Monday, February 14, 2011

Green candidate leaves party over opposition to cuts

Another Green World quotes what is apparently a statement by Vaughan Brean, the Green Party candidate for South West Devon:
With some regret, I am leaving the Green Party. I support the parties core environmental views, but can not concur with the widely shared view in the party that all cut to spending should be resisted no matter how wasteful.
The general populace of this country enjoy a standard of living way beyond that to which we are entitled, and the Greens seem to be committed to encouraging people to expect and demand these ridiculous levels of consumption, whilst I agree that equality is a major issue, I consider very few to be in real poverty as opposed to relative poverty (which does exist), if the Greens adopt a more realistic stance on public expenditure, I may rejoin at some future date.
The blog goes on to insist that the Coalition's spending cuts "are about making the richer richer and the rest of us poorer".

That's a point of view, but it dodges the real question for the Greens. If the party believes that current levels of consumption are unsustainable, then that must include consumption by the public sector too, mustn't it?

Interestingly, the blog also remarks:
Apparently a (very very small) number of Party members unhappy with our position of opposing the cuts are being drawn to the Liberal Democrats.
Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice

8 comments:

Lavengro said...

The general populous

The general what of this country? If you* must use pretentious Latin words, do get them right.

*I speak impersonally Jonathan. I realise that this is a quotation from another blog.

Lavengro said...

Oh my God, it's populace. I thought it was populus.

Jonathan Calder said...

I am partly at fault: I let my spellchecker change if from populus to populous.

I shall now change it to populace.

Ethical point: I think it is fair to correct typos in quotations (unless you really dislike the writer, in which case you put [sic] afterwards to make them look silly).

Adamsdad said...

The Green Party don`t exist where I live, so it`s no big thing to me whether Mr Brean leaves them or not.

His reasons do throw up an important issue though - it`s quite true that a blanket `no cuts` position can in fact turn out to be reactionary under certain circumstances.

I`m guessing you`re not a big Morning Star reader, but `Fending oFf a Right-Wing Onslaught : Gregor Gall Calls for Measured Reflection About Public Services` (MS 30 July 2010) is useful. More recently I enjoyed Alan Gibbons` `Of Macaques and Capuchins I Sing` (I`m not making this up !) , which appeared 13 Feb 2011 at http://alangibbons.net.

Anonymous said...

Dr Wall is an intriguing chap, a Marxist who has been a longstanding member of the Ecology/Green Party (even when it was quite right-wing). Nevertheless he does have some very good ideas and it is well worth Liberals reading his stuff, anyway a chap who is a fan of Elinor Ostrom can’t be all bad.

But I digress, Mr Brean is the authentic voice of ‘green Greens’ and Dr Wall is the voice of red Greens. Mr Brean is echoing Ms Scott-Cato the Green Party’s economic spokesperson. http://gaianeconomics.blogspot.com/2010/09/living-within-our-means.html
http://greeneconomist.org/files/greeneconomist/general/1living_within_means.pdf

Mr James said...

Come on Anonymous (23:40), anyone familiar with the writings of Derek Wall can recognise his writing style a mile off!

Anonymous said...

Are you saying Mr James that I am the good doctor?

The Green Party say of Mr Brean:
"With his passion for the environment allied to his knowledge of the corporate world, Vaughan will be the ideal candidate for South West Devon"
http://www.greensarecoming.org.uk/VaughanBrean

Peter Chivall said...

Mr Brean could sign up to the Green LibDems. By a constitutional quirk, you don't need to be a full LD member to join (although it would be better...)