Alan's Green Thoughts

Last night, I am pleased to say Caroline Lucas put on a great performance on Question Time- now BBC Question Time just needs to invite other Greens who would be good panellists, like Shahrar Ali (our male Deputy Leader), Amelia Womack (our female Deputy Leader), and our PPC for Cambridge, Rupert Read. At the same time, though, there were no Green Party candidates in any of yesterday's local by-elections. But two interesting things did happen nonetheless. Firstly, despite all the media hype, UKIP did not win the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner after all-even though the previous Labour incumbent, Shaun Wright, resigned over the scale of the child abuse scandal in Rotherham, and the police's failure to properly protect children. Labour's candidate, Alan Billings, won this election on the first round, even though his first preferences were only just over the 50 per cent mark (at 50.02%, no less!) Amazingly, turnout stayed rather the same-but then again, the

Readers, the BBC, aka the Biased Brainwashing Corporation, recently stated that Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives (a constituency where my fellow Greens plan to make substantial progress), is hoping that a deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party can be done for the next general election. However, there are three main reasons why the Green Party should never accept any such deal with the Liberal Democrats. First of all, despite claims made by supposedly 'green-minded' Liberal Democrats and 'Green Liberal Democrat' PPCs like Ros Kayes (LD PPC for Dorset West) and Jane Brophy (LD PPC for Altrincham & Sale West) , the Liberal Democrats have in practice actually harmed environmental causes whilst in coalition with the Conservatives. Only a few Liberal Democrat MPs voted in favour of a decarbonisation target, and Lib Dem MPs have consistently voted in favour of bills that endanger our environment, such as the Deregulation Bill and the Infr

Readers, it has been confirmed that Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected President of Brazil after the second round run-off. Even though she was not my favourite candidate, it is better that she was elected instead of the right-wing candidate Aecio Neves. It was a rather close runoff though, with Dilma defeating Aecio only by a margin of 51.4% to 48.6% in the second round. More importantly, there were reports that urban and working-class voters were much more inclined to support Dilma, whereas upper-class (and upper-middle class) voters in Brazil were more inclined to support Aecio. Support for Aecio was also stronger in rural areas outside the Amazon. Class lines and regional lines are prominent in politics elsewhere of course-but in Britain it is particularly pronounced. Polls have shown that despite the Conservatives' woes, they continue to lead among people whose socio-economic status would be stated by the National Readership Survey to be AB' (professional or managerial,

With the general election now just over half a year away, with the SNP in the process of selecting PPCs, and with PPC selections in Northern Irish constituencies well under way, it is time to look at predictions for nationalist parties in the UK (SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, Sinn Fein, and Mebyon Kernow) and their best shots at gains next year. Five best shots for the SNP (okay, on current polling, the SNP will win a lot more than 5 extra seats, but these seats should be no problem for them): 1. Gordon (odds of SNP win 8/13): A lot of seats in which the SNP are second place are held by Labour-Gordon is a clear exception and in fact has very poor prospects for Labour. There has been speculation recently that SNP leader, Alex Salmond, plans a return to Westminster, and Gordon includes Alex's Scottish Parliament seat of Aberdeenshire East (the Westminster equivalent was merged into Gordon in 1983). With its long-serving Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce retiring, an SNP gain looks like

Readers, I thought this would not be out until Tuesday 28th, but the statement of persons nominated for the Rochester & Strood by-election was released yesterday. Here are the 12 opponents our Green Party candidate, Clive Gregory, will have to face: Mike Barker (Independent, asked Respect MP George Galloway if he could stand as a Respect candidate, but he got no reply) Christopher Chalis (Independent, focused on small business issues) Hairy Knorm Davidson (OMRLP, has stood as OMRLP candidate in Faversham & Mid Kent in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010) Jayda Fransen (Britain First) Stephen Goldsborough (Independent, standing on Christian platform) Geoff Juby (Liberal Democrat, contested Medway in 2001 and 2005 and this seat in 2010, which replaced Medway following boundary changes) Naushabah Khan (Labour) Nick Long (People Before Profit, stood for Lewisham West in 2001 as an independent socialist and Lewisham West in 2005 for the Green Party) Dave Osborn (Patriotic

