Interesting piece in the Telegraph today.

with hopes of winning three seats in the general election, Natalie Bennett believes her party will take part in a “confidence and supply” arrangement, propping up a fragile minority administration in exchange for key policies.
What might they demand?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11356354/Drugs-brothels-al-Qaeda-and-the-Beyonce-tax-the-Green-Party-plan-for-Britain.html

church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.

they’ve got my vote 🙂

Interestingly our local Tory candidate tweeted this am that he sees the Hove seat being a battle between the Tory and Green candidates.

I’m slightly wary that these policies are being analysed by the Torygraph.

Some of what the Greens say make sense, and are quite attractive. But some if it smacks a bit too much of Pol Pots push for Year Zero, and none of it appears to be properly costed and funded. I can see them taking votes from Labour and the LibDems, not sure they will take enough to gain seats.

But with so many disaffected voters on all sides, it will be a very hard election to predict with any sort of accuracy.

Blimey – to say that people accuse them of not having any policies, there are an awful lot of controversial statements in that article.

I know it’s the Torygraph, but they’re not trying to make friends are they?

(except me)

It’s bizarrely written as the “scariest horror story you can tell the right wing”… whilst I read it as “that’s a bit mad but the rest of it makes perfect sense”*

* I read the Guardian MOTWYW

church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.

Sold.

But some if it smacks a bit too much of Pol Pots push for Year Zero

Think you may be overstating it a bit

It does range [ and i have not read the article but the green website] from the yes I like that to the WTF though

They are nuts lets just walk away from NATO, EU, and get rid of any form of defence.

It does range [ and i have not read the article but the green website] from the yes I like that to the WTF though

I find that with all the political parties, tbh.

The Tories seem to lurch from ‘free market/personal choice’ to ‘you can’t do that/we know best’ with their policies and Labour constantly try to out Tory the Tories on economic policies.

The language in the Telgraph article makes it difficult to see the policy for the spin though. I agree with decriminalising drug possesion, for example, but I don;t understand enough about prostitution to know if it’s a good idea.

It’s bizarrely written as the “scariest horror story you can tell the right wing”

Yeah, the opening gambit is basically, ‘they’re gaining ground, quick, stop them!’

I read it as ‘Take every policy that would be a Tory wet dream and state the opposite’.

At this stage where they’re never going to get power to enact that to any significant degree I’m ok with going with them as a counter to the nutters on the other side.

Its less of a scare story and more of a summary of their policies that can be found on the greens website.

amongst their other bonkers destructive policies:

– membership and public support for proscribed terrorist organisations like Al Quaeda and the IRA will no longer be a criminal offence
– “inheritance” taxes will no be charged during life as well as on death
– the economy will be managed into decline so as to reduce consumption – with the goal being prolonged recession
– dope will be available for all, despite the knock on effect on mental health… but booze will be taxed much higher
– independent schools will pay corporation tax, almost certainly leading to the long term failure of the country as we “dumb down” to the lowest standard
– the BBC will be forced to show “educational” programming at peak time, irrespective of whether anyone wants to watch it
– advertising of holidays / holiday flights will be banned
– a vegan diet will be imposed on the population through “research, education and economic measures”
– Britain will leave NATO
– Large enterprise will be dismantled and we will all work for cottage industries

The Green’s seem as far removed from reality as much of the labour party whose policies are largely driven by populist politics of division, perfectly illustrated by the spat between Chris Bryant and James Blunt

Chris Bryant is a classist prejudiced wazzock

get rid of any form of defence.

Who are we defending ourselves from? As opposed to poking our armed forces in where they aren’t welcome?

At least half of what just5minutes has posted sounds pretty reasonable to me. Far more reasonable than “everyone keep eating fatty stuff, drinking loads of booze, polluting etc, businesses carry on benefiting at the expense of the general public and we’ll carry on getting involved with wars that are none of our business”, which seems to be the current policy.

but I don;t understand enough about prostitution to know if it’s a good idea.

Spounds like you need to do some ‘research’ 😉

Ah beaten to the joke 😉
IMHO its the same as drugs – prohibition does not work so do least harm. this is within the legal framework. I am not a fan of prostitution but my personal view wont end the profession lets protect the women

The Tories seem to lurch from ‘free market/personal choice’ to ‘you can’t do that/we know best’ with their policies

I find the tory policy really absurd
The market knows best leave it to it and dont regulate for business. however for personal freedom they are all for restricting and regulating everything they disapprove off.

So they trust business to do the right thing but not people 😕

I’ve never been accused of just “overstating” stuff on here before!

Like all the parties there is good and bad. Drugs and prostitution have not been defeated over the years, decriminalisation and effective control may be more appropriate. Consumers expectations of ever increasing but unsustainable living standards need to be reset, addressing the underlying social, political and economic causes of terrorism needs to happen, but I’m not convinced by a lot of their other policies.

To me, the problem with a lot of socialist policies are that they assume that all people can and will be happy with an equal share of everything, when the old adage is true that if you gave the entire world population an equal share of global wealth then human nature dictates that 24 hours later some will have nothing left and some will be richer.

The problem with many right wing policies is that they pander to those who get richer at the expense of those who are more vulnerable.

Clearly the only solution is for me to create a benign dictatorship and rule the world for the good of all people. Mwehahaha!

Not sold. As per the article shame we don’t have an alternative choice who aren’t year-zero nutters or nationalist zealots.

Hang on, are we getting rid of soaps and reality TV in favour of more educational programming?

Mods, delete my post above, I’m voting Green!

Perhaps they might extend the education policy to eliminate charitable status from the independent sector (they may already be proposing this). In which case, they will prove their inability to join the dots up. Nice ideas that fall over on implementation because they are economically naive.

