Should the Green Party Enter a Pact with Labour?

Recently on this blog Mike Shaughnessy outlined the reasons why the Green Party should not enter a coalition with Labour. He set out the disadvantages this would entail and I agree with him.

But I want to argue that we should consider a looser agreement with Labour. I propose a two-part agreement: first, an electoral pact; secondly a confidence and supply arrangement if Labour becomes the largest party in the House of Commons.

Labour is currently polling around 32-34 percent. It’s possible that they could form a government with this level of support. In 2005 they “won” the election with 35%. In 2015 they have UKIP snapping at their heels. If their support doesn’t harden soon we face the prospect of another 5 years of Tory government. This time made even more virulent by the addition of UKIP MPs. It looks as if Labour will lose a significant number of Scottish seats to the SNP.

Does this matter? Some in the Green Party believe that there is no difference between Labour and the Tories. I agree that both are neoliberal parties that share many policies. But it’s now clear that Cameron and Osborne want to bring about a permanent shift in economic and political power in the UK. Emboldened by another term of office they would cut public spending so deeply that we would end up like the USA: low taxes for the rich, no services for the poor and ever deepening inequality. And the Right is never satisfied: even now Republicans continue to argue for more tax cuts and more foreign war.

We should not forget the bad things Labour did. Iraq, PFI, Trident. But we should also remember that they also did some good things. The minimum wage, Sure Start, the Human Rights Act, devolution to Wales and Scotland. They are not the same as the Tories.

What about the Greens? It’s difficult to gauge our precise level of support because polling organisations differ so much. This weekend Comres reported our support at just 2% whilst YouGov was giving us 7%. Either way, barring a miracle (and I don’t believe in miracles) we can’t realistically expect to win more than 3 seats in 2015. It’s possible that we will get none.

What I propose is a pact with Labour in England only. There are 533 English constituencies. In a proportional system, assuming a Green vote of 5%, we would get about 26 seats. So, we ask Labour to stand aside in our 26 strongest constituencies. In return we stand aside in the other 507.

Such a pact could result in far more Green MPs than we could otherwise hope to gain. Two dozen Green MPs would give us a voice in Parliament that we might otherwise not get for a generation.

There are reasons why the voting public may be attracted to the pact: Labour is perceived as being barren of new ideas while the Greens have a wealth of transformative policies. Yet we are still perceived by the public as a wasted vote.

Would Labour go for it? I don’t know. In the past they have always refused to share power. But they can’t be happy at the prospect of another five years of opposition, their electoral support ebbing away. Labour are clearly concerned about support slipping away to the Green Party: they have set up a team to attack us already. They might even welcome the transfusion of fresh thinking.

There may be many constituencies where a Green vote of say 7% will take enough votes from Labour to allow the Conservatives to get elected. That doesn’t help anyone except the Tories.

The second part of the deal is the confidence and supply agreement. Green MPs would agree to support Labour in confidence votes and in votes involving expenditure. This is the usual confidence and supply arrangement. We would also have a shopping list of issues we want to enact: a PR electoral system might be top of this list.

This is not a coalition. I do not propose that Green MPs should accept any government posts at all.

When I floated this idea on the Green Left Facebook page last week some Greens were appalled and even threatened to leave the party. They believe that Greens should not betray their principles by supporting a neoliberal party. They believe that it is better to wait and carry on campaigning. This is a respectable and principled standpoint. But, given the alternative of another Tory government we need to remind ourselves that not every compromise is a sell-out.

Voting for Labour would stick in the throat of many Greens. It would stick in my throat. But it might be made palatable with the thought that in two dozen constituencies many Labour supporters would be voting Green. And it’s worth remembering that under an STV system many Green voters would likely end up casting a vote for Labour. Can we really explain to the future victims of Toryism that we had the power to stop the destruction but we failed to act in order to preserve our principles? 

Guest Blog by Chris Foren who is a member of Leeds Green Party. The views expressed here are his own.

Piss Take Police Advertisements Appear Around London

Fake advertisement posters mocking the Metropolitan Police have been plastered all over London, like the one above. Other messages include 'We caused the 2011 riots by shooting dead an unarmed civilian and then lying about it. And we got away with it', referring to the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham and another one says 'We've pointlessly targeted cannabis users in Lewisham. while other people legally drink their drugs.'

The posters appear to have been produced by the anarchist magazine Strike. Reports say that police have sealed off the locations where the posters have been displayed with crime tape, so they are obviously somewhat embarrassed by them.

Still, there is nothing untrue about any of the content of these posters that I have seen. May the campaign continue.

'All in this together,' Prime Minister? - Caroline Lucas Brighton & Hove MP

Last week I visited the Young People’s Centre on Ship Street to help them mark 30 years of youth services in the city. The centre itself, run by Impact Initiatives, has been at its current location for 14 years and an estimated 10,000 young people have passed through their doors in that time.

The Young People’s Centre gets about 15% of its funding from Brighton and Hove City Council, including for the staff that support users, yet that funding is under threat like never before - thanks to central Government slashing the money they give to local authorities.

Between the Prime Minister first declaring “we are all in it together” in autumn 2010 and April 2016, core central government funding to local authorities will have been hacked by 40%. Across the country that’s 40% less money for social care for older people and disabled children. 40% less money for emergency help to survivors of domestic violence. And 40% less money for services to homeless people, to low income families in crisis. Here in Brighton and Hove the city council is already having to provide all these services with 32% less money than it had before the Coalition Government started its cuts.

And all at a time when local government responsibilities are actually increasing and demand for council services is growing. Government policies like the bedroom tax, cuts to tax credits and benefits, and the increase in VAT are harming the poorest and most disadvantaged – and it’s local authority services that are trying to pick up the pieces.

