Green Leader on Tory Spending Lies

The Tories and both their Coalition partners the Lib Dems and now the opposition Labour Party claim massive cuts in spending on social services, welfare to the vulnerable and education are needed to cut the national deficit. But as Green Party leader Caroline Lucas told the party conference in Liverpool this weekend, this is very much a matter of choice driven by perspective rather than financial necessity. It seems there is plenty of money left for some pretty unpleasant choices the Con Dems are happy to splurge out on...

A Europe for People, Not Profit

On Monday, the British Parliament will debate and vote on a motion sponsored by eurosceptic Conservative MPs to hold a referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union. In the midst of the Eurozone crisis, while David Cameron has insisted on a three line whip to keep his fractious right-wingers in line and the Lib Dems will vote against, even although their leader proposed an in-or-out referendum in 2008. But with as many as 85 Conservatives predicted to be ready to break that line, the Coalition will almost certainly need - and get - Labour Party support to vote the proposal down.

And so it is very unlikely that the British people will get a referendum - even although most of them want one. So much for democracy and so much for the three parties that dominate our political world continue to disconnect further and further from the electorate they govern.

The European project was born in the aftermath of the two world wars that dominated the Continent during the first part of the 20th century. The worst conflicts in human history originated in her heartlands. From that perspective, for now at any rate, the EU has played a positive role - with the dreadful exception of the former Yugoslavia, the hot air of Presidents, Prime Ministers and bureaucrats has replaced the guns of Krupps and the Birmingham Small Arms Company.

Yet the absence of war cannot in itself justify the failures of the behemoth that the European Union has become - while its bureaucracy is not quite the bloated gravy train so beloved of the British tabloid writers, the Eurozone project has brought misery to millions of ordinary people as the European Central Bank, like banks everywhere, continues to put the interests of international finance ahead of the needs of European citizens. In other respects too, EU policy focus is very much on encouraging and protecting big business and its decision-making processes are remote and unaccountable to ordinary citizens.

Of course, listening to the Tory and UKIP eurosceptics railing about Europe taking over Britian, including  blatantly lying about straight bananas (why does no one ever wonder where these are?), their reasons for wanting a referendum soon become clear. They accept that Europe is a vital trade partner for Britain, plus perhaps they worry about having to accommodate the half a million or so angry British pensioners who would lose their right of abode in Spain, plus the 200,000 Britons in France who would be heading back to our shores.

Euromyths - according to legend, all our bananas should look like this.

So what do they want instead? A renegotiated relationship - some of them argue for a sort of club class membership, while others want to be completely outside but with special privileges of access.

What these people object to are the regulations that ensure some degree of common social protection and health and safety rules around Europe, so that one country can't undercut another by paying its workers miniscule wages and forcing them to work in dangerous conditions. The EU has for two decades been the main proponent of new safety legislation in the workplace - if it wasn't for the EU, British workers would have no entitlement to a 20 minute unpaid break after six hours of working; pregnant women would not be entitled to protective arrangements for using computer screens; and employers would not have to consult their workers before moving their jobs out of the UK. Small protections and far from ideal, but better than nothing. This is what the right-wingers in the Tories and UKIP are really fretting about - the impact on capitalists profit margins of the marginal improvements in workers conditions through European legislation.

But these motives aside, it is time to have a proper debate on the EU and vote on whether Britain remains in it. It is welcome that the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas MP, has put forward an amendment to the referendum proposal calling for a national vote on whether the EU should become more democratically accountable and economic powers be devolved back to nation states. By default, this should mean the ending of the ludicrous straight-jacket that is the Euro - if Greece still had the drachma, the current financial crisis would have far less impact.

We need multinational institutions like the EU to be able to tackle the global crisis of climate change - no one country can fight that alone. And in a globalised world where so many international corporations operate above and beyond the writ of any national governments, it is only international public and democratically accountable bodies that will ever have any hope of taming the damage they are doing. But in parallel, the Union needs to focus on the needs of its member societies rather than the desires of  international capital.

