the cloud, that’s 60,000,000 terabytes.
Estimates vary wildly but the energy use of 1TB in the cloud is somewhere in the 40-70kWh per year range, so let’s call it 50. That makes 3 terawatt hours in total per year for the whole uk population. And growing.
In trying to decarbonise and lower the energy bills of data centres, easy mode is to use more water for cooling. 1/

2025-08-03 12:42:53 UTC

Folks, while everyone is losing their minds about age verification in the #OnlineSafetyAct, and while we here know all about the shuttering of community run sites, where are we at with the client-side-scanning provisions and the undermining of encryption?
Because that hammer is still right there in the act…
@npub1cqh…8tnn @npub1fdr…lvhs

2025-04-26 14:49:14 UTC

Accidentally ended up leading Manchester’s #CriticalMass ride yesterday, which was a bit daunting given that I’ve not done it for years… but ya’know it’s like riding a bike.
Turnout was small (like 30) but we had two sound systems, and a trouble-free ride. Good vibes.
I’ll be away for the next one, but if you’re in Manchester (UK) get yourself down there. Last Friday of the month at the central library, sets off at 7pm-sharp.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/114/404/784/179/891/298/original/fecef6ed69e646d8.jpg

2025-03-01 10:00:24 UTC

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(waves!) i think where we got to was that one needs to relieve people’s mortgage debts, proportionally with the correction.
If one doesn’t do that, the upward pressure on prices remains in place, and you get a market slowdown.

2025-02-28 22:50:52 UTC

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The way to win against these fuckers imo is to actually deliver on social justice.
Not to blame minorities. Not to starve public services of money. Not to kick the can on public infrastructure. Not to fail to tackle the climate crisis. Not to slash the aid budget.
The task is to directly take on the conditions that have given these people their oxygen. /2

2025-02-28 22:50:52 UTC

I know you’ve all already done all the hot-takes… but…
This is going to take some *leadership* from Europe. And unity. And that is what scares me.
We are all so deep in our own national squabbles with the far right, and capitulating to them on moving the Overton window of policy in shitty directions, and not getting the fact that it’s the same damn playbook right on our doorsteps.
Fuck Trump, fuck Musk, fuck Putin, fuck Farage, fuck Weidel, fuck Le Pen. /1

2024-11-06 17:46:30 UTC

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totally came here to say this too 💀

2024-11-06 16:21:44 UTC

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well that made me feel better. One of my work projects for 2025 is eliminating Oracle from our infrastructure. Mostly on cost grounds tbh, but also a good ethical move (for an ethical bank) 👍

2024-10-23 19:39:56 UTC

I co-wrote an article about trains - and why the Green Party changed its policy to be in favour of HS2.
If we hope to decarbonise transport - we’ve got to build railways 👍
Meanwhile Labour are (so far as anyone can tell) sticking with the hobbled plan of only doing London to Birmingham.
#greens4HS2 #HS2
https://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/transport/real-hope-real-trains-green-party-hs2/

2024-10-13 09:11:15 UTC

Watched the playback of Manchester City Council’s “Environment, climate change, and neighbourhoods” scrutiny ctte earlier.
https://democracy.manchester.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=358&MId=4757
Some positive stuff in there about active travel:
* a promise to get rid of all the anti-cycling barriers
* more school streets (with enforcement)
* serious consideration being given to stopping pavement parking
* reducing speed limits is going to happen!!
1/3
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/113/299/197/426/508/731/original/743c3443b58577fa.jpeg

2024-10-13 09:11:15 UTC

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But a mealy mouthed response about LTNs (they don’t want to talk about them) and a whole bunch of blaming delivery riders for unsafe riding (this boils my piss: the imperative is to make the infrastructure safe, and go after Uber/Roo/Etc) 2/3

2024-10-13 09:11:15 UTC

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Beyond Active Travel, the big take home is that the city just isn’t achieving the scale and pace of change that is necessary to hit their own climate targets. Cllr Weaste (Green, Woodhouse Park) delivered a sobering comment on this and how our inaction has an impact on the wider world… and asked if we actually care. 3/3
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/113/299/326/439/321/500/original/5e30abbe2051563a.png

2024-08-03 07:31:49 UTC

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lol you can guess which side of this argument I’m on.
Yes to pylons. Yes to trains. Sorry entirely human-shaped-industrial-landscapes but you’re going to have to change a bit or we don’t stand a chance of decarbonising.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/896/907/189/329/831/original/47de94702328763b.jpeg