The Green Party of England and Wales held its autumn conference last weekend. One would hope that the headline news to come out of conference would be about the environment, or maybe the cost of living crisis. But no. Once again the Green Party has showed its true colours and they appear to be pink white and blue.
They lied their arses off to get that (non) emergency motion onto conference floor. Party members had voted for two very important energy crisis motions which are what should have been heard. Instead we heard Young Green and Stratford Cllr Nate Higgins shamelessly asking for enhanced DBS checks to be dropped. The only difference between a normal DBS and enhanced is that enhanced checks search the Children’s Barred List - so what he was asking for IN PLAIN SIGHT - was NOT to check whether they might have committed sexual offences against children whilst asking the entire conference to show these people who want to skip safeguarding ‘solidarity’ 😳. And his cronies (who frankly need their hard drives checking) supported it. Imagine voting for THAT four years after the party was forced to take an independent safeguarding review because of the David Challenor debacle. What a shit show.
Dropping enhanced DBS checks! I cannot believe it. My husband and I and our lodger had to have such checks when we became sponsors of a Ukrainian woman and her 12-year-old boy. No problem with us. To be frank if my husband or lodger refused to have such a check, I would be worried and be consulting my lawyers. Mind you Green B&H Council were talking at one stage of taking children into care if parents did not sufficiently support gender transition. Were advised their policy was illegal under UK law.
Hhmmm. Drag queens or the disappearing rainforest? Let's see now. Drag queens or coastal flooding and erosion? Hhmmm. Such a difficult choice upon which to expend our capital and effort. Drag queens or Pakistan under water? Drag queens or drought causing starvation? Hhmmm. Drag queens or the increasing ferocity and number of hurricanes? Hhhmmm. Such a conundrum. Okay then, as ethical progressive Green Party members, we must decide. Drag queens it is.
These are, as the novelist Kim Stanley Robinson has termed "The Years Of Dithering" when it comes to combating climate change. And the Green Party of England and Wales will almost certainly go down in history as one of the Great Ditherers. Indeed they have rendered Dithering an art-form.
The Young Greens have made it clear that the Green Party of England and Wales is little more than a white male supremacist club. Not really even a political party, as it doesn't engage at a political level, doesn't now even engage with science, or protest...or, well anything really. It exists for white male supremacists, appeals to white male supremacists and demands enhanced rights for white male supremacists.
Is there actually any concern for combating climate change? Nah. Only when the regularly-updated demands of white male supremacists have been completely addressed - and they DO include the demand to self-identify as black or brown when they feel the need - will Young Greens perhaps turn their attention to combating climate change.
Your comment about the young woman really resonates. I’m constantly challenging my daughter and nieces about their notion of feminism. Patriarchy in a pair of size 10 hooker pumps, is still the patriarchy
My Conservative London Borough is considerably greener than Green run Brighton & Hove. For 20 years we have quietly improved recycling and now are in the top 3 for London; we started collecting chip oil from restaurants 20 years ago, cleaned it and use it to run council vehicles, and we now have twice as many street trees as the next London borough (but are planting even more). As a resident volunteer I am a 'Tree Friend' - I watered the young saplings in my street during the drought. Perhaps getting on with doing green stuff is more productive than making speeches and bullying people over issues that are nothing to do with going green?
“...we must be careful about opening ourselves up to yet more costly legal cases by failing to take into account the fact that gender critical beliefs are now protected by law.”
So the 'gender' boggled Left has handed over any real chance of democracy to the far right. Willingly. Stupidly. Maddingly. Authoritarian adherence to the cult 'trumps' all other outcomes. This 'woke' cult ruins everything it touches. To use Graham's phrase, it has the 'anti-Midas touch'.
Sorry but I really don't care about what goes on in the green party. They may have started with some good values but they have lost their way a long time ago. Fortunately will never come close to getting in government (on their own that is). I better not say any more as I am bound to be causing offence to someone.
But they're still capable of holding the balance of power in a coalition or a less formal support agreement. And given their priorities I'd be worried about what they'd demand of the larger party for lending their vote. Look at what's happening in Scotland.
