Guardian video – Brighton Pavilion: A Green leap forward?
The Guardian seem pretty insistent on not allowing me to embed this, so I’m going to have to take the extraordinary editorial step of imploring you to leave Bright Green for 9 minutes or so and watch this video of the Guardian’s John Harris interviewing the three main Brighton Pavilion candidates.
Caroline Lucas makes in my view a devastating argument for the votes of those who, in Harris’ words, “have been a sort of Labour identifier and [whose] values are in much the same place as they ever were.” I am an admirer of Nancy Platts but I think this film makes clear she is not in Lucas’ league.
An interesting analysis of the psephology of Brighton Pavilion here:
http://pluralprogressive.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/the-electoral-math/
Thanks, Gary. That’s really good news.
It’s really important to realise that this is a competition between Greens and Tories. The Goldsmid by-election last summer saw Greens win resoundingly in a Tory seat.
Everyone in progressive politics should welcome a green win in Brighton. It’s interesting that Harris focuses on how Labour have selected an anti-war, left-ish candidate. For Labour, selecting candidates like Nancy Platts is the natural response to a strong green vote, and progressive voters elsewhere might want to bear that in mind.
One way to get the Labour party to care more about its principles of social justice and peace is to vote Green – especially where a safe Labour MP doesn’t represent the principles of the Labour party.
The 7% swing needed to elect Caroline Lucas will change British politics. And not for the worse.