Nice and fluffy thought. The “lenor” party!?!

church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.

Sold.

Sold here too, if anyone from a party with a realistic chance of power are reading this… please stop subsidizing the instruction of our children to live their lives according to some Iron Age fairy tale.

Indoctrinate your children by all means but don’t expect the taxpayer to fund it.

But some if it smacks a bit too much of Pol Pots push for Year Zero,

Emptying the cities and making everyone work on the land?
Forcibly removing children from their families and placing them in collectives?
Torturing intellectuals?
Murdering 2 million people?

I must have missed that in the manifesto…

The Green party is as religious as any actual religion.

The policy list really is quite bonkers in places.

hatter,
Bronze age not Iron age
.. otherwise agreed 🙂

Given the track record of both the main parties over the last few decades, I reckon its time to give some people who are ‘plainly bonkers’ a go.

People say they’re mental. And some of the stuff is. But is it any more mental than saying we’re going to spend one thousand scallion quid on Trident? Which both the main parties unquestioningly support. Or carrying on spanking billions in the completely ridiculous ‘war on drugs’. Again… something neither main party will coutenece disputing the completely expensive, totally ineffectual status quo?

Could it work out any worse for the average bod on the street, than another 5 years of the usual suspects? You remember them? The people (us) which the main parties have now given up any pretence to giving a flying **** about

The policy list really is quite bonkers in places.

Such as?

In general terms, can we really say that the status quo has so worked well (economically, environmentally and socially) that we shouldn’t try something different?

Perhaps the independent sector could actually be a charity and we would not need to do this?
they will treat them as a business as that is what they clearly are
What “charitable” work would you like to claim the fee paying schools do ?

Again when you state your view you need to explain WHY you think as you do as, ironically, its impossible to join up the dots in your thinking.

Its worth noting

Private schools, it always surprises me to remember, are charities. They are therefore subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of more than £100m a year.

Wow, the Greens are certainly ‘different’, but in a batsh!t mental kind of way

The Green party is as religious as any actual religion.

What is the god they believe in?

By all means criticise them [ and there is plenty there if you disliek them] but the year zero trope and this is , to put it mildly, weak mud slinging

In general terms, can we really say that the status quo has so worked well (economically, environmentally and socially) that we shouldn’t try something different?

You think creating more jobless people, through managed recession is actually going to achieve a benefit to the environment? No, what it will end in is either the Greens having to take power undemocraticly to get policies through, or they will be voted out of power after massive social instability. The alternative is managed growth that encourages the development of green technology and space exploration in combination with good family planning education.

That’s just one to start with. Let’s not forget their policies in regards to nuclear and GMO’s which are at odds with science.

What is the god they believe in?

How hard is it to understand that you do not need “god”, to effectively be religious. These people are as brainwashed and shot in the head as any Jehova’s Witness.

heh heh.. the usual right wing nutjobs on here just popping up and going ‘it’s all bloody bonkers’ is making me giggle..

bleedin eedjits 😆

“Make BBC4 the new BBC1″…. again gets my vote.

[?] Green

Tom_W1987 – the thing is no one expects them to get the power to do some of these things

A fair number of their policies do make sense to a lot of people though and I, for one, hope they end up in a coalition where they do a deal more than the LibDems to influence their partners.

I’ve lived under a Green council for the past few years and whilst a lot of what they do isn’t much different to the other parties they have done a number of ‘Green’ things I applaud to influence the local environment (city wide 20mph speed limits, for example)

Private schools, it always surprises me to remember, are charities. They are therefore subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of more than £100m a year.

Which is substantially less than the cost the state would have to stump up were it suddenly to have to educate all those at private schools. Whilst there are things to criticise private schools for, the cost to the public purse isn’t one of them.

You think creating more jobless people, through managed recession is actually going to achieve a benefit to the environment? No, what it will end in is either the Greens having to take power undemocraticly to get policies through, or they will be voted out of power after massive social instability.

Repeating “the end of the world is nigh” isn’t making your assertions any more credible.

That’s just one to start with. Let’s not forget their policies in regards to nuclear and GMO’s which are at odds with science.

So what? I disagree with them as it happens, but there’s certainly an argument to oppose nuclear. And GMOs will likely just be another way for trans-nationals to make money out of poor people, so again there is a perfectly valid reason to oppose it.

And a fair few of their policies make no sense at all wwaswas. I’m sorry, I can’t vote for them, they smack me as being way to ideological as opposed to being driven by rationality.

I’m reminded of the following quote –

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

I’d say it was more than £100 million. They saved a lot just on rates, let alone any other tax/vat savings they make;

However, 2,570 fee-charging schools can claim an 80% cut in their business rates on the basis that they are charities, and in 2013 they saved £165m through this route.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/24/private-schools-labour-warning-tax-breaks-tristram-hunt

they smack me as being way to ideological as opposed to being driven by rationality.

Can you point me at a political party where none of their policies are driven by ideology?

I think these should make a comeback – some of their policies look ok

And a fair few of their policies make no sense at all wwaswas. I’m sorry, I can’t vote for them, they smack me as being way to ideological as opposed to being driven by rationality.

You’re suggesting that a political party is driven by ideology? Whatever next!

Repeating “the end of the world is nigh” isn’t making your assertions any more credible.

This is rather ironic given what the greens stand for.

Anyone who has any understanding of political sociology would know that policy in particularly, would lead to massive upheaval. Anyone with any common sense would also know that it would in no way make any difference to the state the planet is in.

You’re suggesting that a political party is driven by ideology? Whatever next!

They shouldn’t be, but the greens more so than anyone and that makes me uneasy. We need less ideology.