Alan's Green Thoughts

Well, it is nearly the end of 2015, which so far in my life has been the most politically exciting, especially during the general election this May. It has also been a decisive crack in two party-politics in Britain (at least to some extent). My brief Christmas message is that we should always continue to hope and work to achieve positive things, no matter how much fear anyone tries to put into us; it is the best way to combatting adverse events and making sure all that is good prevails. Have a good Christmas, everyone, and Alan's Green Thoughts will return in the New Year :)

Hola! Yesterday's general election in Spain was quite sensational, particularly for the breakthrough by Podemos and its allies. Although Podemos did not achieve first place despite their strong performance in opinion polls, they managed to win a total of 69 seats, six of which I am proud to say will go to the Spanish Greens, Equo, who have been running joint lists with them. Given the dominance of the 'People's Party' and the 'Spanish Socialist Workers Party' during the current period of Spanish democracy (i.e. from 1975 onwards), this is a historic breakthrough. Despite still topping the poll, the People's Party led by Mariano Rajoy was the clear loser in these elections, losing 1/3 of its seats and more importantly its majority in the Spanish Congress. The Spanish Socialist Workers Party surprisingly only lost 20 seats, due to the rise of Podemos, but it still recorded its worst ever election result. Notably, the PP and PSOE only polled 50.73% between ...

Readers, the results from local by-elections this week (one on 15/12/15, the others on 17/12/15) featuring Green Party candidates were as follows: Spelthorne BC, Sheppertown Town: Conservative 858 (62.0%, +10.9%), UKIP 180 (13.0%, -7.5%), Liberal Democrats 154 (11.1%, -2.1%), Labour 123 (8.9%, -6.9%), Green 68 (4.9%). East Hertfordshire DC, Hertford Heath:  No Description (actually Conservative) 269 (52.0%, +6.7%), Lib Dem 101 (19.5%), UKIP 70 (13.5%, -1.8%), Lab 56 (10.8%, -1.7%), Green 21 (4.1%, -1.8%). Brent LBC, Kensal Green: Lab 931 (53.4%, -1.0%), Lib Dem 417 (23.9%, +8.6%), Con 255 (14.6%, +2.8%), Green 102 (5.9%, -12.7%), UKIP 38 (2.2%). Worcestershire CC, Stourport-on-Severn: Con 763 (28.7%, +9.2%), Independent Health Concern 725 (27.3%, +0.8%), Lab 581 (21.9%, -0.7%), UKIP 547 (20.6%, -6.9%), Green 42 (1.6%, -2.3%). This week was particularly notable due to two candidates from main parties standing as 'no description' due to failing to fill out their nominat...

Yesterday, the second round of regional elections in France concluded, the first round having concluded last week. These were based on new and larger merged regions, generally merged only for administrative purposes and largely without any respect for long-established regional and cultural identities, such as those of Alsace-Lorraine and Savoy which did not get regions of their own. It turned out to be a poor result for socialist and progressive forces in France, with the Parti Socialiste, led by the unpopular and disappointing Francois Hollande, only winning 5 regions on the mainland and finishing third in several despite allying with other left-wing parties. It consequently withdrew in the second round to keep out the dangerous, far-right Front National (FN) led infamously by Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen-a tactic which worked. The centre-right Republicans, still led by Nicolas Sarkozy, won 7 mainland regions although it was hard not to improve on ...

Readers, the results from by-elections of 10 December 2015 that featured Green Party candidates were as follows: Bournemouth UA, Kinson South: Conservative 520/509 (33.9%), Labour 471/371 (27.7%), UKIP 313 (20.6%), Bournemouth Independent Alliance 168/116 (9.4%), Liberal Democrat 61/60 (4.0%), Green 63/54 (3.9%), Patria 8 (0.5%). Harborough DC, Market Harborough Logan: Lib Dem 402 (45.2%, +9.0%), Con 303 (34.0%, -1.3%), Lab 82 (9.2%, -5.9%), Green 56 (6.3%, -7.1%), UKIP 47 (5.3%). The Kinson South by-election was a rather interesting one, given that it was not only a double by-election but caused by administrative error which affected the result. It proved to be quite a close contest, but the Labour councillor who had lost her seat in May 2015 in that ward did not quite succeed in returning to Bournemouth council. Meanwhile, we at least improved on our 2015 result, and we managed to beat UKIP over in Market Harborough despite being squeezed by the Liberal Democrats ther...

