2015 General Election - Looking Back & Looking Forward.

What went wrong in the 2015 General Election? Well pretty much everything.

A Tory Government pursuing a right wing agenda, full of 'near as makes no difference' climate change deniers elected on 37% of the vote with 100% of the power over our lives. They were elected on the basis of fear. Fear of Labour, fear of the SNP, fear of immigants, fear of economic collapse.

A Labour Party that believes that it failed because it wasn't right wing enough! Labour are falling in line with the Tory welfare and big business orientated agenda. Their Leadership candidates are now falling over themselves to be even more right wing as if that was the answer to all their /our problems. This is tragic to watch, even for a non- Labour supporter like me. People who genuinely believe in social justice are being dragged along by a leadership so delusional that you can see 5 years hence that they will fail to win on the basis that they are 'Tory Lite' as opposed to the truly offensive genuine article.

What went wrong in 2015? Ultimately it was the lack of any Party being able to articulate a genuinely inspiring vision of a positive future that enough people would buy into. Negativity ruled. Fear ruled. Without a compelling vision, without a robust distinctive agenda, a stumble off a platform, fear of the SNP or a bacon sandwich eaten awkwardly could and did make all the difference. Hell yes! The trivial can be ignored, set aside, even laughed at, if the vision is good and people can be offered a secure and better future.

There are silver linings. The Lib Dems were all but decimated and deservedly so. I did wonder for a while whether anyone would really buy into the 'we were a steadying influence on the evil Tories' garbage. Any objective commentator can see this was a more a right wing Government than even Margaret Thatcher in her heyday. The Lib Dems utterly wasted the opportunity they had. No reform of the House of Lords, no Proportional Representation, an abysmal and shameful record on addressing Climate Change and propping up the most appalling attacks on social welfare policies that the country has ever seen. If anything they had 8 too many MPs elected. UKIP  went backwards and are left with 1 MP who seems pretty disaffected from the much more unpleasant Farage leadership of the Party. Come 2017, and the result one way or the other of the referendum, that might be the end of UKIP who knows. I would even hazard a guess that UKIP's association with a NO vote in the referendum may work against them.In the same way that the Lib Dems association with the YES vote in the AV refendum had a negative effect on that result.

So we come to the Green Party. There is a good tale to tell and some honest reflections we should make.

The good tale is that we had more Candidates than ever before, we got a larger vote than ever before, we retained Caroline Lucas as our MP for Brighton and we had more coverage in General Election than we are used to and we nearly won Bristol West. We definitely moved forward and a lot of people in the Party deserve credit for that. The Green Party does need to look at where we go from here. The great thing is that we don't have to agonise with ourselves and ask why couldn't we be just more like the Tories because they won after all. We can look at our future on the basis that we have made sme progress. We have had faltering steps and got tripped up as we moved forward but nethertheless we have moved forward.Our membership has grown and continues to grow.

If we were just looking at the General Election then we are planning on a 5 year horizon but we have several rounds of Local Elections up till then. The Green Party needs to play to our strengths and address our challenges. Our strength is the strong message we have for idealistic young people who are more ready than ever for a principled alternative to the status quo. We were right to emphasise our commitment to social justice as it was all but abandoned by others. Criticism that we abandoned environmental issues was overplayed. Objective environmental pressure groups scored our manifesto very highly and Natalie Bennett was one of the few leaders to highlight Climate Change when she got the opportunity. Were there ways we could have highlighted our groundbreaking policies to address climate change more strongly? Very probably and by linking with our natural allies in the green energy sector, almost certainly.

We do need to take the opportunity to re-evaluate the Green Party message. We need to ensure that social justice is at the heart of our message and well grounded and consistent with our strong emphasis on sustainability. Green policies need to be firmly rooted in our core values if they are to be meaningful. We are not Old Labour and we are certainly not New Labour and never will be. The social justice and stability offered by the Green Party has to be one that is consistent with our environmental and economic aims and articulated in a way that everyone in the Green Party can buy into.


We have to continue to demonstrate that we have the practical policies and know how to put cutting edge policies forward in spite of this Government and seek to implement them through Local Councils, regional bodies and devolved governments We need to form alliances with others inside and outside political bodies to show that we do not just speak for ourselves but for a broader consensus of people seeking solutions to climate change , social injustice and a range of policy issues.

There's a lot of work to do. Lets get on with it.

