What can be learned from the new Labour, Lib Dem and Green peerages?

By Mark Wallace
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Earlier this afternoon I wrote about the 14 new Conservative Life Peers who have been appointed to the Lords. In the same announcement, 16 other Peers were created for the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens (the brief biographies are those from the Downing Street press release):

Green Party

• Jenny Jones AM – member of the London Assembly; former Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales and former Deputy Mayor of London

Labour Party

• Sir Charles Allen CBE - Non-Executive Director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games; Chairman of Global Radio Group
• Sir William Haughey OBE - prominent Scottish businessman and CEO of City Refrigeration Holdings
• Alicia Kennedy - former Deputy General Secretary of the Labour Party
• Doreen Lawrence OBE - campaigner for justice, race equality and better policing
• Jonathan (Jon) Mendelsohn - business advisor and co-founder of LLM Communications

Liberal Democrat Party

• Catherine (Cathy) Mary Bakewell MBE - former leader of Somerset County Council
• Rosalind (Olly) Grender MBE - former Director of Communications for Shelter; former Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats
• Christine Mary Humphreys - President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats; former Member of the National Assembly for Wales
• Zahida Manzoor CBE - former Legal Services Ombudsman; former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
• Brian Paddick - former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service
• James Palumbo - co-founder and chairman of Ministry of Sound Group, the international music and entertainment business
• Jeremy Purvis - former Member of the Scottish Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale
• Alison Suttie - former Press Secretary to the President of the European Parliament; former Deputy Chief of Staff to Nick Clegg and Election Manager for the 2010 General Election
• Rumi Verjee CBE - entrepreneur and philanthropist
• Sir Ian Wrigglesworth - Liberal Democrat Treasurer; former MP for Teeside Thornaby and for Stockton South

There are a few conclusions that can be drawn from this list:

1) The Government still has one eye on the Coalition Agreement - but only to a degree. The elevation of Jenny Jones as the first Green Peer is a nod towards the Coalition's pledge to make the House of Lords more representative of the level of support for smaller parties. Evidently the Greens were felt to be an acceptable route to do so - it's notable that UKIP, who received many more votes than them, did not receive any new Lords or Ladies. 

2) The Lib Dems aren't that bothered about the Rennard affair. As Guido notes, Alison Suttie has been caught up in various allegations about how the Lib Dems handled the scandal - but it hasn't prevented her donning the ermine. Not a great sign that they're ever going to take the issue seriously.

3) Londoners will be spared yet another Brian Paddick candidacy for Mayor. Some have cruelly suggested that the only reason he agreed to stand for the second time was because he would get a peerage for his efforts. It must be slightly awkward that Jenny Jones, who will arrive in the Lords at the same time, beat him into a poor 4th place in 2012.

4) Labour will always say one thing and do another. Reportedly, Labour have attacked today's announcement for "increasing the cost of politics". Will their new Peers therefore refuse to take their seats? Somehow, I doubt it...

5) People forget scandals if you wait long enough. Labour Peer Jon Mendelsohn is most recently recognisable from his work trying to nip the the David Abrahams Labour donor scandal in the bud - but he also hit the headlines early in the Blair years, as a character in the Lobbygate scandal. Time, it seems, heals all wounds.

Leader of Welsh Green Party drives ten year old, gas-guzzling Jaguar

By Tim Montgomerie
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Pippa Bartolotti is currently leader of the Green Party in Wales and she's standing for the leadership of the UK-wide party, to succeed Caroline Lucas. Two months ago she was in trouble for waving a Nazi flag. Today's Independent reveals that she owns a very nice Jaguar X-type (similar to the one pictured above). She has so far refused to trade it in for something with a smaller carbon footprint:

"Am I suddenly going to pay 25-grand for an electric car which I can't charge up hardly anywhere, because there's no infrastructure, and even if I could charge it up, a lot of the energy would be coming from dirty, coal-fired power stations?"

Yet again with the green movement it's do as I say, not as I do.

While UKIP eats into the Tory vote, the Greens further divide the Left

By Tim Montgomerie
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There's been a lot of focus on the impact that UKIP could have on the Tory vote at the next election but it's not only David Cameron who needs to worry about his core supporters defecting. In the London Mayoral elections the Lib Dem Brian Paddick came fourth - one spot behind the Green Party's Jenny Jones. The Greens see the next election as a big opportunity to build on the breakthrough that Caroline Lucas made in 2010 when she became her party's first MP.

