Just how nutty are the Green party?

Does anyone have a link to all these "Policies" on the Greens' official site?

Because that Spector blog is referencing a Telegraph article with no sources... and I can't find them shown anything like the above on the Greens' site...

http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/

Is their policy site and pretty much everything form that article is there in some way, shape or form. It is however a fairly extensive site so takes some reading.

In general we have some lovely ideals that are both completely un-costed and would completely cripple the UK if implemented.
 
Andrew Neill ripping Sheila a new one on BBC1 now :D

Watching it now, it's embarrassing. How does removing tax allowances all together and giving everyone £75 a week help the lower paid? The Greens are a joke and would cripple the country. To think I was considering voting for them until I read their last manifesto. :rolleyes:
 
She looked very ill at ease on the tv just now and she didn't really disagree with things like complete and open borders, abolishing the armed forces, being a member of ISIS or the IRA being fine.

Thank God she'll never get anywhere near power.
 
So no norks in the papers but you can pay as you waaay in a brothel ?

Sound logic from the Greens there.

There are so many painfully illogical arguments in this thread. At least it's funny that while making a claim about the Green's logic you fail to use any of your own.

Page 3 puts boobs on bottom shelf papers which kids have extremely easy access to. Brothels that were regulated would not be something a 6 yr old kid would be walking into and paying for a couple hours of private time. Comparing them in the same sentence is beyond ridiculous.

Much like if you're pro assisted dying for those people in pain and with an extremely low quality of life you must also be pro suicide and against helping people who want to commit suicide... both arguments are entirely illogical. If you're against A you must be against X because if I say A and X in the same sentence they must be entirely related...
 
The Greens are different. They actually want all of us to be poorer. This is a party that, along with the SNP, doesn't have the interests of the UK at heart.

Exactly which policy suggests they want us all to be poorer, because not a single one of those policies suggests that AT ALL. It was for increase in benefits, free education, etc while taxing the rich more heavily to fund it. Every one of their policies that involved direct financial change read as wealth redistribution down the pyramid. Larger inheritance tax, more tax on gifts, this is all things that will effect richer people and use that money to pay for benefits for poorer people and/or to reduce taxes on poorer people.

They all read to me directly as taxing the rich more heavily. Though I'd settle for taxing the rich and companies the amount they are actually supposed to with no legal loopholes.
 
It was for increase in benefits, free education, etc while taxing the rich more heavily to fund it. Every one of their policies that involved direct financial change read as wealth redistribution down the pyramid.
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Anyone who can stand on their own two feet will have their legs broken to pay for those who can't. This isn't making the country richer it is dragging everyone down to the same level.


"
The policy will enable people to “choose their own types and patterns of work”, and will allow people to take up “personally satisfying and socially useful work”. It will cost somewhere between £240-280 billion a year – more than double the current health budget, and ten times the defence budget.
"

This alone would cost the average working person more then £9k a year, forgetting socially beneficial work is not overly economically beneficial. Their policies are suicide for the economy and I would be planning my exit very quickly.
 
You guys should watch The Sunday Politics show this morning. Green party policy took a total beating this morning. They couldn't cost the major policy for giving everyone £72 a week which would cost 280bn to implement
 
No it wouldn't. The government at the time could decide they didn't like a party and cut their funding and they would have no where else to turn for it. I bet it would be even more difficult to start a new party too!

Unless they write the law so they couldn't do that? You could also put down rules around new parties and how they get funding to stop that issue.
 
Well firstly if you tax everyone even as you did now, then there would be no average cost increase because we don't tax everyone equally already. Second insisting any higher taxing of rich people is attempting to break their legs is well, it's not an argument, it's trying to make it sound unfair when it really isn't.

When you're born you don't know if you're going to be super intelligent, get breaks in life or life with chronic pain or a horrendously limiting condition that will effectively prevent most people achieving 'success'. Most people can't be successful in a capitalist society pretty much by design. For one chip maker to thrive most others have to fail, for one car maker to make a killing 10 others have to fail.