Readers, the results of yesterday's local by-elections featuring Green candidates were as follows: Durham UA, Burnopfield & Upton: Labour 446 (44.9%), Derwentside Independent 445 (44.8%), Conservative 83 (5.7%), Green 68 (4.7%). Durham UA, Evenwood: Lab 546 (38.2%, -7.8%), Con 396 (27.7%, -0.3%), UKIP 309 (21.6%, -4.45), Independent 108 (7.5%), Green 72 (5.0%) Gloucestershire CC, Mitcheldean: Con 959 (38.4%, +14.0%), UKIP 550 (22.0%,+2.7%), Independent 455 (18.2%), Lab 278 (11.1%, +0.8%), Lib Dem 150 (6.0%, +0.3%), Green 106 (4.2%, +0.4%). Forest of Dean DC, Newnham: Independent 321 (38.5%, -1.6%), Con 216 (25.9%, -4.9%), UKIP 102 (12.2%), Lab 100 (12.0%, -1.0%), Green 70 (8.4%, -7.7%), Lib Dem 25 (3.0%). Shepway DC, Folkestone Harvey West: Conservative 385 (36.4%, -18.8%), UKIP 293 (17.7%), Liberal Democrat 262 (24.8%, +3.4%), Green 61 (5.8%), Labour 57 (5.4%, -18.0%). I am very pleased that my good friend, Jasmine Heywood, managed to beat Labour, given that she is

Readers, the Infrastructure Bill and Deregulation Bill are quite advanced in terms of legislation stages in Parliament, but there is still time to defeat them both. Both threaten the integrity of our forests and our environment in general-even after a public outcry persuaded the Con-Dems to avoid selling off our forests to private developers and aristocrats. Why does the Infrastructure Bill threaten our forests and our land? The Infrastructure Bill, currently going through the House of Lords (where it started under former Lib Dem MP Susan Kramer, now Baroness Kramer) will essentially allow the government to sell of any public land, without consulting local authorities or local communities. Only lands owned by the Crown are exempt-unsurprisingly. Anything else, especially our forests, could be sold off to private developers who have no concern other than profiteering and speculating on the land. Why does the Deregulation Bill threaten our forests and our environment? The most

Yesterday afternoon, whilst I was working in Cambridge, a Lord Ashcroft poll revealed that the Green Party had pushed the Liberal Democrats into fifth place-a day I had been anticipating for months. Crucially, we Greens are now polling at 8% nationally-our joint-highest ever in a general election poll in the UK-whilst the Liberal Democrats are only polling 7% (they have pretty much reached their nadir, given the state of recent polls which never show the Lib Dems polling lower than 6-7%, the worst ratings for the Liberals/LDs in nearly 40 years). The Guardian also released a report of 12 seats we could either win outright or at least have enough potential to win in the future. Although I believe that Caroline Lucas will retain Brighton Pavilion on our behalf, if narrowly in a very tight fight with Labour's Purma Sen, and that we could win Norwich South via Lesley Grahame, we will need to do a lot of work to win the other 10 seats in question, especially when many of them will b

Yesterday, readers, I came down to London for the Britain Needs a Pay Rise March, which concluded with a good rally at Hyde Park. Thank you to everyone who took part, including the Green Party, RMT, CWU, NUT, NASUWT, Unite, UNISON, UK Uncut, and so many other organisations. With tens of thousands of us marching in London, as well as in Glasgow and Belfast, all mainstream media gave us coverage- even the Biased Brainwashing Corporation (as I like to call it these days, Private Eye style) put our march as one of its top three stories on its website. At the same time, there was an Occupy Democracy protest in Parliament Square, where the Metropolitan Police tried to unlawfully evict my colleagues from Parliament Square; however, byelaws exist to protect our right to peaceful protest in these spaces. Public squares are not private property, by the way-Westminster City Council is a public and elected body, not a company. The poor pay we are receiving, wherever we work, is symptomatic of

