Lib Dems beaten by Bus Pass Elvis Party in council by-election

This is the result of the Clifton North, Nottingham council by-election held yesterday.

Bishop - Bus Pass Elvis  67
Clarke - UKIP             536
Ferguson - Labour      1179
Marshall - Lib Dem        56
Rule - Tory                 1025

It would be remiss to let today pass without noting the highlight from last night's council by-elections. In Clifton North, Lib Dem candidate Tony Marshall was beaten into last place by David Laurence Bishop of the Bus Pass Elvis Party (Marshall received 56 votes to Bishop's 67). The party's policies include the legalisation of brothels with a 30 per cent reduction for OAPs.

Bishop told the Nottingham Post that he was now "confident" of beating the Lib Dems in the general election. He said: "I will either stand in Broxtowe or Skegness and I'm more confident of beating the Liberal Democrats than I was two days ago. It's not the best news for the Liberal Democrats. But perhaps people actually liked my policies of legalising brothels with a 30 per cent reduction for OAPs and holding an enquiry into the cost of vets fees."

The Lib Dems, who have lost their deposit eight times in parliamentary by-elections since 2010, have previously been beaten by Professor Pongoo, a climate change activist who visits schools dressed as a penguin.

Written by George Eaton and first published at The New Statesman

Haringey Lib Dems in Meltdown

As reported by the local newspaper the Ham and High almost two thirds (12 out of 21) of the Lib Dem councillors on Haringey Council are stepping down at the London council elections in May.

The departing councillors rather skirt around the reasons for taking this decision now, and the Lib Dem Group Leader cllr Richard Wilson even suggests that this is all part of natural process. Come off it mate, I’ve never known so many serving councillors quitting at the same time, and the reason is plainly obvious.

The Lib Dems in Haringey and much of London (and the north of England) are a toxic brand. People in these areas voted Lib Dem because they were unhappy with Labour in 2010, but are horrified by the subsequent ConDem government’s attack on the welfare state. These councillors know full well that they are highly unlikely to retain their seats and have no doubt been making alternative plans for some time. Rats leaving a sinking ship, you might reasonably conclude, rather than some natural turn over of personnel.

A brief look at the results of the GLA elections in 2012 paints the picture perfectly if you are in any doubt about the Lib Dems prospects at this year’s local elections. Labour won comfortably in every ward in Haringey, and in 18 of the 19 wards in the borough, the Green party beat the Lib Dems. I said at the time, that the writing was on the wall for Lib Dem councillors and sure enough they have just been marking time for the last two years. Some of them have no doubt tried to do their best, but such is the impossibility of providing good quality local public services, whilst central government funding for local authorities is slashed, have decided to jump rather than wait to be pushed.   

But what of our MP and junior Coalition Government Minister, Lynne Featherstone? Well she’s got another year to think about it, since she is not up for re election until 2015, but she is showing no sign of throwing in the towel like fellow north London MP Lib Dem Sarah Teather (Brent central). No, Featherstone seems to think she can win, because she is ‘personally popular’ unlike her party.

There is a great myth spread around by Featherstone and her supporters that she is a ‘good constituency MP’. We are bombarded in Hornsey and Wood Green (Featherstone’s Parliamentary seat) with leaflets telling us what a good constituency MP she is, a case of if you say something often enough, people will eventually believe it.

Well, I’m not buying it. I admit she is very good at self publicity, but that is all. She recently tried to take credit for the halting of plans to build a huge waste plant at Pinkham Way, for instance, but this was all the work of the residents in the Pinkham Way Alliance. This is only one example of Featherstone shamelessly claiming the credit for some achievement, when she’s done nothing but write the odd letter about it.

What’s more, she is an embarrassment in Parliament where she is commonly referred to as ‘Featherhead’ by other MPs (including some in her own party). But the main thing is, as the dozen departing Lib Dem councillors realise, personal reputation, whether real or otherwise, is not enough to save Lib Dem politicians. Featherstone will be unceremoniously booted out in 2015, for the part her party has played in propping up this deeply unpopular Tory led government.   

Close the door on the way out please Lynne, but make sure it doesn’t hit you in the face.        

The Lib Dems - Yellow by Name, Yellow by Nature

Confirmation that the Lib Dems are the political equivalent of something you'd rather not get on your shoes came with their opposition to Labour's parliamentary motion against the Bedroom Tax earlier this week. Apart from Tim Farron and Andrew George, Lib Dem MPs swung behind the Tories and have thus condemned the hundreds of thousands impacted by this callous, cruel, and contemptuous Tory tax throughout the country to at least two more years of misery and despair up to the next general election in 2015.

