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!
geoffchambers
Newly elected Green MP Lucas has promised (65):
Wow! Sounds like “something good for everyone”!
Almost as good as Herbert Hoover’s promise (just before the 1929 crash that led to the Great Depression):
That’s the kind of policies we all need, since EVERYONE wins (on paper at least).
“Responding to climate change” sounds innocuous enough (wrecking the economy in order to do so sounds a bit less harmless).
“A million new green jobs” is obviously a pipe dream. Most serious estimates tell us that jobs will be lost, rather than gained, by “responding to climate change” (i.e. imposing draconian direct or indirect carbon taxes).
“Fair pensions”? Great stuff! (Who wants “unfair pensions”?)
“Care for older people”? (Ditto.)
“Stronger regulation of the banks”? Let’s go after those greedy bloodsuckers! (And while we’re hiring a bunch of new “regulators”, let’s forget that the “regulators” already in place didn’t do their jobs the first time around.)
Talk is cheap. Gimme the “chicken in every pot” line, instead.
Max
PeterM
My pet hate above all others are people who think it smart to pick up punctuation or spelling mistakes to make a demeaning point as if these are a measure of ones intelligence. Let’s stick to the discussion.
Manacker #76
Agreed Lucas’s programme is banal, and the Hoover comparison is apt. What’s interesting is that:
1) She was the only MP to be elected on an unashamedly leftist programme (the social side would have been standard Old Labour policy, but much of it would have been acceptable to a 60s “one nation” Conservative, I suspect), and:
2) She puts climate change first, indicating either that she is not afraid to support unpopular policies, or (more likely, I suspect) she has no idea how rickety the CAGW bandwagon has become.
Her election disproves the standard justification of New Labour – that left-wing policies spell electoral suicide, but her clinging to the Climate Change myth may spell disaster for her social policies in the eyes of the voters. We shall see.
Geoff, Max, I think that what has also helped Caroline Lucas to win is that being the first Green MP she is not connected to the previous parliament and is thus untainted by the expenses scandal. It’s as good as being an independent, maybe, but with more resources than the average independent candidate, and unlike a UKIPer, it would have been impossible to smear her by association with the BNP and all things “right wing”. Plus Brighton, like Norwich, where the Greens have also had some success in the past, is reasonably affluent and no doubt has its share of middle-class bohemians, to whom the Greens would naturally appeal.
I suspect that the “fairness” theme was emphasised quite a bit during her campaign (the Green 2010 election manifesto is about fairness, fairness and fairness, with climate change relegated to some of the later chapters.) As per this interview for New Statesman: “We’re now the party of social justice – after 13 years it’s a scandal Labour hasn’t done more.”
Another quote from the New Statesman article. “”I want to give Labour a bit of a kicking,” confides a man in his forties. “Well, take the clothes peg off your nose and vote for us,” says Lucas, breezily.” So – not Labour, untouched by the expenses scandal, not right wing, promoting fairness for all, personable, articulate and female – winner! Thirty years ago I would probably have voted for her myself.
Like Geoff, I’m curious about how she will cope from being a “clean” outsider, to being the one in the hot seat when economic reality bites. Brighton will probably have its share of unemployment and sharp cuts to public services in the months to come, which is likely to appear very “unfair” to a great many people there.
By the way, meet Chris Huhne, tipped to be the new LibDem Energy and Climate Change secretary and heir to Ed Miliband at DECC. The FoE’s Andy Atkins approves, but see the comment by Rupert Read of the Green Party, who clearly doesn’t approve.
Best comment on Lucas’s win at
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/05/12/brighton-still-under-cloud-of-smugness-six-days-after-green-election-win/
(thanks to Maurizio at http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/ )
Geoff, I like the newsbiscuit article – “members of the far-right-on.” :o)
Re my #79, would correct one of the sentences to “So – not New Labour, untouched by the expenses scandal,” etc… As has been said, Caroline Lucas comes across as quite Old Labour, which would have appealed to my earlier student self.
Alex #79, 81
You’re quite right about Lucas coming over as “clean”. Also, she appears on “Any Questions”, so she can appear as both independent and a “proper” politician to the average punter.
Here’s my take on British politics. The average voter is basically infantile. They want two big parties, like two parents, and although they wish they wouldn’t argue so much, they don’t want a third figure intruding into the household.
Mrs Thatcher broke the mould of consensual politics, and Labour’s election of the pacifist Foot as party leader was perceived, especially by the Guardian-reading centre left, as a lapse into extremism. Difficult to imagine now how a refusal to annihilate Moscow or Beijing could be considered extremism, and how the “far” left could be hated by the “centre” left, but there you are.
We lefties find it difficult to admit that the average punter is completely uninterested in politics, since it goes against our support for the Common Man. I don’t think Americans have this problem, because they threw off the hierarchical system centuries ago.