One of the single biggest problems in the UK and in general world economy is wealth hoarding. One successful company employs 1000 people, the owner is paid well but not obscenely well and the other 999 people get a ample wage. You get 1000 big houses being built/bought, 1000 expensive cars, 1000 people who go out and spend money on gadgets, on meals in restaurants, on holidays. Or you get 1 obscenely rich owner, 2-3 pretty rich managers, a few more not badly paid but not well paid and 990 poorly paid workers. The 990 spend WAY less on everything and put out much less spending into the world, the 2-3 guys spend heavily but don't get to save a huge amount, the 1 obscenely rich guy ends up with 100's of millions in the bank. They buy one big house, a few big cars, but can only go out for max 3 meals a day, only so many computers you buy, most of this money ends up sitting in a bank account making him feel very proud but that money is effectively dead weight, it's no longer circulating in the economy, it's not pumping up the economy or helping anyone out, it's just extra 000s on a read out of an account total.

Wealth redistribution is one of the founding principles of western society but it's something that isn't happening anymore. It's supposed to trickle down but it doesn't any more.

You can talk emotively and talk about rich peoples legs being broken. But the reality is tax the right people and beyond the 000s in a bank account they would never even notice the difference. Their life wouldn't change at all. Someone could have 10 million or 100million in an account instead of 1 billion. They'd live in the same house, spend the same every day, have the same number of cars, their kids would be wealthy for life, they are financially secure but that would be the extent.

Far too many rich people hoard FAR too much of the worlds wealth and that is what is terrible for the economy AND means that a huge portion of the population is poor.

If the 1000 people were all spending money and it was all circulating in the economy, it means more people go out to restaurants, which means there ARE more restaurants, which means there are more jobs in restaurants. If more people take more short holidays in the UK there could be more hotels and more jobs. Wealth hoarding reduces spending in the economy which reduces numbers of jobs.

Be as emotive as you want and keep talking about rich peoples legs being broken. But the richest people could be taxed massively and never ever feel it in day to day life.
 
They've actually got some really good policies there amongst some more "interesting" ones. If you look at any party you will come to the same conclusions.
 
Stuff about wealth hoarding.

How many of these superrich and those with 000s do you think have bank accounts actually containing their assets?
It isn't a matter of chopping off a few zeros.
That would involves chopping off shares, dividends, companies, holdings, funds etc.
Say for example Richard Branson, which of his companies would you sell off to get his personal wealth down to a level you suggest is acceptable?
These people don't have cash lying around.
The wealth hoarding you talk of, is turning one successful company into another, and diversifying.
 
I thought I'd quote the OP and list the policies that I think are a good idea (green) against those which I think are bad policies (red). With the uncolored text, I'm open minded and it depends how it's implemented.

