Caroline Lucas’ narrow victory over Labour in Brighton Pavilion will no doubt be lauded by the BBC far beyond it’s significance. With a majority of 1252 (2.4%) on an 8.4% swing from Labour this is fragile enough, but having sat up watching results come in last night, the impression that I got is that elsewhere their candidates rarely if ever managed to save their deposits (see comment #1 below). According to various reports, the Brighton result owes much to the Greens putting the same amount of effort into taking this single seat as might have gone into a national campaign. With 200 activists phoning possible supporters as many as three times yesterday to offer them a lift to their polling station – by rickshaw or on someones back presumably – they certainly weren’t taking any chances.
It will be interesting to see how the Greens’ share of the popular vote stacks up against the BNP and UKIP when these figures are available. Caroline Lucas is a very experienced and competent politician who had the good sense to fight her campaign on local issues rather than traditional green ones. Perhaps the best analogy to draw is with George Galloway’s far left Respect Party’s successes in Bethnal Green and Bow in recent elections, although at the time of writing it seems likely that they will now lose this seat.
I watched BBC coverage of the election until after five o’clock this morning, without much relish, then took a glass of whiskey outside to look at the dawn, listen to the birds, and enjoy the heavy scent of bluebells wafting from the wood. I enjoy election nights. Usually there is real life drama and you can feel the political pulse or the nation beating in a way that is impossible at any other time. Some candidates are jubilant and clamouring to get at the future, while others know that, for them, it is all over, and try to smile through their tears. It is about the only time that politicians seem human.
But last night, for hour after hour there seemed to be only confusion and disappointment wherever one looked. Not one party was prepared to show any sign of real jubilation, right down to Plaid Cymru, who were ‘disappointed’, and Alex Salmon of the SNP saying, with a broad grin, that they had done very well really, except that they hadn’t got anywhere near their target number of seats. But Alex is like that.
How can you have an election where everyone is a loser? Well the analysts will probably be explaining that for months to come.
All this was played out against a background of occasional references to a dramatic escalation in the sovereign debt crisis on world financial markets, which I have not been able to catch up with yet. Surely this is no time for there to be doubt about who is running Britain.
Supposing that, over the next few days, the Conservatives manage to form a government, it is worth looking at what they have to say about Climate Change and Energy on their website. Even a cursory glance at this reveals that compliance with the requirements of EU carbon reduction policy is the main driving force. There are several things that this brings to mind.
Firstly, the Conservatives are divided on Europe. Secondly, even David Shukman was prepared to admit in a BBC report the other evening that a lot of conservative MPs are sceptical about climate change. Thirdly, any incoming government that is doing the job properly will have to take a very careful, cool and objective look at energy policy, because at the moment we don’t really have one that is credible. Bits of paper bearing fantasy figures for the contribution that immensely expensive wind power can make to keeping the lights on until 2020 just will no longer do at a time when the economy is in ruins and the coffers are empty. Lastly, if David Cameron manages to form a government, its hold on power is likely to be very tenuous indeed until there is another election.
Welcome to the brave new post-Blair’n’Brown world!
Geoff, #127:
Many thanks for trying to unravel the Guardian’s in-joke. I wonder what effect such self-indulgent editorial policy will have on it’s readership long term? Will it go the same way as The Independent?
So far as Biblical exegetes is concerned, I really am very taken with the post that I have linked to here. AGW sceptics need to be able to number among them people with Sam Norton’s kind of mind.
Brute and PeterM
For the top “carbon footprints” among pro-AGW celebrities see:
http://www.privatejetsmagazine.com/2008/9-hypocrite-celebrities-with-huge-carbon-footprints/
IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri is also a top CO2 emitter.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/enviro-extremists/6304-rajendra-pachauri-head-of-un-climate-change-panel-clocks-up-half-a-million-miles-of-air-travel
As is (pro-Cap ‘n Trade) U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22484374/Nancy-Pelosi-s-HUGE-Carbon-Footprint
Then, of course, there is multi-billionaire airline owner and media darling, Sir Richard Branson.
Max
PS Don’t get me wrong here. I think these guys are entitled to personally crank out as much CO2 as they want to (it really doesn’t have any measurable impact on our climate anyway), but they should not, at the same time, try to force everyone else to cut back their carbon footprints.
Max,
You say the politics behind what you refer to as “the AGW craze” are a secondary issue.
How can they be? How many people are interested enough, or qualified enough, to judge the case on its scientific merit alone?