Last night Ms Lucas announced that she would be stepping down as Green leader (they never used to have one top public spokesperson but a shared, rotating leadership group) in order for a successor to be able to focus on ousting Lib Dems at the next election.

The Independent quotes her at length, explaining her decision:

"People who voted Lib Dem in the past feel betrayed... A lot of them are looking for a new home and we want to be able to welcome them... I want to ensure that we use the leadership of the Green Party in a strategic way, to help us build momentum and build up our electoral presence... We don't want to be complacent about it, to assume we have any right to that (Lib Dem) vote but we do want to be able to take our message to Lib Dem areas in particular, to make the case that so many of these issues which we know they care about, the kind of manifesto that they thought they were voting for, are key principles of the Green Party."

The rising profile of the Greens should also worry Ed Miliband. Ms Lucas' party is more red than green - supporting a large state, high taxes on business, a big expansion of regulation and opposition to strong defence. If they start to enjoy a higher profile the Greens could eat into Labour's vote as well as that of the Liberal Democrats.

Green London Assembly Member and Mayoral candidate says squatting is "an excellent thing to do"

By Jonathan Isaby

I am only just catching up with a story from yesterday's Evening Standard about Jenny Jones, the Green London Assembly Member who was recently selected as her party's candidate to challenge Boris Johnson for the mayoralty next year.

I have written before about the Green Party's dangerous far Left credentials but Miss Jones yesterday went a step further in seeking to detach herself from reality and the concerns of decent law-abiding folk.

She gave her seal of approval to the practice of squatting, describing it as "an excellent thing to do":

"I've seen squatted buildings that were due for demolition. They were left empty for years and people used them for events. I don't have a problem with that."

And that's from the Deputy Chair of the GLA Planning and Housing Committee.

Housing minister Grant Shapps said he was "shocked and appalled" by her comments.

Meanwhile, the recently elected Tory leader on the London Assembly, James Cleverly, points out that this is the latest in a series of loopy ideas from the Green politician, which include a congestion charge of up to £50 a day in a zone covering the  whole of Greater London.

What's in a name?

by Paul Goodman

A friend has forwarded me an e-mail as below -

"The Green Party is occasionally criticised for its over-representation of whites and upper-income people, who are less likely to flinch at the added costs of environmental protections. In October, the Green Party candidate for Governor of Illinois, Rich Whitney, was shocked to see that the sample ballot for the November election mistakenly displayed his name as "Rich Whitey." (Corrections were made in time for election day.) [Washington Post-AP, 10-15-10]"

I've tracked down the story to Yahoo News, though not as yet to an original source.

Further offerings welcome.

Useful idiots

by Phil Taylor

Yesterday, and earlier in the month when rather larger numbers caused mayhem at 30 Millbank, the young people involved in the student protests were being taken for a ride by a small number of politicised adults.  Those adults are a rainbow alliance comprising mainstream Labour figures, from Ken Livingstone to Andy Burnham, through to anarchists, Green Socialists, Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party with financial backing from unions.  No doubt each group think that the other groups are their “useful idiots” but are happy to be temporarily unified to fight the hated ConDems.  Isn’t it great that it is not just the Tories having to take the blame for Labour’s mistakes? 

A key figure in London yesterday, and at Millbank where she has admitted to being on the site, was Claire Soloman.  She is a 37 year-old “student” who has spent by her own admission most of the noughties involved in left wing politics, including 4 years as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. It is not clear that Soloman has ever worked. She is the president of the University of London students union (ULU).  Soloman learnt her revolutionary ways, and make no mistake Soloman describes herself as a revolutionary, at University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies which is a hotbed of SWP recruitment and activism.  As president of ULU Soloman was the figurehead of yesterday’s march in London.  She even managed to get a free slot on the Radio 4 Today programme to promote it. 

A large element of yesterday’s demos was sixth formers notionally protesting about the loss of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).  The EMA is not an inalienable human right, it is a boomtime boon that was only fully rolled out in 2004/5 in time for the 2005 general election.  It is not surprising maybe, given EMA’s design as a classic Brownian dividing lines policy, that mainstream left figures including Ken Livingstone, Andy Burnham and Polly Tonybee have been quick to voice their support for the Save EMA campaign.  Who?

