A Fresh Look at Our Drug Laws Is the First Step Towards a Sane, Evidence-Based Policy

One of the most talented actors of his generation found dead in his bathroom. Over a hundred young people needing treatment after a gig in Belfast where drugs were found. Teenagers dying after a taking Ecstasy on a night out. Every day the media present us with examples of the miserable failure of the "war on drugs". Yet the government presses on with the prohibition approach, refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality that it's not working.

When I was elected MP for Brighton Pavilion, the city had the highest mortality rate from drugs in the country. I wanted to find out whether doing things differently would help save lives, and was part of efforts to form a local commission to take a fresh look at the city's strategy to reduce drug-related harm. Thanks to innovative new approaches - increased training in the administration of naloxone which can prevent overdose, better data collection on drug use trends and improving services for people with a dual diagnosis - some great progress has been made. In the last few years we've seen a higher than average increase in numbers of people leaving treatment successfully.

Yet national policies, part of the broader international 'war on drugs', are the main barrier to further progress. The UK still approaches drug addiction as a criminal issue first and a health issue second. As the former Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove Police has said: "The use of drugs is not well addressed through punitive measures. Providing people with treatment not only resolves their addiction - thereby minimising risk of overdose, drug related health issues, anti-social behaviour and dependence on the state, for example - but cuts the cost to the community by reduced offending".

Those costs are enormous. In England and Wales alone, an estimated £3billion a year is spent fighting the war on drugs, to little effect. Over half of the 85,000 people in prison are thought to have serious drug problems. Rates of cannabis use by young people in Britain are amongst the highest in Europe.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that our approach is being dictated by a law that's over 40 years old and is not fit for purpose. There has never been an impact assessment of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act; nor has there been a cost benefit assessment, or any attempt to compare its effectiveness in reducing the social, economic or health costs of drug misuse with alternatives. Successive governments have seemed singularly uninterested in whether whether our current prohibtion-based approach is an effective use of public money.

Where alternative approaches have been adopted, the results have generally been positive. In 2001, Portugal adopted a new policy whereby drug possession was changed from a criminal offence to an administrative offence, following which there was a reduction in new HIV diagnoses and in drug-related deaths. In Switzerland, a series of new policies focusing attention on drug use from a public health perspective, led to a decline in crime rates. An investigation by Release looked at 21 jurisdictions that had adopted some form of decriminalisation of drug possession. Overwhelmingly, it found that such an approach does not lead to an increase in drug use but does improve outcomes for users - in terms of employment, relationships and likelihood of staying out of prison.

As Russell Brand has argued, if "we are aware that our drug laws aren't working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting?" Over the past year, I've been calling on the government to carry out an independent and authoritative review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. My epetition has received over 50,000 signatures, and the figure is rising rapidly. If 100,000 people have signed by the end of this week, the issue will have to be debated and voted on by MPs.

Slowly, it's starting to feel like this isn't such a hopeless cause. Even in the US, where Nixon first used the term "War on Drugs", the wind is changing - the Republican governor of Texas has stated his intention "to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalisation and keep people from going to prison and destroying their lives."

And now the deputy prime minister, back from a trip to Columbia, is arguing for "a proper debate about the need for a different strategy." It's not often that I agree with Nick, but on this occasion, he's dead right. Prohibition is costing lives, as well as billions of taxpayers' money - a fresh look at our drug laws is the first step towards a sane, evidence-based policy.

You can sign the epetition here and join our Thunderclap here

Written by Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party

Follow Caroline Lucas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarolineLucas      

Why COP 19 fell woefully short of the urgent action we need

Why COP 19 fell woefully short of the urgent action we need

History was made at the UN climate talks last week – not by the achievement of a breakthrough in negotiations, unfortunately, but by the unprecedented walk-out by 800 civil society groups and trade unions.

Citing the appalling lack of ambition and commitment manifest at the 19^th yearly session of the global climate change conference, NGOs blamed the lobbying from fossil fuel companies for impeding progress at the talks.   As WWF put it, “Warsaw, which should have been an important step in the just transition to a sustainable future, is on track to deliver virtually nothing.  We feel that governments have given up on the process.”

Their frustration was well founded.  The industrialised countries like Japan and Australia used the talks to officially scale back their climate commitments, and the demands of poor countries for clarity on greater climate finance were stonewalled.  At the same time, the EU’s credibility was undermined by its failure to increase its completely inadequate 20% greenhouse gas reduction target for 2020.

