March round-up

March 27, 2013 – 11:27 am

Here are a few interesting things I’ve spotted this month.

Gillan at God and Politics UK has a couple of very good pieces about the character of politicians and conducting debate

Make Wealth History points out some important facts about the actual impact of immigration

All That’s Left has some interesting thoughts about Westminster and sex scandals, and strikes out against political tribalism by pointing out that right-wingers can be nice people.

The Guardian has a piece that highlights a scandal in the benefits system that everybody should watch.

Sue Marsh points out that the Government is refusing to even talk to disabled people about the way it treats them.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury has waded into the benefits debate, and Gillan of God and Politics UK has some thoughts about how politicians can respond better to this sort of thing.

Finally, a recent poll suggested that a majority of people think the Green Party should be included in the Prime Ministerial debates for the 2015 election. If you agree, why not sign the e-petition, and increase the chances of a real range of views being presented to the electorate.

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Have we filled the Earth?

March 1, 2013 – 11:11 am

This is the next in our series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics according to the Bible. Today we’re looking at the second part of the chapter on the Environment, where Grudem does a stock-take of the planet’s resources. Before we look at this section, it’s worth noting that Grudem’s take on the economy (which was the previous chapter) depends on the conclusions he reaches here. Presumably he chose to put the issue he considers more important first, rather than putting the two chapters in their logical order.

The Theology

Grudem only spends a couple of paragraphs looking at the principles of this question. He believes that the command to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28 to fill the Earth and subdue it suggests that the Earth has abundant resources that can be developed and that the Earth would benefit from this development, rather than being destroyed by it.

I have two problems with this analysis. Firstly, the command to “fill the Earth” implicitly suggests that it is possible for humanity to do so. And when that happens the planet’s resources could be close to breaking point. Secondly, there’s the impact of sin. Back in chapter four, Grudem pointed out that Christianity rests on the belief that human beings are sinners. If sinful people attempt to use the Earth and its resources, then at least some of their efforts will, inevitably, be destructive. Human sin is key to Grudem’s politics in other areas, yet he discards the possibility of it doing damage to the environment here.

Flawed Data?

Grudem’s figures in this 25-page section come mostly from a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. The book has been somewhat controversial. Grudem acknowledges the controversy, but just says that he is personally persuaded that Lomborg got the better of his critics. Since the accusations are very serious, I will list them here:

  • Fabrication of data
  • Selective citation (deliberately discarding data that doesn’t fit)
  • Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods
  • Deliberate misinterpretation of others’ results
  • Presenting data in a fraudulent way

Given the seriousness of the accusations, it’s probably wise to take the book’s numbers and conclusions with a pinch of salt. If Lomborg’s numbers are correct, then surely Grudem could simply have gone back to the original source and avoided the controversy. If they aren’t, then things are a lot less rosy than Grudem paints them.

Grudem is keen on using long-term worldwide trends, rather than short-term stories of disasters. He paints an overall picture that is incredibly positive. He believes that humanity will be able to live on the Earth enjoying ever-increasing prosperity, and never exhausting its resources even with a much bigger population than we have today.

He looks at statistics for world population, agricultural land, clean air, waste disposal, global forests, species loss, herbicides and pesticides, and life expectancy (I’ll deal with what he says about energy and fossil fuels in the next post in this series). I won’t be going into detail on each of these, but will highlight some of the issues arising from Grudem’s treatment.

Some problems are local

One thing Grudem gets right is to point out that some problems are localised. Even without desalination plants, there is unlikely to ever be a global shortage of fresh water. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be water shortages in some places. Water is expensive to transport long distances, and there are lots of places where people use more water than is available in their part of the world.

Quality of Resources

One thing he misses is that some resources are not equal. For example, when talking about growing food, he says that about 24% of the world’s non-ice surface is arable land, and that we only use about a third of it for growing crops. He claims that we could easily use the rest of it for doing just that. He doesn’t mention is that the land that is not being used is less fertile than the land that is, or that modern agricultural methods often do long-term damage to soil quality (which is why they need large amounts of fertiliser) and biodiversity. He also seems to place little or no value on other uses for arable land.