The European Economic Community emerged from the gound breaking coal and steel community forged between the former enemies France and Germany just months after Hitler's demise. If its founding purpose of ensuring that European will never again fight European is to be secured, the Union must be one for the people of our Continent and the wider world. If it is run instead for the rich, for the owners of the multinationals, then there will be no social peace and in the absence of a democratic, social Europe, as competition over increasingly scarce resources becomes ever fiercer, the gun factories may soon be taking new orders once more.

Europe past, or Europe future?

Lessons from Libya - and Caroline Lucas on ethical foreign policy

 
As the battle for Tripoli continues, the Gadaffi regime appears to be tottering towards collapse, but huge question marks remain over the future of Libya. The western backed rebels are a loose and contradictory confederation of tribal, political and religious interests; and the intervention of Britain and France in particular in the bombing of the country, which has been largely ascribed as the crucial factor in the rebels' success, is likely to be one requiring payback from any new government. Britain alone has fired over £250,000,000 worth of missles and bombs into a country that last year the Con Dem Government was happy to sell almost as much "crowd control" equipment to, while the British SAS trained the Leader's elite guards (though maybe not so well as it has turned out).

Like Iraq, Libya is one of the few Arab states with a large public sector, boasting clean water, free education (for males and females) and health services unrivalled in the rest of the region. Along with state controlled industries, these are now ripe for the capitalist "liberation" of the economy which has so often gone hand in hand with supposed political liberation in the history of US and UK military intervention. With the rebels already hundreds of millions of euros in debt to the EU for loans to cover their war effort, the level of western influence and pressure on any new administration to comply with European demands for access to the Libyan economy is already massive. Oil is perhaps less of an issue, as it was already substantially in western hands. But public sector privatisation and the sanctioning of the Desertec solar array plan, which Gadaffi's regime opposed, are clearly tempting prospects for western business interests.

While an overwhelming number of British parliamentarians have meekly gone along with Britain's military role, which far exceeded any "mission to protect civilians", Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, was one of just 15 MPs who voted against the intervention (compared to 557 in favour). Today, she has issued a statement which, while welcoming the fall of Gadaffi, warns the West not to intervene, but rather that the Libyans be allowed to run their country free from external interference.

But the lessons from Libya Caroline Lucas calls for include acting on the need for a greater ethical dimension in British Foreign and trade policies - both the last and current British governments happily engaged with Gadaffi in return for cash. And while Deputy PM Nick Clegg talked about Britain aiding freedom in Arab states earlier this week, the same Government he leads with David Cameron just weeks ago happily hosted the Crown Prince of Bahrain, whose regime brutally crushed protests and calls for democracy earlier this year. And who can forget Cameron's opportunistic appearance in Egypt's Tahrir Square at the head of a delegation of arms merchants?

British Governments have to practice what they preach; for now, their policy reeks of the rank stench of rotten hypocrisy and self-serving sanctimony.

Caroline Lucas' full statement can be read here.

Kill all you like - Cameron & the Crown Prince, batting for British business in Bahrain

From Bullingdon to Brixton: Rulers & Rioters, and Broken Glass

The feral elite and London rioters - how our rich have built a society defined by greed and loot.

There have been many unsurprising commentaries written about the riots engulfing English cities since the weekend - the rightwing press and politicians have predictably trotted out their condemnation of "scum", "riff raff", "feckless" rioters. There have been calls for water cannon to be deployed and the police have menacingly "refused to rule out" the use of baton rounds.

There is no doubt that social tensions sparked the round of violence: the police, having shot a Tottenham man dead in unclear circumstances , refused to talk with his family or a crowd who went to a police station to stage a silent protest on Saturday evening. As tempers flared, a young girl was allegedly attacked by six policemen and from there the rest, as they say, is history. Tottenham town centre was in flames by the early hours of Sunday and from there disturbances have spread around the country, reaching Salford in Greater Manchester this evening and Leeds last night.

And yet, this is no Tahrir Square, nor is it an echo or amplification of the student demonstrations in London last autumn. Whilst undoubtedly many who have taken part in the riots and looting are socially excluded, others are clearly not - and obtaining goods such as X-Boxes, perfume, rucksacks and designer clothing appears much higher up the agenda than protesting about cuts in social care and eduction services. Likewise, some incidents, including forcing passers-by to strip naked, go far beyond any political protest. Small, local shops have been destroyed alongside the chain stores in clearly indiscriminate attacks. So is there anything more than criminal greed?

