Green Party aiming to "do a UKIP"

[Stoatwobbler]

Make of this what you will.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24068318

 

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has predicted a "big shift" from the three main parties to the Greens and UKIP. Although the two parties are poles apart on policy, voters are increasingly looking for "new answers," Ms Bennett told the BBC.

 

The party is training activists at its annual conference in Brighton how to emulate UKIP's recent success.

 

Members will also debate policies on cutting energy prices and opposing NHS and Royal Mail privatisation. The party wants to ban all advertising aimed at children and plans to set out proposals to boost the economy and end food poverty.

 

The conference is due to open later and ends on Monday. On Saturday, members will discuss how it can "break into mass popular awareness" in the way that Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party managed in May's local elections, when it gained 139 councillors.

[Happ Hazzard]

Can't see it myself. Not for the Greens anyway. There simply aren't enough far left voters out there. Brighton is an aberration in that regard, due to the amount of lefties that move down there from London. Most of the parties policies are abhorrant to the average voter.

[frededwards]

I think the Britsh electorate has enough common sense to see them for the niave, simplistic, obsessive, liars that they are.

 

If that vacuous idiot "Ms." Lucas is the best that they can produce, I can't see them being a threat to the Monster Raving Looney Party, let alone Labour or the Conservatives.

 

The only reason she has a seat at all is because Brighton is populated almost exclusively by hummus enthusiasts and homosexuals.

[El Cid]

I think that UKIP will do poorly in the next general election. So the Greens should be aiming higher.

UKIPs policies will not stand up to scrutiny

[frededwards]

Neither will those of the Greens!

[geared]

People are sick of Green Politics as it is, no-one is going to vote for more of the rubbish.

 

The UKIP have only gained popularity through tapping into peoples frustrations with the EU and the number of migrants.

[Xt500]

People are sick of Green Politics as it is, no-one is going to vote for more of the rubbish.

 

The UKIP have only gained popularity through tapping into peoples frustrations with the EU and the number of migrants.

 

In your opinion.........

[retep]

There seems to be a following UKIP theme going on,

 

"Why Left Unity could become Labour's UKIP"

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/09/why-left-unity-could-become-labours-ukip

[Vague_Boy]

voters are increasingly looking for "new answers"

 

More like a quick fix.

 

I think that UKIP will do poorly in the next general election. So the Greens should be aiming higher.

 

If UKIP do badly, why should the Greens not also do badly?

 

People tend to vote for smaller parties in by-elections and the "big three" in a general election.

 

Looking through the Green Party manifesto for the last GE, it seems to be very much tax and spend.

 

In contrast, the Green Party is open about what we would cut, what we would defend, and about the fact that we need to raise taxation from 36 per cent of GDP in 2009–10 to around 45 per cent in 2013.

 

So more of the same failed approach. Whereas in successful, vibrant Hong Kong, the opposite works:

 

As it is, you'd need a team of sniffer dogs to try and find a tax in Hong Kong - with no sales tax, no capital gains tax, no VAT and plans in the pipeline to phase out stamp duties, the people are less than enthusiastic about direct taxation. Income tax, or salary tax as it is known, is set at 2% for those earning less than HK$35,000 a year, 8% for HK$35,000-HK$70,000, 14% for HK$70,000-HK$105,000 and 20% for anything exceeding that

 

LINK

 

And if you're saying what about health care etc., take a look at Hong Kong's position in the world healthcare league table:

 

Hong Kong tops global health index

 

Hong Kong is ahead of us in education as well [LINK]

 

And a whopping 20 places above us in life expectancy [LINK]

 

So if people want "new answers" how about this. Instead of making the state bigger and bigger, and taxing people more and more, do the opposite. Trust people to spend their own money, to run their own lives. This is not just a theoretical concept, it works. In Hong Kong.

 

If you say it can't work here well I guess you're admitting that those industrious orientals are just plain better than we are.

[Phanerothyme]

More like a quick fix.

 

 

 

If UKIP do badly, why should the Greens not also do badly?

 

People tend to vote for smaller parties in by-elections and the "big three" in a general election.

 

Looking through the Green Party manifesto for the last GE, it seems to be very much tax and spend.

 

 

 

So more of the same failed approach. Whereas in successful, vibrant Hong Kong, the opposite works:

 

So if people want "new answers" how about this. Instead of making the state bigger and bigger, and taxing people more and more, do the opposite. Trust people to spend their own money, to run their own lives. This is not just a theoretical concept, it works. In Hong Kong.

 

We could probably make that work in London, turn it into a tax free zone, and the rest of the country (the part that doesn't have a major international financial centre) can play the part of the rest of the PRC, with all the wonderful advantages that will bring....