The Elephant in the Room

The biggest problem with this section, though, is that Grudem never talks about is consumption. There’s an oft-quoted statistic that if everybody lived a Western lifestyle we would need three planet Earths to support ourselves. Regardless of how accurate this is, it demonstrates that how much of the planet’s resources we use up depends at least as much on our lifestyle choices as it does on how many of us there are, or what technology can do. Discussing how many people the planet can support without talking about consumption is to completely miss the elephant in the room.

Conclusion

Grudem paints an incredibly rosy, but somewhat simplistic, view of the planet’s ability to support an ever-increasing and increasingly prosperous human population. This picture is pretty much a best-case scenario, and there are serious questions about the statistics it’s based on and some of the assumptions made. I don’t agree the Earth can support as many people, with as much consumption, as Grudem thinks. And I place more value on some of the things we would lose by doing so than Grudem does.

Posted in Creation and Environment, Politics According to the Bible | Permalink | Comments (2)

February round-up

February 22, 2013 – 11:15 am

Here are a few interesting things I’ve spotted recently.

The ever-insightful Paul Gillan of God and Politics UK has a piece on the impact of church social action projects

Those of us fascinated by elections will love the analysis of the Eastleigh By-Election on All That’s Left. In what’s probably the most interesting By-Election of this Parliament, they look at the numbers and the history of the seat. It looks like it’s going to come out to get-out the vote, and based on the numbers they’ve given, I think that has to mean the Lib Dems have the edge.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury talks about the culture of banking. (h/t Cranmer).

There’s a piece over at Bright Green which points out the danger of a court case brought by EDF Energy – apparently they’re suing people for causing no actual damage during a peaceful protest.

And DocRichard has some statistics on the effect of climate change. It turns out that extreme weather events are more frequent than they used to be.

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Creation and Politics

February 14, 2013 – 11:27 am

With this post, I am now resuming the series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. In case you’ve forgotten in the gap between posts, the book so far outlines a religious right view of politics. Today we are starting to look at the chapter on the Environment. Today we’re looking at the beginning of the chapter, where Grudem lays out a basic theology of creation. This introduction is, by far, the best bit of the chapter – most of it is quite similar to what I covered in my series on Creation and Environment a couple of years ago.

Beginning and End

Grudem starts by pointing out that God originally made everything good (Genesis 1), but that the fall resulted in a curse on creation, meaning that it is now less than perfect (Genesis 3). Whilst there is still plenty of good in it, there are also things that are not good. He goes on to mention the future of creation, when it will be set free from its bondage to decay (Romans 8:21; Isaiah 11:6-9) and says that this redemption of creation need not completely wait until Christ’s return.

Grudem also expands on a verse that is often contentious – Genesis 1;28, in which God commands humanity to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” He points out that this means humanity has a mandate to use and develop the earth’s resources wisely, that God views humanity as having greater value than other parts of creation (see passages like Matthew 6:26), that we have a responsibility to avoid animal cruelty (Proverbs 12:10), and that we have a responsibility to use the earth and its resources in a way that is not wasteful or destructive (although Grudem does not use the term, this last point is the principle of stewardship).

The Strawman Environmentalist

The problem with this section of the book is not the basic theology on which a Christian understanding of the environment rests, but the way Grudem tries to contrast this point of view with that of what he calls the “radical environmentalist” view. Judging by the examples he uses about what “radical environmentalists” think, he appears to be taking aim at the most extreme fringes of environmentalism, rather than any mainstream view that would be relevant to discussing politics.

The first way he tries to draw a contrast is when it comes to the question of what the “natural” world is. He claims that the ideal driving much of the environmental movement is to restore the planet to its “untouched natural state”. He claims that, for many environmentalists, the idea of humans developing the natural world is somehow wrong. Whilst there are certainly some people who take that point of view, my experience of the environmental movement is most of us are driven by what’s good for human beings. There is a massive overlap between the kind of people who get involved with environmental groups like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth and those who get involved with anti-poverty ones like Oxfam or War on Want. Also, environmentalists are far more likely than the average person to be aware that what we think of as the “natural” environment is largely man-made. The only parts of the planet whose environment has not been shaped by human activity are the ones in which humans don’t live (e.g. Antarctica).

Grudem’s second line of attack on environmentalism is to protest that animal welfare should always come second to potential human benefit. He claims that the ideal of “untouched nature” is the motivation behind campaigns to save species from extinction, or opposition to things like animal testing. In fact, many people taking part in such campaigns are motivated by a desire to prevent animal cruelty and the need to be wise stewards of the earth’s resources.