The 31 Lib Dems who voted with the government were joined by a further 21 who avoided the issue by failing to vote. Making this latest betrayal even more staggering is that it came in defiance of their own party, which condemned the Bedroom Tax at their party conference in Glasgow in September.

What motivates a person to go into politics fuelled not by principle but rank opportunism? What is that gets such a person out of bed in the morning? Hopefully sometime in the future psychologists will explore the mindset of your average Lib Dem MP in an attempt to understand the minds of those who embrace betrayal as a virtue rather than, as with normal people, rejecting it as a vice.

Since joining with the Tories in a coalition government of the bad and mad, the Lib Dems have done politics a huge disservice, responsible for deepening people's cynicism and disdain for the political process. Russell Brand's recent interview with Jeremy Paxman, during which he articulated this disdain as the reason why he's never voted, spoke to the huge gulf that exists between a growing constituency of people and those meant to represent them.

Step forward the Liberal Democrats.

At least with the Tories you know you are dealing with a party of unreconstructed class warriors. At least they make little effort to conceal their feral hatred of the poor and working people. In contradistinction, however, the Lib Dems fought the last general election on a manifesto that was broadly progressive.

Recall for a moment the excitement surrounding Nick Clegg as the coming man of British politics, a breath of fresh air who in the televised debates against David Cameron and Gordon Brown emerged as a young leader with fresh ideas, 'integrity', 'honesty', and a strong sense of social justice. Indeed Clegg succeeded in inspiring thousands of people, especially young people, to campaign and vote for him. Remember his pledge on tuition fees?

Not long after the last election a Newsnight poll of Lib Dem voters recorded that 40% felt betrayed by Clegg. This translates to some 2.7 million voters. You would think it would have made uncomfortable reading for any party, yet three years on it is clear that the collective mindset of the Lib Dems is one of 'nobody likes us and we don't care'.

But this is not a game. The Bedroom Tax exemplifies the worst excesses of a government intent of using an economic recession caused by the greed of the rich as a pretext for effecting the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich by slashing public spending regardless of the human or social cost. The lives of the poor and economically vulnerable matter not a whit in this process. On the contrary they have been demonised, dehumanised, and slandered under the rubric of austerity, which translates to a mass experiment in human despair.

According to the National Housing Federation just over half of all social housing tenants had been pushed into rent arrears just weeks after the Bedroom Tax was rolled out in April. In September an investigation by UN special rapporteur on housing, Raquel Rolnick, ended with her calling for the tax to axed on the basis that it "could be a violation of the human right to housing".

For her efforts she was dismissed and derided by the Tories as a crank.

The lack of affordable social housing in Britain has long been a badge of shame, reflective of the apathy of the entire political class when it comes to the needs of the poor. Here, as with too many issues, we see evidence of hardly a sliver of difference when it comes to the Tories, Lib Dems, and Labour. With thousands of families forced to rely on bed and breakfast accommodation, wherein they are crammed into one room, and with a private housing sector enjoying the fruits of exorbitant rents due to demand outstripping supply, the idea that those who happen to have an extra bedroom within the social housing sector should have their housing benefit cut or move into smaller accommodation is barbaric.

The size of the housing benefit bill is not the fault of tenants, it is the fault of greedy landlords charging extortionate rents. Rent control within the private rental sector in conjunction with a national housebuilding programme designed to meet the demand for social housing needs to be implemented as a matter of urgency. It is the only rational solution to the crisis. Sadly, the words rational and Tory do not belong in the same sentence. Putting it even more succinctly, men and women whose collective moral compass is stuck in the mid 19th century are about as rational as a box of frogs.

The Lib Dems were given the opportunity to go some way to salvaging some political credibility this week by voting for a Labour motion against one of the most vile policies ever visited on the poor and economically disadvantaged in many a year. They chose not to and hopefully now political oblivion awaits.

As the man said: "Treason doth never prosper".

 

Written by John Wight follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnwight1      

First published at The Huffington Post

Russell Brand Interview - We need a Revolution

There is some enjoyable sparring between Paxman, clearly channelling the sentiments of thousands of PSE teachers parrotting the vacuous suggestion that those who criticize the failings of our 'representative democracy' should stop and instead involve themselves in it, and Brand, who channels the sarcastic teenagers who know all the reasons why the teacher is wrong and are happy enough with that. But this isn't a serious political debate or any sign that revolution is on the agenda.