The BBC interviewed two girls this morning, drinking stolen wine at 9.30 am, laughing about the fun they had had and eagerly anticipating another night "showing the rich" they could do what they wanted. As one commentator noted, "Where we used to be defined by what we did, now we are defined by what we buy. These big stores are in the business of tempting [the consumer] and then suddenly these people find they can just walk into the shop and have it all."

Our society has shaped the pent up desires for the luxury goods being targeted - jewellery shops and electrical stores are prime targets. With the recession making many of these out of bounds for so many, the denial being expected of generations raised on aspirational acquisition is simply too great to be sustainable, especially in a society as characterised by extremes of wealth as ours. As "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson and Pickett so powerfully explained last year, unequal societies are not only less happy ones, they are also more troubled, crime-ridden and violent. The actors do not personally need social or political objectives for such a drama to unfold.

But more than just stoking the demand for these possessions, our society has now also created the permission required to take what you can. We live in a country with a ruling elite now exposed as being utterly mired in greed and corruption - and rewarded for being so. It is a genie that once out the bottle is returned with great difficulty.

Our Members of Parliament have been exposed for their greed and gluttony over the expenses scandal. With Government leaders claiming for cleaning septic tanks, the Deputy Prime Minister getting his lawn cut at taxpayers expense and MPs "forgetting" to stop claiming for redeemed mortgages, our representatives punished barely a handful of scapegoats and are now back to claiming more than they were before the scandal erupted in 2008.

Our bankers, exposed for their ineptitude and greedy speculation, have been bailed out to the tune of nearly £40,000,000,000 of taxpayers' money - over £1,000 per British adult - yet continue to receive tens of billions in bonuses. The richest dodge their taxes, with the authorities writing off billions, like Vodaphone (£6 billions excused). Public services are being closed to keep our rich elite in champers.

Some of our police, the London Met most of all, have been shown to be riddled with corrupt practices - with cops receiving payments from newspapers for confidential information; investigations tainted by officers receiving gifts, lunches and even jobs from the people under suspicion; and just last week a Chief Constable and his deputy suspended for alleged fraud.

And of course, we have our Prime Minister, David Cameron. In his own youth, Cameron was, along with London Mayor Boris Johnson, a member of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University (see picture on left above; Cameron is second from left at back; Johnson is on the right, sitting). This society of toffs was known for its practices of pot-smoking, drinking and eating to excess before carrying out some "robust" redecoration of the restaurants they used for their revelry, the main difference with this week's rioters being that Mr Cameron's associates had their Daddies' money to pay for the damage they wrecked. Indeed, Boris Johnson's biographer notes:

"I don't think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed and being paid for in full, very often in cash. A night in the cells would be regarded as being par for a Buller man and so would debagging anyone who really attracted the irritation of the Buller men."  And Cameron himself has reminisced fondly that,“Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.”

And so, as we fumble forward to find the motives for the riots - so presciently predicted last year and then helped along by the policies of Nick Clegg and his confederates - there is no doubt that we live in a country where any moral compass is gone. Our "feral elite", as Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has described them, are out of control.

What is the real difference between our grasping rich, ripping off employees and consumers and dodging tens of billions in tax, and the kids nicking £300 sound systems from Currys? Perhaps not even a sheet of broken glass...

Miliband: Content Not Working (but not striking either)

Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers did not go to work today - instead they took to the picket lines and the streets to voice their fears about Government plans to cut pensions. It is just the first shots in what is likely to be a long struggle for the future of the public services much of the British population takes for granted to the extent that some won't miss them until they are gone.

I joined a rally in Huddersfield. My own union, Unison, was not striking and as someone working in the  voluntary sector, the dispute does not affect my employment or conditions, but it does affect the community I live in and the services I and others use. So showing support felt important, and it was good to know that not only Green Left and Green trade unionists were out around the country supporting the protests, but our party leader, Caroline Lucas, MP, joined picket lines in her Brighton constituency. "Fair pensions are worth fighting for," she declared yesterday.