Poignantly, the conference began on the day that Typhoon Haiyan dissipated, and  in admirable solidarity with the people of his country, the lead negotiator of the Philippines fasted throughout, joined by many representatives of environmental NGOs attending the conference.   Sadly, the immediate evidence of the human costs of climate change represented by Haiyan and other recent extreme weather events did not provide a catalyst for the international action desperately needed.

Perhaps it was never a propitious sign that the talks were taking place in Poland, whose Government’s lack of commitment to reduce its use of fossil fuels has earned it the nickname ‘Coalland’.  Just under of 90% of the country’s electricity is sourced from coal.   Outrageously, representatives of the Polish Ministry of the Economy co-hosted an event with the World Coal Association in parallel with COP 19, giving lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry a valuable platform, and sending the provocative message that the ongoing cosy relationship between governments and the fossil fuel companies is perfectly compatible with efforts to reduce emissions.

So what did the talks deliver by way of positive outcomes?  The top-line political agreement was pretty uninspiring – nations are to “initiate or intensify domestic preparations for their intended nationally determined contributions” (rather than commitments) ideally, but not definitively by the first quarter of 2015, leaving huge wiggle room for nations to continue to procrastinate.  The agreement around compensation for vulnerable countries for the loss and damage resulting from climate change was similarly weak, with no guarantees of actual compensation.

There was some very limited progress: agreement on a mechanism to fund and manage forest protection projects, and a new initiative to work with the IT industry to maximise its potential to curb emissions.  The world’s least developed countries announced that they had submitted detailed climate adaption plans, indicating that progress is being made on capacity building – creating the infrastructure and policies they need to support effective climate adaptation projects.

But this falls woefully short of the urgent action needed.   Now that no-one with any credibility seriously disputes the reality of anthropogenic climate change, the argument now goes along the lines of “What’s the point in us taking action to reduce carbon emissions when China is building four new coal-fired plants every week?”  This argument must not be allowed to gain any traction.  The notion that the UK or other developed nations are somehow doing too much to reduce their emissions is preposterous.  The UK subsidised the fossil fuel industry to the tune of £4.3 billion in 2011.  The ODI says rich nations are spending seven times more supporting coal, oil, and gas than they are on helping poorer nations address climate change.

Until we tackle the undue influence of the fossil fuel industry over domestic policy here in the UK and over international talks, the world will not rise to the challenge of taking action on climate change at the pace and scale needed to secure a safe future.  Over 70 organisations have called for new rules to safeguard global climate talks from fossil fuel influence, in order to give them at least a fighting chance of being able to deliver what the science and equity demand.

The UK should commit to supporting such new rules by ending the undue access and influence of companies who profit from more emissions and lobby against effective action, ignoring the reality that if we are to have a good chance of keeping emissions below 2 degrees, at least four fifths of known fossil fuel reserves need to remain in the ground.

In Westminster, I’ve orchestrated debates, asked questions and written letters, and yes, taken peaceful direct action, to try to persuade the Government to commit to replacing their support for fossil fuels with greater promotion of renewables and energy efficiency instead.

Later this year, MPs will have an opportunity to close the loophole in the Energy Bill would allow older coal power stations to stay open and escape the emissions limit.  This is the kind of action we need to pressure our representatives to take, and we don’t need to wait to COP 20 to do it.

Caroline Lucas Green Party MP for Brighton Pavillion

Labour Party Conference - Welcome to Brighton

The Green party welcomes Labour to Brighton with the message. We are the real opposition to the ConDems.

Caroline Lucas Conference Speech Autumn 2013

Great speech by Caroline Lucas MP, to this year's Green Party conference in Brighton.

UK is urged to invest £50bn in a greener economic recovery

Campaigners have warned that Britain is hurtling towards a new economic crisis, and call for a £50bn "Green New Deal" to create more sustainable growth and better-paid jobs and equip the country for a low-carbon future.

After two quarters of better-than-expected GDP growth and a batch of positive economic indicators – including rising house prices and upbeat business surveys – the coalition is hoping the summer economic bounce will turn into a longer-term recovery. But five years on from their first demands for a radical reworking of Britain's business model, the Green New Deal group, which includes Green party MP Caroline Lucas, economist Ann Pettifor and tax expert Richard Murphy, says the need for an alternative approach is greater than ever. In a report published on today, it argues that recent growth has been based on unsustainable rises in consumer spending and house prices and could end in "the mother of all credit busts".