Brute, I read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography recently, and am embarking on a biography of Woody Guthrie. You wouldn’t believe how much we lefties love a certain America.
Geoffchambers
According to Peters theory-expressed here many times despite overwheloming proof to the contrary-all bloggers here (and all sceptics) are further to the right than Genghis Knan.
Come clean therefore and admit you are a paid up member of the Conservative party and have a signed photograph of Mrs Thatcher in your living room.
Or perhaps Peter is merely unable to differentiate politics from science?
tonyb
TonyB,
Well at least, after denying your political motivations, you’ve admitted that you are either UKIP or Tory.
A left-wing climate change denier would be a pretty rare animal. I suppose they may be a few atheists out there would disagree with Darwinian Evolution but the exception doesn’t negate, any more than it proves, the rule.
I suspect Geoff may have been a Labour voter in his younger days and may even still know the words to the “Red Flag” but has slowly and unknowingly soaked up too many Op-eds from the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is the older generation’s equivalent of cannabis. Its claimed to be harmless but we all know what happens if you smoke too much of it!
I can imagine that when he gets to the polling station there will a little angel on his left shoulder saying “Vote Labour, Vote Labour” but on his right will be a little figure with a pitchfork saying “UKIP,UKIP “!
Peter M, now I can’t speak for Geoff, but I can emphatically say that if there was any one thing that could have influenced my own political stance over recent years or helped me to weigh up the evidence and become sceptical about catastrophic man-made global warming – the Daily Mail would not be it. I know this might come as a challenge, but give us just a little credit, please!
By the way, I’d be interested to learn about your politics, background and influences; we’re a rather diverse bunch (as I’m sure you will admit, in the end!) – who knows, you might have more in common with some of us than you think.
PS. Philip Stott, Professor of Biogeography at SOAS. Lifelong Labour supporter. CAGW sceptic.
Peter #84
Please read things a bit more as your radar seems badly awry. How many times have I written about my approval of things like renewable energy, better insulation etc and said that I found Caroline Lucas to be a coherent person who has a useful role.
Unfortunately her mask slipped on the day that Labour tried to negotiate an extension of their govt and her motives now appear highly idealogical rather than driven by science.
Like many on here we have voted for left wing parties as well as right wing, it depends on the circumstances. I approve of the Conservative/liberal coalition so does that make me left wing, right wing, or merely a rational person who has my country’s interests at heart?
Labour can be pretty good at a local level, however they have shown themselves incapable of being a national cohesive force as they always spend more money than they gather and are highly tribal.
Why do you consistently find it so difficult to understand that bad science is bad science whatever your politics?
Do move on from this idea that everyone opposing the notion of AGW is a right wing zealot. I suspect most of us here used to believe in it until we actually started looking more closely and objectively at the ‘evidence.’
By the way you have been extremely patronising in your belief we can’t make a rational decision regarding AGW, and now you are doing the same on Politics. What a thing to say to an obviously highly intelligent blogger like Geoff.
“I suspect Geoff may have been a Labour voter in his younger days and may even still know the words to the “Red Flag” but has slowly and unknowingly soaked up too many Op-eds from the Daily Mail.”
wow! Really Peter.
Tonyb.
PeterM
Another recent example of what you referred to as “Godwin’s Law” among AGW supporters
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders compares climate skeptics to Nazi deniers
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33371.html
Yawn! (Deja vu, all over again…)
Max
PeterM
You wrote (84):
Here is one: Claude (Jean) Allègre, French scientist and socialist politician
Yes. Allègre is a rare animal (someone who actually thinks for himself and is not afraid of “bucking the mainstream”).
But why do so many “left-wingers” religiously cling to the AGW premise, as you say?
For two thoughts on this see:
Why so many socialists love AGW alarmism
http://agw-heretic.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-so-many-socialists-love-agw.html
Global Warming as Religion and not Science
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Both are worth reading, Peter, as they explain why “a left-wing climate change denier would be a pretty rare animal”.
Max
Politicians for “fairness”.
It looks like all the political parties in the recent election were for “fairness”.
Who in his right mind would actually be against “fairness”?
But what is really meant here?
The socialist principle of “fairness” is expressed in:
At the other extreme, the libertarian principle of “fairness” is based on:
Which is “fairer”?
I would choose the second, while PeterM would most likely choose the first.
Churchill one commented:
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Which is “fairer”?
Max
PeterM
“Godwin’s Law” (which you brought up) in action (chapter 3):
[Australian Greens candidate] Clive Hamilton : “Deniers” deadlier than Nazis
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/sceptics_deadlier_than_nazis/
James Hansen: Climate change akin to ‘slavery’ and ‘Nazism’
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/11/james_hansen_climate_change_akin_to_slavery_and_na.html
Or as he testified before the Iowa Utilities Board:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/green_fever_global_warming_and.html
Even self-proclaimed “Savior of the Planet”, Al Gore, got into the act:
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/opinion/an-ecological-kristallnacht-listen.html
Not to be outdone, Mark Lynas also chimed in:
http://www.marklynas.org/2006/5/19/climate-denial-ads-to-air-on-us-national-television
If you can’t convince with factual evidence, try hyperbole. If this doesn’t work, try equating those who disagree with your viewpoint as “Nazis”.