His third attack against environmentalism is that it is based on fear that certain activities will damage the environment. Here, Grudem does have a point – if you campaign to protect the environment, you’re probably a little bit worried that whatever you’re campaigning against will damage the environment. However, the other side can also be driven by fear. For example, people who oppose efforts to reduce our carbon emissions are often afraid that this will force them to change their lifestyle. However, rather than acknowledging that sometimes environmentalists are right that the cost is greater than the benefit, Grudem dismisses pretty much every environmental concern out of hand. He writes as follows:

They are always emphasising the dangers (whether real or imagined) and never realistically evaluate an insignificant risk of danger in comparison to a certain promise of great benefit. (emphasis his)

Which suggests to me that he has pretty much abandoned the concept of stewardship when it comes to the environment. In applying this to the entire range of environmental concerns, he seems to be implying that, no matter how we treat the environment, we will never do so in a way that is wasteful or destructive. He has abandoned one of the principles he just laid out. And forgotten a fundamental principle of Christian belief – that human beings are sinners.

Finally, he goes and quotes a man called Paul Watson as an example of environmentalists who think the existence of human beings is the main problem with planet earth. However, it is somewhat disingenuous to cite a man who Greenpeace dismiss as a “violent extremist” as in any way representative of the environmental movement. In any grouping as large and diverse as the environmental movement, you will find some extremists who are not representative of the movement. Claiming that Watson is representative of environmentalists is like saying that Westborough Baptist Church (the people who picket funerals with “God hates fags” signs) are representative of Christians, or that Osama Bin Laden is representative of Muslims.

Grudem’s attempts to contrast a Christian worldview with an Environmentalist one are a blatant strawman. Earlier in the book, he said that the way Christians should engage with politics

does not mean angry, belligerent, intolerant, judgemental, red-faced, and hate-filled influence, but rather winsome, kind, thoughtful, loving, persuasive influence that is suitable to each circumstance and that always protects the other person’s right to disagree, but that is also uncompromising about the truthfulness and moral goodness of the teachings of God’s Word.

Quite frankly, the treatment he gives environmentalists in this chapter comes across as the complete opposite of this. You should be free to criticise the other side’s policies, positions, and beliefs. But if you are going to do so in a winsome, kind, thoughtful, loving, and persuasive way then you should at least try to represent their point of view fairly.

Posted in Creation and Environment, Politics According to the Bible | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hospital Chaplaincies

February 11, 2013 – 11:18 am

One of the things about having this blog is that I seem to have become the go-to person when anybody is looking for Christians within the Green Party. The most recent example of this is somebody who was curious about a motion on hospital chaplains that is being submitted to the party’s Spring Conference later this month. The motion is taken straight from the National Secular Society’s position on the issue of hospital chaplains, and reads:

C31. Hospital Chaplaincy Services
Proposed by Andy Chyba (**), Anthony Young, John Evans, Owen Clarke, + 2 others
Synopsis
A National Secular Society survey has shown that over £30m of NHS money was spent on hospital chaplaincy services in 2009/10 in England and Wales; services with no clinical benefit. That such services are publicly funded, ahead of services such as Macmillan Cancer Support and Air Ambulances services, is indefensible.
Motion
Insert into the PSS new section HE 371 For some patients, hospital chaplaincy services offer an important source of comfort and spiritual support. NHS Health boards should facilitate a chaplaincy service. Chaplaincy funding should not come from a fixed health budget. Alternative funding streams should be used.

We will therefore:

I. Divert the expenditure being spent each year on the English and Welsh chaplaincy services into front-line health services.

II. Work with the leaders of all religious denominations in England and Wales to establish charitable trusts to fund hospital chaplaincy services.

The motion will make it Green Party policy that chaplaincy services must be privately funded, and so makes it less likely that they will be available. The last time I was an in-patient, I found the chaplaincy service an immense encouragement, even though I only saw them a couple of times. They may not have made a difference to my clinical condition, but they certainly made a difference to my overall well-being.