Brand talks generically about the way in which differences within the 'political class' are more ephemeral than they seem, and how this has made people dissillusioned with the political system. Strip out the occasional nods towards leftist terminology (like saying 'political class' instead of 'Westminster Politicians') and this is mainly the stuff of a million pub conversations about how 'they are all the bloody same'. Nigel Farage could probably agree with 80% of it.

To be scrupulously fair, he does talk about the failure of the banking system, about unequal distribution of wealth and income, and about cuts and austerity. That's a good thing, and something we don't hear discussed in these terms often on mainstream TV.

But as another famous beardie once wrote, the important thing is not to interpret the world but to change it. Here Brand was utterly helpless in the face of the Paxman steamroller. Paxman says that the only way to change the political system is to participate in it; Brand knows that this is wrong but is unable to articulate why. That would require too much engagement with detail and with structure and process. Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky can do this, but they don't get prime time with Jeremy Paxman, and not many people would watch if they did. Brand does get prime time, precisely because he can't spell out a detailed critique of how 'representative democracy' screws us all.

It's a bit unfair to blame Russell Brand for not having a detailed political program or strategy, a point that he makes rather well himself during the interview. But it is important to recognize that talking about a revolution without actually expressing any idea about what that might mean is, in some sense at least, one of the safety valves of the political system. We have seen this in other anti-politics movements led by comedians and celebrities, notably the Beppe Grillo movement in Italy, that captured the rage of an important section of the population and then led into a blind alley with a program that again, Nigel Farage would have quite liked.

Lots of people have shared the interview video, excited that someone famous was at least using the R word. That's got to be a good thing, and it would be an even better thing if our party and the movement of which it is part would be able to engage with this sentiment, which goes far beyond the usual waters in which the anti-capitalist left usually fishes. But that in turn requires a political strategy for change that goes beyond 'vote for us, we are different to the rest of them'. And a vision of a revolution that is neither a fairy tale of opting out of capitalism to create a parallel world alongside it nor a nineteenth century insurrectionist fantasy.

Written by Jeremy Green

Green groups attack government resistance to EU climate change goals

Green campaigners and industry experts have hit out at the government's plans to block new EU-wide renewable energy targets, which they say are essential to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and creating a green economy.

Ed Davey, the energy and climate secretary, is to set out on Monday the UK's position on energy and climate change targets within Europe. He will oppose any new goals on increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation, but will argue for climate change goals that would be tougher than any yet agreed in an international forum.

Targets of generating 20% of the EU's energy from renewable sources by 2020 have been credited with spurring huge growth in the sector, which accounts for tens of thousands of jobs in the UK, with more in the supply chain and wider economy.

Wind turbine manufacturers are deciding whether to build factories that will entail tens of billions of pounds of investment, but have been holding off because of uncertainty over the coalition's support for such development. Industry experts said these potential investors were likely to be further spooked by the government's announcement.

Robert Norris, of Renewable UK, which represents the green power industry, said: "If the government does not send the right signals, then major international companies deciding where to build their big wind turbine factories will go elsewhere. We can't afford to let this opportunity slip through our fingers. It's absolutely vital to set targets on emissions and renewables for 2030 as soon as possible. The wind industry urgently needs long-term clarity to attract the billions of pounds of investment to build the massive next round of offshore projects that will create tens of thousands of jobs."

Ruth Davis, political adviser at Greenpeace UK, said: "The UK has some of the best renewable energy resources in Europe, and a renewables industry with huge potential for growth. An EU target would create a new market for that industry, and in doing so attract vital investment into our economy. In opposing a renewables target, not for the first time the irrational prejudices of the Tory right seem to have trumped the interests of working people in Britain."

But a CBI spokeswoman said a renewables or low-carbon energy target was not needed, as long as the EU was forcing industry to pay for carbon emissions. However, the EU's carbon price has plunged to record lows, with little chance of picking up before the end of the decade.

Davey wants the EU to agree a target of cutting carbon by 40%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2030, and to go for a 50% cut if other countries agreed similar goals. The EU is on track for most of the emissions cuts that would entail, partly as a result of its pursuit of renewable energy, and the UK already has targets for cutting carbon to 2027, which would in themselves produce the cuts needed to meet an EU target of halving carbon by 2030.

Davey's decision to push for a new target on emissions but not on renewables, was seen as a compromise that allowed the Lib Dem secretary to declare a strong emissions target, but also as a victory for George Osborne.

The chancellor has opposed any firm new targets on renewable energy beyond 2020, when the target of generating 20% of energy from renewable sources, such as sun and wind, runs out. The renewables industry and other low carbon green industries are one of the few areas of the UK economy that have shown clear growth during the financial crisis and recession.

