Are The Greens the new Raving Loony Party!

It's certainly a pot pour.
I wonder where they would draw the line around intensive food production to define "factory farming" Price of bacon and eggs would rocket that's for sure. And can you imagine if everyone had a carte blanche to fill their shopping baskets with "alternatives" at Holland and Barrett and claim from the NHS.
Banning animal testing would bring a halt to the development of new drugs and decimate UK biological/medical sciences. Never mind the scientists can retrain as aroma"therapists" and that will be fine, won't it.
They are aligned with that far left hippy newspaper, The Economist on the decriminalisation of sex and drugs.
The sad thing about it is that they do not seem to have well thought out green policies. All about influencing Europe not what they would do as UK government. All very well banning nuclear but don't explain how they will cover the "base load" of electricity demand on the days when the wind is not blowing and the sun not shining. They wouldn't go for tidal barrages as it would upset the wading birds.
The worrying thing about this is that many young people will waste their vote by voting Green.

that was supposed to be potpourri, sorry.

I joined the Green Party this year, having become disillusioned by the LibDems in power, but only through your site have I found out just how in accordance with my politics the Greens are. A revolutionary party which hasn't a snowball's chance and many of its policies will be very difficult to impose, but it's the only party which takes account of our grandkids' longterm future through a no-economic growth policy. Personally, I love everything they propose even if there's no chance of getting the media and their owners' vested interests on side.

I will be voting Green without supporting all of their policies; it was ever thus in my experience. Some of their policies are, in my view, way off track, but overall I have a much, much closer affinity with them than any other political party. If you want to know which parties policies you genuinely favour then why not find out by taking this poll? voteforpolicies.org.uk/
You simply compare policies from six UK political parties on a range of key issues. After you have chosen the policies you agree with you'll see which parties they belong to.

I should say that the site is being updated to take into account the manifesto's for the next General Election, so if you've taken the poll in the past it may be useful to re-take it nearer to the election.

I think that the greens policies would in reality end up with this country being taken back to approx 1880.
I dont much fancy that.

soontobe did you take the poll?

That's just being silly, soontobe. They do not want to get rid of all advances in transport, food, etc. They just want people to be more concerned about others, and not greedy.
I was green on that voteforpolicies site the last time I took it, grannyactivist. I do not imagine I will be less green now.

I do not know if this is the place for this, but I was reading in the Guardian yesterday about privatised industries and the fact that one man now owns Superdrug, the Perfume Shop, Savers, the ports of Felixstowe, Harwich and London Thamesport, UK Power Networks, which runs electricity cables in South East England, Eversholt Rail, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities and has a stake in Southern Water. If his purchase of O2 goes ahead, he will end up owning 41% of the mobile network.
I know they are not all privatised industries, but it cannot be seen as right that a man in Hong Kong can own so much of British infrastructure. When privatisation happened, it was always pushed as the way for everyone to own stakes in their own country. Not any more.

The Green Party will put an end to some of this greed.

I agree that..actually I am not sure.
I was going to write the country would be less greedy, but I dont know. Because really it is individuals who have greed.

If millions of citizens decided to take up the offer from the greens of £71 including any migrants that arrived, the tax revenue would presumably halve at least.
Then watch how far back in time the country effectively goes.

Not to mention, lke rosequatrz says, those who are happily indulging in substances, prostition etc.

And less taxes. Less NHS.

Much as I attempt to stop it happening, the phrase 'a bunch of tree-huggers' keeps rising, unbidden, to the lips... Certainly agree the drug prohibition
laws should be dumped, and legalised brothels, properly supervised, have been shown to work well in some other places - the State of Nevada, for example.

I shall remain faithful to my Lib-Dem card...

I don't know if any other GNs have 20 something children who purport to be supporters of the Green Party but are actually rubbish at re cycling. When my son was in his final year at university he shared a house with 6 like minded Green voting house mates who simply couldn't be arsed to re cycle anything properly. During his final term my son had to have his appendix removed during the Easter break. Anxious to get back to uni whilst he still had his stitches in, as he had to work on his dissertation and revise for finals, his father and I drove him back to clean his room because we knew it would be insanitary, which it was. Under his bed he had half the Amazon rain forest in pizza boxes. This sort of debris was accumulated all round the house and then just dumped outside at the end of term. Student houses are pretty much the same all round the country, whilst seemingly the non recycling student residents are simultaneously signing up to the Greens in droves!

We have had several conversations recently about voting in the coming election, he's still a Green supporter, fine I think he should vote with his heart, but I have mooted to him some of the Green party's policies seem to be veering on the edge of half baked such as paying everyone, irrespective of whether they need it or not, 70 odd pounds per week. Another I gather is to impose trade restrictions on imports. Can't see how that would work in a global economy. I believe a lot of their support comes from young people like my son who loathe the 3 major parties, a protest vote for a hippy like mandate.

