Is "Real' the new "New"? "
The Lib Dems are "The REAL alternative" and Greens offer "Real Progress" and fliers from the Labour Representation Committee offer "Real Labour". Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Is 'Real' the new 'New'? And will the Greens' address be any better than the yellow one?
We like :
- printed on 100% recycled and a quarter the size of the Lib propaganda with less fibs and no bar charts
We wonder :
- why our Green blogger is bragging about local printers when this one is done in York; Labour's Manchester leaflets are all printed by a small firm in Manchester
We like :
- the main slogan (there are plenty) "For people, planet and peace"; it's very grand
- some of the policies too
We don't like :
- unsupported assertions like "Labour's done nothing"
In this city that just isn't the case and our local government 2005 manifesto aspires to make Manchester the Greenest City in Britain and 2006 will see more aspiration, progress reports and detailed action plan; recycling has already increased eight fold in two years, we have a composting plant, talk of incinerators has been replaced by much better alternatives, there's Metrolink and the most used public transport outside London, all streetlights here are powered by renewables, all council buildings including schools and local units too, and a process of eco audits is underway with school dinner food miles looking the biggest remaining culprit; Fair Trade status of course, and so on and so forth.
Manchester Labour is making a conscious effort to recruit energetic red-green believers and, yes, Manchester is doing the business for people, planet and peace.
We also don't like :
- scaremongering from the Lib Dem school
The cover graphic is a rural type signpost with six directions shown. These are :
Dentist 18
Corner Shop 3
Post Office 5
School 12
Station 23
Hospital 8
Total 69 somethings
These figures whether in miles, kilometres or star years have got to be bogus in most of the seats where they are standing.
My sister in law lives under the Black Mountain in Pontardawe and my parents at the edge of Ballycastle in Glen Shesk and their figures are actually not dissimilar to mine perhaps 150% in Gower and 250% in Antrim. Mine are (in kilometres) :
Dentist 2.5 (the ex NHS one is 0.2)
Corner Shop 0.3
Post Office 0.6
School 1.0
Station 4.0 (1.0 when Metrolink is delivered)
Hospitals 1.2, 3.0, 3.5
Total 11.9 kilometres (using longest alternatives)
The Greens do have a good point underneath the exaggeration. We are lucky to be so handy for everything. Others, especially in rural areas, are not. But scaremongering by a factor of SIX is loopy stuff when Greens are mainly standing in Manchester, Leeds, Lancaster, Oxford, Brighton and the like. And by TWO or THREE times for some typical country towns. It's nonsense.
Green voters and activists out there should seriously consider getting stuck in and greening Labour instead. Watch from the sidelines, or roll up your sleeves and make things happen with us.
The problem for socialist-leaning greens and green-leaning socialists must be that the Green Party may be clear on a couple of things, possibly, but beyond that there is policy chaos and all stripes politically. Are we going to get Blue-Green or Red-Green today?
In Chorlton the council candidate advocated medieval punishment stocks on her website. Startingly similar to the BNP pledge number two : corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals.
One of their national spokespeople gave the papers an exclusive story. That Manchester town hall brews and bickies were startingly overpriced. As I recall the cost was about £2.50 for unlimited refills and a couple of biscuits. A fraction of Starbucks or any conference centre. The Green sums were nonsense. Neglecting all the Labour value in buying, brewing, serving, clearing and pot washing. Expect redundancies.
Some of their candidates here are Labour right defectors. And of course in Leeds they are in a coalition with Tories and Libs. Well I suppose if you mix true blue with cheesy yellow you do get a shade of green! Perhaps that's it? Or the bicky-gate redundancy agenda and the medieval punishment?
(PS To check the real liberal democratic environmental challenge google for the excellent "Too Yellow To Be Green".)
We like :
- printed on 100% recycled and a quarter the size of the Lib propaganda with less fibs and no bar charts
We wonder :
- why our Green blogger is bragging about local printers when this one is done in York; Labour's Manchester leaflets are all printed by a small firm in Manchester
We like :
- the main slogan (there are plenty) "For people, planet and peace"; it's very grand
- some of the policies too
We don't like :
- unsupported assertions like "Labour's done nothing"
In this city that just isn't the case and our local government 2005 manifesto aspires to make Manchester the Greenest City in Britain and 2006 will see more aspiration, progress reports and detailed action plan; recycling has already increased eight fold in two years, we have a composting plant, talk of incinerators has been replaced by much better alternatives, there's Metrolink and the most used public transport outside London, all streetlights here are powered by renewables, all council buildings including schools and local units too, and a process of eco audits is underway with school dinner food miles looking the biggest remaining culprit; Fair Trade status of course, and so on and so forth.
Manchester Labour is making a conscious effort to recruit energetic red-green believers and, yes, Manchester is doing the business for people, planet and peace.
We also don't like :
- scaremongering from the Lib Dem school
The cover graphic is a rural type signpost with six directions shown. These are :
Dentist 18
Corner Shop 3
Post Office 5
School 12
Station 23
Hospital 8
Total 69 somethings
These figures whether in miles, kilometres or star years have got to be bogus in most of the seats where they are standing.
My sister in law lives under the Black Mountain in Pontardawe and my parents at the edge of Ballycastle in Glen Shesk and their figures are actually not dissimilar to mine perhaps 150% in Gower and 250% in Antrim. Mine are (in kilometres) :
Dentist 2.5 (the ex NHS one is 0.2)
Corner Shop 0.3
Post Office 0.6
School 1.0
Station 4.0 (1.0 when Metrolink is delivered)
Hospitals 1.2, 3.0, 3.5
Total 11.9 kilometres (using longest alternatives)
The Greens do have a good point underneath the exaggeration. We are lucky to be so handy for everything. Others, especially in rural areas, are not. But scaremongering by a factor of SIX is loopy stuff when Greens are mainly standing in Manchester, Leeds, Lancaster, Oxford, Brighton and the like. And by TWO or THREE times for some typical country towns. It's nonsense.
Green voters and activists out there should seriously consider getting stuck in and greening Labour instead. Watch from the sidelines, or roll up your sleeves and make things happen with us.
The problem for socialist-leaning greens and green-leaning socialists must be that the Green Party may be clear on a couple of things, possibly, but beyond that there is policy chaos and all stripes politically. Are we going to get Blue-Green or Red-Green today?
In Chorlton the council candidate advocated medieval punishment stocks on her website. Startingly similar to the BNP pledge number two : corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals.
One of their national spokespeople gave the papers an exclusive story. That Manchester town hall brews and bickies were startingly overpriced. As I recall the cost was about £2.50 for unlimited refills and a couple of biscuits. A fraction of Starbucks or any conference centre. The Green sums were nonsense. Neglecting all the Labour value in buying, brewing, serving, clearing and pot washing. Expect redundancies.
Some of their candidates here are Labour right defectors. And of course in Leeds they are in a coalition with Tories and Libs. Well I suppose if you mix true blue with cheesy yellow you do get a shade of green! Perhaps that's it? Or the bicky-gate redundancy agenda and the medieval punishment?
(PS To check the real liberal democratic environmental challenge google for the excellent "Too Yellow To Be Green".)
posted by Chris Paul at 9:20 PM
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