A striking contrast indeed to Ed Miliband, the Great White Hope of the tattered remnants of Labour Party progressives. After a leadership campaign last summer in which he portrayed himself as a slightly-more-sort-of-left-of-centre-type-of-guy, Ed has flounced and floundered and finally flunked at the prospect of today's strikes. Ignoring the dreadful lies emanating from the Government about the alleged unsustainability of public sector pensions (the Hutton Report shows that their cost will decline in real terms), Ed declared "These strikes are wrong." He tried of course to slag the Government off as well, saying it has repeatedly acted provocatively and recklessly (Ed's words). Yet he still expects the unions to engage in what is clearly a farcical process of meaningless talks with a Government which has already decided on the outcome.

The Green Party leader was in somewhat less of a tangle. Rather than looking like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights of the Tory Media, she simply declared her support and took part in the J30 events. While Ed flustered about how Clegg and Cameron would cope with having the kids at home for the day, Caroline Lucas acknowledged the inconvenience, but said:

"This isn’t something I do lightly. I regret the disruption caused by industrial action and think it must only be used in special circumstances – and would urge trade unions to work hard to ensure support from the wider public. Yet when teachers are being expected to pay 50% more in pension contributions, work longer and get less pension when they retire – and when negotiations are failing – targeted and considered action is clearly necessary."

Other prominent Greens also took part - with London Assembly members Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones (who is also London Mayoral candidate) joining the London march and hundreds of other party activists taking time to take part across the country.

Now is the moment for trade union movement (which was fundamental to Ed Miliband's election as Labour leader) to seriously ask itself if it really wants to persist with the shell that is Labour. It is a tired out husk, a brand rather than a belief. The thinning ranks of those with genuine socialist beliefs remain completely sidelined, as we saw when John McDonnell was barred from standing for the leadership last year via a nomination process that would have Putin salivating. Miliband offers a "choice" (for want of a better word) of a different set of managers to the Con Dems, not a different set of values.

The Green Party is a developing but in some respects still nascent force: it is better organised than ever before and has a wider range of values and policies than any of the other parties. What it still lacks in strategy, size and ideology it more than compensates for in its unity of purpose around social justice and environmental sustainability. And in leadership centred on conviction and values rather than soundbites, as we saw in the sharp contrast between the Labour and Green leaders during the last twenty four hours.

In the coming months, while Labour struggles to find a narrative that makes any sense, Greens, already gradually rising in the national opinion polls and at the local elections in May, have an opportunity to make their voices clear in favour not only of protest action, but in setting out the values of equality, justice and sustainability that are at the heart of both the Green Party and trade union movement. They are also values held by most ordinary people in our country. With new action planned for October, Ed's moment may have passed; but perhaps the Green one is finally coming.

Support the J30 strike. Today, across Britain.

As Britain faces its biggest day of industrial action for many years, with around three quarters of a million public sector staff striking over cuts to their pensions, the mass media have unsurprisingly rallied to support the Government (and the treacherous Labour Party Opposition) in condemning the action and repeating the long used lie about "gold plated" pensions.

The Daily Telegraph leads with a luridly dreadful piece of disinformation - 

Public sector strike: £500,000 pension pot of striking teachers revealed

The Telegraph claims that a teacher on £32,000 p.a. will retire with a pot of this size; which if they have worked and paid into the scheme for 40 years is perhaps not surprising. But what the article doesn't clarify is that the £500k is the pot that they might have to pay their pension out off for the rest of their lives, not the actual pension they receive. On £32,000, the maximum permissible annual pension payable (not the pot it is paid from) is 1/2 the final salary, i.e., a somewhat less impressive £16,000 p.a., well below the UK average salary of around £23,200 p.a. (although the state pension will plug some of this gap). It is hardly "gold-plated", nor is it typical - the average yield from state pensions for retired teachers is around £10,000 and for all public sector workers is under £6,000 pa.

"This is 20 times higher than the average private sector scheme, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics." Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph frets that public sector workers are somehow treated unjustifiably well compared to private sector workers. They don't stop to consider, perhaps, that if their figures were actually true and £6,000, or even £16,000 p.a. really is 20 times more than private sector pensions pay, then this is not a comment on bad practice in the public sector. Rather, it would be yet another example of how the private sector's owners comprehensively shaft their employees, pauperising them while guzzling plentifully out of the trough for themselves.