It was with the student houses in mind, I wasn't surprised by the irony that the Green led council in Brighton, a big student town and many a young person's spiritual home, came 302nd out of 326 councils for the title of least Eco-friendly Council, says it all really!

"The Green leader defended her party's economic policies, which would see the minimum wage rise to £10 an hour with a £70 a week guaranteed basic income.

She said half of the £280bn cost of the policy would come from tax, she indicated, with the rest made up of money already paid out in benefits."

Right, it's a basic income guaranteed. People get that anyway from benefits if they earn less than that. It just reorganises the benefits system so it's fair. The one thing they will not do is sanction people who are unable to pay the fares to get to the Jobcentre so they have to rely on foodbanks.
Actually, if £70 a week is all they get, they will not be able to afford much food anyway.

£10 per hour minimum wage is good too, because it gives people an incentive to work more than 7 hours a week. What is wrong with that?
And do not say that in this rich country we cannot afford it. We can if we share the wealth; not necessarily equally, just in case you want to call me a communist and say that doesn't work, but a little more equally so that half the benefits are not paid to inwork families.

I came out as green 75% and Lib Dem 25% - makes sense to me.

I will wait with baited breath to see what options appear on the ballot paper.

I find it quite strange that people complain about the big parties not representing them, but when you suggest they vote for a smaller party, it will somehow be a wasted vote.
If you are going to vote, you have to do one or the other.

Saw Natalie Bennett being interviewed by Andrew Neil on The Politics Show this morning, where I believe she said something along the lines of The Greens wouldn't make it an offence to belong to ISIS or other such terrorist organisation. I don't think we can afford to be magnanimous to any group who would seek to kill us, cause terror, or supplant our culture with theirs.

She did not actually say that. She was trying to answer Andrew Neil who said that. The Green Party Policy says that they will remove anybody who is found to be a danger. What she did say is that people should not be punished for what they think.

Janea, the Green Party Policy on trafficking.

MG450. Trafficking in human beings takes place when one person encourages a citizen of another country to enter or stay in another country in order to exploit that person. This may involve the use of deceit or any other form of coercion, or the abuse of the trafficked person's vulnerable position. The United Nations uses the following definition: "'Trafficking in persons' shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."

MG451. Fees demanded by traffickers often place trafficked people and their families in debt. In some countries this extends to debt bondage. By placing trafficked people in debt bondage, or by exploiting their vulnerable status in a country in which they now live illegally and often without knowledge of local language, traffickers are able to force those who have been trafficked into activities in which they would not otherwise engage. Some are forced to work for a pittance, some into domestic servitude, some, particularly women, into the sex industry, and some into crime.

MG452. The Green Party considers that such trafficking in human beings is a gross violation of human rights. Any proposals to deal with this problem should not further victimise those who are already its victims.

MG453. The Government should recognise that those who have been trafficked are the victims of human rights violations and potential witnesses to criminal investigations and prosecutions of the traffickers. Victims should not be subject to summary deportation or expulsion on the grounds of illegal or irregular entry into or residence in the country. Nor should they be prosecuted for any lack of identity documents or other minor offences which are directly attributable to their position as a victim of trafficking.

MG454. The Government should grant a temporary right to stay in the country to anyone who has been trafficked or appears to have been trafficked. It should also recognise the right of those who have been trafficked to apply for a longer term or permanent immigration status, and should treat such an application on the same basis as others seeking to migrate. Such an application should not be affected by the illegal nature of the trafficked person's original residence in the UK. Consideration of any criminal activities by a trafficked person should include consideration of whether they were performed under duress as a victim of trafficking.

Annoyed, I did it all and read all the extra bits then it would not give me an answer. I suppose I will have to try again on the pc instead of the tablet.
Or go and have a glass of instead

Oh dear, I did the survey and I have an evenly split score!

I always knew I was a floating voter

I don't know if any other GNs have 20 something children who purport to be supporters of the Green Party but are actually rubbish at re cycling
I recognise that Terribull

My SIL is an environmental officer - he does not recycle. He says that the costs in fuel for transport and power in the recycling process outweighs the environmental gain. I do recycle in spite of that because I have always found it difficult to tolerate waste of any kind, but I guess he must have some reason to take this view.

I have never hugged a tree, by the way.

I am all for raising the minimum wage. Some of the hardest workers in my opinion, are those on the minimum wage.
When it was brought in, or upped, industry always says that people will be out of work as a result. But it doesnt seem to happen in reality.

Off to do the poll.

25% for 4 parties. As split as it is possible to be.

interesting thread on Mumsnet - lots of different view points dependent upon your left or right leanings
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2291768-To-think-the-Green-Party-are-just-making-themselves-look-ridiculous?

Interesting Mollie

I thought the main point to recycling, Mishap, was the fact that there is not much room left for landfill.