h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good to hear The Cooperative Party getting a mention on PM, in the context of rubbishing the Tories' 'Workers' Cooperative' plans.

I was a member many, many years ago. They are affiliated with Labour, so in a few areas the local constituency Labour party is, in fact, the co-op. I thought I was joining Labour, but technically I joined the Co-op.

(Gimme a break! This was back in the Kinnock days.)

Sorry FB, I'll check out the podcast when I get back to civilisation and a decent internet connection.

In the meantime, I'd say the "left" is still around, they just call themselves "Greens" nowadays.

Labour, the Tories and the Lib/Dems are all centrist parties more interested in pinching votes off each other than ideology.

An analogy:

If the electorate lived in a single street with 100 houses and there were two "shops" to supply the people, the most equitable positions for these shops would roughly be at no 25 and no 75. In this way, nobody has to go more than 25 doors to get to a shop. That used to be the case with the Tories and Labour - there was a clear division between the two. However, if the shopkeeper at no 25 gets a bit greedy, he might think moving a few doors up the street would be to his benefit. If he moved to no 41, everybody from 1 to 57 is closer to his shop than his rival at no 75. Of Course, the owner of the shop at no 75 follows suit and we end up with two shops - one at 49 and one at 51. That's what the main parties have done. The rush to the middle has seen the margins ignored. The "right" has seen a rise in parties like UKIP & the BNP. The "left" has seen a rise in parties like the Greens.

There'd a certain truth to that (that the Greens are Left, btw).

One thing about them, though, is that their emphasis remains on environmental concerns. I have no problem with that...except that the Centrist parties are borrowing their colours on this - for the obvious reason that if they don't, we're all screwed. As such, they've been a rather effective single-issue lobby group.

Where they've fallen down, though, is in convincing the electorate that they also have coherent social and economic policies. They *do* have policies on these - but they haven't really persuaded people on the things that matter to them in their immediate, daily lives. As such, they've possibly left a good deal of popular Leftist sympathy untapped.

Incidentally...before the last Euro Election I did the 'What European Party Are You?' test that someone linked to from here. It told me that my closest matches were Austrian Greens...and Italian Communists.

btw...didn't the Tory shopkeeper more or less stays still? It's Labour that's moved rightwards, embracing Thatcherite economics (and othyer things) in pursuit of electoral gain. The Centre is the old Right.

(Witness Roy Hattersly who said that he was amazed to find that he was now on the right wing of the party, the party having pivoted round him).

We can maybe point towards some social issues on which the consensus has moved leftwards - but how important are these in the big picture?

I have no problem with environmentalism. I'm all for saving energy and avoiding waste (Scottish frugality is hard to shake off), it's where a line is crossed and it seems to me to become a weapon to bash capitalism that I begin to have a problem. To that end it looks (to me) as if all those guys that used to wear red neckties and give out the Morning Star have just put down their red flag and picked up a green one.


I think the centrist parties don't pick up on green policies because we're "screwed" if they don't, but because there's votes in adopting such policies. And as the centrist parties pick up the genuine environmental policies, all that's left to the greens is strident socialism/hippy values.

I don't think the Tory shopkeeper stood still - I'm sure I heard him standing at his door shouting about worker co-ops

>>I have no problem with environmentalism. I'm all for saving energy and avoiding waste (Scottish frugality is hard to shake off), it's where a line is crossed and it seems to me to become a weapon to bash capitalism that I begin to have a problem.

Except that it's about a lot more than frugality. Saving the planet's more than a matter of recycling and driving a Prius (oops). Those are small beer besides the massive infrastructure we're going to need to put in place. See pedro's comment. It's going to take some clever economists to work out how we're going to pay for it.

Agreed, though, the Greens also have to overcome a certain Weave Your Own Yoghurt mentality.

Ah see - there's the tipping point "Saving the planet" The planet's going to be fine whatever we do. It'll get along fine & dandy with or without us. What we're really arguing for is "Saving our way of life" and if this means changing the way we want to live beyond all recognition, then we haven't really saved our way of life at all, have we?

I'm sorry, self-composting toilets are a step too far for any civilised man

btw - I'm sorry about all the smileys. I find if I don't use them, people tend to miss when my tongue is in my cheek or when I'm being flippant and the whole thing goes downhill really quickly. I'm not here to piss people off - I find this an interesting topic.

Subtitles for the hard of thinking:

'Saving the planet' = Shorthand for 'ensuring that the planet remains in a state capable of supporting tolerable human life'.

You should no me better than to think I'm into all that Mother Earth shite. I'm concerned with humans, not dolphins...except that we possibly have to preserve an entire ecosystem, which has the side-benefit of being good for dolphins. Which are, admittedly, rather cute.

If anyone missed "Newswipe" last week here is Doug Stanhope's take on the best way for us to all be greener.

note this is really funny but some people may well be offended.

http://www.youtube.com/user/stanhopetv#p/a/u/0/YkgDhDa4HHo

FB

> What we're really arguing for is "Saving our way of life" and if this means changing the way we want to live beyond all recognition, then we haven't really saved our way of life at all, have we?< swl

Oh of course I may have missed your meaning here as there in smiley attached.

But if you're being serious it sounds pretty wussy and silly to me.

Do you think all those people who had to cope with all kinds of crap in the blitz..and had to spend nights in the underground sleeping rough, were whining on about having to change their way of life?

No. They understood the hard reality of what was needed and just got on with it.

If we have to change stuff. We just do it..in the great British blitz spirit. But if some people are just too soft to cope, tough. I reckon most people will cope fine.

*there is no smiley attached*

Except that it's difficult to get people to change their ways of life simply by persuading them that it's for The Greater Good. Even during the Blitz...the reason why everyone was sleeping in the underground was because they, individually, were having bombs dropped on them. And how many people volunteered for military service out of a genuine sense of anti-Fascist zeal?

What's going to happen, in reality, is that our lives *are* going to change, whether we like it or not, whether for direc environmental reasons or related geopolitical ones. We need to do various things to mitigate those changes.

Hit post to early...

Where this takes us is that the persuasion needed isn't so much about individual actions as to developing a broad consensus towards structural changes. To carry on the WWII analogy - think of the broad consensus that enabled things like conscription and rationing without rioting breking out. (By and large. Although there was some rioting - not reported in mainstream history)

I was thinking the same - would Londoners have voted for the Blitz?

And as for the "stiff upper lip" - you do realise that was propaganda?

It was indeed. The reality...the King and Queen repeatedly stoned by eastenders...underground stations only used as shelters because the public battered down the doors...psychiatric camps on the outskirts of London...the collapse of law and order in Liverpool...outright refusal of housholders with spare rooms to billet the homeless...massive increase in rape in the blacked out streets.

Basically, people *didn't* cope.

Graham Greene is good on this in 'The Ministry of Fear'. His characters keep having to step into pubs to settle their nerves.

What stiff upper lip?

Or are you talking about the Queen mum...when she said she felt she could finally look the bombed out East End in the eye..after she spent a night in abject terror and squalor at Buck house?

Except that that was...distortion. Minor damage vs your whole neighborhood blown up? As I said...the king and queen repeatedly had half bricks thrown at them.

I was told by one who was there of British troops firing into rioting crowds trying to get onto Canada-bound ships at Liverpool Docks in 1940. Haven't seen that in the history books.

Instead we're fed the guff about the Queen Mum staying by his husband's side at home during the war. To my family's eternal shame, my grandad abandoned his wife and kids and ran off to France (twice), Africa, Sicily, Belgium, Holland and Germany.