Unfair comment? Not at all. The audit of public sector pensions shows them to be sustainable and actually to be set to decline as a cost in real terms over the next decades, contrary to Government assertions that they have become unaffordable. Moreover, as public sector workers are lectured (in the Telegraph again) by Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander (Lib Dem, Cairngorms National Park) on the need for austerity, it emerges unsurprisingly that private sector bosses have not just gold, but titanium armour-plated pensions awaiting them as they spin out their final days on God's golf courses.

Millions set aside for fat-cat pensions

The "Morning Star", Britain's only genuinely left-wing national newspaper, reports an Income Data Services survey that shows the Directors of the top private companies in the UK enjoy pensions averaging £140,000 per annum - that's their pensions, not their pots. These people are raking in something of the order of seven times the supposedly fat-cat teacher, and a massive 24 times the average public sector pensioner.

Green leader Caroline Lucas - the only party leader to support the action

So there we have it - Tory paper tells fibs about strikers. Not news at all, but yet another piece of propaganda to try to steamroller through the destruction of our public services by a process of divide and rule.

But the risk for the Telegraph and its allies is that while they may try to cleverly misconstrue what the real picture is via misleading comparisons (something the Star is also a tad guilty of at one point in its article), the anger of the mass public with the people who run our society, its workplaces and media is rising. Just as this week in Greece, protests turned violent, so the days of impunity on the part of the established order in the UK may be drawing to a close.

Today (June 30th), join the protests, join the strikers around the country - show your support for fair pay for pensioners and for the beleaguered public sector. Join the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, MP, on the picket lines or in marches and rallies, even if you don't work in the sector. Its fate concerns us all - the public services are about all of us, our communities and well-being.

Don't listen to the lies - JOIN THE J30 TODAY! 

 

Coalition of Resistance

Green Party Election Broadcast: No Joke

What is happening in Britain is no joke. Caroline Lucas MP, Green party leader, at the Comedy Club.

From Tahrir to Trafalgar

The "Battle of Trafalgar Square" screams the lead story in the Mail on Sunday today, complete with dramatic pictures of allegedly violent anti-capitalist protesters silhouetted against flames. And on some leftwing internet forums and liberal papers, parallels are drawn between yesterday's anti-cuts demonstration and the Egyptian protests that toppled the Mubarak regime from their centre in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

There is more than a little hyperbole on both sides here - anyone watching the live broadcast on late night BBC TV last night could see that there was no violence and only a handful of people "kettled" by a much larger contingent of police (by then on super-overtime rates I should think). There was a fire - of placards stacked against a wall where people denied the right to leave were trying to keep warm in the chilly night. In spite of the best efforts of the BBC anchorwoman to make out that bloody violence had come to London's streets, both the rather calm footage and a phone interview with a Guardian journalist with the protesters in the Square itself belied the attempted drama.

Needless to say, the BBC and the rightwing press have seized on a handful of incidents, such as smashing the windows of a branch of corporate-tax-dodging Topshop, as typifying the demonstration and calling into question Labour leader Ed Miliband's judgement in addressing the quarter of a million people who attended, nearly all of them peacefully. With fewer than 200 arrests, it was in fact one of the most peaceful mass events ever in London, not that you'd know from a lot of the coverage.

Yet of course, Trafalgar is no Tahrir - to suggest so is to deny both the bravery and success of the Egyptians. It is true the Cameron Government is determined not to listen to the protests of those at the sharp end of their cuts programme - Vince Cable was adamant on the TV this morning that there would be no change, while Michael Gove yesterday derided the protest as meaningless. But at least we will have an opportunity to show our feelings about their policies at the local elections on 5 May, a right previously denied to the Egyptians.

The question for 5 May of course is who to vote for to make the anti-cuts voice come over as loudly as possible. On the face of it yesterday, the trade union movement continues to view Labour as the best vehicle for this, but you might question why.

