Blogging Green Party conference

I'm blogging this week's Green Party conference at Green Despatches
Red Pepper's unofficial despatches from Reading.

Stop Kingsnorth

I was interested to get an email today from the World Development Movement plugging their Stop Kingsnorth campaign. I expect Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the like to be campaigning against a new generation of coal-fired power stations, but for WDM to make this such a major campaign shows how serious they are about linking climate change to their core issue of tackling the underlying causes of poverty.

As they put it on the Stop Kingsnorth site:

Climate change is the greatest crisis facing humanity. Whilst rich countries are responsible for most of the emissions pumped into the atmosphere it is the poorest, most marginalised communities in the world that will be hit the hardest by climate change.

Kingsnorth power station alone will release more CO2 each year than Ghana. It will not use carbon capture and storage technology, and so will contribute to climate change that is already hitting the world’s poor first and hardest.

They also have a useful map indicating seven more planned coal-burning power stations.

MayorDex

This widget monitors coverage of the London Mayoral candidates and rates them by %age improvent.

Warning - Young people are getting angry

What's more important UFOs, Chuck Norris or Climate Change?

There's a petition calling on US reporters to ask the questions that really matter here.

Re-elect Jean Lambert, London's Green MEP

In addition to the national referendum of Green Party members on whether we should elect a Leader (see below), London members will be receiving another set of important ballot papers soon.

The London party is currently selecting our candidates for the 2009 Euro Elections and I'm part of a group working to ensure that the party re-selects our fantastic sitting Euro-MP, Jean Lambert.

As the re-elect Jean blog says:

We're a group of Londoners, some of us are members of the Green Party, others are not, but we are all really pleased that back in 1999 London was the first place in the UK to elect a Green politician to represent us in the European Parliament. We're proud that Jean Lambert is our Euro-MP and so we're working to make sure she gets re-elected in 2009.

And if you're on Facebook, you can join the re-elect Jean group.

5 out of 6 potential Green voters want a leader

As ballot papers arrive this week for the Green Party's referendum on whether to replace our "Principal Speakers" with a Leader and Deputy Leader, a new poll has shown that 5 out of 6 potential Green voters would prefer the Party to elect a leader.

The YouGov poll shows 84% of those who expressed a view think the Party should replace its "Principal Speakers" with a Leader.

There is very little variation by gender, age or region - the lowest levels of support for a leader are in the North East region and the 18-24 age group (81% in favour) and the highest in East Anglia (92% in favour).

Given this overwhelming message from the people we hope to be elected to represent, I hope that Party members will join me, Darren Johnson, Caroline Lucas, Sian Berry and 75% of our elected councillors in voting YES when their ballot papers arrive.

Green Leaders

And this from Unlock Democracy

Green Leaders
By Simon Maine

Politics without leaders? This has been the philosophical mantra behind the Green Party ever since its inception in 1973. The party is unique in British politics by adopting a policy of collective leadership with two principal speakers. But this may be set to change as Britain’s persistent niche party debates the possibility of joining the mainstream by adopting a single leader.

The issue is set to dominate the party’s conference in Liverpool next week and a binding poll amongst members in November offers the opportunity to elect someone to lead the call for a more environmentally sustainable way of life. The ‘Yes’ campaign has already begun; Caroline Lucas MEP explains in a press release:

“Other Parties are incapable of leading on critical issues, such as dangerous climate change: their commitment to the chimera of endless economic growth - and their having been captured by corporate interests - make it impossible for them to do so. The Green Party needs to be visibly seen and shown to be leading on this, the central issue of our time: but how can we do so, if we don’t even trust ourselves enough to have a Leader?”

She makes a good point. It’s admirable that the party doesn’t want to rush headlong into copying the centralized models of other parties but maybe it’s time that some real leadership was exercised on the ‘green issue’. The Green Party knows it can never become a party of government. Under the current electoral system they would be lucky to get even one MP. Its real raison d’être is as a pressure group and in the coming years it will become less likely that the political mainstream can ignore the calls from the Greens. No doubt there will be much philosophical hand wringing at the party conference but it would be best if the Greens wised up to face the world as it stands and not the world they would like to live in. Collective leadership is admirable but ineffective.

The Central Issue of Our Time

From The Guardian's "Backbencher" column

Hang on a minute, say Green activists. What about our party conference? It's a fair point. The Greens are meeting in Liverpool between tomorrow and Sunday when a series of fringe debates will culminate in a major debate on the conference floor on the issue of the moment: leadership, the very topic the Ming-ites are keen to avoid.

The Greens too have traditionally avoided hierarchy and leaderism which they dislike. But they pay a price for having collective leadership and titles like "principle speaker": diminished political impact in an era which elevates leaders who come in handy on TV. Theirs is a hard conference to report on. Colleagues of the Backbencher's have tried.

Today Sir Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the government's big-tented sustainability commission, weighed in to join those backing the need for a leader, who include Darren Johnson, a London assembly member, and Dr Caroline Lucas MEP, who grandly calls it "the central issue of our time".

"If ever there was a time when the Green party needed a formally elected leader, it has to be now. The Green party's analysis and policy proposals are more relevant today than ever before, but with all the major parties seeking their share of the 'green mantle', the party urgently needs a clear, passionate and persuasive leader out there, doing the job in a way that both the public and the media can relate to much more easily than is the case today," he explains to slow learners.

Even Greens need leaders - Mark Lynas

Ex-Green Party member and Six Degrees author, Mark Lynas, makes a good case for radical Green leadership in this week's New Statesman. It's good to see the debate getting outside the activist forums and into places that the average member (or potential member) might see it.