Written by Fiona Harvey and first published by The Guardian

 

Green Party at 8% in National Opinion Poll

The national monthly (September) political tracker voting intention opinion poll by Ipsos Mori, put the Green party on an astonishing 8%. Regular readers of this blog will remember that I recently highlighted the strong showing of late of the ‘Others’ in voting intention polls. UKIP have generally been getting the largest share of the ‘others’ vote, regularly out polling the Lib Dems, with the Greens doubling our share, but still usually only half that of the UKIP share.

In the Ipsos Mori poll for September though, this situation was reversed with UKIP polling 4% against the Greens 8%. Unfortunately, the Green party is back to 3% in the October poll with UKIP on 10%, but you would expect some volatility in the polling figures for small parties, where the sample surveyed is usually around only a thousand respondents, and so smaller party support is harder to detect and predict than that for the main parties.

Another polling company,Survation, who very accurately predicted the Green party vote share in this year’s London Assembly election, have an interesting piece on another, methodological reason why some polling organisations understate the strength of small party support in their polls. Basically, companies like Yougov, prompt respondents when asking which party they intend to vote for, (Con, Lab, Lib Dem or Other), so people need to first select Other, then select the particular party from a secondary prompt, (UKIP, Green, BNP etc).

Also, Yougov list the party options in the order Con, Lab, Lib Dem, Other, whereas Ipsos Mori change this order randomly, except in the case of Other, which is always last. According to the Survation piece, this explains why the Conservatives always poll higher in Yougov polls, and therefore logic would indicate that these polls will understate the Other vote, for the converse reason. Survation themselves, do randomly prompt on the main parties, and now UKIP too, and UKIP polls higher on their surveys than any of the other polling companies.

One thing that seems to be fairly certain is that this trend of UKIP and the Greens polling well is set to continue, with the next UK wide elections being the 2014 European Parliament elections in which both UKIP and the Greens do best at. Expect some gains for both parties in the Euro elections and probably the local authority council elections that will be held on the same day. Unless something dramatic happens, the Lib Dems will be down to their ‘core’ vote of 8 or 9%, and so will not affect the outcome of elections as much as they have done in recent years.

More importantly, if this trend continues all the way to the next general election which is expected in 2015, and if between UKIP and the Greens they can take approaching 15% of the national vote, with UKIP taking their votes mainly off the Conservatives and the Greens taking them mainly off Labour, this could have a significant impact on which of the two main parties wins the election.

What’s more, Labour and Conservatives will know this is the case, as they study these opinion polls very closely, which makes them more likely to steal policies off UKIP and the Greens in an effort to minimise the votes lost to their smaller rivals. This is potentially a strong position for us Greens, where we can perhaps influence Labour policy leftwards, and for UKIP to drag the Tories rightwards (I know, it’s hard to imagine the Tories being even more right wing, but there you go).

The days of the Lib Dems maintaining ‘equidistance’ between Labour and Conservative, and so peeling votes off their right and left wings respectively, looks to be well and truly over. A new dynamic will shape the next general election, and the Green party will be right in the thick of it.

Opinion Polls – Under the Radar

When polling organisations conduct political party voting intention opinion polls, usually commissioned by a newspaper, the story is always of how the three main (perhaps that should be two now) parties are faring, and which leader has the best approval ratings.

The polls have been pretty consistent over recent months, showing Labour with a double digit lead over the Conservatives, and the poor old Lib Dems flat lining at around 10%, sometimes as low as 8%. But if you look more closely, the ‘others’ are doing surprisingly well. The ‘story’ will only mention this in passing, but if you look at the full results, as political anoraks like me do, there is something happening, which is much more of a ‘story’ than that put out by the commissioning media outfits.

What you see is an impressive (around 10%) showing for UKIP, sometimes beating the Lib Dems into fourth place, and an improvement in the Green party share, which is around 3 or 4%. An example is this recent Opinium poll commission by The Observer newspaper. 

Now, that may not sound all that notable, but from my observations over the years, the Green party normally polls about 1 to 2% in national polls, except when there is an election (proportional) coming up like the European Parliament elections, when I’ve seen us poll as high as 6 or 7%.

This is a trend which I reported on this blog here back in May, and recent opinion polls do seem to confirm this view. But why is this happening?

I think the reasons are varied to some extent. Labour, Tory and Lib Dems all offer very similar policies these days, for one thing. The MP’s expenses scandal still resonates amongst the public too, and it is the main parties MP’s that were involved in this fraudulent raid on the public purse.  But I think the main reason is a desire amongst the voters to ‘protest’ vote, “sod the lot of you” type of thing.