As a follow-on to my blog post of last year, entitled 'Our original ecologists: where are they now?' which you can find here: http://greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/political-history-our-original-british.html  , I have been looking into the history of Ecology Party candidates from 1983, the first time we stood more than 100 candidates in a general election. We also had much better coverage in Scotland and Wales than in 1979, and a candidate in Northern Ireland for the first time, giving us coverage in all four UK nations. In fact, we were the only minor political party to do so that year, and it confirmed our long-term status in British politics. In the blog post mentioned above, I have already mentioned some of the people who stood on our behalf in 1983 (having themselves stood in 1979 as well), which includes Jonathon Porritt, Guy Woodford, Gundula Dorey, Clive Lord, Alistair Laurence, David Whitebread, Howard Hoptrough, Don Grimes, Stephen Lambert, Brian Ki...

Much in the news recently outside of politics: the creeping danger of so-called 'safe spaces', a phenomenon that has spread across many US universities and is creeping into more prestigious UK universities, unfortunately, and spreading to areas it does not need to be in. These 'safe spaces', designed supposedly to protect people from oppression, can actually be dangerous to many. Here are some main reasons why: 1. They are out of touch with real life. The real world (and real life politics, for that matter) is not a safe space, and can never be made a safe space. In order to tackle the oppression and inequality that exists in our world, we need to face it, counter it, and speak out for a better world for everyone, not just for particular groups or individuals. Creating division using safe spaces is not a useful long-term solution to these problems and actually makes them worse in some cases. 2. They are overly intolerant of even minor mistakes or faux pas. As ...

Readers, the result at the Oldham West & Royton by-election came in relatively early for a Parliamentary by-election (1.15 am), and it was as follows: Sir Oink A Lot (real name Sean Alec Jones), Official Monster Raving Loony Party, 141 votes (0.5%). John Bickley, UKIP, 6487 (23.4%, +2.8%) Jane Brophy, Liberal Democrats, 1024 (3.7%, +0.0%) James Daley, Conservative, 2596 (9.4%, -9.6%) Simeon Hart, Green Party, 249 (0.9%, -1.0%) Jim McMahon, Labour, 17,209 (62.1%, +7.3%). All UKIP's campaigning effort, smearing of Labour, and taking advantage of the right-wing media's attacks of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, ultimately came to nothing. UKIP's campaign did have some effect, though-the Conservative vote share was halved and the Liberal Democrats failed to take back protest votes that had gone over to UKIP at the 2015 general election. In fact, Labour increased its majority in percentage terms despite not having significant numbers of Lib Dem or Green voters lef...

Yesterday, on the debate about whether Britain should stage air strikes on Syria or not (to counter the threat of the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as Daesh), MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of air strikes by 397 to 223. How did a margin of 174 on that vote emerge with a government majority of only 10, you ask? The key answer: 72 'opposition' MPs in Britain (66 Labour, 6 Liberal Democrat) ignored voters' pleas not to back air strikes and voted in favour of them, for various reasons. It has been reported that 15 Labour MPs were swayed by just one pro-air strike speech, from Hilary Benn, Labour MP for Leeds Central. Here are the 72 MPs in question: Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East) Ian Austin (Labour, Dudley North) Adrian Bailey (Labour, West Bromwich West) Kevin Barron (Labour, Rother Valley) Margaret Beckett (Labour, Derby South) Hilary Benn (Labour, Leeds Central) Luciana Berger (Labour, Liverpool Wavertree) Tom Blenkinsop (Labour, Middl...