"Recovery is an interesting word to apply to an economy that is marked by rapidly rising personal debt, highly insecure and often low-paid work, and rising underlying carbon emissions. What we're calling a recovery is poor, divided, indebted and polluting," said Andrew Simms, chief analyst at thinktank Global Witness and an author of the report.

Central banks have poured cheap money into financial markets to drive down interest rates and prevent deflation and depression. But Green New Deal says this is a dangerous gamble: "Given the choice, they prefer to have the problem of asset prices going through the roof than the problem of deflation. If they are wrong and the bubble bursts before the recovery arrives, it will be the mother of all credit busts," it says.

Under an alternative plan in the Green New Deal report, the government would invest £50bn into expanding green technologies over five years, building low-cost housing, and employing a "carbon army" to insulate hundreds of thousands of homes and reduce energy use.

The authors say these measures would create more, and better-paid, jobs than the current debt-fuelled bounce, which Pettifor described as an "Alice in Wongaland" recovery. Lucas, who is the MP for Brighton Pavilion, said a grassroots workforce could be trained to lag Britain's chilly lofts "within weeks". "Ministers want to cut a nice big ribbon on a new nuclear power station – but this would be far more effective in getting our emissions down quickly," she said.

Real incomes have continued to fall over the past year, as above-target inflation has outpaced pay growth, in what the TUC has described as the greatest wage squeeze since the 1870s. Green New Deal argues that if more workers were paid a living wage it would help to create more sustainable consumer demand. Frances O'Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, which begins its annual congress in Bournemouth on Sunday, supported the Green New Deal initiative, saying: "The green economy already employs nearly a million people, in areas from electric-car manufacturing to wind-turbine installation. Implementing some of the ideas in this report could help these industries create more of the skilled and well-paid jobs we need if we are to build a sustainable recovery."

The authors suggest their pro-growth policies could be paid for by scrapping the controversial HS2 rail project; cracking down on tax evasion; and launching a fresh round of quantitative easing.

Instead of using electronically created money to buy government bonds from City investors, as the Bank of England has done with almost all of the £375bn-worth of QE it has undertaken since 2009, the proceeds this time would be used to invest in green projects, and pay off private finance initiative debts, freeing up public money to be spent elsewhere. The report argues that investing in affordable housing, in particular, would benefit those on lower incomes more than the better off. "It can mean that people have more disposable income after housing costs, which in turn boosts spending in the local and national economy," the report says.

The authors argue that a rapid boost in the supply of housing would also help to "dampen the housing bubble beginning to appear in response to government measures such as Help to Buy, which facilitates prospective homebuyers to find a deposit". The controversial Help to Buy scheme was the centrepiece of George Osborne's March budget, and has been questioned by a number of critics, from the former governor of the Bank of England, Lord King, to the International Monetary Fund, amid fears that it could create a new property boom.

Mark Carney, the Bank's new governor, has said he is "very alert personally" to the risk that a housing boom is emerging – and said he was ready to burst any bubble, by targeting mortgage lending.

Reforming the bailed-out banking system is another central proposal of the report, suggesting that Royal Bank of Scotland, which is majority-owned by the taxpayer, could be broken up into a series of regional lenders that would build relationships with local industries. "All the mechanisms which have been brought into play to encourage lending to the productive part of the economy don't seem to be working," says Simms.

Labour has promised to introduce a British Investment Bank, to boost lending to businesses; but it has eschewed much of the Green New Deal agenda over the past five years, focusing on an emergency VAT cut as the centrepiece of its policies to create a recovery.

Other members of Green New Deal include Charles Secrett, former director of Friends of the Earth; Jeremy Leggett, chairman of green energy firm Solarcentury; and Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian.

First published at The Observer newspaper

You can read the full report here

Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas vows to reject £10,000 pay hike

A politician has vowed to turn down a controversial pay hike of up to £10,000 a year.

Despite a likely public outcry, an official review is set to recommend that salaries for our MPs in Westminster should increase by about 15 per cent to up to £75,000 after the next general election.

The findings by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) comes in the wake of the expenses scandal and as many in the public sector are experiencing real term cuts to their pay.

While some Sussex MPs refused to rule out accepting the wage rise, Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas became one of the first politicians in the country to reject the hike. The country’s only Green MP said: “At a time of economic crisis, with so many of our constituents struggling to make ends meet, the proposal is utterly wrong.