Readers, the results of local by-elections from yesterday that featured Green Party candidates were as follows: Bolton MBC, Harper Green: Labour 1176 (50.7%, -6.3%), UKIP 777 (33.5%, -9.3%), Conservative 282 (12.2%,+0.0%), Green 38 (1.6%, -2.2%), Liberal Democrat 28 (1.2%, -1.7%), Independent 19 (0.8%). Kingston-upon-Thames LBC, Tudor: Con 1062 (41.0%, +0.1%), Lib Dem 725 (28.0%, +10.3%), Lab 314 (12.1%, -2.1%), UKIP 269 (10.4%, -0.9%), Green 219 (8.5%, -7.5%) York UA, Westfield: Lib Dem 1804 (60.2%, +25.8%), Lab 588 (19.6%, -23.8%), UKIP 398 (13.3%), Con 113 (3.8%, -10.0%), Green 87 (2.9%, -5.5%), English Democrats 5 (0.2%) All in all, it has sadly not been a good night for my fellow Greens. I especially did not expect a significant swing from Green to Lib Dem in Kingston-upon-Thames, given that we fielded a Young Green, Ryan Coley, and that young people are much more likely to vote Green than Lib Dem (or UKIP) at the moment. The Greens are also still polling at 5-7% of the vo

Readers, you may be aware of the awful, ableist comments Conservative peer Lord Freud (real name David Freud) has made, claiming it is okay to pay people with disabilities only £2 per hour for work, less than a third of the legal minimum wage of £6.50 per hour. As a person with autism, whose job involves helping people with disabilities, I will say that it is absolutely not okay to underpay people just because they have a disability. Not only do we need a living wage, this living wage needs to apply to all who work-regardless of whether they have a disability or not. Also, so many people with a disability have given important contributions to British society, like former athelete and crossbench peer Tanni Grey-Thompson. Quite a few notable MPs past and present have had disabilities as well. Therefore, we are right to call for the sacking of Lord Freud as Welfare Minister, a role he has held for far too long. If you have not already signed a petition calling for David Freud'

Dear Readers, Today marks my first day in full-time paid work, and also the first anniversary of Alan's Green Thoughts :) Please keep reading and watching my blog- I would also like you to sign petitions to ensure the Green Party is included in election debates that will occur in the next few months. If UKIP can be included in general election debates on various media, then so can we. We have one MP, one Peer, 3 MEPs, 2 London Assembly members, and 172 councillors across UK local authorities, despite the lack of media coverage given to us. Regards, Alan.

Readers, I would like to thank those of you who took part in anti-TTIP actions across the UK today, whether you leafleted, canvassed, asked people to sign petitions, or otherwise. We need to do our best to defeat both TTIP and CETA (Comprehensive European Trade Agreement) both of which are corporate power-grabs which will undermine our standards, our democratic rights, and our environmental protections if they are ever passed. I also ask you to only vote for parties which oppose such agreements and instead call for fair trade-which means the Green Party since the other four largest UK political parties (Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, and UKIP) support such agreements and the neoliberal capitalist model in general. Meanwhile over in Ireland, two Dail by-elections yesterday showed a collective rejection of the establishment there (that is Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour). The most decisive of these was Dublin South West, where the Socialist Party of Ireland, standing under the An

Readers, the results of the by-elections from Clacton, and Heywood and Middleton, were as follows (in case you did not stay up long enough to see them live early this morning): Clacton by-election, 9/10/14: Douglas Carswell, UKIP: 21,113 (59.7% from standing start) Andrew Graham, Liberal Democrats: 483 (1.3%, -11.6%) Alan 'Howling Laud' Hope, Monster Raving Loony Party, 127 (0.4%) Charlotte Rose, Independent, 56 (0.2%) Bruce Sizer, Independent, 205 (0.6%) Chris Southall, Green Party: 688 (1.9%, +0.7%) Giles Watling, Conservative: 8,709 (24.6%, -28.4%) Tim Young, Labour: 3,957 (11.4%, -13.8%). Heywood & Middleton by-election, 9/10/14: John Bickley, UKIP: 11,016 (38.7%, +36.1%) Ian Gartside, Conservative: 3,496 (12.3%, -14.8%) Abi Jackson, Green Party: 870 (3.1%) Liz McInnes, Labour: 11,633 (40.9%, +0.8%) Anthony Smith, Liberal Democrats: 1,457 (5.1%, -17.6%) As unfortunately predicted, it was the case of the purple tide crashing through, esp