Again, two disabilities are used in a negative way. "deaf" and "blind". As with the words "women" and "lesbian", they are already taken to mean disabled. They should not be used to mean stupid, ignorant, not listening or not seeing in this context. We are none of these things and our disabilities should not be used in this way.
How do you feel if, in a literary context, you read something like "They pleaded their case, but it fell on deaf ears" or "He was blind to their suffering"? Do you think such phrases should be done away with? Everyone knows - at least in those cases - it's figurative.
Yes they should. In the same way we don't use other disabled descriptors. For example, cretin, spastic, mental. We have stopped using these words because other disabled people didn't like them. But we still use "deaf" and"blind" when referring to people who are stupid, or ignorant, or not listening, or not paying attention. Why?
I am steaming furious about this. All my social media - FB, Insta snd Twitter - has now been silenced by some unknown tech ‘glitch’ - really? I stood as a Green party candidate - Scottish Greens and was on track to be nominated - BUT for the vetting. They told me at my interview they had been through my Twitter a/c and seen I’d in the past ‘liked’ posts by Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce: both intellects I admire, both women who have produced very measured and readable books on the subject (backed up with scientific fact and solid research).- and that if I continued to stand I must delete these Likes/follows. I don’t even mind if members of the Green party disagree with me - what I mind is that they see fit to dictate what I must think - even more do when it has nothing at all to do with the environment. I said no, of course, and didn’t stand: the Green party’s focus should be on climate change, not anthropocentric gender-woo.
You are such a brilliant comedy writer that I immediately forwarded this latest blog to two people who are very interested in Gender critical campaigning with a suggestion that they take out a subscription.
To be fair to, but not defending, the 'Green' Party, other parties have similar problems. Labour Women’s Declaration were blocked from having a stall at the party conference, and I believe both Labour and LibDems are facing similar legal cases.
They lied their arses off to get that (non) emergency motion onto conference floor. Party members had voted for two very important energy crisis motions which are what should have been heard. Instead we heard Young Green and Stratford Cllr Nate Higgins shamelessly asking for enhanced DBS checks to be dropped. The only difference between a normal DBS and enhanced is that enhanced checks search the Children’s Barred List - so what he was asking for IN PLAIN SIGHT - was NOT to check whether they might have committed sexual offences against children whilst asking the entire conference to show these people who want to skip safeguarding ‘solidarity’ 😳. And his cronies (who frankly need their hard drives checking) supported it. Imagine voting for THAT four years after the party was forced to take an independent safeguarding review because of the David Challenor debacle. What a shit show.
Dropping enhanced DBS checks! I cannot believe it. My husband and I and our lodger had to have such checks when we became sponsors of a Ukrainian woman and her 12-year-old boy. No problem with us. To be frank if my husband or lodger refused to have such a check, I would be worried and be consulting my lawyers. Mind you Green B&H Council were talking at one stage of taking children into care if parents did not sufficiently support gender transition. Were advised their policy was illegal under UK law.
Hhmmm. Drag queens or the disappearing rainforest? Let's see now. Drag queens or coastal flooding and erosion? Hhmmm. Such a difficult choice upon which to expend our capital and effort. Drag queens or Pakistan under water? Drag queens or drought causing starvation? Hhmmm. Drag queens or the increasing ferocity and number of hurricanes? Hhhmmm. Such a conundrum. Okay then, as ethical progressive Green Party members, we must decide. Drag queens it is.
I spent a nanosecond pondering this… gotta be the DQs.
These are, as the novelist Kim Stanley Robinson has termed "The Years Of Dithering" when it comes to combating climate change. And the Green Party of England and Wales will almost certainly go down in history as one of the Great Ditherers. Indeed they have rendered Dithering an art-form.
The Young Greens have made it clear that the Green Party of England and Wales is little more than a white male supremacist club. Not really even a political party, as it doesn't engage at a political level, doesn't now even engage with science, or protest...or, well anything really. It exists for white male supremacists, appeals to white male supremacists and demands enhanced rights for white male supremacists.
Is there actually any concern for combating climate change? Nah. Only when the regularly-updated demands of white male supremacists have been completely addressed - and they DO include the demand to self-identify as black or brown when they feel the need - will Young Greens perhaps turn their attention to combating climate change.
