Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
No, because the mayoral elections use a second-preference vote, precisely to avoid this sort of scenario. The most broadly popular candidate should win.
One reason to vote Green in the mayoral election
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KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Its not 3 litre get your facts right its 2.25 litre diesel.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
WOOO!
Get a smaller car. Very, very simple.
Get a smaller car. Very, very simple.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
KS, I think you are confusing the LEZ (£100-£200 a day, *whole* of Greater London 24/7 charge ) with the £25 Band G congestion charge (which only applies to the centre between 7 and 6 Mon-Fri)
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
This was actually Green Party policy at one point- scrap the disc for all cars under 1300cc, require vehicles to show proof of insurance and put 9p on a litre of fuel to compensate.
Sadly it seems to have been replaced with a massssivvve great increase to both fuel and road tax.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
I would never urge anyone to vote Green first preference if I thought it'd let the tories in. Even though I have problems with plenty of Ken's policies I also have no doubt that he is better for London than either tory candidate would have been. In fact he has been surprisingly green.
The way the first and second preference vote works is that you vote for whoever you want first preference - the top 2 candidates on this vote survive and all the rest are knocked out. Then your all the second preference votes for these candidates are added onto their score.
So you can vote Green first preference, in the pretty certain knowledge that your second preference vote will go to Ken in the 2 way run off at the end. (by the way, polling at the moment shows that Ken gets such a massive majority of second pref votes over BJ that even if he is "behind" in the polls - as I have seen at least one Evening Substandard headline claim - he will slaughter him when the second pref vote are added on)
If the polling made it clear that KL was in serious danger of not making the final 2-way run off, I'd definitely change back to voting for him first pref, but that's a pretty unlikely scenario.
Out of the Big Three parties, the only set of voters who look to me like they probably have to vote for their boy first pref are the Lib-Dems who have to try and keep up the pressure on the big two parties that they might be able to bust into the 2-way run off. But all the evidence is that they will miss again.
So I say vote Green first preference! And blow the BNP out of the water in the mayoral contest.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
whooo! plenty of particles and it's so old-fashioned to drive a landrover especially in London
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
Indeed, but since it has been decided that all car owners are satanists it has now been replaced with a ridiculously punative policy of a £600 a year disc for my dinky 1.1 Fiesta *and* a 40 pence a litre fuel hike
How many turkeys do you know that will vote for Christmas?
That's a very sensible policy, since it taxes car usage rather than ownership and encourages the use of smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. Couple that with major investment in public transport, congestion charging in more large towns and cities, more 20mph urban speed limits and expanded pedestrianised zones and IMHO you have the basics of a sensible policy for cutting down traffic and improving road safety and the environment in urban areas, whilst not crippling the large proportion of people both in towns and in rural areas who do really do depend on being able to drive.
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
I was waiting for someone to point out whether the above was not a good enough reason to vote Green...
But very fair points about the second preference votes. Do most people know how it works?
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Indeed, but since it has been decided that all car owners are satanists it has now been replaced with a ridiculously punative policy of a £600 a year disc for my dinky 1.1 Fiesta *and* a 40 pence a litre fuel hike
How many turkeys do you know that will vote for Christmas?
Well, I don't know any turkeys on that kind of chatty basis, but every time you use a machine that releases CO2 into the atmosphere you are effectively a turkey voting for Christmas.
Runaway climate change is going to be very nasty if we let it happen.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Yes, but would the withdrawal of this "cheap chicken" lead to a reduction in price for "quality chicken"? I doubt it somehow.
And I'm a vigorous opponent of the free market, btw. I'm just one of those socialists who believes in a version of the abolition of the market that leads to an increase in the standard of living rather than a step backwards into some kind of hair-shirt frugalist puritanism.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
But where do you get this "hair-shirt frugalist puritanism" from? That's all your invention mate, not mine. You're fighting a straw man here.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
I'll remember that the next time some rightwing-dressed-as-leftwing environmentalist unveils another list of things we're not supposed to do anymore.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Burning fossil fuels as fast as we can is stupid no matter what your politics.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Well you're supposedly debating with me remember? You can hold what I've said against someone else if you like but I doubt it'll get you anywhere interesting.