Green beginnings

Going through the Green Group Room at Crown Court Buildings mucking out ready for the move to Civic Centre 3 I came across this leaflet in an old folder. It is my first leaflet as a Green Party Candidate from 1989.   A leaflet had been prepared and was ready to print the previous year as I was scheduled to be the Liberal Party Candidate for Paddock Ward in Kirklees but I had joined the Greens following the merger with the SDP so they had to bin that.

In 88 I'd gone back to North Staffs Poly to finish my degree and did my dissertation on the Political Strategy of the Liberal/SDP Alliance. I had worked for them for a couple of years as a Political Agent so I knew a bit about them. I went back a much better student. I was heading for a third  before I broke my studies for a couple of years but a few years out, not drinking every night and spending more time in the Library meant I scraped a 2.1 . I also cut my teeth as a Green Party Candidate in the 1989 Staffordshire County Council Elections. There was a printers at the end of the road so I went down there with my artwork freshly letrasetted and pritt sticked and decided bright green on white paper might make a bit of an impression. I also persuaded my girlfriend Liz to stand in the elections as well. She had pointed out to me that she had been voting Green longer than I had anyway. So there we were, the only 2 Green Candidates in the whole of Staffordshire. We delivered a few thousand leaflets and plastered a mates car with the leaflets so people could read it on their way to the largest Polling Station. I got around 11% and Liz 9% in her ward.

 The next time I persuaded Liz to stand for election again was in 2004 in the Kirklees Elections when we needed loads of candidates in the 'all out' elections following the boundary changes. The quality of the leaflets had improved somewhat by then. Somewhere I know I have a Nick Harvey  Election leaflet from 1985 printed on a duplicator when recycled paper was little better than blotting paper. If I find it I'll let you know!

Kirklees Councillors move out of Crown Court Buildings

Crown Court Buildings

A time of big changes at Kirklees Council. We are re shaping ourselves into 'New Council'. That just doesn't mean a smaller council with less budget and less  staff but also a culture change as well. One way that this is being put in place is by moving all Councillors out of Crown Court Buildings which is opposite the Town Hall and conveniently next door to The County Pub. The new home for Councillors will be in Civic Centre 3 with Kirklees Directors and the Chief Executive. The 'them and us' seperation of Councillors and senior officers was highlighted in a recent external report in a negative light and this change is one way of addressing that issue.Packing boxes and seeing the building begin to empty you cant help thinking 'if only these walls could talk'. I know they would have a few interesting tales to tell!

Crown Court Buildings was refurbished around 20 years ago as Councillors offices, a couple of years before I was elected. When the first Green Cllr Nick Harvey was elected he wasn't given an office so he worked in the Members Lounge with its telly and comfy chairs. He reckoned he found out more there than being in an office anyway. Not only was there a Members Lounge but also a Members Library with a dedicated Librarian to help Councillors with research. Sadly this was very under utilised and the function and the member of staff went back into Huddersfield Library. The Members Lounge also disappeared and quite rightly became a large meeting room instead.

When I was elected in 1999 the Green Party Group of 3 finally got an office. It was possibly the smallest room in the building if you don't count ones containing a toilet. We later got allocated a space on the top floor on the same corridor as the Press Team lead then by David Bagley. They have been out of the building a few years now and there rooms were replaced by the Tory Group who we have shared the floor with us to this day. One of the great things about our office space was the balcony. I say 'balcony' it is more access to a flat roof space through a window. For a couple of years I quietly  grew vegetables on it and took pleasure in carrying bags of compost through Reception looking as shifty as possible. I'm sure they thought I was growing cannabis on the roof. It was great to sit out there in the summer between meetings. Other Kirklees officers will soon move into Crown Court Buildings, in the short term at least, but it will eventually be sold  off if a suitable buyer can be found.

So not just a new building but a new era for Kirklees Council. Moving people around is one thing but shifting the culture of an organisation is quite another. I am hopeful and optimistic, but that has always been a failing of mine.

My old roof garden on Crown Court Buildings - definitely no cannabis!

Access to 'the balcony' in the Green Group Room

2015 Kirklees & Parish Elections - Thoughts

Delivering Pre Poll leaflets in Newsome in the rain (again!).

The shadow/influence of the General Election was reflected in all the results for the Local Elections in Kirklees. There were people who cast their votes having considered the relative merits of the Parties carefully for both local and General Elections. Equally there were people who vote once every five years at a General Election who found they were also inexplicably handed ballot papers asking for their local choices.  For many they simply repeated their national preference on their local ballot papers. For the Green Party in Kirklees this meant a higher than usual turnout for Labour in Newsome and a higher than normal turnout for the Conservatives in Kirkburton. In Newsome we were able to ride the Labour surge but in Kirkburton we couldn't deal with the high turnout of Tories and failed to retain Derek Hardcastle as a Kirklees Councillor. We also lost many Green Party Parish Councillors, myself included.