Sadly, I can’t afford to go to Spring Conference this year. As I can’t be there to argue and vote against the motion in person, I feel obliged to argue against it here. The motion should be voted down for the following reasons (listed in no particular order):

  • This motion makes it Green Party policy to privatise a part of our health service.
  • As a party we are opposed to the Government’s austerity agenda, where government services are stopped for purely budgetary reasons, and it is left to charities (most often religious groups) to pick up the slack. The Green approach is to work out what government should be doing in principle and then making sure we find the money to pay for it. This motion assumes the austerity principle.
  • It goes against Green Party principles. Our health policy starts by saying “Health is the condition in which individuals and communities achieve their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential”. This motion sends the message that clinical/physical health is the only part of our health that matters.
  • The supporting evidence is misleading. The call to privatise chaplaincy services is based on one study, which said that chaplaincy services provide no clinical benefit. But they aren’t there as a clinical service. Their role is to provide pastoral support for hospital patients. It’s an important service that no other part of the NHS provides. Healthcare professionals rarely have the time to focus on the patient as a person, whilst chaplains do nothing but that.
  • It paints the Green Party as an anti-religion party. We already have some policies that come across that way (one of our equalities policies would make it illegal to require that vicar be a Christian, though that was probably not the intent of the people who wrote it). We are a party that believes human beings have a spiritual dimension. The last thing we need is policies written by an anti-religion pressure group to advance an anti-religious agenda.

If you’re a party member and going to conference, I urge you to go to the workshop on this motion and argue against it, and to speak and vote against it if you’re in the relevant plenary session (which, as it’s at the bottom of the agenda, should be on the Monday). As the motion is at the bottom of the agenda, it might be dropped due to lack of time, or by the plenary not being quorate. But we can’t assume that.

Posted in Christianity, Freedom of Religion, Green Party | Permalink | Comments (12)

St Nicholas

December 6, 2012 – 11:20 am

It’s St Nicholas’ Day today, and since Santa Claus (the god-figure of secular Christmases everywhere) takes his name from the saint in question, I thought I’d share this Santa-related video.

H/T Justin Taylor

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Sexuality, Equality, and Freedom of Religion

September 12, 2012 – 11:09 am

There’s been some controversy recently about a vote taken on Brighton and Hove council back in July on the issue of same-sex marriage. A Christian councillor by the name of Christina Summers spoke and voted against a a motion supporting the principle of extending the legal definition of marriage to same-sex couples. There was some controversy at the time, and a panel of inquiry was set up to look into the issue. On Monday it released its recommendation – that she should be expelled from the Green group of councillors (though not from the party). Its full report is due to be released on Thursday, and the group will presumably vote on whether to accept the recommendation at its next meeting.

In this post, I want to explain a bit more about what happened, and then talk about some principles.

What is Councillor Summers accused of?

Firstly, the issue was not simply that Councillor Summers spoke and voted against same-sex marriage. Green politicans are free to speak and vote against party policy as long as they make it clear what that policy is.

The issue is that she signed an equality pledge as part of her selection as a candidate. It’s been claimed that the pledge included explicit support for same-sex marriage, though the extract that’s been quoted on the local party’s FAQ simply talks about “upholding and advancing” the values of “equality for all people, regardless of race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social origin or any other prejudice … if selected as a candidate and if elected to public office.” Which, in my opinion, is perfectly compatible with Councillor Summers’ support of civil partnerships instead of marriage. This is the subject of the inquiry.

In addition to this, there have been some party members who claim that Councillor Summers’ views are incompatible with the party’s philosophical basis, which states:

“A healthy society is based on voluntary co-operation between empowered individuals in a democratic society, free from discrimination whether based on race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social origin or any other prejudice.”

and

“The legitimate interests of all people are of equal value. The Green Party rejects all forms of discrimination whether based on race, colour, sex, religion, national origin, social origin or any other prejudice. We accept the need for social institutions to protect the interests of the powerless against the powerful.“

They claim that these clauses necessarily mean support for same-sex marriage. Any view that equality can be achieved for gays and lesbians without same-sex marriage is considered to be bigoted and homophobic. However, even if we were to accept the premise that same-sex marriage is the only way to achieve equality on the basis of sexual orientation, the argument is highly flawed. Insisting that Councillor Summers should face disciplinary action for her views on this issue makes equality on the basis of sexual orientation more important than equality on the basis of religious belief. Becoming a Green councillor should not mean that you lose the right to talk about (and vote on) the basis of your religious beliefs.