Top-ups [will be] given for people with children or disabilities, or to pay rent and mortgages. No-one will see a reduction in benefits, and most will see a substantial increase. Parents will be entitled to two years’ paid leave from work.
The policy will enable people to “choose their own types and patterns of work”, and will allow people to take up “personally satisfying and socially useful work”. It will cost somewhere between £240-280 billion a year – more than double the current health budget, and ten times the defence budget.
Under Green plans, inheritance tax – “to prevent the accumulation of wealth and power by a privileged class” – will no longer just tax the dead. Under radical reforms, it will cover gifts made while the giver is still alive – raising the prospect of levies on cars, jewellery or furniture given by parents to their children.
New resource taxes would apply to wood, metal and minerals, and steeper levies imposed on cars.
Crucially, import taxes will be levied on goods brought to Britain reflecting the “ecological impact” of making them – with tariffs reintroduced for trade between Britain and the rest of Europe, ending the free trade bloc.
All elements of the sex industry will be decriminalised, and prostitutes could no longer be discriminated against in child custody cases.
The Greens also want to see “significantly reduced” levels of imprisonment, with jail only used when there is a “substantial risk of a further grave crime” or in cases where offences are so horrific that offenders would be at risk of vigilantes. Prisoners will be given the vote.
SATS, early years tests and league tables will be abolished, and “creative” subjects given equal parity to the “academic”.
Independent schools will lose their charitable status and pay corporation tax, while church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.
Tuition fees will be abolished – but state research funding for universities will increase to reduce a reliance on “biased” commercial research.
The “overall volume” of advertising on TV and newspapers will be controlled and cut, as part of a war on the “materialist and consumption driven culture which is not sustainable”.
The England football, rugby and cricket teams would no longer play against countries where “normal, friendly, respectful or diplomatic relations are not possible.” Football clubs would be owned by co-operatives and not traded on the stock markets.
No more new airports or runways will be built, and existing ones nationalised. All new homes and businesses must by law provide bicycle parking. Helicopter travel would be regulated “more strictly”. The sale of alcohol on planes and airports will be tightly restricted to prevent air-rage, and the air on inbound flights tested for disease.
Advertising of holiday flights will be controlled by law to halt the “promotion of a high-carbon lifestyle”. New taxes would be imposed on carriers to reduce passenger numbers.
Assisted dying will be legalised, and the law on abortion liberalised to allow nurses to carry it out. “Alternative” medicine will be promoted. Private healthcare will be more heavily taxed, with special levies on private hospitals that employ staff who were trained on the NHS.
It will be a criminal offence, with “significant fines”, to stop a woman from breastfeeding in a restaurant or shop, and formula milk will be more tightly regulated.
In order to prevent “overpopulation” burdening the earth, the state will provide free condoms and fund research for new contraceptives.
Merely being a member of al-Qaeda, the IRA and other currently proscribed terrorist groups will no longer be a criminal offence under Green plans, and instead a Green Government should seek to “address desperate motivations that lie behind many atrocities labelled ‘terrorist’,” the policy book states.
Terrorism, it adds, “is an extremely loaded term. Sometimes governments justify their own terrorist acts by labelling any groups that resist their monopoly of violence ‘terrorist’.”
Britain will leave NATO, end the special relationship with the US, and unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons. A standing army, navy and airforce is “unnecessary”. Bases will be turned into nature reserves and the arms industry “converted” to producing windturbines.
“Richer regions do not have the right to use migration controls to protect their privileges from others in the long term,” the party’s policy book states.
A Green Government will “progressively reduce” border controls, including an amnesty for illegal immigrants after five years.
Access to benefits, the right to vote and tax obligations will apply to everyone living on British soil, regardless of passport. The policy book states: “We will work to create a world of global inter-responsibility in which the concept of a ‘British national’ is irrelevant and outdated.”
Political parties will be funded by the state, and the electoral system changed. The monarchy will be abolished.
 
http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/

Is their policy site and pretty much everything form that article is there in some way, shape or form. It is however a fairly extensive site so takes some reading.

In general we have some lovely ideals that are both completely un-costed and would completely cripple the UK if implemented.

National Insurance

EC720 National Insurance is a form of income tax in disguise. As it is only levied on "earnings" (i.e. wages and self-employment income), it means that "unearned" investment income is currently taxed at a lower rate than "earned" income.

EC721 Under a green taxation system, National Insurance will be abolished as a separate entity and merged into general Income Tax. The distinction between "earned" and "unearned" income will no longer be used to determine different methods of taxation.

'They're crazy' they say. Well check out this nugget of gold, truer than any truism I can think of.

