I don't especially want to get embroiled in specific issues, but my general feeling towards them from just glancing through their website, is that they have a bunch of great ideas, dreams and ideologies, such as returning the rail system into public hands and reducing rail fares by 10%, building 500000 new social houses, building towards complete reliance on renewable energies....I could go on....but how exactly are all these wonderful plans to be afforded?
All great ideas, but completely unfeasible and it makes them come across as naïve and I won't be the first or the last say that.
The thing is with the green party is their ideas go far beyond what other parties try to do.
Other parties are only interest in getting power and propose populist short term polices to win votes and purportedly make some sub-section of societies lives better in the short term with an absolute disregard for the long term effects of those policies or the global picture of humanity. They only care about getting in power for the next 5 years.
The greens don't want to get in power this election and unlike the UKIP have no delusion that they would be a significant player. The Green manifesto is about long term improvements to British society, the environment and humanity in general. They don't have populist votes that will win a a 5 year stint where they can deplete resources faster, pollute more heavily and degrade social issues further just to win voter share and keep some subset of voters, say pensioners, happy. The Green manifesto cares about you, your children, your grand children, great grand children, and the the people on the planet which we share. Does that mean you might have to pay some more taxes in the short term and make small sacrifices in short term living quality to enable a more equal society and a healthier environment and more proposers society in the future, heck yes.
The Greens are realistic in their current potential and don't suffer delusions of grandeur, their manifesto doesn't have to be airtight at this stage in their progression. It is still more fiscally robust and realistic than other fringe parties like UKIP. Their purpose now is to increase support, increase awareness of alternative longer term visions and improve the balance of political point scoring to longer term objective improvements in our lives.
Lastly, one thing people tend to ignore is the Greens are very open that their policies would require an increase in taxation, especially from the richest. That sends some selfish parasites running but is something I fully approve of. The caveat is that the increase in taxation will generate a large increase in the quality of life for generations to come. And that is my beef with the current UK system, taxes are already high but the quality of life just isn't there. I look toward the Scandinavian countries; I much prefer to pay a little more tax and get their standards of living. For the UK quality of life then that can be achieved with less taxation.
Many of the finances also come about due to efficiency changes and wholesale restructuring of the economy and social welfare. Things like a Citizens income can greatly improve efficiency, why tax the poor just to give money back to them? There are many hidden benefits to looking after the poor that reduce costs, a higher quality of life for the poorest in society will result in less crime, higher productivity, increased GDP per capita, smaller prison capacity with reduced costs, reduced health costs, better educational outcomes etc.
people always pick up on individual polices such as slowly removing nuclear power generation and then go off on an uneducated rnat and rave about it. the fact is Wind, geothermal, hydro and soon solar power all generates electricity at a lower costs with less Co2 and no toxic waste. I like Nuclear power but it isn't really sustainable, why pay more money for nuclear and end up with a load of radioactive waste when you can get clean renewable energy for less cost?
