Rupert's Read

  Foreign Secretary William Hague - a prominent member of the 'Friends of Israel' organisation - has issued a statement deploring the loss of life. But that 'evenhandedness' just isn't good enough. All of those killed have been civilians engaged in a humanitarian task; and they have been killed by Israeli troops operating outside the law, piratically, in international waters. We in the Green Party condemn their actions; and, if our government fails to issue a similar condemnation, then we will be left with no alternative but to conclude that this new government is soft on Israel, and is not serious about opposing internationally illegal violence, extra-judicial murder and war.  Also: Caroline Lucas MP, the Greens Leader, has condemned Israel's attack on peace activists: If you are a Liberal Democrat contrast this with the silence of your ...

ALL East Anglia's MPs are part of the governing coalition. Every single MP in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex is either LibDem or Tory.  As the cuts get underway, isn't it time to have some opposition around here? Genuine opposition to the cuts, from a Party that (unlike Labour) hasn't caused the problem, and has a real programme (the Green New Deal) designed to obviate the need for most of the cuts proposed... That's where we come in... Get in touch with us, if you'd like to get involved: www.greenparty.org.uk (Or get in touch with me direct.) In Norwich South, for instance, I bet that many LibDem voters were surprised when our new LibDem MP helped usher David Cameron into Downing Street. Many Norwich LibDem voters are feeling confused by this- the Lib Dems really have changed for the worse since the days of Paddy Ashdown (back before I left their Party ;-).

(First published at http://liberalconspiracy.org ) The Miliband brothers both claim to be ‘green-leaning’ candidates, and this is part of what helps them to appear modern and progressive. But the reality, given their actions when leading various government departments, is that their rhetoric masks a lot of inaction. 1. That effort is being successfully conducted if emissions are going down. But most people don’t realise that our Co2 emissions are still going up. A key reason is that the Milibands, David and DEFRA and Ed at DECC, have repeatedly suggested that Britain’s CO2 emissions are going down. 2. David Miliband has often claimed that the UK has achieved major cuts in greenhouse gases since 1990. He sometimes says Britain is on course to achieve 25% reductions in CO2 emissions by 2012. But the figures that Miliband and his successors at DEFRA/DECC (including most notably Ed) are using leave out embodied energy, the inclusion of which would make it very clear that this cannot be s...

  The Green Party position on Europe is not remotely 'Euro-sceptical'. We are an internationalist and pro-European Party. The European Green Party is the closest thing that there is to a genuine pan-European political Party (a new 'International', one might say): the Green MEPs vote together much more often that other groups in the Euro-Parl.   What the Green Party in this country is is deeply critical of existing European institutions, which are profoundly undemocratic, overly centrist, and deeply prejudiced toward big business. This is why we opposed the Lisbon Treaty. Any self-respecting leftwing / radical Party would take a similar view - which is why New Labour did not, presumably...

By Rupert Read Last Saturday, I was in London, taking part in a big demonstration in Trafalgar Square in favour of changing on antiquated voting system in this country. Alongside Libdems, Greens, one or two Conservatives and UKIP-ites, and many people belong to no political party, I marched with Billy Bragg to where the Conservatives and LibDems were talking about a possible coalition. We chanted "No deal without PR [proportional representation]", until eventually Nick Clegg felt obliged to come out and address us. I stood a few yards away from him, as he spoke with us and (sometimes) we chanted back friendlily to him. It felt like democracy alive. Now, a week later (how long a week can be in politics!), Nick Clegg is actually Deputy Prime Minister, in a coalition with the Conservatives. And all the intervening worries about how we might end up with 'an unelected Prime Minister' (if we had ended up with Brown's successor as Labour Leader, as Prime M...

