Green Surge

The Green Party has been in the news, but this time it isn’t because they had a surge in membership or been invited to the leaders’ debates, it is because their policies were actually being discussed. On LBC they had a chance to put their housing policy directly to voters and the outcome was not good. Faced with some simple questions on financing their leader Natalie Bennett completely collapsed. The phrase train wreck does not begin to cover how badly it went - you can hear the interview and read the transcript here.

The story quickly became about how bad her performance was, which is a shame as we do urgently need more council homes to alleviate pressure on the private housing market, and no other party has seriously suggesting tackling the problem. Bennett also made a good point about how much of the housing benefit bill ends up in the pockets of private landlords, something I have been pointing out for years. The lack of a living wage means that benefits are used to subsidise both private landlords and the low wage offered by employers. If you are concerned about the cost of housing benefits, then look at who it really goes to: buy-to-let landlords, and not low income workers.

Increasing the stock of council housing, coupled with other Green policies like a living wage, would reduce the housing benefit bill, move vulnerable people out of the private rented sector, increase standards of living for the lowest earners, reduce inflationary pressure on rents in the private housing market and provide more home security for those in need.

All of these benefits, which would help the Greens electorally, were overlooked because the story became about Bennett’s performance. The Greens do need to get better at pitching themselves, or else they will not be able to expand their electoral support. The fact that their leader fell completely apart during an interview that was not particularly difficult or pressing is not encouraging this close to the election. It looked like they were not expecting their policies to come under the same level of scrutiny that every other party gets.

Those posters asking "the boys" what they are afraid of look childishly overconfident now, especially as one of the “boys” Bennett will be up against is Nicola Sturgeon who is a very good debater and will make short work on Bennett if she cannot answer simple questions about figures without tripping over her own feet. That's without taking into account Farage's bolshie style of public oratory, Cameron and Clegg who have done this before and Miliband who has been able to held his own against Cameron during PMQs. The Greens could end up looking like amateurs playing in the professional party's league.

This home spun, ordinary-people, lack of professionalism is part of the draw of the Greens - up until the point when it stops them appealing to ordinary people who have little tolerance of politicians with a lack of media savvy– case in point, look at what happened to Gordon Brown five years ago.

This, and other, recent media gaffs are symptoms of a wider problem with the Green Party - and I write this as someone who is tempted to vote Green in the general election. The Greens appeared to have assumed that everyone would support their policies if they knew what they were. However this is because there policies have had little scrutiny outside the ranks of their supporters or people who are likely to vote for them. Appealing to a wide cross section of the general public is more difficult, and does not necessarily require changing of policies but it does involve expressing them properly.

Expressing them properly does not mean becoming the slick PR machine that the Tories are or raising the huge ground swell of volunteers that Labour have, it means framing their policies as the answers to the questions voters are asking and, where possible, changing the national debate to questions to which the Green Party are the answer. UKIP, remember, have only become relevant by making sure every question on every issue can be answered with ‘Europe’, ‘immigration’ or ‘political correctness’ – whatever you think about their worldview, they’re good at it, and they’ve been successful in getting these issues onto the agenda, largely against the wishes of the established parties.

It also means having a consistent message on policy areas such as the economy, health, housing, etc. Which are areas where it is possible to make gains from Labour among left learning people. They are doing some of this already, which is why left learning people like myself are inclined to vote for them, but they need to be better at it.

They also have to phrase their policies in a way which voters can clearly understand what the party as a whole stands for. A recent example, pointed out to me, is that the Greens want to legalise membership of groups like IS (who want to destroy our society) but will make criminals of small business owners who do not want women to breast feed on their premises. I think these are both good policies but when put together they seem very contradictory and are likely to alienate people who would otherwise support the Greens.

As a country we need the Greens to do well, they are the only party that is challenging the status quo - with the possible exception of the SNP. From safe guarding the environment, to protecting the NHS, to ending the scapegoating of those on benefits and immigrants, there are many reasons to support the Green Party, but the Greens themselves need to start acting more professionally or this Green Surge will not translate into electoral results.

The main piece of advice I would give to the Greens are to stop focusing on the details like the minutia of how policies will be funded and leave that the other grey suited politicians fighting it out to be accountant-in-chief. By focusing on the cost of policies the Greens are playing the other party’s game, a game they cannot win. A sustainable future and a fairer society is not something which can be subjected to cost benefit analysis.

To appeal to voters the Greens need a simple and consistent narrative of hope and change. They need to be the breath of fresh air that will clear away the old establishment and vested interesting and usher in a fairer, cleaner, greener future. They need a message of hope and change and not one of small-minded bean counting. This will engage people who want change and believe that the Greens can deliver it.