“Like many MPs, I support the idea of an independent body to manage MPs’ salaries and expenses away from interference by politicians, but IPSA isn’t doing itself any favours with these hugely out of touch proposals.”

Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of the regulator, is set to make an announcement on proposals sometime this month. But it is widely rumoured the recommendation will be to increase a backbench MP salary from £66,000 to £75,000.

This was after an Ipsa survey earlier this year showed that seven in ten MPs believe they are underpaid compared with other professionals.

Any decision by Sir Ian cannot be overturned by the Prime Minister because MPs gave up the power to determine their own salaries in 2009.

First published at the Brighton Argus

Green Party - Austerity Isn't Working

No local elections in London this year, but there are elections in other areas. A timely message from Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavillion, the ConDem austerity policies are not working, instead, they making the economic situation much worse. Even the IMF, well known lefties they are not, have told George Osborne the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he should change course.  

Why I'm stepping down as leader of the Green party

In September, I will reach the end of my second term as the first national leader of the Green party of England and Wales – and I've decided not to seek re-election for another two-year term.
When I first joined the party back in 1986, it was a core article of faith for many members that we should not have a conventional leader in the traditional mould. It's true that formal leadership carries risks.

Presenting one image as the "face" of a party can attract some people, but put off others. At a deeper level, if leadership is about concentrating power in the hands of a single person or an inner circle, it is damaging to the cause and can lead to poor decision-making.

But leadership is also a powerful tool that can draw people in and inspire them. Trying to sell abstract ideas to the public rarely works. People want to see the human face of an organisation, to help them understand what it is there for and to judge if they trust it. So when the decision was finally made in 2007 to establish the roles of leader and deputy leader of the Green party, it wasn't about sacrificing a principle to gain some votes. It was about changing the way we worked to help communicate our passion and principles in a more effective way. It is an example of how we found the right balance between principles and pragmatism, and how the party had become more self-confident.

It was always my view that leadership, for the Greens, did not have to be about seizing power and holding on to it at all costs. Leaders must have confidence in their abilities as well as their cause. But to ensure that every individual in the movement feels a personal responsibility, they should also be eager to share out the responsibilities of leadership with others, from shaping policy to maintaining morale. In other Green parties around the world, leaders have often been the first to recognise that the time has come for others to take up that responsibility; a healthy contrast to seeing traditional politicians clawing at their desks in a vain attempt to hang on to power.

I am hugely honoured to have served my party in this role, and proud that during the four years of my term, we've moved Green politics forward to a higher level, with the party by far the most influential it has ever been. We have seen significant breakthroughs, not only in Brighton & Hove, winning our first seat at Westminster and our first ever local council, but also nationally, with further breakthroughs on to new councils in the recent local elections, as well as establishing ourselves as the third party, ahead of the Liberal Democrats, in the elections for London mayor and the London Assembly.

Green politics has shifted from the margins to the mainstream of British political life. As the party grows, buoyed by a new generation of activists and underpinned by the achievements of our outstanding elected members, now is the time to make space for other talented Greens to come through and take us even further forward. For me, this decision is about staying true to green principles. We're lucky to have a wealth of capability and experience in our ranks, and taking a strategic approach to leadership is a natural step in maturing as a party and nurturing future electoral aspirations. I'm confident that the next leader, whoever they may be, will be able to build on our momentum.

Now I look forward to channelling even more of my energy into representing the people of Brighton Pavilion, speaking out in parliament on behalf of my constituents and doing all I can to defend them against the coalition government's disastrous economic policies. I will continue to be a lead advocate for the party, and will hold the government to account on its environmental and social responsibilities.

The Greens have a clear vision of how we must now move away from our broken economic system – which for too long has kept us dangerously dependent on the bankers' gambles, toxic debt and on the plundering of natural resources – and towards a fairer, more sustainable economy. People are increasingly recognising that we are a credible alternative to the three main Westminster parties, and as communities up and down the country feel the consequences of savage yet self-defeating austerity – paying the price for a crisis they did not create – that Green alternative has never been more necessary.

Written by Caroline Lucas, MP
First published in The Guardian here

We need to design a new economic order

I want a debate about how we move away from today's failed economic order and build a new one that is socially just and ecologically sustainable.

In a month dominated by the political and economic crisis in Europe, those of us following events at the COP17 climate summit in Durban took what little hope we could from the talks.