But absolutely not before then.
They should rename themselves as all things green seem to have become unimportant.
"The Party"
Your comment about the young woman really resonates. I’m constantly challenging my daughter and nieces about their notion of feminism. Patriarchy in a pair of size 10 hooker pumps, is still the patriarchy
Is there anything more patriarchal than prioritising males who wish they were women over women?
My Conservative London Borough is considerably greener than Green run Brighton & Hove. For 20 years we have quietly improved recycling and now are in the top 3 for London; we started collecting chip oil from restaurants 20 years ago, cleaned it and use it to run council vehicles, and we now have twice as many street trees as the next London borough (but are planting even more). As a resident volunteer I am a 'Tree Friend' - I watered the young saplings in my street during the drought. Perhaps getting on with doing green stuff is more productive than making speeches and bullying people over issues that are nothing to do with going green?
“...we must be careful about opening ourselves up to yet more costly legal cases by failing to take into account the fact that gender critical beliefs are now protected by law.”
Translation - Bring it. You'll be sorry.
I'd love to have a Green Party I could vote for instead of this bunch of narcissistic children who seem to have no policies apart from pushing "TWAW"
The Green Party of England must be taking woke lessons from our 'progressive' Greens in Canada. A total debauchery on both sides of the Atlantic.
The New Zealand Greens too :(
So the 'gender' boggled Left has handed over any real chance of democracy to the far right. Willingly. Stupidly. Maddingly. Authoritarian adherence to the cult 'trumps' all other outcomes. This 'woke' cult ruins everything it touches. To use Graham's phrase, it has the 'anti-Midas touch'.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-joe-biden-can-t-define-what-a-woman-is-but-she-can-t-even-spell-it/ar-AA12DDqM?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=0dd0b069a5064e098517bc13f4ac5f99
Sorry but I really don't care about what goes on in the green party. They may have started with some good values but they have lost their way a long time ago. Fortunately will never come close to getting in government (on their own that is). I better not say any more as I am bound to be causing offence to someone.
But they're still capable of holding the balance of power in a coalition or a less formal support agreement. And given their priorities I'd be worried about what they'd demand of the larger party for lending their vote. Look at what's happening in Scotland.
And in Norwich:
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/my-local-council-decides-to-stop
Again, two disabilities are used in a negative way. "deaf" and "blind". As with the words "women" and "lesbian", they are already taken to mean disabled. They should not be used to mean stupid, ignorant, not listening or not seeing in this context. We are none of these things and our disabilities should not be used in this way.
How do you feel if, in a literary context, you read something like "They pleaded their case, but it fell on deaf ears" or "He was blind to their suffering"? Do you think such phrases should be done away with? Everyone knows - at least in those cases - it's figurative.
Yes they should. In the same way we don't use other disabled descriptors. For example, cretin, spastic, mental. We have stopped using these words because other disabled people didn't like them. But we still use "deaf" and"blind" when referring to people who are stupid, or ignorant, or not listening, or not paying attention. Why?
I am steaming furious about this. All my social media - FB, Insta snd Twitter - has now been silenced by some unknown tech ‘glitch’ - really? I stood as a Green party candidate - Scottish Greens and was on track to be nominated - BUT for the vetting. They told me at my interview they had been through my Twitter a/c and seen I’d in the past ‘liked’ posts by Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce: both intellects I admire, both women who have produced very measured and readable books on the subject (backed up with scientific fact and solid research).- and that if I continued to stand I must delete these Likes/follows. I don’t even mind if members of the Green party disagree with me - what I mind is that they see fit to dictate what I must think - even more do when it has nothing at all to do with the environment. I said no, of course, and didn’t stand: the Green party’s focus should be on climate change, not anthropocentric gender-woo.
You are such a brilliant comedy writer that I immediately forwarded this latest blog to two people who are very interested in Gender critical campaigning with a suggestion that they take out a subscription.
Fingers crossed!
To be fair to, but not defending, the 'Green' Party, other parties have similar problems. Labour Women’s Declaration were blocked from having a stall at the party conference, and I believe both Labour and LibDems are facing similar legal cases.
Green, indeed.