What has changed on the party political landscape in recent years is that the Lib Dems are no longer the beneficiaries of this desire to stick it up the political establishment. They are of course in government now, though you would hardly know it with the Tories dominating the coalition government’s policies.

Another opinion poll from Opinum sheds some light on this particular theory. Take a look at this graphic (right hand side). Of those who voted Lib Dem in the 2010 general election, only a third are intending to vote Lib Dem again, with Labour gaining the most (39%) of those who have changed their allegiance but 8% have switched to UKIP and 10% to the Green party. I find the idea that voters can switch from the most pro-European of the British political parties (Lib Dems) to UKIP whose whole raison d’etre is being anti-Europe, somewhat bemusing, but there you go.

The 10% planning to vote Green is what has doubled our opinion poll score, which is a significant advance for us Greens, if not signalling some kind of major breakthrough. But it also means that we have much work to do, if we are to translate this into seats at Westminster and elsewhere. These voters are on the left politically, and so are our natural supporters.

Put simply, we have to get more of those 39% of former Lib Dem voters that are intending to vote Labour next time, to vote Green. Which is why we need to go on the attack, and expose Labour for what it is, a ‘Tory light’ party, sometimes not even so light.

House of Lords Reform – Overdue but Hardly a Priority

MP’s will vote on Tuesday (10 July) on the House of Lords Reform Bill, which rather modestly seeks to have 80% of peers elected by 2025, with the remaining 20% appointed by a statutory appointments commission, and reducing the total number of representatives in the upper chamber from 826 to 450. Elections would take place on the same day as the general election on an open-list system from eight different regions. The open list system is designed to give voters a choice between voting for a party and individuals.

Up to 100 Tory MP’s have said that they will vote with Labour to defeat the ‘programme motion’ which would put a limit on debate in the House of Commons to a maximum of 14 days, therefore throwing  into doubt  whether the bill will pass through the Commons at all. Opposition can also be expected in the House of Lords itself, where there are considerable numbers of Tory peers unhappy with the proposals.

The last Labour government began Lords reform, in a piecemeal, incremental way, first abolishing most of the hereditary peers, and then finally moving to a fully appointed chamber after a few more years. Clearly, in a democratic system, the hereditary principle had to go, and appointing peers is not much better, and so further reform is necessary. In my opinion all members of the upper house should be elected, and by a fairer, proportional system which reflects the diverse support for each of the political parties, including us Greens.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader is desperate for some kind of enduring ‘legacy’ for his deputy premiership and as some kind of justification for his party’s participation in the coalition government with the Tories. It is hard to see what progressive gains they have achieved thus far, so it is easy to understand Clegg’s determination to push this through and claim credit for the policy. Indeed, he has gone so far as to suggest that if the Bill does not pass, he will withdraw his MP’s support for the parliamentary boundary changes that the Tories want to improve their prospects at the next general election.

A recent Yougov poll for The Sun newspaper indicates that 76% of the British public support a fully or mostly elected House of Lords, but goes onto to say that only 18% regard Lords reform as an urgent matter. This seems about right to me, it is impossible to defend an unelected House, but it is pretty low on my list of political priorities at the moment. So many other issues, the state of the economy, jobs, welfare reform, privatisation of the NHS, climate change, public service cuts and education policy all dwarf constitutional reform at the moment in terms of importance.

If the price of losing Lords reform is the blocking of the parliamentary boundary changes in the Tories favour, then bring it on. And if this puts further pressure on the ConDem coalition government, perhaps even bringing about its early demise, as some have suggested, so much the better.          

Waste Recycling in Haringey

I reported here on Haringey council’s changes to refuse and recycling in the borough earlier this year. Basically, a new regime of waste collection is being rolled out across Haringey, whereby ‘residual’ waste (that put into black bags) is being reduced from weekly to fortnightly collection, but ‘dry’recyclables (paper, tins, plastics and glass), food and garden waste remain as before on weekly collection. Where garden space allows, 240 litre wheelie bins are being provided to aid the change in emphasis to recycling.

Veolia Environmental Services, the private contractor who won the bid to supply these services, has promised an increase in recycling rates from the current 25% to 40% by 2015, with an ‘aspiration’ to try to increase this further to 50%. The council says that early indications are that recycling rates have risen since the changes started to take place in March this year, although I’ve not been able to find the exact figures.