FWIW - there are almost certainly going to be "things we're not supposed to do any more" if we are going to avoid runaway climate change. Eg CO2 emissions. You either join the fruitloops of denial or you have to accept this - and see it as an opportunity to politicise some decisions which at the moment are left to the "free" market - eg how we decide who gets what. That is potentially a highly radical step imo, compared to the individualist laissez-faire we live with now.
Frankly, even if you're do deny climate change, but still want to get rid of the "free" market as the means of allocating resources in society then surely allocations are going to have to be made by some more 'obvious' or visible political means - we debate collectively and form decisions using a system that has general credibility, voting, tossing a coin, whatever. That's still going to involve "things we're not supposed to do any more". ALL politics will.
Tbh, to harp on this point makes you sound like some kind of Get-The-Max, super-saturated turbo-capitalist consumer demanding Everything Now, No Limits more than a socialist.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
co-op,
Your post smacks of an attitude of "we're right, so you're either for us or against us - and if you question or disagree with our ideas, you're a pro-capitalist climate-change denier" (which I most certainly am not).
Your post smacks of an attitude of "we're right, so you're either for us or against us - and if you question or disagree with our ideas, you're a pro-capitalist climate-change denier" (which I most certainly am not).
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
You see this is the problem with the whole 'Green-Left' thing. The Green party are so obsessed with climate change to the exclusion of everything else.
Planet yes, but not at the expense of people.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
But it's not about the planet. The planet will do just fine. It really is about the people. Climate change will hurt people, lots of them.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Some of the suggested remedies will do that too.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Yep. It's going to hurt no matter what we do. We've been spending the inheritance and need to get ourselves on a self sufficient basis.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
It's the whole superior whiff of "our cause is so right and noble that it - and our means to advance it - is above question. Or you're a climate-change denier" that really irks me, tbh.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
I'd say two things to that:
1) the Green Party is a very broad church. In fact the traditional left could kebab us for breakfast on theoretical grounds and quite easily. My point is that there isn't some monolithic "means to advance" our cause being laid down. There is intense debate about it, some 'solutions' being put forward look pretty right wing to me. I would compare the GP now to the Common Fronts that appeared in response to fascism and nazism during the 1930s. And I see that as a way of potentially re-politicising massive areas of debate that have been privatised off into "economics" etc. That's a radical step in the blandly de-politicisied era we live in. (imo obviously)
2) the self-righteous thing...all I can say is it all depends where you're standing. I don't see it in my posts - but then I guess I wouldn't. After all, how can I see the moral highground when I'm standing on it?
What I do see (and I'm not trying to wind you up here, honest) is an irritable reaction from you that, to me, speaks of denial about the problems we are facing. I see this as a genuine issue facing us now. The real truth about the possible consequences of runaway climate change is that we are looking at some very credible apocalyptic outcomes for our species. That's existentially terrifying - and it is a normal reaction to turn away, or to slag off the messenger (eg for being self-righeous, there are about 6 standard responses).
But what else can be done about this? You see moral superiority being flaunted, I see frustrated denial kicking out - we have to debate a way through it. A lot of "green" stuff is nonsense, and right-wing nonsense at that (just like a lot of "socialists" are plain crackers). The GP has quite a good level of expertise at sorting one from the other, but it also has to operate as a political party in the normal arena with all the stupid pressures that any party faces and with the normal mix of egos and human failings + probably quite a few more stoners than the average political party. So it gets it wrong sometimes...
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Yup scratch a green and find an authoritarian underneath.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Stupid post award of the thread so far.
If you want meaningless bickering perhaps the "Britain is a toilet" thread would suit you better.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Oh please. You're a classic authoritarian socialist who would be happy to tell people exactly what is and isn't good for them in everything from culture to what they were allowed to wear. Trading in goods and services is something humans do - it's how it's carried out and what restrictions that trading happens under that make the difference. Your kind of socialism would control exactly what people were allowed to buy, when they could buy it etc.
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