Ho-hum!
Max
Manacker #88
Claude Allegre is a terrible example of a left-wing climate sceptic. As a distinguished vulcanologist his views command respect; but his books are apparently full of sloppy errors, hand-drawn graphs etc. His response to critics is that a false graph doesn’t matter, since his argument is basically correct.
He is only “left-wing” in that his old mate socialist prime minister Jospin named him (unelected) Minister of Education, where he famously described his job as “cutting the fat off the mammoth”. It took six months of student demonstrations, with more than a million of us on the street, to get rid of him. With allies like this…
Geoff,
Woody Guthrie??????
Not certain what the appeal is of a hooligan, communist, indolent, bum……but it’s your time……
Just curious about something……as we are all watching the Socialist experiment fall apart across Europe right now, (as it has everywhere else it’s ever been tried), how could you possibly support Leftist political ideology?
Brute #92
We’re too off-topic for me to reply. What’s interesting in TonyN’s article is the question of what it means that a far left candidate from a party with 1% of the vote nationally beats the major parties in a constituency with a largely middle class, politically literate electorate. Believe me, this is unusual. And in the comments, the unanswered question about the association between political allegiance and belief in global warming is worth exploring.
Woody Guthrie wrote some good songs; not Dowland or Hugo Wolf, but interesting.
I must be psychic. In my #79 I mentioned Chris Huhne, in my #85 I mentioned Professor Phil Stott.
And here‘s a new, timely and rather sobering article by Stott about Huhne.
I think the Huhne appointment will probably merit its own thread at some point.
Geoff,
Conceded……..you’re correct.
I don’t know what came over me.
Maybe another time.
Brute
Woodie Guthrie
“This land is your land, this land is my land”, “Do Re Mi”, “So long, it’s been good to know you”, “Talking Dust Bowl Blues”, etc.
Son of Oklahoma; Dust Bowl, Depression. Wrote (and sang) some good stuff in his day.
Was a restless drifter and, at one point, got mixed up with the communist party (who apparently never accepted him as a member, because he was too “crazy”).
After his early death, was picked up by East Coast liberals as a “poster boy”, but actually deserved better, based on his down-to-earth music, which told the story of his time.
Max
How do you get “mixed up” with the communist party?
You make it sound like he was a mischievous boy that got caught throwing rocks at windows with his playmates………
“Restless Drifter”?
Another code word for a bum…………
You’re right about the crazy part…………he was (certifiably) crazy…………
I’m sorry Max, I’ve had it up to here lately with making excuses for people and their “true” intentions………Hitler built great roads and was an effective orator…………aside from the other “minor” things that he did…………he was a great guy……pet lover, vegetarian, societal leader………I understand he could paint………
Satisfied Pete? I managed to work Hitler into the comment……….
Geoffchambers,
If “Claude Allegre is a terrible example of a left-wing climate sceptic” who would be a good one?
Socialism, whether you want to call it that, or social democracy, or more generally the modern day progressive political movement has to be based, just like modern science, on rational thought.
How is it possible for anyone who claims to be rational, and progressive , or left wing even, to side with organisations such as the Competitive Enterprises Institute and the Australian so called “Institute of Public Affairs”, who even now are still speaking up for the tobacco industry in Australia, and whose financial and political motivations you won’t need me to explain to you, over just about every other recognised world scientific organisation?
Sorry Max Re: # 97
It’s been rough around here lately.
Mrs. Brute’s birthday tomorrow……same thing every year………I don’t know what to get her. I settled for an emerald & diamond necklace………I have no imagination when it comes to that sort of thing……(I’m an Engineer). My brain is wired for facts and numbers (hence my skeptical stand on global warming).
Chairman Obama is trying to outdo Kim Jong Ill with his lunacy, one of the dogs peed on the carpet, Congress doesn’t bother to read the laws that they pass, one of my underlings is writing checks for invoices that we don’t owe, the world is going to burn to a cinder because of global warming and I haven’t been able to cut the grass because it’s been so cold and rainy…………
I’ll snap out of it and be my usual cheery self tomorrow……
Again with the facts Pete?
We all see how the “progressive” movement is working so well in Greece, Portugal and Spain…….all of which are a “rational” mess.
Yet, you still push this tired, failed ideology…..some folks never learn.
Don’t cut corners Pete. We know “Progressive” means Marxist…………no reason to be ashamed of it……..come out of the closet already.
The global warming agenda is the Marxist agenda…..agreed?