Derek Hardcastle (right) with Cllr Robert Barraclough

With Cllr Julie Stewart-Turner on the stomp

In Newsome, we had a strong turnout of Greens and scored 2842 votes which is the highest total number of votes we have scored since the Green Party was first elected to the Newsome Ward in 1996, when Nick Harvey scored a record 3300 votes. The Greens strong local record and the work of Cllr Julie Stewart-Turner were key factors in this sucessful vote. In other surrounding wards, with a similar demographic, Labour won hands down, even taking Almondbury off the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems and prior to them the Liberal Party had held Almondbury since the early 1980s so Cllr Judith Hughes , a refugee from Greenhead Ward in Labour's selection wars, was the surprise victor. Labour fought a reasonable campaign in Newsome and fancied their chances. There were annoying and misleading graphs on their leaflets which indicated they were on target to win the election. In reality these graphs probably encouraged Green voters to come out to defend our seat at least as much as it encouraged Labour voters to support their candidate. The Tories put out a leaflet which was just aimed at spreading lies about the Green Party and at discrediting us in the eyes of local people - (Go on sue me!). The only possible purpose was to weaken our support to help the Labour Candidate it certainly didn't build any credibility for their candidate. UKIP got one of their worst results in Kirklees in Newsome going from 3rd to 4th with their candidate Ian French having put a lot of personal effort into the campaign. It is as true for UKIP as it was for the BNP to say that where there is a strong Green Party Candidate far right parties find it much more difficult to get a foothold. Where a positive alternative to the Westminister Parties already exists it is much more problematic for them to try to get a look in. I could say a lot more but that would be giving the game away and I don't want to do that!

Kirkburton was disappointing, but we knew it was always going to be a struggle. A good effort was put in by Derek Hardcastle and his team. There was a strong 2573 Green votes which is the highest number of Green voters we have ever acheived in the ward since we started targeting Kirkburton 15 years ago. The Conservatives had little really positive in policy terms to offer locally other than their national brand. We had a strong record of substantial acheivements that we detailed in our leaflets. For the Parish Elections the Tories trawled their membership from across Huddersfield to find candidates most of whom had no connection to the Kirkburton Parish. Despite this many of them got elected on the back of the Tories General Election vote. Whether this is good for local democracy is doubtful. The Kirkburton Tories literature was as dubious as ever and we made efforts to combat that.

If local government, local issues and concerns are not to be overshadowed by the blanket media coverage of the General Election we really need to have the elections held seperately. Kirklees Greens have proposed to have Local Elections moved to a 4 yearly cycle of 'all out' elections instead of the constant warfare of having the Council re-elected by thirds 3 years out of every 4.

Another election campaign another pair of walking boots destroyed

General Election Thoughts - Huddersfield Constituency

The outcome of the election in Huddersfield for the Green Party was nearly 7%, a saved deposit and beating the Lib Dems into 5th place. Most of our vote came from the Newsome Ward which is fair enough as that was where we are well known and where most of work went in. I can't help wondering how much higher our vote would have been if the Freepost leaflet had been delivered before the postal votes were sent out  but there you go!

The hustings meetings went pretty well and I enjoyed them. By the end all the candidates must have got sick of hearing each others repeated lines. I know I did. The Tories fancied their chances and put up Itrat Ali, a young, articulate Muslim woman who put a lot of effort into her campaign and was a good choice by the Huddersfield Conservatives. A number of things let her down. Obviously being a Tory defending her governments record was a big obstacle to overcome which was never going to be easy but she made a fairly good fist of it all things considered. My real concern was the advice and people behind her campaign. An ill thought out leaflet entitled 'A letter from Mehboob' advising Greenhead ward voters to 'Vote for Itrat' was a poor attempt to get people to somehow believe former Labour Council Leader Khan was advising people to vote Tory. Now I can believe Mehboob would do all sorts of things but that's never going to happen. At that point her campaign lost any legitimacy it may have had. If she had have won using those tactics it would have been a shameful victory.

The UKIP Candidate Rob Butler did what you'd expect of a Kipper and blamed most of our woes on immigrants and the EU. I was intrigued as a Science Teacher what his stance would be on the anti science climate change denial policy of UKIP. I had hoped he would be slightly embarrassed by it but unfortunately not. He is a fully paid up climate change sceptic and did come out with some of the dodgy 'evidence' refuting the widely held views of the vast majority of climate scientists.