Christian Principles

The Bible does not teach same-sex marriage

Before writing this article I had a look online for Christian arguments in favour of same-sex marriage. I couldn’t find a single one that even attempted to engage with what the Bible says directly about marriage. There was a lot of engagement with the passages that talk about gay sex, but the arguments about marriage itself were based on vague generalities. I think the main reason for this is that when the Bible talks about marriage it unambiguously means an opposite-sex relationship. Christians should view same-sex marriages in the same way they view cohabitation. Furthermore, whatever happens to the legal definition of marriage, God’s definition of marriage will stay the same.

Society has a very different view of marriage to the church

Our society does not have a biblical view of marriage. People don’t see it as a life-long union. They think divorce is normal. Increasing numbers of people are making pre-nuptial agreements – deciding in advance how to split their possessions if and when they divorce. Adultery is seen as a fairly minor issue, and there are plenty of books, films, and TV series which portray adultery as a good thing. Perhaps the most obvious difference is this: my Christian friends would never consider moving in with their partner before they were married. My non-Christian friends would never consider marrying somebody until after they had started living together.

Christians cannot expect non-Christians to follow Christian morality

Those who don’t have a Christian faith clearly rarely have a Christian moral framework. And even if they did, in Romans 6:15-22 Paul explains that a key difference between Christians and non-Christians is that they are slaves to sin, whilst we have been set free and can now be slaves of righteousness. If that is our theology, then we clearly cannot expect non-Christians to live out Christian morality.

So what stance can we take?

To be honest, I’m still working out where I stand on the issue of same-sex marriage. Because society recognises same-sex relationships to be valid, it would be utterly absurd to deny same-sex couples legal recognition of their relationship. I think there are three possible approaches a Christian can take on the issue:

Advocate civil partnerships with equivalent rights to marriage

This is Christina Summers’ position. Everybody gets equal legal rights and recognition, but the definition of marriage is not changed. In theory, this gives both sides of the debate what they want. In practice, the gay rights lobby is not happy – often seeing this arrangement as akin to apartheid.

Not object to gay marriage

At the moment, UKIP and the BNP are the only national parties who do not officially back gay marriage. Which means that the gay rights lobby has probably won this battle. It’s only a matter of time before the law is changed. Society no longer has a Christian view of marriage, and we should simply let the government adapt to our culture’s definition. The best argument I’ve come across for this view comes from my friend Jon Chilvers, who argues that the church has forfeited our right to a say on gay marriage.

Advocate that the government drop any legal definition of marriage

This view, which I first saw advocated by Anthony Smith, suggests that we could solve the problem by removing the word marriage from law. The state would register civil unions, and everyone could choose whether to consider them marriages or not. Society is divided on what marriage means, and taking away the government’s ability to choose sides might take all the heat and emotion out of the debate.

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Green Party Deputy Leader

July 31, 2012 – 11:15 am

Well, following on from my post on who I’m backing for Green Party leader, here’s the post on the Deputy Leadership contest. Apologies for the gap, but I did need more time to weigh up the candidates, and – as so often happens – real life got in the way of blogging.

The Deputy contest is a little more complicated than the Leader contest for one main reason. When the party replaced the old system of male and female Principal Speakers with a Leader and Deputy, they (I hadn’t joined at that point) kept the concept of gender balance. If the leader is male, then the deputy must be female, and vice versa. Which means that there are two different Deputy Leader contests going on.

If Peter Cranie wins the Leadership, then the Deputy leadership is a contest between Alex Phillips (a councillor in Hove) and Caroline Allen (a prominent candidate in the London Assembly elections, and member of the policy committee). If one of the female candidates for leader wins, then it’s a contest between Will Duckworth (a councillor in Dudley) and Richard Mallender (a councillor in Rushcliffe).

What does a Deputy do anyway?

The Deputy role is not just about doing media work when the leader isn’t available. Nor is it about being a leader-in-waiting. The role has been, so far, about helping build up the party’s grassroots – and all the candidates seem to agree that’s a key part of the role. Depending on who wins, it might encompass a variety of other roles. With the candidates we have, those roles are most likely to include media, policy, or election strategy.