Tomorrow, voters in the constituencies of Clacton and Heywood & Middleton will go to the polls, and there has been a lot of speculation, mainly as to how much Douglas Carswell will win Clacton by under his new colours and how much UKIP will be able to stall Labour's recovery in Heywood & Middleton. Over the last few decades, there have been many, many parliamentary by-elections in the UK, featuring all sorts of candidates in addition to the mainstream candidates of Labour, Liberal/SDP/Lib Dem, and Conservative. There have been many cases of swings which are almost always unachievable in general elections anywhere. And there have been quite a few close finishes in British by-elections, and British general elections, where candidates missed out by a few hundred votes. Here are some of my favourite close runs from British electoral history-people who never quite made it to the House of Commons: Roger Pincham: Once Liberal Party treasurer, Roger contested Leominster five

Yesterday, Brazil held its general election, and of more noteworthiness, its presidential election. It appears so far that as predicted, incumbent Dilma Rousseff of the so-called 'Workers' Party' (which is not really left-wing anymore) has been re-elected President of Brazil, in spite of a strong challenge from Marina da Silva and Dilma's failure to properly tackle serious economic and social inequalities in large cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. Since the departure of the famous Luiz Inacio da Silva ('Lula' to Brazilians) as President, the Workers' Party of Brazil has been going downhill somewhat, and has adopted a more centrist stance (which is considerably better than either of the major parties in the USA, admittedly) economically. This allowed Marina da Silva to win as much as 22% in the first round of the presidential election, but it was not enough to make it to the runoff, where Dilma faces Aecio Neves, presidential candidate of Brazi

Readers, in case you missed them, the results from the local by-elections of yesterday which featured Green Party candidates were as follows: Haringey LBC, Woodside: Labour 1331 (56.3%,-0.5%), Liberal Democrat 482 (20.4%,+8.6%), Green 191 (8.1%,-3.4%), UKIP 161 (6.8%,-0.5%), Conservative 140 (5.9%,-1.8%), TUSC 35 (1.5%,-1.3%), Independent G 23 (1.0%,-0.7%). Cumbria CC, Windermere: Lib Dem 1061 (51.6%), Con 810 (39.4%), Independent 123 (6.0%, Green 61 (3.0%). South Lakeland DC, Windermere Town: Lib Dem 416 (64%), Con 184 (28.3%), Green 50(7.7%). South Tyneside MBC, Westoe: UKIP 676 (40.9%), Lab 625 (37.9%), Con 219 (13.3%), Green 90 (5.4%), Lib Dem 41 (2.5%). I was hoping within Windermere that the absence of a Labour candidate would boost the Green vote in that area-however, unlike most of the country, the Liberal Democrats remain popular in the picturesque South Lakeland District, so I was left disappointed. Also, unusually for an area with very little Labour support, there

In the Guardian yesterday, writer Paul Verheaghe stated, correctly, that 'neoliberalism brings out the worst in people'. And he had a good point, as well. As I graduated in psychology, I think we need to explore this fully so that not only can we see the problem, but also help everyone counter it. Almost always, evil has to be seen in order to be exposed and expunged. The ideology of neoliberal capitalism has been rather successful at fooling people around the world, even though it has been exposed as a failure many times, for one reason: the neoliberal culture, and its appendages (particularly the media) has exploited flaws in human psychology and corrupted it. UKIP, despite being even more pro-neoliberal and right-wing than the three major parties, has been able to cast itself as an 'alternative' party well to a significant proportion of the electorate (even though we Greens can see UKIP for what it really is, as can many other progressive voters and thinkers),