It's the economy stupid

Economic performance makes or breaks a re-election campaign. In the absence of a scandal (and sometimes in spite of one) strong economic performance will guarantee a government’s re-election. The poor economic situation allowed Bill Clinton to beat incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992, and then 4 years later the buoyant economic circumstances allowed Clinton to overcome the Monica Lewinski scandal to be re-elected. Economic performance allowed Blair to win three elections and Brown to win zero. Now with a general election almost upon us, the economy is centre stage again.

Economic "leadership" is seen as a winning trait in a perspective Prime minister and with inequality up, wages down, homes too expensive for most people to afford, trouble in the Euro-zone and another financial crash on the horizon there has never been more need for economic leadership.

However, economic leadership is not what we are being offered. Cameron offers more of the same from a future Tory government, more protection for big business, more cuts to public services, more blaming of the poor for all our economic problems. I doubt a future Tory government will raise wages, living standards or reduce inequality. This is mainly because they refuse to legislate to achieve these aims; Cameron prefers to ask business leaders nicely to do these things, so that they can easily ignore their social responsibilities.

Defining economic success is half of the election battle. Cameron would prefer it to be economic growth figures, as GDP is up and the economy is larger now than it was before the crash. Labour are viewed as weak on growth, mainly as a hangover from the 2010 general election, when Cameron was able to blame complex global macro-economic problems on the simple fact that Labour overspent. Labour would prefer economic success to be defined as growth in wages and living standards, which have remained flat since the Tories took office.

In terms of policy, Labour offer some economic leadership. Miliband's plan is to promote responsible capitalism, which is neo-liberalism with government intervention to prevent the worst inequalities and abuses. However, this is not leadership or putting forward an alternative to the dominant economic narrative of neo-liberalism. This is a slightly different variant on the narrative Thatcher established in the 1980s and has essentially remained unchallenged since.

Labour's plan is to exploit peoples’ fear. Fear that things will get worse, fear that wages will not rise, fear that ordinary people will not feel the recovery, fear that your children will be worse off than you are. This is a bad move as Labour achieved large landslides when they captured a spirit of optimism. This was the case in 1945 with the welfare state, in 1966 with the “white heat of technology” and in 1997 with New Labour. Appealing to our aspirations works better for Labour, not our fears.

Politicians from the main parties are appealing to our fears instead of our aspirations; this has led to voters being frightened about the future and unsure who offers hope. UKIP aims to exploit voters’ fear that immigration and the EU will drag our economy under, Lib Dems that the two main parties will unleash widespread suffering without them as a coalition partner, Greens that our economy will be wrecked by environmental disasters, the SNP that a collapsing English economy will sink Scotland as well.

If all economic indicators were improving then the government would be doing better in opinion polls. Let us not forgot that the Tories led us into a double-dip, almost triple-dip, recession. The economy is growing but people who are not already very wealthy are not feeling better off, this is a failure of economic policy.

If Labour were offering an alternative narrative then they would be doing better in the polls as well. By playing along to the Tory's narrative of austerity, instead of offering one of their own, they are playing a losing game. 2010 was not long ago and fighting the debates from that election again will not bring about a Labour victory. The lack of a counter narrative is playing into the hands of the Tories.

No one offers any vision or leadership on the economy, only fear. Economic fear has gripped us as a nation despite the return of growth. We are frightened about unemployment, uncertainty, anti-business agendas, rabid capitalism, wages, inflation, deflation, the cost of the NHS, the lack of an NHS, the cost of immigration, too many pensioners, house prices falling, houses being too expensive, anti-EU rhetoric, pro-EU rhetoric and our shadows.

The climate of fear and uncertainty that surrounds our economic future is a product of the lack of leadership from politicians on the economy. Politician of all stripes would rather let the market and unaccountable large companies control our economic future, and the result has been inequality, economic instability and a public who worries that control of the economy is out of their hands. This has led to a view that ordinary's people's concerns are not taken into account when economic decisions are made and now most people are frightened about their future.

In the 1970s economic uncertainty, fear about the future and belief that the economy was out of our control led to strong leadership from Margret Thatcher and a radical new vision for our economy. Now those views have been allowed to run to their logical conclusion and people are concerned about the state of the economy. Again we need bold leadership from politicians and a new economic narrative to change direction and regain people's faith in the economy and their own futures.

We need a new economic narrative to replace the neo-liberal mantra, which has led us to this place of fear and confusion. We need a narrative that makes us optimistic about our future and feel in control our own economic wellbeing, not at the whim of free-market forces or governments that looks after the financial futures of large companies instead of its own citizens.

The fact that both main parties have the same economic narrative is the reason for the political deadlock. As the economy is the most important issue to most voters, presenting a new popular economic narrative would be a huge vote winner for a party that did so. It was an adviser of Clinton's who coined the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" to describe how election campaigns turn on this issue. Both main parties should bear this in mind when they are considering repeating the tired economic clichés voters are disillusioned with, or showing some leadership on this issue and presenting a new narrative.