The local Lib Dems, desperate to tap into some sort of popularist issue to reverse their own unpopularity with residents, as demonstrated by their disastrous showing in the recent London Assembly elections, are waging a campaign against the new collection scheme. Just before the said elections, I received a copy of a Lib Dem leaflet through my door that had the headline, ‘ANGER at fortnightly refuse collection’. It went onto say that bins were overflowing (with one or two photos) which was increasing the amount of vermin in the borough.

I have to say, around my way, I have seen a few over stuffed bins, but by and large, the new system seems to have passed off remarkably smoothly. I have certainly not seen any ‘anger’ from residents, and can only assume that the Lib Dems are trying to whip something up, in the hope of profiting from it in the next council elections in 2014.

Haringey Green party is broadly in favour of the move to more recycling, as it reduces collection carbon emissions and reduces waste being sent to landfill, which is not only good for the environment, but saves the council (and council tax payers) money on landfill taxes levied by central government. I did raise fears that vermin might be problem after the introduction of the new system, and education of residents was the key to reducing this risk. I still think this very important, and is the only area that the Labour council has been remiss in, in this whole operation.

I recently did some work for the neighbouring London borough of Hackney, talking to residents there about (particularly) food recycling. I found most people interested in recycling and very willing to talk about the service. What I found was that many people didn’t understand how the system works for various reasons. One thing I came across was that many of the people who were worried about increased vermin, didn’t know that the food waste bins were lockable. They complained that foxes knocked them over, with food spilling out onto the street, and had given up on recycling food. A simple demonstration from me of how to lock the bins, brought surprise from these people and a promise to try the service again.

I really think Haringey should try this approach, it should pay for itself and more in landfill tax savings. Hackney has reported an early increase in over 30% of food waste recycling, so this kind of engagement with residents clearly works.

Lib Dem Membership Falls Sharply

Regular readers will remember that I reported here on this blog the dramatic loss of votes for the Lib Dems in the recent Greater London Assembly elections. Well, more chickens are coming home to roost as reported in The Independent on Sunday this week. One in five members has left the party in the last year in disgust at the Lib Dems propping up of the Tory minority government by their continued participation in the coalition at Westminster.

Furthermore, the Independent report goes on to say that over half of the Lib Dem student wing, Liberal Youth, have ditched the party and in some areas even remaining members are refusing to campaign for the Lib Dems at elections.

In London, Sarah Teather, the Children’s minister has lost a whopping 42% of members in her local party in Brent. In Haringey, Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities minister has lost 21% of activists in her constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green, with numbers dropping below 300, which makes them not much bigger than Haringey Green party. I’d give you pretty long odds on her retaining her seat at the next general election, which she won in 2005 from Labour on the back of local opposition to the Iraq war, and general dissatisfaction with the Labour government.

How could the Lib Dems have expected anything less? The ConDem coalition has presided over extremely damaging austerity policies, the privatisation of the NHS, the rolling back of the welfare state and tax cuts for the richest people in the country.

I think we have here a classic case of politicians wanting important jobs in government, and all that goes with it, rather than sticking with what principles they had and is surely a lesson to us Greens should we ever get into a position of power nationally.

So, where now for the Lib Dems? Can they avoid a wipe out of their MP’s (not to mention local councillors) in the coming years? Personally, I doubt it. The writing is on the wall now, and they will take big hits to their elected representatives whatever they do in the near future.

Interestingly, Polly Toynbee writes in The Guardian that they should replace Nick Clegg with Vince Cable as leader, and then leave the coalition government. This might save them some Westminster seats, although it would likely lead to an early general election, at which they will lose seats, but the alternative is just hanging on and hoping something will turn up in their favour to change their fortunes.

At least by ending the coalition with the Tories, the Lib Dems could start to re build the party, and Nick Clegg can then join the Tories, which is where he should have been in the first place.

UK Voters Attracted to Small Parties

The Independent on Sunday reports on a ComRes opinion poll which indicates potential support for small parties in Britain is on the rise. Although the report highlights the possible rise in support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and a rise in Euroscepticism amongst the British public, with the resultant difficulties this could cause David Cameron and the Conservative party, it also looks just as favourable to other small parties.

One third of people who voted Conservative at the last general election now say they have now switched or are ready to switch to voting UKIP. With the current problems in the Eurozone, it is no great surprise that Euroscepticism is gaining ground and so too UKIP with its xenophobic stance on all things European. Indeed, I think UKIP would have won at least one seat on the London Assembly had they not for some reason changed their name on the ballot paper to ‘First Choice for London’.