Its welcome news that the new government is abandoning plans for a 3rd runway at Heathrow. But the fundamental issue is unaddressed. The neoliberals gathered around the Cabinet table (They're neoliberals to a man - even Huhne is basically a downtheline Orange-Booker) want nothing more than to restart economic growth. (Of course, their mad rush to cut cut cut may create a recession or even a (disastrous) Depression for a while, rather than, as Greens wish to do, stabilising the economy; but sooner or later, they will probably succeed in starting up the conveyor belt of 'economic growth' once more.)  Their economic desires run exactly counter to their environmental desires. This is one of the key reasons why I quite the LibDems, and joined the Greens, a decade ago. This governing coalition has no more clue than Labour does about the fundamental constraint: that you can't keep growing the cake, because the ingredients are running out, and the bins are all ov...

  Greens criticise Conservative-LibDem deal over public sector cuts and voting reform: Senior figures in the Green Party in the East of England are saying today that the LibDems have betrayed the people who voted for them at last week's General Election with the deal they have struck with the Conservatives for a new coalition Government. Among what it bad with the agreement that they have struck: The LibDems have agreed to Conservative plans to start making public sector cuts during this financial year and the LibDems have failed to get an agreement for the introduction of a proportional voting system. (1) Adrian Ramsay (Green Party Deputy Leader nationally, and also a Councillor in Norwich) commented: "There are real risks to cutting back on public spending while the economy is still recovering from recession - which is presumably why the LibDems didn't support making cut backs this year in their manifesto. I'm very concerned that the LibDems...

So: At a time of unprecedented market failure (financial, environmental), we have a government of deregulators. At a time when the state has saved the day (for now) financially, and is a key part of our only hope environmentally, we have a government of 'savage' cutters. At a time when we supposedly live in a classless societies, we have a government of toffs who believe that they were 'born to rule' ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7664461/David-Cameron-born-to-be-prime-minister.html ). And at a time when proportional representation was at last within reach, all we are going to be offered is the dismal half-way house of AV. Millions voted to keep the Tories out - and the LibDems have voted them in. Voters won't forget that betrayal. And Labour let this happen, shamefully, by abandoning the chance of a 'progressive alliance'. They could have stopped the Tories, as I've been arguing on this blog these past several days - they h...

The awful threat looming if we do not get a #progressivemajority government is that of a snap election in which Tory cash - and #Cashcroft in particular - will overwhelm us all, all the Parties of the green/left/centre. For: we'll be bust, unlike the Party of the rich. If there is to be a 'rainbow alliance' of some kind, then it needs to get some positive response from Labour SOON. Why are Labour being so hostile about the smaller Parties at present? ( http://bit.ly/96lrX6 ) They need to get over that, and fast.   The government will (quite rightly) have no security not to be voted out if it has made no effort whatsoever to respond to the concerns of the SNP ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8674000/8674198.stm   ), Plaid, Greens, etc. As Riddell pointed out on Today this morning, you have to have some kind of Agreement (I think Riddell over-estimates how difficult it would be; he fails to take into account the strong anti-Tory sentiment that woul...

"I think we would rule out a formal coalition, but we're very interested in talking about ways we might co-operate ." And on her victory in Brighton Pavillion: "It's only one seat - but it's the first seat. It was only 24 years between the first Labour MP and the first Labour government." These quotes are from a New Statesman piece (which spins the first one very misleadingly), to appear soon.

One terrible danger of a Tory government is a snap election this autumn (in which the Tories' big cash-bank - and Cashcroft himself - would swamp the rest of us, who are all out of cash after this election-campaign). A rainbow progressive-majority government could prevent this hazard. This is a key reason for Labour, the LibDems, the Nats and the Greens to welcome the idea. Furthermore, if the LibDems go in with the Tories, they will have to get a form of PR which is kind to small Parties - because they may well BE a small Party, after propping up the Tories... But the Tories will not yield up genuine PR that is kind to small Parties (such as AMS, or AV-Plus with a decent top-up or STV with reasonably large constituencies). But a rainbow coalition would. I.e.: There are strong practical reasons why all of us in the #progressivemajority Parties should favour this idea. (For more, see my earlier post: http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-green-party-can-help-stop-...