Barry was as amiable as ever but we never really got into a debate with him on issues such as Labours support for the cuts, fracking, Trident renewal etc  To be be fair to him a lot of the hustings didn't lend themselves to 'banter' between the candidates which was to my mind was a mistake. Challenge is important for politicians and sometimes if the challenge isn't coming from the audience we need to challenge each others policies and views.

For a flavour of the hustings here is the one from the University of Huddersfield Students Union. I did bait the UKIP guy a bit but then you have to get your entertainment where you can!

General Election - BBC Breakfast - Green Party Manifesto Launch - 14/4/15

General Election - Victoria Derbyshire Show - 17/4/15

General Election - Daily Politics Environment Debate 20/4/15

6.23 - Presentation of Green Party Environment policy
13.25 - The reality of the UK's record on renewable energy - confirmed by Roger Harrabin
19.05 - UK's disgraceful role in opposing 2030 EU energy efficiency and renewable energy targets
31.50 - The need for a wider mix of renewable technologies
36.40 - Challenging Ed Davey on U turn on nuclear energy
38.20 - Challenging ED Davey on cuts to teh Energy Company Obligation
41.28 - Challenging Matt Hancock on shale gas
43.30 - Challenging cuts to flood funding

Kirkburton Conservative Party Leaflet - Misinformation & Green PartyResponses

Elections often bring out the worst in some Local Politicians in pursuit of votes. Here are the main areas of misinformation from the Kirkburton Conservative leaflet. They usually put out a late leaflet full of  dubious claims about the Green Party. Here are the main ones and our responses. Please share this on Facebook, Twitter and Email if you know people who live in the Kirkburton Ward. 

“Kirkburton needs an active Councillor, not one who works full time and is therefore limited in their commitments as the Green Party & Labour Candidates are.” – Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

 Actually Green Councillor Derek Hardcastle is very active, is a full time Councillor and has no other job. So this statement by John Taylor is incorrect. Also is he saying that all Councillors should not have any other employment? This is certainly not the case with many Councillors including many Conservative Councillors. - Green Party Response

“In the Conservative Manifesto is a specific commitment to protecting the Greenbelt so if elected we will be able to safeguard our environment. Something the Labour Party and the Green Party have not committed to”  - Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

Greenbelt is the most protected land in law in any case, so this ‘commitment’ in many ways is already there. In reality the real threat is to ‘Provisional Open Land - POL’ which many people assume is Greenbelt simply because it is usually green fields. There is lots of this land in the Kirkburton Ward. Both Strategic Planning Committee Conservative Councillors Bill Armer & Brice supported a POL development at Brockholes on the basis that it was POL and they had “no choice” (this was a recorded meeting). Because of the reasons that they gave, it is hard to see how they would not then support other POL applications – including developments in Flockton. - Green Party Response

“I will not support tokenism like my Green Party opponent who prioritised funding for a study of installing renewable energy on Kirklees land over additional funding for the roads budget.”  - Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

The Green Party proposal was aimed at solar installations on large Kirklees buildings and on derelict land. The aim is to actually raise income from the electricity generated which could support Kirklees services such as the roads budget. - Green Party Response

Conservatives say they will “Reverse the cuts in front line services but forward by Labour and the Green Party”  - Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

The GreenParty have put forward no cuts to frontline services. Labour have cut services but that is due to the £156 Million cuts to funding to Kirklees from Central Government. The reality is that if the Conservatives actually ran the Council they would have to make cuts. Any Party running the council would. - Green Party Response

Conservatives propose “Relocating Huddersfield Library saving £0.5million whilst saving local libraries.” - Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

Where will they relocate Huddersfield Central Library to? What will they do with the existing Library building? If they propose selling it, who would buy it? This is not a realistic proposal and they must know it. - Green Party Response

“Green Party Councillors only make the problem worse by voting along with their left wing allies (Labour)”  - Kirkburton Conservative Leaflet

Green Councillors have worked with Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour administrations over the last 15 years, as Kirklees has had no Party with an overall majority over all that time. Our aim is always to get the best deal for local communities. Currently we are using our influence on Kirklees and Kirkburton Parish Councils to help save local Libraries in Shepley & Kirkburton. The problem for the Conservatives is that their Councillors will not work with any other Party and so you could argue are effectively a ‘wasted vote’. - Green Party Response