14 August 2006

Labour should welcome other parties green policies and call their bluff by upping the ante.

The Lib Dems proposals of green taxes and even the Tories lukewarm leanings in that direction are very very welcome developments. This gives Labour an immense opportunity, under no circumstances should we ridiculue or criticise these policies. We should welcome whatever left-wing policies they have and we should do it open-heartedly - we should up the ante.

We are the party that has the real climate change policies and we shouldn't be ashamed of promoting the climate change levy, the congestion charge, road pricing, increases in public transport spending, free bus and rail passes for pensioners, children and the disabled, extra spending on cycling routes, grants for home insulation etc.

The public appetite for this is massive and we are the party that needs to be proud of what we are doing and we should demonstrate clearly that we will trump whatever the other parties have to offer. Green policies are the way to win the next election. We can always offer more than the Tories who are constrained by their big business friends and nobody believes the Lib Dems when their national policies are always contradicted by their actions at the local level pandying to nimbys.

Instead we have let the impression develop that the Tories under Cameron are leading the way. This is absolutely ridiculous, his personal image has been shown to be a con and his party are even more of a con. You have to give it to the Tories, it is an immense lesson in how to spin an image. If we don't clearly state how we will outbid the Tories and Lib Dems on green issues we will have let them get way with conning the voters.

10 comments:

  1. Nimbys? So how are the Lib Dems locally not reflecting their national party position? State the policies.

    More lies

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  2. National policy of 10% of energy from wind but the Lib Dems locally have opposed every wind farm application. Explain that one for starters.

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  3. Could this be a case of the lib dems saying one thing nationally and then doing another locally?

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  4. Liar. Name me all these applications.

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  5. Why should he when you won't give your name?

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  6. There has not been a single wind farm development that has been supported by a Liberal Democrat MP.

    From Hansard;
    "I asked the hon. Gentleman (Norman Baker - Lib Dem, Lewes) whether he could name constituencies represented by Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament where the MP had supported wind energy development. He did not reply immediately, but later in his speech, at column 1230, he told the House about not a wind farm development, but a wind turbine—a community scheme—in a remote part of Scotland in the Argyll and Bute constituency, of which the local Member had been in favour. That was the only scheme the hon. Gentleman could come up with."

    Their national policy is a sham, they support wind farms vociferously at the national level (in principle) but vote against every single application at the local level. This just about sums up the Lib Dems.

    Voting for the Lib Dems is voting for a blank cheque.

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  7. Scotland isn't local stupid boy. What are these local applications then?

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  8. Yes, exactly, a remote part of Scotland is THE ONLY place that a Lib Dem has BACKED their national policy. I wish you would read what is put. Lib Dems once in power NEVER back their national party, which like I say, sums them up perfectly!

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  9. Now, now dear boy. In one post you call for a new kind of politics whilst in the next you shout abuse and lie. Haven't you thought that it is this kind of politics which puts the voters off? We are all sick and tired of this kind of politics.

    So there are no policies which the local LibDems here are out of step from their national party on? Are you going to be big enough to admit that you were wrong and apologise for your porky pies? No wonder that the electorate is switched off from politics and hate these new labour people when this is their behaviour.

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  10. My point was that at the local level Lib Dems totally contradict their national policies. Where have I lied?

    As soon as the Lib Dems actually get in a position where their policies actually matter, nobody (it seems least of all the Lib Dems themselves) know what they are going to do.

    It's one thing to have a theoretical position when you are such an irrelevance (3 seats out of 54) it doesn't matter and another to see what actually happens when the Lib Dems get into a position of power. As I have demonstrated, not a single Lib Dem MP has backed a wind farm. Is this true or not, yes or no?

    As for negativity, as you well know, I am a big exponent of electoral reform, this is a Lib Dem, Green etc. policy and unfortunately not a Labour one. I like lots of Lib Dem and other party policies and wouldn't deny that - the liberal approach to drugs, votes for 16 year olds, greener taxation. It is good the Lib Dems push some of these issues onto the agenda, the problem is I wouldn't trust them for five minutes to be true to their word. Even Menzies Campbell himself admits that the party is a bit of an unpredictable franchise at the local level - a hotchpotch of disaffected (or opportunistic) Tories and disaffected Labour. In short totally unpredictable, a blank cheque.

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