Politically, there was some success in the form of a roadmap towards a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol. The fact that this new agreement to cut emissions, which will have legal force, is to include the United States, as well as the fast growing economies such as China, India and Brazil, is encouraging.

Sadly, it says a great deal about people's faith in the UN climate negotiations process that, after so many summits and empty pledges over the years, an agreement "in principle" to tackling climate change without much in the way of substance could still be hailed as an overall success.

But at least we do now have an international consensus on the need to cut emissions. The real tragedy is that our government will completely fail to rise to the challenge in the post-Durban, euro crisis landscape - and seize the opportunity to build a different kind of economy.

Drowning out calls for the coalition to deliver on its green pledges and invest in the low-carbon industries which can help lift us out of recession and create jobs, are those who frame the debate as a false choice between "going green" and keeping the economy on track.

And drowning out news about critical decisions made in Durban has been the coverage of the prime minister's euro-sceptic swaggering at the Brussels summit, where he singularly failed to defend the interests of the people of Britain who, like Europeans, are threatened by a financial crisis that could result in the loss of their homes, their life savings and livelihoods.

Preventing financial meltdown was, after all, the purpose of the summit. Instead, Britain used the occasion to defend the interests of a tiny minority - the 1% - that are the cause of the crisis, and that thrive on the back of taxpayer-backed subsidies in the City of London.

In answer to my question to the prime minister this week: "Why did he choose to conflate the interests of the nation, with the interests of the City of London?" no real explanation was offered.

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy appear hellbent on accelerating the crisis by intensifying austerity across the eurozone. This is likely to be explosive: in economic, political and social terms.

But for all their misguided approach to the consequences of the crisis - rising public debts - German and French politicians are clear about the causes: lax and loosely regulated financial centres like the Square Mile.

And in that analysis they are not wrong. The City of London is set, once again, to play a major causal role in the coming financial catastrophe.

The reason is not hard to find. This week we learned about the impotence of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in dealing with bankers at RBS that destroyed a bank, caused many to lose their jobs, and stripped British taxpayers of £45bn.

That's £45bn which could have been used to keep millions of young people in employment for a considerable time, to support renewable energy and energy efficiency measures to create jobs and help those in fuel poverty, or to pay more nurses and teachers.

Payday lenders have scuttled across the Atlantic to avoid the anti-usury laws of Canada and the United States, and found refuge in what the FT calls the "singularly attractive market" that is the City of London - where there are no usury laws.

According to Thomson Reuters, the City's "lax and loose regulation" allows companies, like the recently bankrupted MFGlobal, to gamble with money that belongs to clients and then " …to finance an enormous $6.2bn eurozone repo bet … a position more than five times the firm's book value, or net worth."

It is this kind of financial speculation that once again threatens not just Europe, but the global economy.

Occupy Wall St protesters at St. Paul's are exploring alternatives to this failed system of financial liberalisation. Even the Bank of England, in papers published this week, is considering a transformation away from deregulation towards a rules-based system, that constrains capital mobility and secures stability and "internal balance" for countries like Britain.

Our politicians should be debating these profoundly important issues. They should be leading us out of this global financial morass, towards a more just, stable and sustainable future.

But they are not. Across the political spectrum - from Ed Balls, to Ed Miliband, to Nick Clegg and David Cameron - we are governed by politicians that have all promoted and defended the current neo-liberal system: "light touch regulation".

They are all part of the design team that brought you credit crunch 1.0 and that is about to deliver credit crunch 2.0.

The fact that the government has confirmed it will not support a financial transactions tax such as the Robin Hood tax, or offer anything new to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, tells us all we need to know about the commitment to social justice amongst the cabinet's millionaire ministers.

So I want to appeal for a debate about how we transform our economic system away from today's failed economic order - designed to serve the interests of the City of London's 1% - and instead build a new one.

One that is socially just and ecologically sustainable. One that provides useful and meaningful employment for all and strengthens our communities. We can and must find a better way of bringing people closer together and building a better society, while operating within the limits of the ecosystem.

Why will my fellow politicians not engage in these debates? The system we have is catastrophically impaired, yet our leaders remain prostrate before neoliberalism - an ideology that has destroyed jobs and firms, ruined the life-chances of millions, while enriching crooks, thieves and oligarchs. I call on others to join me in calling on our political leaders to match progressive politics with meaningful action, and in taking a principled stand to challenge the deeply corrupt financial system that has plunged us into environmental and economic crisis.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party Leader
The article was first published in The Guardian

Green Party Leader Addresses Occupy LSX

A rousing speech by Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader to the Occupy London SX at St Paul's last week.

