Comments on: Grilling the Green Party England and Wales leadership candidates (pt.1 – winning new voters)

By: A few media hits for the leadership candidates « Green Party Elections 2012

A few media hits for the leadership candidates « Green Party Elections 2012 — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:44:59 +0000

[...] a happier note there’s also an interesting set of two interviews at Better Nation on where will our next million votes come from and how many seats should the party target in [...]

By: Stephen Gray

Stephen Gray — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:51:48 +0000

Michael, have a re-read of Natalie’s answer – which explains why targeting the Lib Dem vote can’t be our main strategy. Of course ee will be going after the Lib Dem vote in the few places where it still exists in the seats we are targetting. But as a national strategy, taking the Lib Dem vote simply isn’t enough. In large parts of the country, our best strategy for winning seats is actually targeting Labour voters. In my city (Coventry), the Lib Dem vote is virtually nonexistent. As a left-wing party (and I use the term because our policies are clearly left of centre, not for self-adulation) we have no choice but to go after the Labour vote.

However, you probably have a point that our rhetoric leans a bit more towards the traditional left than towards the liberal left. Perhaps we need to start talking up our progressive and modern innovative policies more than we have been doing.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:03:47 +0000

I’m very disappointed in the general unwillingness to target the LibDem vote. LibDem voters were completely let down, many now facing a complete collapse of trust in British politics. In my opinion the Green party should stand up to the responsibility of giving them a new political home by becoming a true force of progressivisism and modern innovative approaches to British politics, rather than reverting to the same old cliché rhetoric of trade unions being the world’s salvation and a pretentious self-adulation as a “left-wing” party – we’ve heard too many times. Policy-wise, I agree with the Green Party on many levels, but this self-labelling and rhetoric really puts me off joining. How is this ideological jibber jabber going to appeal to pragmatic, ideologically unattached young voters? Instead of feeling up George Galloway, personally I would like to see the Greens allying itself with the liberal left to become a radical, progressive and smart party for Britain’s future rather than being stuck in semi-syndicalist tradition.

By: Natalie Bennett

Natalie Bennett — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:04:23 +0000

I’ve just written a bit more about the “West Midlands model”, although as Stephen said, we don’t want to give it all away in public…
http://www.natalie4leader.org/?p=572

By: So what is the West Midlands model? | Natalie For Leader

So what is the West Midlands model? | Natalie For Leader — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:00:14 +0000

[...] just been asked “what is it”, and thought it was worth explaining further the broad framework. (It [...]

By: Natalie Bennett

Natalie Bennett — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 08:41:27 +0000

Phil – as James has said, we can win under first past the post, as Caroline Lucas and a slew of councillors demonstrate, but it is tough.

On PR, we can campaign for it, we can point out the failure of the current system, particularly as reflected in low voter turnout; it’s important we keep talking about it.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:04:21 +0000

For what it’s worth I find it an interesting read. Whilst I disagree with the comment that the greens are the most left wing party in Scotland, they clearly are the most left wing in the parliament and as a lefty SSP supporter I am interested in their progress and strategy. So keep it up, i’ll be reading!

By: James

James — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:54:18 +0000

It’s tough but not impossible – the English party in particular is pretty good at targeting for local elections under FPTP.

By: Phil Hunt

Phil Hunt — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:51:45 +0000

Apart from European elections, it’s hard for GPEW to get anywhere because of the voting system. What should/would/could GPEW do to bring PR to Westminster and E&W local government?

By: James

James — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 17:10:31 +0000

I don’t normally approve comments debating choice of topics, because they’re a profound failure to understand what blogging is about: it’s writing about whatever the author is interested in. If you don’t find it interesting, you’re free not to read it or indeed to get your own blog and pick your own topics.

However, I’ve made an arbitrary exception to that for this one, as follows. It’s here because a) I’m interested, b) I have a share in this site so that’s enough, c) I don’t think Greens and Green politics get the coverage they deserve from mainstream media, and d) politics shouldn’t always be who’s up, who’s down: it’s good to consider policy and strategy. If you got to the end you’ll notice there’s a few more posts like this coming. Please ignore them, just as you should probably have ignored this one.