Green party

Socialism fever is spreading. This time last year, Ed Miliband looked to be on course for 10 Downing St for the simple reason that the right in Britain had been split (by Ukip) while the left stood united for the first time since 1983. Lefty LibDems had returned to Labour and it seemed that Miliband was the bad leader of a massive block of votes. Now, things have changed. The left is unravelling too: Labour is losing votes to the SNP in the north and the Greens in the south. That’s why the Greens’ recruitment of a top trade union official is significant. Peter Pinkney, president of the RMT union, says he’s joining

Natalie Bennett has just been taking questions as part of the Sky leaders’ debates for younger voters, and delivered the second Green U-turn of the day, this time on terrorism. After struggling on the Sunday Politics to explain why her party thinks that membership of a terrorist group alone should not be a crime, the Green leader decided to say that actually, her party thought that it was: ‘Obviously [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda are hideous terrorist organisations that advocate and support violence. If you are involved in them, support them in any way, then you are participating in inciting violence, that’s a crime, rightly, and should be pursued to the

The Greens may be in the middle of a national ‘surge’, with more than 50,000 members, but in one part of the country, their brand isn’t particularly trendy. In Brighton, the Greens on the council aren’t the best advert for the party – something our leading article picks up on this week. Indeed, such are the tensions between the party on the council and the local MP, Caroline Lucas, who faces a tough fight to keep her Brighton Pavilion seat, that she joined the picket lines to protest pay cuts introduced by her own party. Now I’ve come across some of Lucas’s campaign literature which suggests that she’s not always

Nigel Farage’s secret is out. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, the leader of Ukip let slip that he once voted for the Green Party. ‘I voted Green in 1989 in the European elections,’ Farage admits. While he fails to give any further explanation of why he supported a party that appears to be at loggerheads with his own views, Farage does go on to reveal the most insulting names he has been called. ‘I was called a football hooligan once in public and I didn’t like that. I am many things but a hooligan I am not. I have been called everything this year, absolutely everything, racist, xenophobe – there’s

Do the Green Party’s policies stack up? Although its membership and prominence have rocketed in recent weeks, little focus has been put on what the party campaigns for. Green leader Natalie Bennett was subjected to a dissection of her party’s principles on the Sunday Politics today (watch above) and demonstrated why most of its proposals are pipe dreams. Bennett said her party wants to ensure ‘nobody is living in fear’ but exactly how they would pay for that remains unanswered. One of its policies would be a ‘Citizens’ Income’, ensuring everyone has a minimum weekly income of £72. This would cost up to £280 billion and Bennett said it would be funded in part by abolishing Jobseeker’s

An email arrives from the excellent Zoe Williams, Guardian columnist and leftyagitfem middle-class propagandist. It requests that I should sign a round-robin petition to ensure that the Green Party is included in these proposed TV general election debates – much as David Cameron has, rather disingenuously, demanded. I couldn’t sign the petition. I can’t think of a reason why the Greens should be excluded from the debates if, say, Ukip is to be there as well. The Greens’ current opinion poll standings put them level with the hapless Lib Dems. They have an MP. They should probably be in there, somewhere – even if they lose their sole MP come May,

‘The Green Surge’ has already become a fixed feature of the election campaign, but are we just reliving the giant damp squib of ‘Cleggmania’? According to Green Party officials, their membership stands at 45,558. Since Cameron declared they should be in the TV debates, thousands have supposedly signed on the dotted line. Apparently, of the 14,780 new members that have signed up since 1 Jan 2015, just 151 are renewals. But there has been zero independent verification of the numbers; they are asking us to take their word for it. A spokesman tells Steerpike that the party was not prepared for the influx of new members: ‘Our servers did become overwhelmed for

I was about to shut down my computer last night when I made the mistake of clicking on an article about the Green Party’s manifesto, possibility the scariest thing since Victor from The Returned. Say what you like about the Greens, a party with support now at 11 per cent, but at least they’re not just the same as any other party. None of that ‘neoliberal’ nonsense here. Here are some excerpts from the Daily Telegraph article:   Top-ups [will be] given for people with children or disabilities, or to pay rent and mortgages. No-one will see a reduction in benefits, and most will see a substantial increase. Parents will be entitled to

What are you afraid of boys? The Green Party posed this question on Westminster’s College Green this morning as they launched a new poster campaign (driven around on pedal bikes, natch) calling for the Greens to be involved in the TV leaders debates. Leader Natalie Bennett also announced that the party’s membership is up to 44,175 today — 52,000 including Scotland. I asked Bennett how she feels about being used by the Prime Minister for his own political gains. She doesn’t seem to mind too much: ‘Mr Cameron is certainly speaking for his own political advantage – but he’s only able to do that because it’s a fair and responsible thing to

Unsurprisingly, David Cameron has this afternoon said he won’t take part in the TV election debates if the Greens are no included in one of the line-ups. Currently the proposal is for Cameron vs Miliband, then Cameron vs Miliband vs Clegg, then Cameron vs Miliband vs Clegg vs Farage. The Greens have been excluded, as have the SNP and Plaid Cymru. This is the exchange between the Prime Minister and ITN’s Tom Bradby: Me; ‘Time is running out; are you saying you are not going to go in as it stands unless at least the Greens are in?’ Him; ‘Correct.’ — tom bradby (@tombradby) January 8, 2015 Why is Cameron

I have been passed a snap of the Christmas tree inside Brighton and Hove’s Green Party run council building. Or more accurately, I have been passed a snap of some bits of old shit collected from Brighton beach and put on a shelf under the title ‘One Planet’. After a year where rubbish has gone uncollected from the streets of Brighton due to an industrial dispute between the lefty council and the evil capitalist refuse workers, the irony of this installation will not go unnoticed: Hardly very festive, and are those bulbs energy efficient? We should be told.

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Tim Stanley and Jason Kitcat discuss Brighton” startat=1510] Listen [/audioplayer]I have just moved back to Brighton, and I am happy to report that it remains as shambolic as ever. The estate agent said before opening the door to a prospective flat, ‘I’m obliged by law to tell you that the previous tenant was an alcoholic and died here.’ I replied, ‘I am not surprised and that is not a problem.’ No one who knows Brighton expects puritanism. Unfortunately, we have grown to expect dreadful politics. Since 2010, both the MP and the council have gone Green, turning the town into a laboratory for their kooky ideas. Given that

As a slogan, ‘give me more money’ is an unlikely election winner. Nevertheless, Peter Cranie came close to trying it at the hustings for the leadership of the Green Party in Manchester on Friday. At the start of the above clip, a member of the audience asked what wage the contenders would take. Pippa Bartolotti purred that she wanted the Greens to spend party funds on campaigns not individuals – a sentiment to win elections with. But then it was easy for Ms Bartolotti to be selfless because she had a career in business before going into politics. Cranie was more cautious. He explained that he earned £29,000 as a