Yesterday’s Independent carried a report that the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru were in discussion about standing down candidates at the 2020 elections in order to create a “progressive alliance” to defeat the Tories. It’s a nice idea in some respects, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. To understand why, you need […]
Tag Archives: Brighton and Hove Green Party
Three days before the 1983 election, I attended a rally in Oxford Town Hall. It was in the days when it was still possible to come in off the street to a Labour leader’s rally, and the speaker was Michael Foot. The atmosphere was revivalist, a packed hall cheering on their much-loved leader. How could […]
The rollercoaster that is Brighton and Hove Green Party politics has just taken another stomach-churning lurch. At its General Meeting last week the Brighton and Hove Green Party passed two motions which define its approach to politics in the city in the weeks preceding the General and City Council elections. Faced with cuts in Government […]
There’s an old political saw that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. As they come to the end of four years in office, and as they start the process of setting out their last budget, the peculiar genius of Brighton and Hove’s Green Party may well have been to turn that formulation […]
Brighton-based blogger Paddy Vipond has recently published an open letter to Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion, Purna Sen, outlining why he will not vote for her and will support the incumbent Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, instead. It’s an eloquent piece – in a very different tone from that usually reserved by Green Party […]
Earlier this year, Brighton and Hove City Council passed a motion of no confidence in its Green administration. The debate was a curious affair, illustrating much about Brighton and Hove politics; in particular the way in which, nominally about the record of the administration, it turned into a series of personal attacks on Labour’s leader […]
Ed Miliband has made a major announcement about how local government will be reformed under a Labour administration. It’s a complete game-changer; a big vision and, for those of us who aspire to be Labour councillors, a hugely challenging one. Building on the Adonis review, which calls for massive devolution of economic power to the […]
After the farce, the tragedy. Following several days dominated by the furore caused by Green Cllr Ben Duncan’s tweet describing the armed forces as “hired killers”, and the discovery of an equally offensive Islamophobic tweet, the Brighton and Hove Green Party has today announced that it will seek a 5.9% Council Tax increase next year, […]
It’s been a wretched 48 hours for the Brighton and Hove Green Party. Cllr Ben Duncan’s tweet about Armed Forces day, and the ramifications of that, has dominated debate – but there is other news that may demonstrate that the Green Party in this city is in a state of collapse. At the time of […]
Green Cllr Ben Duncan’s tweet that Armed Forces Day had brought “hired killers” on to the streets of Brighton has caused a political furore. It has been condemned by Caroline Lucas and Duncan has been forced to issue an apology. It’s not enough. This is just the latest in a long line of incidents in […]
Notes from a Broken Society 