Five reasons not to vote Green

Over on his blog Mark Mills has put together a list of “five big reasons not to vote Green”.

I don’t quite agree with all of them but it’s a good thought-provoking list, which you can read here.

One reason Mark gives is the Green Party’s record in Brighton:

To date the Green’s have led one council: Brighton. Their record wielding power there does not suggest they deserve more of it.

Erstwhile Green sympathiser Memphis Baker wrote in the Independent that:

In Brighton, the constituency of Caroline Lucas, the Green Icarus has flown close to the sun already. Bin strikes hit the city in 2013, leaving seagulls to peck at piles of rubbish: a plan to have a referendum on a hike in council tax was dropped as it would have cost more to run the vote than would have been recouped; Brighton’s recycling rate has actually dropped, with the council’s record now 302nd out of 326.

That Green Party record in Brighton has also been the subject of an interesting debate over on Reddit recently. Other thing I found a little amusing reading it was seeing Green Party supporters talk about the nuances of what is politically possibly when you don’t have outright majority control. Fair enough you might think; save that I’ve not noticed many Greens saying the Liberal Democrat record in national government should be judged by taking into account the party has less than 1 in 10 of the MPs in Parliament…