As part of its rolling news coverage yesterday afternoon BBC Television News interviewed a spokesman for the Save EMA campaign.  Regrettably the BBC failed to explain that James Mills from the Save EMA campaign is a Parliamentary researcher to John Robertson MP.  Sky News was similarly duped by Mills after Millbank and Mills appeared on Tony Livesey’s Radio 5 yesterday with our own Tim Montgomerie without acknowledgement of his day job.  The 26 year-old is rather too old to be in receipt of EMA.  It appears that Mills “devised” the Save EMA website and I think we can assume that is the extent of the organisation. 

Another player in the London protest and many of those around the country they claim, is Youth Fight for Jobs.  This is a campaign being run by the Socialist Party (don’t make any jokes about the Peoples’ Front for Judea).  Notably it is backed with union money.  Six union backers at the last count who have learnt not to rely solely on the Labour party to promote their interests. 

The Greens were at it too yesterday.  The BBC’s coverage of the Liverpool march identified Lewis Coyne as “one of the organisers of the Liverpool march”.  It seems that Coyne stood for the Greens in Liverpool as a local election candidate earlier this year.  Coyne also seems to represent Liverpool School Students Against War.   

The saddest story yesterday was perhaps that of Edward Woollard, the 18 year-old who coincidentally pleaded guilty to throwing a fire extinguisher off the roof of 30 Millbank.  He faces the prospect of five years in jail.  I would not excuse his actions, he clearly has a nasty streak in him that he needs to learn to control.  He will though now have a life and career blighted by one hot-headed action.  The twenty-something and thirty-something activists who constructed the situation in which he found himself are way too smart to get caught themselves. 

For me the standout voice yesterday was the quietly spoken Shamima Blake, a 16 year-old London student, who appeared on Newsnight.  She stayed at school yesterday.  She clearly explained to Jeremy Paxman that you only have to repay the higher fees once you leave university and earn over £21,000, declaring “I’m pretty fine with it”.  Follow this link <insert link to iPlayer below> and move the slider to 25.45.

This picture taken by a Scottish Green in Edinburgh yesterday gives a pretty good clue as to what is going on.  Note the green, black and red flag with anarchist symbol, the same symbol that appeared on the front of that police van yesterday.  With Labour in opposition the Peoples’ Front for Judea have made peace with the Judean Peoples’ Front and the broad left is busily working away to radicalise a new generation of young people exploiting the traps conveniently left behind by the last Labour government.  If a few policemen are injured and young people like Woollard have their lives blighted that will be an acceptable price to pay for the new socialist dawn to come. 

I hope that young people listen to Shamima Blake and not to the rent-a-mob types that are trying to lead them astray.

Phil Taylor is an Ealing Councillor and blogger

The Green Party now wants to restrict my freedom of choice and stop me eating meat

By Jonathan Isaby

There's a story I missed a few days ago which is worth highlighting in my continuing efforts to expose the Green Party variously as an uncuddly, far-left, statist, authoritarian party.

Quite simply, the party's leader and sole MP, Caroline Lucas, wants to ban me and everyone else working on the parliamentary estate from being able to eat meat  on Mondays. She has written to the parliamentary catering authorities asking them to provide, on one day a week, "a totally animal-free menu in order to help tackle the world's environmental and other problems".

Backing the so-called "Meat Free Monday" campaign, she says:

"Farming and slaughtering animals is now recognised as a significant contributor to today's greatest environmental problems. According to the United Nations, livestock farming could be responsible for up to 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transport sector combined. As well as saving carbon, reducing the amount of meat in our diets will also help improve health."

Last time I checked, protein from meat and fish was an essential part of a balanced diet. But that aside, it angers me that this party, which claims to believe in civil liberties, is trying to dictate what the rest of us can eat.

Yet a party spokesman claims:

"This is not... to restrict people's choices, but to spread awareness of the impacts that people's individual and collective choices can make."

I, meanwhile, am delighted to spread awareness of the potential impact of Green Party policies...

The Green Party seeks state funding of political parties

I pointed out here during the election that Green Party are anything but cuddly - their policies are a far Left statist outfit.

More evidence of all of this came yesterday in evidence given by the party's deputy leader, Adrian Ramsay, to the Standards Committee's hearing on Party Political Finance.

