Why Not Go Green?

 

 

 

D’you know, I don’t understand why people of sound mind aren’t voting Green. The Lib Dems have been for many a tactical alternative to the dismaying trajectory of New Labour, slinking into neo-Liberalism.

For a ravishing account of that journey see Stuart Hall’s latest intervention in the new edition of Soundings, www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/contents.html  and its shorter version in the Guardian

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/12/march-of-the-neoliberals

 

For many, Ed Miliband’s election as leader of the Labour Party  seemed to promise a twinge, a flicker, of hope that Labour might renewal itself and it might achieve that by transplanting a bit of radical DNA into its bloodstream. But Miliband’s performance at the TUC this week showed a man entrapped, not a man empowered. Does he and his milieu have any  how to think positive and think progressive at the same time? This is not a leader expecting to lead. Only a man expecting to manage.

A bit of canvassing for the Greens in the Highgate local by-election this month has yielded interesting insight into the agonies of Labour voters: there are 29 Labour councillors in Camden. Unassailable. There is one Green councillor. For left of centre voters the contest is between the Greens and Labour. The Greens are seen as the progressive option, and yet the sense of Labour supporters being snared by loyalty is palpable.

In England lending support to the Greens is the hopeful thing to do, it releases the possibility of re-discovering the joys of politics as the art of the simultaneously reasonable and the radical, of engagement rather than the dismal experience of political pessimism and loneliness.

What, anywhere, is better than the Green Manifesto, as a way of thinking about how to sort stuff out.

www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/resources/EasyRead_Green_Party_Manifesto_web.pdf

 

www.neweconomics.org/projects/greennewdeal

 

What’s not to like? 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.