Labour went into the last General Election pledged to cut even deeper - about 25 %  of public spending than the 21% target of the current Con Dem Government. The only difference was that they would have taken a bit longer to do it, so year on year the impact may have been not just quite as harsh as it is going to be. And throughout their 13 years in power, New Labour did nothing to address the fundamental issues in our society of inequality and poverty - indeed, they eased tax regulations to the benefit of the rich and their lax approach to the excesses of the City and the financial sector led directly to the banking crisis which the Tories now want the public to pay for. As yet at any rate, new leader Ed Miliband has not signalled any significant change to this approach.

So is voting Labour a real option for those opposed to the massive cuts in public spending, most of them targeted at support for the most vulnerable in our country - the elderly, the disabled, the young and the sick? It seems not and the trade unions are fools to themselves for continuing to see Labour as offering new wine in their old and chipped bottle.

There are genuine options - the Greens for example oppose the whole cuts package. Greens argued at the election for tackling the deficit by a combination of sustainable economic initiatives such as a national energy efficiency programme that would have created jobs and skills; a fundamental shift to better public transport and a massive attack on tax avoidance which costs tens of billions to the Treasury each year. They also called for a maximum wage of £150,000 p.a. and a progressive tax regime to redistribute the skewed wealth in British society.

And yet yesterday, in spite of repeated requests, the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas MP, was denied the right to speak by the trade union organisers of the anti-cuts demonstration. The only national leader actually opposed to cuts in public spending was not allowed to put her views across to crowds opposed to the cuts: instead, the pro-cuts Labour leadership were given the platform.

Labour have a lot to answer for still: Miliband does seem mildly refreshing as being genuinely to the left-of-centre after years of essentially rightwing Blairite pragmatism, but he has given no clarion call for real reform. And rather than a root-and-branch purge of the decidedly non-socialist platform of New Labour in favour of genuinely social democratic views, he has blandly called for a rewrite of policy starting with a blank sheet - how inspiring! Indeed, how Blairite.

The opinion polls look good for Labour, mediocre for the Tories and deservedly frightening for the craven Liberal Democrats. But for genuine change, people need to be able to hear the real alternatives offered by groups like the Greens and what is left of the Respect Party and others on the socialist left. The media might be expected to be hostile to these groups, but the trade unions are making a strategic mistake by denying them a voice and continuing to hitch their wagon to the tired old nag that Labour now is, shorn of its soul and in dire need of new direction.

Denial - a necessary delusion or betraying the future?

I listened to a speech by the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, MP, in nearby Huddersfield this evening. Talking to a public meeting organised by Kirklees Green Party ahead of the local elections in May, she covered a wide agenda, but it was, maybe unsurprisingly, on the environment and the prospect of runaway global warming that she was at her most passionate.

The Greens' Caroline Lucas (left) - no denying

She talked about how many scientists are warning that the "best estimates" used by Government planners and by negotiators in international climate change conferences are exceedingly conservative, several years out of date and fail to take account of "feedback", where the release of greenhouse gasses increases at an exponential rate.

She warned that the next ten years are utterly critical - there is no time to wait. The failure to act keeps her awake at night, she explained, citing the film "The Age of Stupid" and the question posed by the Custodian, played by the late, great Pete Postlethwaite. "Why," he asks in the film, where he plays the last man on Earth looking back at current times, "why when we knew what was wrong, did we not do anything to save ourselves?"

Perhaps one of the crassest statements I have ever heard was from the otherwise normally excellent broadcaster Eddie Mair a few years ago on BBC Radio 4. Climate change negotiators at the Cancun conference were, he said, struggling to reach agreement because the USA continued to refuse to take part in a formal agreement: if they could not reach agreement, they might as well give up and go home and forget about it. 

I don't think it was what he intended, but his comment somehow captured the lack of urgency on climate change, the way that, even now, many senior policymakers and politicians continue to see it as optional - a sort of good thing to do when their is money in the kitty and nothing better to do. A charitable option to "help the planet", as if somehow the planet is something apart from us.

Except of course that it isn't. We can't go home and forget about it, because the planet is home and home is the planet. We might try to ignore it, we may not want to think about it. But in the end we can't escape from it. If we poison the planet, we poison ourselves.