Yet, many if not most people do, as we all know, indeed make a judgement. People take their cue from what their friends think, what they read in news papers and blogs, what they see on TV, what they hear in Church even. Group loyalty, and the politics associated with group loyalty defines the overall process.
If, the next time I’m in a bar or a taxi, and I hear the case being made that AGW is wrong, not because of what someone thinks about Al Gore, the United Nations or whatever, but because they’ve read a particular scientific paper and found something that might just be flawed – I’ll write in and let you all know that I just might have been wrong!
Here is Harrison Ford. Politically Left, “Climate Activist”, Self Proclaimed “Eco-Warrior”.
It seems Mr. Ford owns & flies SEVEN private airplanes. One would think that if he truly believed that excessive CO2 affected the planet’s atmosphere, he’d destroy these evil machines of planetary destruction to prevent the prophesized calamity of apocalyptic global warming catastrophe.
Yet, Mr. Ford states to the camera that “I’ll start walking everywhere when they start walking everywhere.”
So there you have it Pete……another in the long list of politically Left people that do not believe that CO2 is harming the atmosphere…………Hint: (What they say is not as important as what they do).
Would you like me to list the Leftist politicians that don’t believe in the global warming theory?
http://perfunction.typepad.com/perfunction/2010/04/video-harrison-ford-the-antiinstapundit.html
For years now, Glenn Reynolds has repeated a useful mantra when confronted with preachy green celebrity hypocrisy:
Well, this week at a conference on general aviation, Harrison Ford turned Reynolds’ phrase on its head. While defending his ownership of 7 private planes, Ford responded to his critics:
JamesP #149
I read somewhere that Private Eye would never publish anything critical about global warming because Hislop was a believer. And this is a magazine where Trotskyists and Conservatives famously cohabited for decades! Mark Steel and Giles Coren both shocked me with straight-faced Realclimate-type attacks on sceptics. The worst of it was that they weren’t being funny. There are things I won’t laugh at – I imagine that we’d all agree that certain subjects, like race or handicap, are off limits – but average global temperatures?
Of course, statistical skulduggery is hardly a subject for slapstick, but there’s a kind of uptight dry middleclass British humour which could do it. Flanders and Swann could have done it. Any fans here of Thomas Love Peacock? I’ve got an idea for a Peacock-style dialogue-novel to be set in a Mews in North London called Apocalypse Close.
Hey Pete,
I don’t know if all of those who attended the Copenhagen Climate Conference are Leftists……but they certainly don’t believe that carbon dioxide is harming the environment……Just look, 40,500 Tons of carbon emitted just for this one lousy event………
Is the carbon dioxide that these planes emit somehow different that what the rest of us emit? Are the chauffer driven limousines solar powered golf carts?
If, as you say, the jet fuel that these Carbon Crusaders emit does not harm the atmosphere, then I submit that the fuel I use doesn’t either……and I have no intention of curtailing my consumption until they “start walking everywhere” as Mr Ford so poignantly declared.
Copenhagen Carbon Footprint: 40,500 Tons
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/16/world/main5985006.shtml
PeterM
You wrote (153):
And then asked:
The science and the politics obviously go hand in hand.
You state that people “in a bar or a taxi” are not primarily interested in the “science”, but you must admit that “Climategate” and the many other recent revelations have focused the general public on the flaws in the science behind the AGW premise.
The root issue here is the science (or lack thereof) supporting the premise that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, a) has been the primary cause of past warming and b) represents a serious potential threat.
No robust scientific support for the premise = no serious threat = no reason for the “AGW craze” to continue.
As a scientific discipline, “climatology” is not all that complicated, Peter, but our planet’s climate is.
The fact of the matter is that climate has always changed and that the climate scientists do not really know what has caused all these changes, just as they are not sure what caused the late 20th century warming or is causing the early 21st century cooling.
The “politics” behind the AGW craze are actually much more robust than the “science” supporting it.
They are the politics of big money and power.
The desire to tax humanity based on its use of fossil fuels is a magnificent political gambit. To justify this in the wealthier nations with “guilt” for having developed (and benefited from) an affluent industrial society vis-à-vis the poorer nations, who have not done so, is a political master-stroke. A lot of people (apparently including yourself) have fallen for this political ploy.
The politics of forcibly taking from each nation according to its ability in order to give to each nation according to its need (to paraphrase Karl Marx) is a wonderful philosophy that appeals to many with an egalitarian mindset.
But if the scientific basis for doing so is flawed (as is the case with the AGW premise), then it is simply another political exercise in wealth redistribution.
And, as sad as it seems, the inhabitants of the poorest nations will not be the benefactors of this redistribution.