I hate people. I hate how easily they can be manipulated. It used to be the 'Will of God' (Kingdom of Heaven). God may have died but the prevailing hierarchical belief structures that control the masses live on. A little confusion here, a little coercion there, apply a timely compulsion and hey presto; a flock of bleating sheep at your disposal
 
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It isn't going to be the rich who would need to be taxed. Every single working person will be worse off and 'have their legs broken'. Those who can afford to leave the country will, further putting the burden on the rest. Everything will topple down. The NHS will be unaffordable. Out of work benefits, unaffordable. Pensions, unaffordable. You are as deluded as they are.
 
I support Green (in part)...there are a few reasons, not least being that they actually seem to want to make changes that recent governments have been too scared to make.

But, I will probably be voting for them purely on the basis that they want to eradicate Trident; civilised countries should not have such indiscriminate and uncivilised weaponry.
 
Well firstly if you tax everyone even as you did now, then there would be no average cost increase because we don't tax everyone equally already. Second insisting any higher taxing of rich people is attempting to break their legs is well, it's not an argument, it's trying to make it sound unfair when it really isn't.

When you're born you don't know if you're going to be super intelligent, get breaks in life or life with chronic pain or a horrendously limiting condition that will effectively prevent most people achieving 'success'. Most people can't be successful in a capitalist society pretty much by design. For one chip maker to thrive most others have to fail, for one car maker to make a killing 10 others have to fail.

One of the single biggest problems in the UK and in general world economy is wealth hoarding. One successful company employs 1000 people, the owner is paid well but not obscenely well and the other 999 people get a ample wage. You get 1000 big houses being built/bought, 1000 expensive cars, 1000 people who go out and spend money on gadgets, on meals in restaurants, on holidays. Or you get 1 obscenely rich owner, 2-3 pretty rich managers, a few more not badly paid but not well paid and 990 poorly paid workers. The 990 spend WAY less on everything and put out much less spending into the world, the 2-3 guys spend heavily but don't get to save a huge amount, the 1 obscenely rich guy ends up with 100's of millions in the bank. They buy one big house, a few big cars, but can only go out for max 3 meals a day, only so many computers you buy, most of this money ends up sitting in a bank account making him feel very proud but that money is effectively dead weight, it's no longer circulating in the economy, it's not pumping up the economy or helping anyone out, it's just extra 000s on a read out of an account total.

Wealth redistribution is one of the founding principles of western society but it's something that isn't happening anymore. It's supposed to trickle down but it doesn't any more.

You can talk emotively and talk about rich peoples legs being broken. But the reality is tax the right people and beyond the 000s in a bank account they would never even notice the difference. Their life wouldn't change at all. Someone could have 10 million or 100million in an account instead of 1 billion. They'd live in the same house, spend the same every day, have the same number of cars, their kids would be wealthy for life, they are financially secure but that would be the extent.

Far too many rich people hoard FAR too much of the worlds wealth and that is what is terrible for the economy AND means that a huge portion of the population is poor.

If the 1000 people were all spending money and it was all circulating in the economy, it means more people go out to restaurants, which means there ARE more restaurants, which means there are more jobs in restaurants. If more people take more short holidays in the UK there could be more hotels and more jobs. Wealth hoarding reduces spending in the economy which reduces numbers of jobs.

Be as emotive as you want and keep talking about rich peoples legs being broken. But the richest people could be taxed massively and never ever feel it in day to day life.

You seem to be confusing static and liquid wealth.

The vast majority of billionaires and millionaires have good income, but hold most of their money in investments and assets. If you tax them on their net worth, they will have to sell investments to pay the bill. The majority of people who buy such investments, are themselves wealth, naturally. So now imagine a situation where all these wealthy individuals start to sell a proportion or their estate yearly - who buys it? Answer, the extremely wealth, tax dodgers, and people based overseas. These people represent only a small proportion of the wealth, and as such, demand is low for these investments, and prices fall. The price fall effects ordinary working folk too, via their house prices and pensions.

Before long, you end up with a more corrupt ruling class, capital flight, and a gradually poorer working population.

There may be others ways of taxing effectively the rich, but this is not one of them.
 
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