Green party

‘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

After overtaking Ukip in membership stakes, the Greens are now snapping at its heels in the polls. According to Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll, 11 per cent are now intending to vote Green — up from eight per cent last week. As the chart above shows, this puts them four points behind Ukip. The party has come a long way since the last election, where they gained just 0.9 per cent of the vote. As Natalie Bennett acknowledged this morning, the Green Party is getting more help from David Cameron than it ever imagined. The natural assumption is that the Green vote is primarily coming from Labour — but its vote has remained steady from last week’s poll.

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

One consequence of coalition and the student fees row is, as Nick Clegg said this morning, that the Lib Dems will be more careful about what they sign up to at the next election. This will create political space for a party that is prepared to advocate populist but unrealistic policies such as abolishing tuition fees. I strongly suspect that Labour will choose not to occupy this space, appearing credible will still be the most important thing to them. So, this raises the question of who will try and move into this slot? UKIP aren’t ideologically suited to it, although Farage is a canny enough operator that little can be