“We don’t agree with saving the planet” is a difficult position to argue, isn’t it?
Unless you are a presidential candidate in Brazil that wants to flog the Amazon rainforest off to the highest bidder
Ha, fair point. Though I'd actually say the planet will be absolutely fine, though we can destroy ourselves.
But hopefully you can see my argument here - that people do listen to what the Greens are saying, and don't want to vote for them. Occam's Razor...
I understand what you are saying but I think it goes back to the points we were making earlier. Charisma and funding
Let’s face it UKIP were only really a 1 policy party. As I can’t really imagine many would support a policy of compulsory inspectiona of teenage Muslim girls’ gentians looking for FGM!
The Greens need a message. A clear one that also doesn’t sound as if they are preaching.
Just to be clear, I have never voted Green in my life(35yr old) I just find this conversation and thread interesting
Making big strides in Germany and now polling nationally as the second biggest party. Did well in Belgium recently as well.
Thoughts on the recent rise. Anyone have any idea on what they stand for given there is zero coverage here on them? :)
Rough guide. Socially liberal. Economically quite centrist with an environmental theme. They also are in coalition government in several regions.
There is also a reasonable chance that the SPD will pull out of the Federal Govt Coalition early next year which will probably spark new elections.
No, no totally get it's just a conversation, don't worry.
A work colleague of mine at the last election said she thought she was going to vote Green (in despair at the options available, to be fair - like most of us), and I remember saying to her that given she works in travel and tourism that might not be the best idea given their policies!
But if I'm honest, I would look at the Greens as being equally a one policy party. In both their case and UKIP's, everything stems from the central issue, it's just that in the former example, it chimed with a significant part of the population. What we can't really know is how many of their votes are protest ones, though as I say, they've won in Brighton (not so surprising). It's why raw votes in a General Election are misleading, I've voted for so many different parties safe in the knowledge that absolutely none of them have a hope in hell of unseating the MP.
Maybe a policy of significantly subsidising electric cars could be a start. I’d buy an electric car when my lease runs out if they were affordable. Maybe a policy around AI to stop people travelling to work and clogging up the roads(although they will need to look into the unemployment issue). Car pooling*, I had the misfortune of driving on the M25 in the summer and the vast majority of cars had one person in. Encourage people to work from home where possible as I’m sure a lot of people who work in town do not need to be there 5 days per week - there’s a few to be getting on with
*que the radio phone ins of people saying they don’t want to be forced into cars with potential rapists
Subsidy is up to £3,500 - it's pretty generous. Of course, with those there are serious question marks over how green that really is. The energy has to come from somewhere.
Otherwise, sure, but encouragement is one thing, compulsion is another.
When I say encourage, I don’t mean ask nicely. I mean we make it part of culture like smoking is now seen as anti-social where once seen as cool. Let’s try and make car pooling and working from home where possible part of culture
Is the latter not increasing substantially already? For the former, I'm not sure how you can do that practically without being fundamentally illiberal.