Politics Home has an interesting survey of political opinion formers today. They were asked their views on how seriously Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will take environmental policies in the future.
Andrew Rawnsley’s write-up says:
The PHI100 reckon that most of the politicians will follow the voters and downplay the environment. Saving the planet will come second to saving their skins and seats.
‘The greed of the electorate and the fear of the parties will drive it off the agenda,’ one panellist remarks.
Another says: ‘Everybody will be running away from it, at least in terms of green taxes.’
Only a tiny proportion of the panel (two per cent) believe Labour will be the party most focussed on the environment at the next election. More of the panel, but still not that many (thirteen per cent) reckon that the Conservatives will be most driven by the green agenda.
The overwhelming view of the panel is that green issues will go back to being the passionate concern only of the Liberal Democrats among the main parties. A big majority of the panel (seventy three per cent) say the Lib Dems will be the party most concerned with a green agenda at the next election. (Source: Politics Home)
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
David Alton, Andy Burnham and telescopic radicalism
Will Burnham abandon neoliberalism by adopting a radical agenda?
Conservative councillor joins Lib Dems in Cannock Chase
The AI world and some fallacies about it
Yet another government makes a mess of local government reform
Front Street looking great
Peter Martin
Meg Thomas
David Raw
Katharine Pindar
5 Comments
Well that’s interesting, and it would give the Lib Dem’s an edge. The question is, are the Lib Dem’s brave enough to go for truly green policies rather than unjustified and illiberal sweeping green taxes that financially penalise those that even manage to succesfully organise their carbon footprint?
I’d much more readily support a party that supported green measures that didn’t do as Labour do and charge over the odds for “polluting” vehicles even if my choice (should I own one, which I don’t thankfully) is to never drive it more than once a month…thus being less of an impact to the environment than the daily commuter in a brand new car!
“Passionate concern” my arse. We remember the Too Yellow to be Green expose. But the Tories have already abandoned their Vote Blur Go Green hogwash.
I’m amazed that the Tories get six times the credit Labour get in this thing.
Blue sorry. Though Vote Blur ain’t bad when they have no policies.
Yes, there is a backlash and we should not be remotely surprised.
Green talk is everywhere and we are sick of it.
Whining about how we can coerce people into performing a mountain of largely tokenistic measures, is everywhere, and we are sick of it.
It is time for governments and politicians to butt out of telling the people what to do. Our record is better than yours.
No, what we want governments to do is their job. Ensure the generation of shed-loads of low carbon energy. Introduce effective standards for energy efficiency and enforce them. (In the private rented sector perhaps!) Stop introducing tokenistic and counterproductive measures from plastic bags to biofuels. Stop lecturing us, we are your bosses, you are not ours.
The old maxim about recession ridding us of luxuries we can’t afford now seems to be, sadly, applied to the environment.
We must stick to our guns.