Green party

A Republican comes within a hair’s breadth of winning a Senate seat — only to lose when the Libertarian Party candidate draws more votes than difference between the majority-party candidates’ numbers. Elsewhere, a Democrat is narrowly defeated when a Green Party candidate takes a few percentage points in a tight race where the Republican has less than a single point’s lead. These scenarios have played out a several times in recent elections, including on Tuesday. Only in the past 24 hours has Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrats’ candidate for Senate in Arizona, pulled ahead of her Republican rival by half a percent, as votes continue to be counted. The Green Party candidate in that race won 2.3 percent.

Before David Cameron became Prime Minister in the 2010 election, he was dealt a setback when his old chum Ed Vaizey suggested that Cameron's wife Samantha might be voting Labour. Although Cameron's team were quick to pour cold water on the suggestion – and Vaizey in turn backtracked – the rumour persisted over the years. Now that the pair are out of No 10, Sam Cam has finally set the record straight in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph. The fashion designer tells the paper that she never went so far as to vote Labour – but she did sometimes vote Green: 'But I didn’t always vote Conservative – sometimes I went Green.

In this, as in all things, Paul Keating was right. It was the former Aussie Prime Minister, a Beethoven of political invective, who called his country’s Green Party 'a bunch of opportunists and Trots hiding behind a gum tree trying to pretend they’re the Labor Party’. Keating's acid scherzo could apply just as readily to our own Greens, self-appointed conservationists of righteousness. Caroline Lucas, their only MP, has been at the forefront of calls for a 'progressive alliance' between left-wing parties.

It's difficult being a Lefty. You come up with principled positions and stances and then people expect you to stand by them. So, spare a thought for Caroline Lucas. Although the Green Party has campaigned for a £10 per hour minimum wage, today the Green MP's team placed a job advert looking for a press assistant for the not-so-princely sum of £9.23 per hour. https://twitter.com/MitchellAT/status/778192445792194560 When brains at Green HQ clocked the error of their ways -- apparently down to an admin error -- they came up with a simple work over.

Winning the Green Party leadership race on a joint ticket makes Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley the first ever job share at the top of an English political party (the Scottish Greens have been doing it for years by having two co-convenors at the top). The pair won convincingly, picking up 86 per cent of the vote in the first round. Yet whilst the margin of their win was clear, what's less obvious is how the job share will work in reality. There is, though, one valuable asset that Lucas will certainly be able to offer the Greens.

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Naming the best columnist in Britain is like naming you’re the best Beatles song: it varies, depending on what kind of mood you’re in. But who would deny that Matthew Parris is in the top three? The quality of his writing is, itself, enough to put him into the premier league but that’s just part of the art. What sets Matthew apart is his sheer range, and his originality. You never know what he’ll be writing about, whether you’ll agree with him, or virulently disagree. Most columnists join arguments; Matthew Parris starts arguments.

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Naming the best columnist in Britain is like naming you’re the best Beatles song: it varies, depending on what kind of mood you’re in. But who would deny that Matthew Parris is in the top three? The quality of his writing is, itself, enough to put him into the premier league but that’s just part of the art. What sets Matthew apart is his sheer range, and his originality. You never know what he’ll be writing about, whether you’ll agree with him, or virulently disagree. Most columnists join arguments; Matthew Parris starts arguments.

These days the BBC can't seem to get anything right. On top of regularly riling Brexit-ers with 'EU bias', the corporation has been accused by some -- including former BBC pol ed Nick Robinson -- of showing anti-Corbyn bias. Now they can add a new one to their list; anti-Green Party bias. Yes, Green Party MEP Molly Scott Cato has made the peculiar claim after the BBC failed to publish an article on her party's new video broadcast: The video features young children pretending to be today's politicians -- arguing that while other parties are childish, the Green Party are not. As amusing as the video may be, Cato appears to barking up the wrong tree.

If you want an idea of how exhausting this election has been for some voters in marginals, just watch this video of a Green supporter in Bristol West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5PN6-nMI8 I profiled the seat, where the Lib Dems are trying to hold off a ‘Green surge’ among middle-class voters, here and I was rather impressed with quite how many leaflets Stephen Williams had managed to produce even before the short campaign got underway. It will be a tough seat for the Lib Dems to hold, even if the Greens don’t win, as Labour appears to be in front currently.

At a recent screening of his new capitalism documentary the Emperor's New Clothes, Russell Brand, the revolutionary who refuses to vote, said he was too angry to say nice things about today's politicians: ‘When I watch it [the Emperor's New Clothes], I sort of think come on Russell people really want to hear you say something about the election like Caroline Lucas is lovely, or Natalie Bennett is lovely, or Tom Watson is lovely or Ed Miliband is really trying his hardest, but when I watch this I think "nooo! Justice!"’ However just a week later and the comedian has changed his tune. After Ed Miliband paid a late-night visit to his home earlier this week, Brand has been inspired to ditch his anti-voting policy for one MP and their constituency.

Imagine rural England five years into a Labour government led by Ed Miliband, and propped up by the SNP and perhaps also the Greens. If you can’t imagine, let me paint the picture for you using policies from their election manifestos and only a small amount of artistic licence. The biggest house-building programme in history is well under way, with a million new houses mainly being built in rural areas. Several ‘garden cities’ have sprung up in Surrey, Sussex and Kent, though in truth the gardens are the size of postage stamps. No matter, because having a big garden is a liability since right to roam was extended so that ramblers can walk across your lawn. Oh, and if you’re thinking of walking a dog, think again.

‘If you’re not a socialist before you’re twenty-five, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after twenty-five, you have no head,' goes the old, oft-misattributed saying. But if you’re a Green party supporter on a university campus today, you’re more likely to have no friends. It was reported last week that the Green party's share of the student vote has almost halved in the past two months – falling from a peak of 28 per cent to a paltry 15. In January, the Greens’ vote was creeping up on Labour (the consistent student favourites) but it has now plummeted below even that of the so-called ‘Tory scum’ you hear so much about on tuition-fees demos.

Yesterday's Mail on Sunday had an interesting account of a meeting in London of Nazis, neo-Nazis, British National Party types and anti—Semites of various other hues. The paper infiltrated the meeting and exposed what was said - which is a very good service and deserves praise. But I challenge anyone to look through the photos and biographies of the few participants who gathered at Victoria station and then in a nearby hotel and not reflect that this is a gratifyingly washed-up and pathetic movement. During their deliberations they appear to have gone over the usual stuff about how they think the Holocaust was made up and been used by Jews for their own advantage and so on.