Demanding a "level playing field" for party funding, he said:

"Fixing British democracy isn't just about ending the abuse of expenses. It's about facilitating choices for the voters, and restoring people's faith in politics. So it simply shouldn't be the case that parties are so reliant on wealthy donors to fund their activities. That inevitably means that some parties can afford huge PR campaigns, while the voters don't get to hear about alternative policies put forward by parties that are less well-heeled.

"Reliance on wealthy donors also inevitably leads voters to question whether the decisions the big parties make, whether over policy or appointments, are influenced by the wishes of donors. State funding will help refocus politics on principles rather than fundraising.

"The Greens believe that party funding should be calculated and administered on a regional basis, with funds allocated in proportion to the number of votes cast in the region in the last round of proportional representation elections held across the entire region. Parties would need to exceed a threshold of 3% of the vote to become eligible for this funding."

I'm sure I've said it before and I will doubtless say it again, but I believe that political parties should have to survive within a free market environment and so long as there is transparency about who gives substantial amounts, there is no logical argument even for capping political donations.

If the Green Party's ideas are so wonderful and worthwhile, those that support them should remain free to give them as much funding as they like.

The very last thing that the taxpayer should be expected to be footing the bill for right now is the running of political parties.

Jonathan Isaby

Is Ken Livingstone backing George Galloway in Poplar and Limehouse against the official Labour candidate?

Voters in the newly-drawn Poplar and Limehouse constituency have no fewer than ten candidates from which to choose come polling day.

Among them is the excellent Conservative candidate, Tim Archer, the sitting Labour MP for Poplar and Canning Town, Jim Fitzpatrick, and the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, George Galloway.

Above is a leaflet that Galloway has been distributing in the constituency (click it to enlarge) and below I have zoomed in on one section of it.

Yes, pictured with Galloway there is Ken Livingstone, the former Labour London mayor, who is desperate to stand for Labour again against Boris Johnson in 2012.

Has he given George Galloway an endorsement? Is that passage in inverted commas a quote from him or Galloway?

If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then I cannot see how he can remain in the Labour Party.

If the answer to either of those questions is no, then Galloway should withdraw the leaflet immediately as it is misleading in the extreme. He is clearly implying that he has the support of Ken Livingstone.

Either way, answers are required.

Hat tip: Matt Woods

6.45pm update:

Elsewhere on Twitter, Mr Onions has the below excerpt from the leaflet of the Green candidate for Cambridge, Tony Juniper

Again, it would appear that either Ken Livingstone is endorsing a non-Labour candidate or the Green candidate is falsely claiming his support. Can anyone establish which is the case?

8pm update:

Ken Livingstone has just returned my call about these leaflets. He was very blasé about the whole issue, as you might have expected. Here's what he said:

"There's nothing new in this. At the 1989 European elections Lord Bethell used a picture with me on a leaflet. It must be my immense personal popularity; I think I'm on the leaflets of about three quarters of Labour candidates in London - they don't seek my permission, they just go up. If you stick a picture of me on your leaflet, it's not going to do you any harm. Of course, I'm supporting the Labour candidates everywhere, but it would be churlish of me to deny others the pleasure of looking at me. I wouldn't mind betting that lovely George Osborne's got a picture of me on his leaflets too."

Jonathan Isaby

The Green Party's credentials as a party of the far Left have never been clearer

The Green Party launched its manifesto today and if any further evidence were required that the party is is a far Left, statist outfit, then here it is.

A quick zip through various reports on the manifesto launch and you swiftly discover a long list of spending commitments for which the Greens reckon they will need to raise an eye-watering  £112 billion in taxes over the next three years.

Among its pledges are:

• Increasing the weekly state pension to £170
• Scrapping all tuition fees
• Free school meals for all
• Scrapping prescription charges
• Re-introducing free eye tests
• Free dental care
• Free social care for all
• Opposing budget and job cuts in the public sector
• Increasing the minimum wage to £8.10 an hour
• 50% tax rate on incomes over £100,000
• No ceiling on National Insurance payments
• Re-introducing the fuel duty escalator at 8% per year
• Introducing VAT and fuel duty on aviation
• Introducing a permanent tax on bankers' bonuses
• Stripping private schools of charitable status 
• Reducing the role of business in education 
• Ending the use of nuclear power
• Scrapping the replacement for Trident

From their website you can download the suicide notemanifesto in full.

Jonathan Isaby