Picking the man

The contest between the two male candidates is, in my view, easier to call. Will Duckworth was involved in founding Dudley Green Party three years ago, and is now that party’s first councillor. In addition to this, he is a member of the West Midlands Executive, whose regional strategy has taken us from three councillors to thirteen across the region in just two years, and helped us break into five new councils. Will has a lot of experience in providing local party support, and a good grasp of strategy. A Duckworth deputy leadership would promote the best parts of the West Midlands model around the party nationally. He would also try to help the party focus on an anti-austerity message – proposing alternatives to the public service cuts that are the hallmark of the current government.

By contrast, Richard Mallender has plenty of experience in the party (he has served on the national executive before), and has some idea of what he’d like to encourage in the party (winning more seats, growing the membership, highlighting the issue of climate change in the media). But his website, and his performance in hustings (at least as seen online), suggests to me that he’s relatively weak on the how. He would most definitely be better than Re-Open Nominations, but it looks to me like he has a lot less idea of what the role is, and how it should be done.

Picking the woman

The two female candidates for Deputy Leader are both very strong candidates, and working out my preference between them has been quite difficult. Alex Phillips was the first Green Party councillor in Hove, has worked for Caroline Lucas when she was an MEP – dealing with policy issues, and been a key person in both the campaign to elect Caroline Lucas as MP and the campaign to get a Green administration in Brighton and Hove. Caroline Allen was our most successful constituency candidate in this year’s London Assembly elections, and has been a key part of the policy committee. She was, for example, the driving force behind a complete rewrite of our science policy last year (this policy made us by some way the most pro-science party in the UK).

Both of them would be great choices for the post. Alex is more photogenic, and has more campaign knowledge. Caroline is stronger on policy issues, but also knows her stuff when it comes to campaigns. Both of them have taken the effort to learn about the West Midlands model, and would like to help spread its successes around the country. I’m confident that both of them would do a good job as deputy. But I do narrowly prefer Caroline.

Lets get the negative reasons for this out of the way first. Firstly, Alex has expressed support for the idea of all-women shortlists as a solution to increasing the number of women standing as candidates in elections and being elected. Given that our main problem when it comes to gender balance is that we don’t have enough women putting themselves forward, this is the wrong solution. In addition, it is fundamentally incompatible with the decentralised nature of our party – which causes me some concerns. Also, the way she expressed her pro-choice view on abortion at the Birmingham hustings made me (as a relatively rare pro-life Green) slightly uncomfortable. These are relatively minor issues, but in a close contest like this one, they help tip the balance.

Caroline, on the other hand, has been developing a knack not just for sharing electoral strategy, but for putting our policy across, and demolishing misconceptions (e.g. that we are “anti-science”). I think that this strength gives her the edge on Alex. Also in her favour is that I worked with her to get a wholesale review of our science policy passed at last year’s spring conference. She is phenomenally hard-working and resourceful (not that Alex isn’t, I’ve just seen more of Caroline’s hard work first-hand).

So – whilst Alex’s higher profile within the party makes her the favourite for deputy leader if Peter Cranie wins the leadership – I would prefer Caroline, and I will be giving her the higher preference.

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Why I’m (probably) Backing Peter Cranie

July 10, 2012 – 11:03 am

As I mentioned before, the Green Party are currently electing a new leader. Since my last post on the matter, the list of candidates has been announced. Whilst I’m open to persuasion from the booklet with candidate statements and the hustings I’ll be going to in Birmingham in a couple of weeks time, I’m reasonably sure which order I’ll be ranking the candidates in (the election is by AV). Though I’m still wavering on the deputy leader front.

The four candidates are Peter Cranie (lead candidate for the European Parliament elections in the North West region), Natalie Bennett (founder and leader of Green Party Women), Romayne Phoenix (chair of the Coalition of Resistance), and Pippa Bartolotti (leader of Wales Green Party).

What I want from a leader

The job of Green Party leader is rather badly defined. Since the post was created four years ago, the job description has essentially been “be Caroline Lucas”. With Caroline continuing to be our sole MP until 2015 (at which point I hope and expect her to be joined by at least one more), it’s likely that the leader’s role will change. He or she will be less of a media figure, and probably have more input into party strategy. Therefore, I want somebody who can articulate and argue for Green values and policies, but also for a strong strategy for the party. They need to have some kind of vision for growing the membership, the activist base, and our number of elected representatives. The Green Party is better at winning elections than most other small-medium sized parties, but we’re a long way off where we would be in a fair electoral system. And rather than sitting back and hoping for proportional representation or a 1989-style swing, we need a plan to break through the barriers imposed by first past the post.