Because Cameron HAS failed drastically to get his Party what he promised: a majority, if they went down his semi-Blairite road. They have squandered an election-winning lead in the polls, despite an epochal economic and political crisis. Their campaign was utterly inept, in so many ways, as people have pointed out in so many ways in so many places (e.g. their posters had ALL the wrong messages - "I'll cut [the NHS]" "I've never voted Tory", etc etc). And Cameron was awful in the debates - he lost the first and third to Brown and the second to Clegg, and this is only not seen because of the right-wing press in this country, which were desperate to try to deliver a majority for him, and are now understandably disappointed that he still managed to screw it up. SO: It is unsurprising that the Tory true-believers are wondering why they squandered their homophobia and their climate-denial and their class warfare etc. just so that they could end up kiss...

I want to believe in a " progressive majority ". I really do. If we take both Labour and the Lib Dems as 'progressive', then there is a clear progressive majority in terms of votes, and also a slender progressive majority in terms of seats – provided you include additionally most or all of the SNP, the SDLP, Plaid Cymru, the Alliance Party and (of course) the Green Party. All these parties combined would deliver 329 seats. But there are very serious problems. One is that both Labour and the Lib Dems are wounded. Labour, for getting only 150,000 more votes than Michael Foot; the Lib Dems for losing five seats and not getting the vote-surge that everyone was expecting. This makes it hard to feel any momentum behind the possibility of a Lib/Lab or a broader rainbow 'coalition' (and it is the latter, with the immense complexities it would bring, that would be required in order to marshal an actual majority). Another large problem is the political i...

I believe that, now that we have broken the Westminster barrier, anything is possible for the Green Party. It all depends on how people now react, what people now choose to do and to hope for. If enough people start joining us, then we could be a phenomenon in the 21st century to start to rival Labour and its huge growth in the 20th. It is _not_ wishful thinking, but hope-full thinking, that can spread and grow, and that might yet save our endangered civilisation, to remark that there is now suddenly a huge potentially-self-fulfilling political phenomenon beginning. That's the remarkable thing about human being - that it can make possible things that seem impossible, through individual and collective belief in them. This election, having turned into a classic two-Party squeeze (it came down to whether one hated the Tories or Labour more, as a potential Party of government; earlier in the election campaign, it was a novel phenomenon, a 3-Party-squeeze, which already was...

  [I have sent this Open Letter to those LibDem MPs who I know personally. Why not do the same?]    I know that you will be very busy right now. Indeed, it is because of the cause of that busy-ness that I am writing today.  I'm writing to ask that you use your influence to try to help ensure that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for real electoral reform is not lost. From my teenage years, as part of the Fair Votes campaign and petition, through all my years in the LibDems, and (then) in the Green Party, I, like you, have been a consistent and passionate advocate of PR surrounded by other such advocates. Whether you make a deal with the Tories, or (as I would hope and prefer) a 'progressive majority' deal with Labour and the other Parties of the centre-Left at Westminster (including the Greens), I would urge you to insist upon proportional representation - on AMS, STV, or a proportional form of AV-plus - as part of that deal. The number of ...

(First published in www.opendemocracy.net ) It's been a bizarre and confusing election that defied all predictions. But what does it mean for the our politics and democracy? OK will be publishing reactions to the result from party campaigners. Here Rupert Read welcomes the Greens' first MP. Now is not the time for soundbites, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder, so I can’t help it. A century ago, the Labour Party won its first seats in Westminster. Just a generation later, it formed its first government. And another generation later, it formed perhaps the greatest government that this country has ever had, the 1945 Labour government. Now the torch has been passed. The first Green Party MP. Now, we’ll be similarly unstoppable, I believe. (And the time-scale needs to be shorter. The planet can’t wait 50 years.) Here in Norwich South, where I’m writing from, we have achieved a phenomenal result. In 2005, we got just 7.5% of the vote. The surge in our vote this time is on...