Instead, it will be the many politicians and bureaucrats, who stand the chance to gain immense power, the environmental activist lobbyists, who will gain prestige from the whole circus and the astute industrialists, entrepreneurs and money shufflers, who see an opportunity to make a profit, all at the expense of every man, woman and child in the industrially developed world.
Max
There have been many passing references on this thread to Caroline Lucas’ success in Brighton Pavilion, with expressions of surprise being the main reaction. I should have posted up this link much sooner:
http://www.brightonhovegreens.org/localsites/bh/the-general-election.html
It looks as though what one might call the Ashcroft technique may not be confined to the Conservative Party. A lot of resources seem to have been focused on taking that seat, which may go some way to explain why the Greens did so poorly overall.
TonyN, it’s interesting to see how well (or not) the Greens did elsewhere. One headline in the Independent on 6th May was “Green Party: £400,000, 335 candidates – and one MP?” Well, one MP was what they got, in fact.
With a small-ish budget compared to the big parties, the Greens focussed on a handful of seats that they thought they could win. In Brighton Pavilion they succeeded – Caroline Lucas got 16,238 votes, her nearest rival (Labour’s Nancy Platts) getting 14,986 votes. But the story was very different elsewhere.
Brighton Pavilion was one of the three “winnable” seats the Greens targetted, the two others being Lewisham Deptford and Norwich South. In Lewisham Deptford, the winner was Labour’s Joan Ruddock with 22,132 – the Green candidate (Darren Johnson) came in fourth place with 2772 votes. In Norwich South, the winner was LibDem Simon Wright with 13,960 votes – the Green candidate (Adrian Ramsay) again came in fourth place, with 7095 votes.
In neighbouring Brighton wards Brighton Kempton and Hove, the Conservatives won decisively – Green candidates Ben Duncan and Ian Davey came in fourth place.
The three “winnable” seats each had a Labour incumbent, and in each case, Labour put up quite a strong fight. Joan Ruddock won in Lewisham Deptford. Charles Clarke lost to the LibDems in Norwich South, but just by 310 votes. Brighton Pavilion is an interesting case, as Labour’s David Lepper was, by many accounts, a popular MP with a large majority. He was standing down, and Nancy Platts ran instead, coming in second place. If Lepper had decided not to stand down, how different might the result have been?
Another quirk is that in Brighton Pavilion, the four front runners (Green, Labour, Conservative and LibDem) were all women. Not sure if that signifies anything, though!
There’s some lively debate here on this local blog. A thought-provoking question: “But is the Green Party a one woman show?”
In my local constituency (Brentford and Isleworth), Conservative Mary MacLeod was the winner, with 20,022 votes. Surprisingly, Labour’s Ann Keen did not do so badly, with 18,064 votes. John Hunt for the Greens came in fifth place (787 votes), behind the three main parties and UKIP. Someone I thought would do better was LibDem Andrew Dakers, who has strong green credentials – he worked as a campaigner for WWF, pushed Hounslow council to sign up for the 10:10 campaign and took part in the Climate Camp at Heathrow, according to his campaign leaflet. However he came in third place, with 12,718 votes, and also lost his seat on the Council.
It’s a complex picture really. One safe conclusion I can come to, though, is that nationally, beyond Brighton Pavilion, there doesn’t look like there is still very much impetus behind the Greens; things could always change, though.
Slight correction to my 5th paragraph – Nancy Platts wasn’t a Labour incumbent, of course.
Alex Cull,
Your analysis in your posting #159 seems to assume that everyone votes for their sincere choice of candidates. You just can’t assume that under a first-past-the-post system.
A Green supporter would have no problem voting Green in Brighton, and maybe a couple of others, where their candidate had a chance of winning but not in over 600 other UK constituencies. Most voters, even Green voters, would want to have a say in who actually won in their constituency, so would choose one of the two likely winners.
Of course, the above argument applies to all minor parties – even the BNP and UKIP. If, and when, UK voters get an Australian type AV system, they will be able to vote for the party they like best without having to think about their voting tactics.
Peter, certainly there would have been quite a bit of tactical voting going on – Greens voting LibDem to punish Labour or voting Labour to keep the Conservatives out. How much exactly, it’s difficult to say, but I think your argument – that more Green supporters would have voted Green had there been more of a chance of their candidate winning – is a perfect valid one.
I agree that AV promises to change the political landscape, should we adopt it, and it will be fascinating to see just how far things actually change. For the Greens, my feeling is still that it will not make a vast difference, outside of a few southern enclaves, but I could be wrong, obviously. Watch this space, as they say.
10/10 :)