Yet, oddly, we don't look at it this way - we talk piously of "saving the planet" alongside efforts to raise money for charity causes and sick puppies. It's a Sunday sort of thing - something to get round to when there is time. And if we do a little bit, our bit, we can stand aside from the disaster when it comes - it won't affect us, will it?

Denial is perhaps one of the most human of things. We deny that which is too difficult, too awful or overwhelming to contemplate.

So it is with the crisis we face. Who wants to think that, in the next few years, in our lifetimes, we may fail to act and as a result condemn not just "the planet" but possibly ourselves and certainly the next generation to degradation and destruction? Isn't carrying on the party, closing our eyes to tomorrow, so much more appealing?

It is nothing new. History is littered with whole societies that denied the obvious, and in some cases perished as a result.

In 1453, with Constantinople surrounded by 80,000 Turkish troops and their allies, many of the Byzantines inside the great walls of the City refused to believe there was a real threat, convincing themselves of Divine Protection which absolved them of any need to act.  When the Turkish Sultan demanded substantial tribute to call off the siege, the destitute Byzantine Emperor pleaded for assistance from his nobles, but they denied their huge wealth, insisting they could afford nothing. Yet when the city finally fell, they were found to be hiding huge hordes of riches they would now no longer have the chance to use.The victorious Sultan was so moved to anger by this selfishness that he had a large number of the captive Byzantine elite executed on the spot.

History is littered with such examples - where the awful reality can be so troubling to normality that somehow the need and opportunities to challenge and change it are set aside. And yet, were we to acknowledge the potential disasters facing us, isn't denial a wholly understandable response?

Perhaps. But it is not to excuse this; it may be very human but it is not acceptable. The threats facing us are too great, too total and long lasting to permit avoidance. Greens need to show an alternative that is positive and progressive, but equally which does not soft-pedal what has to be done - a new, more equal society; massive changes to personal habits; different, less personal forms of transport; different energy sources; a very different attitude towards  consumption; a vision for a very different world to now.

But one where Pete does not need to remember us.

"Why don't they start with the bankers?"

The British Government has announced its programme of cuts in public spending today. Carefully crafting a wide range of substantial reductions in spending so that the average cuts per Government department come in at 19% over four years rather than Labour's planned 20%, the Con Dems betray the essential unity of the three main parties around a monetarist, free market agenda. Their little school boyish prank may make waves in the Westminster Village, a bit like waving condoms about in a Prefects' Room, but the impact on a wide range of poor and vulnerable citizens will be even worse than feared, with £7 billions more than expected off disability payments - £50 per week taken from people on Incapacity Benefit for more than 12 months - and a 50% reduction in the social housing budget. At the same time, precisely nothing is done to tackle the massive tax evasion and corporate tax exemptions that plague Britain.

So amidst the gloom, it was good to see this video (below) of Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP railing passionately against the cuts as socially damaging and economically illiterate - worsening the crisis of the deficit rather than tackling it. Clearly angered by the Chancellor's approach, she calls for action on investment in sustainable jobs and action against tax evasion. Government led spending on a range of activities such as improving public transport and developing renewable energy would pay dividends in a multiplicity of ways - generating jobs and tax revenue, cutting the deficit, reducing our dependence on foreign energy and cutting our carbon emissions.

This type of Keynesian economic theory,on which the "Green New Deal" is based, used to be the economic orthodoxy that worked for a coherent society. By contrast, Monetarist theory adopted by right wingers in the 1970s onwards changed that - placing economic objectives above social ones and seeking to reduce government involvement in the economy and socirty as a whole. As Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor, explained on BBC Radio 4 last night, "I wasn't much bothered about damaging solidarity and social cohesion." All he was bothered about was creating space for tax cuts for the wealthy and a chance to flog off the national assets.

As the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats contemplate the biggest sale of public assets ever, as well as cutting deep into the welfare state, the Con Dem regime is emerging as one of the most avowedly ideological governments in British history, rolling back the shrinking public sector further than Mrs Thatcher ever dared imagine.

At least, hearing Caroline Lucas' speech, there is clearly a voice in Parliament showing that there IS an alternative to an agenda that turns citizens into numbers and shuts its eyes to real human suffering. Let's hope it keeps getting louder. And heard.