Caroline has set the pace amongst politicians in embracing the Occupy movement, which has taken the establishment politicians by surprise.

The movement offers hope, for all those people who have lost faith in contemporary politics, let's take this movement forward.

Green Party Leader Gives Support to Occupy London Stock Exchange

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the England and Wales Green party, will today attend the protest by ‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’, which has continued for the last three days, with hundreds of demonstrators camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, close to the heart of the City of London financial district.

Initially, the police had tried to disperse the crowd on Sunday, but were stopped by the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, canon chancellor of St Paul’s, who was happy to see the peaceful protest continue.

The Green party leader said, “As awareness increases of the injustice and unsustainability of the global economic system, more and more people are taking to the streets in opposition.

"The camp that has been set up a stone's throw from the London Stock Exchange is an opportunity to explore a different kind of future to the one the mainstream political parties have constructed.

"The authorities must now respect the right to peaceful protest.

"If they have any sense, they will also start to listen to the voices of those ordinary - and extraordinary people - who want to invest in a greener, fairer future rather than the stocks-and-shares house of sand that sustains corporate capitalism."

The demonstration was inspired by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement in the United States, and spread to many cities financial districts all around the world, with the same aim, of calling for an end to the disastrous corporate capitalist system which is ruining lives everywhere, and is the effective cause of the worldwide financial crisis.

The London group have released this statement about why they are protesting:

The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.

We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

We support the strike on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

The Party Conference Season Ends – Which Leader Impressed You Most?

David Cameron, Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party, gave a speech to his party’s conference on Wednesday which brought the political party conference season to an end. It was a surprisingly upbeat speech from Cameron, coming as it did on the day that growth figures for the UK economy were revised downwards, to a paltry 0.1% for the second quarter of 2011. He called on the British people to fight our way out of the dire economic situation we find ourselves in, saying we must have a ‘can do’ attitude. This is particularly hypocritical, given the way the government refuses themselves to do anything positive to aid economic recovery. As I reported here the only thing the government is going to do, other than making deep cuts in public services, is to print more money, which was swallowed up by the banks to improve their balance sheets, the last time this tactic was tried. No can do, seems to be the government economic policy, so why should the public listen to all this patriotic rhetorical nonsense?

The more I see of Cameron, the more I am minded of the Flashman character in the novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays. It is ironic that Flashman the public school bully, turned out to be a coward in the end, and surely people will see through Cameron, as the public relations man he is. Cutting benefits and public services for the most vulnerable in society, while throwing more money at the banks who caused our problems, and of whom he is scared to death of upsetting.

At least Ed Miliband, uninspiring a speaker though he is, talked about the need to change the current neo liberal economic consensus and strike a ‘new bargain’ in the way the capitalist system operates, particularly attacking the ‘asset strippers’ who wait vulture like to devour the carcases of the businesses and workers that their casino type behaviour have laid low. I think it is too early to say whether Labour really has changed under Miliband’s leadership, he said some interesting things, but he also praised Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government for curtailing worker’s rights and for selling council houses, without replacing this social housing stock. He needs to up his presentational game too, as he comes across as a bit nerdy. Unfortunately, these things matter in modern politics.

And so to the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg saw his party’s poll ratings soar in the wake of the leadership debates at the last general election, and this was mainly down to his performance in the debates. The problem for the Lib Dem’s is that many, probably more than half of the people who voted for them, are aghast that this led to a Tory government. Their conference was full of speeches by ministers telling everyone that it was the Lib Dem’s that were putting a brake on the Tory juggernaut, but they bear just as much responsibility for the damaging economic approach taken by the government, raising tuition fees for students, harassing benefit claimants and reducing workplace rights for employees. No amount spin changes this basic position.

The video above is Caroline Lucas, Green party leader, speaking to the Green party conference in September, and she has plenty to say to Lib Dem voters particularly. She has excellent presentational skills, charisma even, but compare the message to what you have heard from the other party leaders. She outlines a genuine alternative to the failed policies of the last thirty odd years, where people are put before profit, where principles are stuck to rather than abandoned for expediency, and where the good society can be become a reality. No contest really.