IT WAS THE SUN WOT HUNG IT   It seems an age ago now that Murdoch played his hand, having decided in which direction he felt the prevailing wind was blowing, and declared that the Sun would be backing the Tories in the General Election.   The Australian with the American citizenship doesn't like to be on the losing side in a UK election, see.   He likes to think he holds sway over the British electorate.   No doubt he's in his office right now trying to figure out how he can spin 'IT WAS THE SUN WOT HUNG IT'.   Pull the other one mate.   You're quite possibly 'done' in this country.   The one result that really screws you is being shouted from the roof-tops; the two-party system that has worked so well for you is now consigned to history.   No more Thatchers, no more Blairs... not in Britain 's balanced-Parliament / electorally reformed future.   I like to think that he had a hand in his own downfall.   The elector...

So, what happened in Norwich South? I confess, I was gobsmacked by the result. I didn't expect that we would win - but I didn't expect that the LibDems would win, either. How come the LibDems won in Norwich South, while they gained hardly anywhere else, and had a shockingly bad night overall, losing seats in total, contrary to everyone's expectations? I knew that we were losing some votes in our 'heartlands' to the LibDems, due to people voting 'tactically'; but I thought that we were more than making up for those with votes that we were winning off Labour, in its heartlands. And we did . I was right about that. And there was the clue. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. The BBC's graph of what happened to the four Parties's results in Norwich South told the story. The Tories and LibDems flatlined; in fact, the LibDem percentage actually dropped slightly! But the Labour percentage dropped catastrophically - by almost precise...

Tactical voting isn't really good enough. What's needed now is STRATEGIC voting. And the centre-piece of the strategy surely has to be: build a climate-friendly polity, a more egalitarian society, over the medium- and long-term, by boosting the only Party that is really serious on ecology and on social justice: the Greens.

Voting Green in Norwich South is voting with your heart - for what you believe in, for what will _really_ make a difference - AND voting with your head - for the Party on the rise, rather than (in the case of the LibDems) crashing and burning. Did you know that the LibDems in Norwich have gone from having 30 City Council seats to just 6? Looking at the posters around the city makes it clear that the Greens are the Party on the up here.

Seen the bit at the bottom, here? http://enemiesofreason.co.uk/2010/05/04/the-search-for-a-banana-skin/ This is really shocking. Tingle scored UKIP's highest ever vote for Westminster, last year. This is the kind of person that one is voting for, if one votes UKIP. This is the kind of person their MEPs are, and the kind of person their MPs would be if (God forbid) they were ever to get any elected. Virtually everything he says is either a disgrace or factually-false. He's condemned by his own words as a climate-denying, xenophobic, anti-poor, war-mongering, scare-mongering bigot (Yes, the word this time is well-deserved). Jess Goldfinch, my successor as the Green Party candidate in Norwich North, comes out of the survey very very well by comparison, obviously! Having written these things, frankly, Tingle should stand down. There is no place in a civilised society for such a candidate for public office. Here's the way the story has entered the media so far:...

[ For the digested version, go to: http://www.totalpolitics.com/blogs/index.php/2010/05/04/blogger-profile-rupert-read  Here's the full version of TP's interview with me: ]   Why did you start blogging?   I don't think there was ever a question of whether or not I would start blogging...I was just waiting for the blogosphere to be invented!    I've been passionate about politics my whole life and I see blogging as another vital way to reach people and to spread and (in the process) improve my Green philosophy. The blogosphere (at its best) encourages and nurtures intelligent debate, the exchange of views that is necessary if we are to acknowledge (never mind address) the enormous ecological and social challenges we face. I like blogging best when it results in a wiki-like process of EVERYONE, including the original author, learning from it.     How would you describe your blog?   Green minded-news, comment, insight a...

My old debating-sparring-partner from Oxford, Michael Gove, said an hour ago on TODAY that local authorities need new powers in order to be able to act firmly on licensing matters, so that local people can get pubs regulated or closed down if they (the pubs) are too noisy, etc. . This is not true. The powers that the licensing act passed by this government has given us in local authorities in order for us to be able to do this are very extensive; and they have already been used on several occasions in Norfolk. It appears that Michael has not been able to come up with a good example of how his 'big society' would actually make a difference.