Green party

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

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

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

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: 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. But perhaps Williams is trying a new ‘get out the vote’ strategy, in which

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

‘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

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

On Thursday Natalie Bennett spoke during the BBC Challengers’ Debate of the positive change Caroline Lucas has brought to British politics since she was elected as the MP for Brighton Pavilion. However, word reaches Steerpike that not everyone in Lucas’s constituency is so enamoured with the Green politician’s work. Several Brighton residents have taken to Twitter to complain to Lucas along with the council’s recycling and refuse service that their rubbish is not being collected on time: We’re now clearing other’s #waste in front of our home @RecyclingRefuse thought was job of @BrightonHoveCC #rubbish pic.twitter.com/jiAxY3lxVg — mel poluck (@melpoluck) April 13, 2015 @RecyclingRefuse why no recycling collection on friar road for last 3 weeks? Recycle

On the subject of politicians using language effectively, the funniest quote of today has to go to Green leader Natalie Bennett, who told the World at One today that: ‘On occasion when I need to shift large quantities of goods around, I use the car club.’ listen to ‘Natalie Bennett on flying and using a car club’ on audioBoom

I’m disappointed that Ed Balls’s suggestion that the Office of Budget Responsibility should audit the parties’ manifestos was never taken up, not least because we will never know what Robert Chote thinks of the Green party’s claim that all its proposals are ‘fully costed’. Believe it or not, this includes the commitment to spend £45 billion on loft insulation in the next parliament. It’s quite something, the Greens’ manifesto. No doubt you’ll have already read about some of their more reasonable measures — such as the ‘complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits’ and the insistence that ‘UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting’. But the sheer scale

Lo, the official Green Party manifesto was released, and the animals they did rejoice. Or did they? The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, for one, have already come out and said that the party’s policies ‘will cause chaos in the countryside’. ‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they’, I hear you say. But despite their natural bias, there’s certainly some truth in it. Economically, of course a ban on what they call ‘grouse shooting and other “sport” shooting’ will affect the rural economy. Shooting alone, never mind other sports, is worth £2 billion to the rural economy, and supports 74,000 full-time jobs. If there are plans to increase the rural

Few politicians can have gone into a debate with lower expectations than Natalie Bennett. After her ‘brain fade’ on LBC, the Green leader has been roundly written off. There have been murmurings that the decent thing for her to do would be to stand down in favour of Caroline Lucas, the party’s first MP and a far more accomplished media performer. But the one consolation for Bennett in all this is that it is very easy for her to beat expectations on Thursday night. She won’t have to do much to get the media to take a second look at her. If Bennett can unloose a zinger or two, she’ll

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English,

Two of the biggest media circuses are set to collide. The 2013 press storm that greeted the arrival of Prince George looks likely to return when the Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to her second child. Today Catherine revealed that the baby is due next month. ‘I’m due in mid-April, to the end of April,’ the young royal told a crowd of wellwishers. This is of course right in the middle of the general election campaign. With broadcasters and newspapers spread out over the country covering an already testing five party election, Mr S suspects political coverage will grind to a halt for at least 24 hours as all media eyes turn once again to the Lindo Wing