Green Party is the Real Opposition

This is an excerpt from Green party leader Caroline Lucas’ speech to the party’s spring conference in Cardiff. She lays into the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems as all pursuing the much the same policies. Thanks to Tower Hamlets Greens for the footage.

Green Party Leader on BBC Question Time

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party (England and Wales), was on the panel on BBC TV Question Time on Thursday 18 March. And what a refreshing change she brought to the show.

Being a bit of a politics junky, I hardly ever miss this programme, but am usually left shouting obscenities at the screen, as a panel of five right wing politicians and journalists pontificate on questions from what the BBC describes as a ‘balanced’ audience. To be fair, the audience tend to be the most interesting thing about Question Time, but being from Wythenshawe myself (where the show was filmed), I thought the audience was not really representative of the area. Where the BBC managed to find so many Tory supporters from around there, is beyond me.

Anyhow, we had the usual dreary line up of right wingers (a possible exception, in Charles Kennedy, ex leader of the Liberal Democrats), peddling the same old establishment nonsense that we have become accustomed to. Some weeks the non professional politician panellist is of a left persuasion, but this time we had the historian and broadcaster David Starkey, who is as reactionary as they come.

I was therefore pleased to see that Caroline struck a clear left wing tone, which is mostly absent from the professional politicians that appear, even though I suspect it has a fair amount of support amongst public at large. Talking about the British Airways industrial dispute, which the Tories on the panel were trying desperately to turn into a ‘unions call the shots with this Labour government’ argument, she had a good grasp of the facts of the dispute, and accused BA management of indulging in ‘macho’ tactics. She said Greens in the European Parliament had a ‘fantastic’ record of cooperation with unions, and that she couldn’t see why trade unions gave any funding to the Labour party, as its government constantly attacks union members, and privatises public services to the detriment of users and the employees alike.

The best bit for me though, was when David Starkey interrupted Caroline to say that greens are ‘just’ socialists with a green tinge, and she said, ‘Well, we have socialist principles’. I can’t remember when I last heard the S word on this show said with any positive intent. At last, the leader of a growing party of the left, has had the courage to speak up for trade union members and for the virtues of socialism on the BBC’s national flagship current affairs forum. What a pity that Caroline will not be invited to the General Election party leader debates next month on TV, when Labour, Tory and Lib Dem leaders will lecture us on the need to our tighten belts to pay for the banker’s bonuses, and how we have to pour more money down the drain fighting unwinnable wars in the Middle East.

You can watch the programme here…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rmvy6/Question_Time_Wythenshawe/

Green Leader Backs Postal Workers

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, today promised to “lobby at every level” in order to support striking postal workers and accused the Government of
effectively “dismantling” Royal Mail with its ongoing
programme of privatisation.

In a strongly worded letter to the Communication Workers Union - released this afternoon - Lucas, who is also the Green Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion, accused the Government of “ill-serving” workers and the UK public alike and criticised the Government for its “shameful privatisation of public services” which has led to “increased marginalisation and inequalities in terms of public access to services”.

The move comes as the row over today’s first postal strike escalated, with Gordon Brown calling upon the strikers and Royal Mail to “get around the table” to end the industrial dispute and the Tories attacking Labour for failing to deal with the crisis.Several Brighton and Hove Green Councillors will be joining the picket line in central Brighton tomorrow (Friday).

In the letter to CWU Secretary Bill Hayes, Caroline Lucas says: “In our view, Royal Mail workers and management have been on a collision course since the private sector has been forced on the service. By removing profitable parts of the business for the benefit of speculators and investors, the Government has created an environment in which the interests of the population of the UK as a whole have been ill-served, none more so than your members. It is shameful that a Labour Government should have played such a role in the privatisation of public services, and in a way which has increased marginalisation and inequalities in terms of access to services.”

“It is especially concerning that this Labour Government is not content with overseeing the dismantling of this vital service, but now appears to be colluding with Royal Mail management to undermine the rights of the Union and its representatives, and condoning the side-lining of the CWU in working towards the completion of the agreement from the last period of industrial action.”

The Green Party leader offered the CWU the Green’s full support in the coming days, stating that “…we hope that any action is swift and positive in its results. As we did two years ago, we will lobby at every level to support the CWU cause.”

Lucas used the letter of support to draw attention to the fact that in Brighton and Hove during previous industrial action: “Green Party members and our active Trade Union Group joined the CWU on the picket line, Green councillors promoted your case, including getting Brighton and Hove Council to support your action, and we publicly backed your position.”