How do the candidates visions’ measure up?

Well, Pippa Bartolotti doesn’t come anywhere close to my ideal party leader. Her platform boils down to speaking her mind on Green issues, so she’s getting my fourth preference (she would still be better than having nobody in the job). The other three candidates all have a vision that’s in roughly the right ball-park. Romayne Phoenix talks about how we should build membership, increase our capacity, and work with other left-wing groups. However, her vision is considerably less compelling than that of Natalie Bennett or Peter Cranie for one simple reason. She doesn’t talk about numbers.

Both Natalie and Peter have ambitious targets for electoral success. Natalie is talking about wanting to see a Green MEP in almost every region, a realistic set of “next generation” Parliamentary constituencies, and a Green councillor in every major town and city in the next decade. That’s ambitious and mostly achievable. I can’t see us getting a Green councillor on every council, though. Because local parties are autonomous, it’s almost certain that at least one local party somewhere in the country will prove dysfunctional. Peter, on the other hand, is talking about targeting 7 seats in the 2014 European Parliament elections (we currently have two in the UK), and five to ten seats in the 2020 Westminster elections, and building local and regional parties so that we no longer have any no-go areas.

Of these two, Peter’s vision is more specific, more measurable, and more achievable (sorry Natalie, but that councillor target is almost impossible, whilst Peter’s European target has a clearly articulated strategy behind it), and slightly more timely. It’s a SMARTer thing to aim for. It also feels more ambitious. And the more ambitious we are as a party, the more likely we are to make the impact on local, national, and international politics that we need and deserve to.

What else affects my vote?

In addition to that, Peter and Natalie appear to have a bit more charisma than Romayne – the two apparent frontrunners are both capable politicians in the same league as Caroline Lucas, and would be leaders who are likely to get plenty of media coverage in their own right. Romayne, on the other hand, seems more likely to be focused on building bridges with other like-minded organisations. I’m glad she’s running, but I just don’t think she’s as strong a candidate as Peter or Natalie.

To end, I’ll show you a couple of videos. Firstly, Peter Cranie announces he is standing:

Secondly, London Assembly member Darren Johnson endorsing Peter:

And, for balance, I’ll throw in Natalie’s main campaign video for a bit of balance

I would show you something from Romayne’s or Pippa’s campaign, but neither of them have made any videos related to their leadership bid.

Finally, if you want to follow the campaign as it unfolds, then make sure you keep an eye on the green party elections blog. And, if you demand it in the comments section, I’ll do a similar post on my thoughts about the candidates for Green Party Deputy leader.

Posted in Green Party | Permalink | Comments (3)

Who will be the next Green Party leader?

May 17, 2012 – 11:20 am

Following the recent news that Caroline Lucas has decided not to stand for a third term as leader of the Green Party, I feel I ought to comment on the whole thing. Before diving into the question of who the candidates to replace her might be, it’s worth saying something about the other debate the party will be having as a result of the announcement.

What’s a leader for?

The Green Party has only had a leader for the last four years. Before that, it had two principal speakers (one male, one female), who were the main spokespeople. My knowledge of the change is limited by the fact that I only joined the party shortly after the first leadership election. My understanding is that the change was accompanied by a big discussion about what the role of a party leader would be. This discussion was ended, probably prematurely, after the decision was made, although we did discuss some of these issues during 2010s contested Deputy Leader election.

Leadership of a political party is a combination of several things. The most obvious one is that it provides a focus for the media. It’s certainly been a big part of Caroline Lucas’s leadership. However, the leader is not always the media’s go-to person. Respect’s leader, Salma Yaqoob, gets a lot less media time than George Galloway. The expectation is that Caroline will continue to have a strong media presence after she steps down. The new leader will, presumably, get some share of that media profile, but it’s likely that the press will still prefer Caroline.

The leader’s role within the party is rather less clear. Greens have traditionally been very suspicious of the concept of hierarchical leadership, preferring to be led by the grassroots. Policy is decided by party conference, rather than the leadership. And Caroline Lucas has had very little role to play in the policy process since she became leader. Internal governance and strategy is the role primarily of the executive committee. The leader has a seat on the executive, but the executive is supposed to be “led” by its chair.