But the report goes on to say:

‘The ComRes/IoS poll reveals deep dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties, with 37 per cent of their supporters seriously considering switching to smaller parties. Among all voters polled, 13 per cent are pondering backing Ukip, with the same proportion poised to vote Green. Four per cent are considering supporting the BNP, and 3 per cent could vote for George Galloway's Respect party. Only 38 per cent are not considering changing their allegiance.’

‘Among Labour voters, the disaffected are most likely to be looking to the Green Party (19 per cent), Ukip (11 per cent) or the Lib Dems (10 per cent). Of Lib Dem supporters, 28 per cent are considering switching to the Greens, 27 per cent to the Conservatives, 21 per cent to Labour and 14 per cent to Ukip.’

All of which means that for the Green party there is a quite large pool of potential voters, who are clearly not all that impressed with the big parties, and could well switch to us if we can show that we are a credible alternative. The British electoral landscape has never been so open as this poll indicates. Although Labour did well in the recent London Assembly elections, this poll shows that their support is far from rock solid and voters on the left are thinking about choosing the Green party to represent their views.

The Green party needs to win more seats at all levels of government to cement this position, but also, just as UKIP puts pressure on the Conservatives to be more right wing, the Green party can do the same job on the Labour party, although obviously pulling them to the left in our case.

This drop in support for the main established parties is echoed all across Europe with pro austerity parties paying the price for the failed laissez faire economic policies that have brought us to this sorry pass. People seem more open to listen to an alternative now, than at any time in the last thirty years, which presents the Green party with a unique opportunity to advance.  

Lib Dem Vote Meltdown in Haringey – Losing Here!

The detailed ward by ward data has now been released by London Elects for the GLA elections on 3^rd May. I reported on this blog here previously that the Green party finished in third place in Enfield and Haringey (London Member list) pushing the Lib Dems in to fourth place. This more detailed data shows the full scale of the collapse of the Lib Dem vote in Haringey, and it is truly staggering.

The share of the vote for the main parties in Haringey was as follows:

Conservative 16.0%

Green 13.4%

Labour 53.0%

Lib Dem 10.4%

On these results the Lib Dems would lose all of their 22 seats on Haringey council, and Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, would also lose her seat. Labour beat the Lib Dems comfortably in every ward in Haringey. Indeed, of the 19 wards in Haringey, the Green party beat the Lib Dems in all but one ward (come on Muswell Hill ward, you don’t want to get a reputation for this sort of thing!).

Let’s take just one ward as an example of the catastrophe that has just hit the Lib Dems in Haringey (and across London generally). This is the result of the London Member ballot from the Haringey ward of Stroud Green:

Conservative 10.4%

Greens 22.2%

Labour 47.5%

Lib Dem 13.9%

This ward currently has three Lib Dem councillors, including the leader of the Lib Dem group, Richard Wilson, who are all clearly in peril at the next council elections in 2014.    

Of course, people do vote differently in different elections, and there are two years to go until the London council elections, and probably three to the general election, but the Lib Dems must be very worried by these results.

It was entirely predictable that this sort of thing would happen from the day the Lib Dems nationally decided to enter a coalition government with the Tories. Much of Lib Dem support in London came from disaffected Labour voters in recent years, and they are horrified that by voting Lib Dem, it has led to a Tory government, following a right wing, pander to rich and stuff everyone else, agenda.

The Lib Dems could well return to their numbers of elected representatives that they had in the 1970’s, when you had to be some sort of celebrity like Cyril Smith or Clement Freud, to get elected as a Liberal MP. They can only hope that something turns up to change their fortunes, but as it stands, they are on death row in Haringey and much of the rest of the country.  

Lib Dem Equality Minister opposes equality

Featherstone backs discrimination against heterosexuals & pro-gay religions

Peter Tatchell, Coordinator of the Equal Love campaign and Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, writes on the Liberal Democrat Voice website:

http://bit.ly/sROR3t

Lib Dems should stick to their principles and urge Lynne not to renege on equality pledge

Bravo to the Liberal Democrat party conference. Two years ago, party members voted overwhelmingly to end the twin legal bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. They committed a future Lib Dem government to scrap sexual orientation discrimination in marriage and partnership law. Well done. Thank you.

Sadly, the Lib Dem Equality Minister, Lynne Featherstone, apparently with the support of the Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, is now actively backing discrimination. She plans to keep unequal laws, contrary to the Lib Dem's election pledges.

Specifically, Lynne is vowing to retain the prohibition on heterosexual civil partnerships and on religious same-sex marriages by faith organisations that want to conduct them. This is in direct defiance of what her party members voted for: equality.

