The main 3 Parties barely disagree with each other any more, in this country. We live in a time when the prevailing economic system is consuming the 'ecosystem services' that facilitate it in the 1st place, and when that economic system has just comprehensively failed in its own terms and shown (literally) the bankruptcy of its own economics. It would be a real tragedy and indeed an act of collective madness at such a time to go from Tweedledum to Tweedledee, especially when the Tweedledee in question (the Conservative Party) has shown even less awareness than Tweedledum (New Labour) of the meaning of this massive visible economic failure and failure of economics, the financial meltdown. (Inheritance tax cut anyone, now?)
No. Now is a time for ideology. A time for ecologism; a time for investment (in a Green New Deal), not cuts; a time to redefine 'progressive' as meaning movement in the direction of equality. Now is the time to break the 3-Party consensus.
A dream only? No; for here is an interesting straw in the wind: at the most recent byelection, in Norwich North, the only Parties to gain votes, and substantially so, were the Green Party (for which I was the candidate) and UKIP. Two avowedly ideological Parties, both (in deeply different ways) deeply inimical to the unsustainable status quo. Neither the LibDems (usually byelection maestros) nor even the Conservatives (supposedly the Government-in-waiting) were able to gain voters from Labour's dismal situation and showing. The electorate are actually deeply fed up with the corruptly 'pragmatic' political class, and the coming General Election will surely see the largest-ever vote against the failed 3-Party consensus. The real secret of British politics then is that ideology is on the march again, and that the Green Party and UKIP (and possibly also others less savoury) will surely reap what the dying old politics has sown, within the coming year.
No. Now is a time for ideology. A time for ecologism; a time for investment (in a Green New Deal), not cuts; a time to redefine 'progressive' as meaning movement in the direction of equality. Now is the time to break the 3-Party consensus.
A dream only? No; for here is an interesting straw in the wind: at the most recent byelection, in Norwich North, the only Parties to gain votes, and substantially so, were the Green Party (for which I was the candidate) and UKIP. Two avowedly ideological Parties, both (in deeply different ways) deeply inimical to the unsustainable status quo. Neither the LibDems (usually byelection maestros) nor even the Conservatives (supposedly the Government-in-waiting) were able to gain voters from Labour's dismal situation and showing. The electorate are actually deeply fed up with the corruptly 'pragmatic' political class, and the coming General Election will surely see the largest-ever vote against the failed 3-Party consensus. The real secret of British politics then is that ideology is on the march again, and that the Green Party and UKIP (and possibly also others less savoury) will surely reap what the dying old politics has sown, within the coming year.
Let's make sure that it's the Green Party, and not the others, who prosper from this situation.
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