Regardless of the technicalities of whether it’s the leader’s responsibility or not, there are voices within the party calling for the leader to provide a new strategic direction for the party. We’ve made some real breakthroughs in the last couple of years – we’ve gained our first seat in Westminster and (minority) control of our first council. But beyond that, it feels like we are, to some degree stagnating. Outside of the West Midlands, we’re not breaking much new ground in council elections. Our national councillor numbers are increasing at a snail’s pace. We are holding our own in a tough political climate. But we really need to be making substantial advances if we are to have much impact. Picking the right leader might prove the key to moving forwards more quickly.

Who might stand?

There are a number of prominent party members who can be expected to do well if they stand for the post. If you’ve been an active member of the party for a while, you’re probably familiar to some degree with all of the people I’m about to mention. If you think my (very quick) summaries of any potential candidates is off, please correct me in the comments.

As I write, nobody has yet put their name forward. But two leading candidates have already ruled themselves out of the race – Jenny Jones (the London Assembly member who came third in the Mayoral elections) and Jason Kitcat (leader of Brighton and Hove Council). Like Caroline, they feel that the leadership role would take valuable time away from what they are doing in their current elected offices. So, apart from those two, who are the serious candidates?

Adrian Ramsay – Deputy Leader of the party, and prospective Parliamentary candidate for Norwich South (our second strongest seat). The presumed front-runner, Adrian is well-liked by pretty much everybody in the party, and the leadership role would give him an added national profile, that would be to our advantage. His main weakness in the contest is that he might have trouble outlining a new strategic direction. Adrian is the sort of person who likes to avoid taking sides in internal party disputes, he’ll try to maintain good relationships with everybody involved. Whilst that makes him a unifying figure, it also means nobody’s expecting him to try to lead the party in a new direction.

Peter Cranie – top of the European list in the North West region in 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he came a couple of thousand votes behind Nick Griffin – a very narrow margin across the region. He’s the only likely candidate to come from the North or West of the country, and is likely to offer quite strong ideas about our future strategy.

Derek Wall – the last Male Principle Speaker of the party. Derek is absolutely loved by Green Left (the ecosocialist wing of the party), though he has relatively little support outside that group. I very much doubt he has much chance of winning but if he does, expect a stronger alignment between the Greens and leftist anti-cuts protest groups.

Darren Johnson – our other London Assembly Member, who is also a local councillor in Lewisham. I doubt he will put himself forward, for much the same reasons as Jenny Jones. Like Derek Wall, he has a relatively narrow section of the party who really like him. Unlike Derek, he also has quite a few members who really don’t like him. If he does stand and win, I expect he would be a more media-focused leader, rather than a strategic one.

Jean Lambert – MEP for London since 1999. With Jenny Jones declining to stand, Jean is the only female party member who I think could be a serious contender. My instinct is that she’s unlikely to stand. A Jean Lambert leadership would be heavily influenced by other European Green Parties, as Jean has been working closely with them for a very long time.

Keith Taylor – took over as MEP for the South East when Caroline was elected MP in 2010. Keith is another person I think unlikely to stand. Since he took over his current role, he’s always struck me as being focused primarily on doing the job well. He’s doing a lot of good work in Brussels, and probably wouldn’t want to take over two jobs from Caroline in as many years.

Dark Horse Candidates – whilst I’ve mentioned the people who are obvious contenders, should they be interested, there is always the possibility of an unexpected candidate. I’ve come across a couple of blogs suggesting that Oxford-based member Adam Ramsay (no relation to Adrian) might be a good choice, and it’s always possible that some of our more prominent local councillors might stand (Alex Phillips from Hove is sometimes talked about as a rising star in the party and her area). Alternatively, there might be somebody who is not that well-known. This kind of candidate is going to have to outline a strong strategic direction for the party that moves us forward faster than we are currently going.

RON – lastly, there is one “candidate” who is guaranteed to be on the ballot. RON (Re-Open Nominations) is always an option in internal party elections. To my knowledge, RON has never come close to winning any Green Party internal election, but in any discussion of who will get the job, it is wise to acknowledge that we do have the option of voting for none of the above.

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