Nick Clegg has not dissented from her stance. We can only assume that he endorses it.

Lynne is lovely. I like her as a person. However, she has announced a long and unjustified delay in the government's promised consultation on civil marriage and civil partnership; pre-empting the consultation findings by ruling out straight and religious equality.

She said at the start of this year that the consultation would begin in June. Then she postponed it until October. Now it has been put off until March next year. Why can't the consultation start now? Despite all our requests, Lynne has failed to explain why this delay is necessary.

I am not persuaded that there needs to be any consultation at all. The ban on same-sex marriage is homophobic discrimination and should therefore be repealed immediately.

If black or Jewish people had been banned from marriage, the government would act swiftly to ensure marriage equality. There would be no long drawn out consultation period. There would be no appeasement of racists and anti-Semites. Why the double standards?

No other government legislation is being subjected to such prolonged consultation and repeated postponements.

The Scottish government has not hesitated. It's consultation on marriage and partnership equality is already underway. Why is the UK Equality Minister dragging her feet and delaying her consultation until next spring? It doesn't make sense.

The Westminster government has promised to legislate marriage equality before the date of the next election, due by May 2015 at the latest. However, the delayed consultation could result in the measure not completing its parliamentary progress in time. Likely resistance by the House of Lords might result in its being timed out. Is this deliberate?

Ending sexual orientation discrimination in marriage law is not only the right thing to do, it has majority public support. There is, therefore, no reason for the government to delay in bringing forward legislation to end this legal iniquity.

Nearly two-thirds of the public support marriage equality. According to a 2009 Populous opinion poll, 61% of the public say that lesbian and gay couples should be allowed by law to get married:

http://www.populuslimited.com/the-times-the-times-gay-britain-poll-100609.html

Lynne Featherstone's gay marriage consultation announcement looks like an attempt to head off the Equal Love - www.equallove.org.uk - legal case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR.

In February, four gay couples and four heterosexual couples filed an application in the ECHR to overturn sexual orientation discrimination in civil marriage and civil partnership law.

Speaking as the appeal coordinator, I can say we are quietly confident that we will win the case - eventually (an ECHR ruling can take four years).

The current UK ban on straight couples having a civil partnership is clear discrimination. Lynne's commitment to maintain this inequality is both surprising and shocking. It is wrong for her to exclude in advance any discussion about opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.

I stand for equality and this includes equality for straight people too. It would be wrong for the LGBT community to demand equal rights for ourselves and then ignore or accept the denial of equality to heterosexual people. In a democracy we should all be equal before the law.

There are many heterosexuals who would like a civil partnership. To deny them this option is very unfair - and it is illegal under human rights law. How can a Lib Dem Equality Minister support inequality?

The Netherlands has an equivalent to civil partnerships. Called registered partnerships, they are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The vast majority of Dutch civil partnerships are heterosexual ones. They are hugely popular and would be equally popular in the UK, if the government allowed straight couples to have them. To deny British heterosexuals the option of a civil partnership is profoundly wrong and unjust.

This is bad enough. However, Lynne has also ruled that her consultation will not consider the option of ending the ban on religious marriages for lesbian and gay couples, even though some faith organisations - such as the Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Jews - have requested that they should be allowed to marry same-sex partners. Lynne says no. She says the ban must stay. This is a violation of religious freedom. While no religious body should be forced to perform same-sex marriages, those that support gay marriage should not be barred by law from doing so.

I appeal to Lynne - and Nick Clegg - to rethink this ill-considered consultation timetable and its pro-discrimination parameters - to both ensure non-discrimination and to avoid an embarrassing defeat in the European Court of Human Rights.

It is outrageous that the Equality Minister wants to maintain the unequal, discriminatory laws that bar gay religious marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. Her stance is not compatible with her professed Liberal Democrat values or with the wishes of the vast majority of Lib Dem party members.

If you share my concerns, I urge you to email Lynne Featherstone via her Equality Office senior officials, Emma Reed: Emma.Reed@geo.gsi.gov.uk and Lucy Phipps: Lucy.Phipps@geo.gsi.gov.uk

Your help could ensure a much needed rethink. Thank you, Peter Tatchell

To sign the Equal Love petition go to: www.equallove.org.uk For more information about Peter Tatchell's human rights campaigns and to make a donation: www.petertatchell.net

Note: This article was published this week on the Liberal Democrat Voice website:

http://www.libdemvoice.org/the-independent-view-peter-tatchell-writes-lib-dems-should-stick-to-their-principles-and-urge-lynne-not-to-renege-on-equality-pledge-25888.html

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