Imagine having your wages cut by 40% then having several extra dependents to feed, clothe and keep warm. You’d scrimp and save as best you could, cut back on everything but the bare essentials, spend any money set aside for a rainy day, exhaust your borrowing opportunities, but there comes a point when it’s just not possible to make ends meet. That’s what’s happening to local councils.

 Very few MPs will be honest with you about austerity. They won’t tell you that it was poor regulation of the financial sector that caused the economic crisis. Not public spending such as that by local authorities. Most MPs have bought into the narrative that austerity is necessary.

But some of us have not. I have repeatedly exposed the flawed economic thinking behind public sector cuts. If you want to balance the nation’s balance sheet you need to get people into well paid work. If people are unemployed the Treasury loses out on any tax they pay and they may need welfare and other support.  Yet according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, austerity will account for the loss of 1 in 5 public sector jobs by 2019. And there’s no guarantee these will be replaced by new private sector jobs, especially not jobs that pay fairly and give people the security to build a life, secure a home, save for the future – all of which are good for our long term economy.

The cuts narrative is dangerous not just because it’s economically illiterate. It’s also given central Government the excuse it needed to embark on an ideologically driven wholesale dismantling of the state.

The results can be seen here in Brighton and Hove and in local communities up and down the country. Under the guise of austerity, central government is slowly but surely putting an end to local government as we know it. My recent Early Day Motion calls for this to be brought to an urgent and immediate halt. If you agree, there’s also a brilliant new petition on the 38 degrees website calling for the same thing. I’ve signed and hope you will too.

In the meantime, the £26.3 million question is how do you plug a funding gap that’s, well, £26.3 million in size. Because that’s the gap between what Brighton and Hove council needs to spend in 2015/16 and the money it’s got coming in.

The simple answer to the question is that you either spend less money or you raise more of it. Or some of both.

That means increasing council tax or cutting services or a combination of the two. It’s a difficult choice but we do have to choose (otherwise Eric Pickles gets to set the city’s budget and that won’t be pretty).

The process of setting a council budget for the coming financial year is now underway and a picture is emerging of what spending less actually looks like, thanks to initial proposals drawn up by council officers but not yet agreed to by any councillors. It could mean reducing the number of beds in Older People’s Centres, less support for council house rents, less support for out of school childcare, the closure of some children’s centres and reduced subsidies for others, less of a council tax reduction for those eligible for the scheme, staff redundancies, a cut in the support provided to those with Learning Disabilities. The list goes on.

I fear that not one person in Brighton and Hove will be unaffected by the Government’s savage programme of cuts to local authorities. Is this what the Prime Minister meant by “we are all in in together”?

I do not want to see such cuts. Nor do my constituents. I have stood up against austerity and will continue to fight for all of those affected, especially the most disadvantaged and marginalised.

That means finding an alternative. So far the best on the table is a proposal to increase Council Tax by 5.9% to help meet that £26.3 million sized funding gap. It’s far from ideal but Council Tax is one of the few mechanism local authorities have to raise money, is at least tied in some way to people’s ability to pay, and previous local authority administrations have consistently raised the council tax rate, by as much as 14% on one occasion.

Brighton and Hove’s already seen a 62% drop in central government funding for day to day core services since 2010. In that same period Council Tax levels have also dropped in real terms because of council tax freezes or below-inflation increases.

The council has already made considerable efficiency savings and the extra money it’s successfully attracted for big capital projects like the i360 or cycle lanes cannot be spent on delivering core day to day services.

In other words, there’s no secret stash of treasure buried under the pier that can get us out of trouble.

What those in uproar about a potential 5.9% increase, for example, haven’t yet done is produce an even half way costed alternative. If there is one that adds up, I’d like to see it – and I think my constituents deserve to as well.  Nobody’s openly advocating the closure of children’s centres and staff redundancies but anyone refusing to countenance a Council Tax rise of this sort, or who cannot come up with a credible alternative, might as well be.

 

Our city has a stark choice to make.

It’s the Government that’s put us in this position and that’s where we need to focus our fire – although, sadly,  Labour have agreed that, if they form the next Government, they will stick to the Coalition’s spending limits, at least for the first year,  so we shouldn’t be under any illusion things will get much better with a different set of people presiding over central Government cuts.

If we want a future in which local government is properly funded to provide all the valuable services local people want and expect, we need to keep standing up against the narrative of austerity and making the case for investment in public services instead.  It’s what I’ve been doing since I was first elected and what I’ll continue to do whatever the outcome of the local budget decisions by councillors. That’s my job as your MP.

Why The Green Party Should Avoid Coalitions

The result of next year’s General Election is as unpredictable as any I have known. The latest headline figures in YouGov’s opinion polling is CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 14% and GRN 7%, giving Labour a small lead. Other polls put Labour and Conservative neck and neck and all polls show around 15% for UKIP and around 7% for Greens and 7% Lib Dems. The SNP are polling strongly in Scotland too.

All of which points to no single party having an overall majority of MPs after the May election. This being so, we will see either a minority administration or another coalition between two or more parties in Parliament. Of course it is still possible that Labour or the Conservatives achieve a (small) majority but I think the odds are against it.

Politicians (and more importantly the financial markets) dislike minority governments, which is the main reason cited by the Lib Dems for entering the current coalition government in 2010, i.e. ‘to maintain stability’. Minority governments are vulnerable to no confidence votes in Parliament which by convention leads to another election, so the argument goes, businesses dislike uncertainty. 

So, there is fair chance of us having a new coalition government next year. If the Greens win a few Parliamentary seats in the general election which could happen, say three or four seats is eminently possible, we could be invited into a coalition. There would be a temptation to wring some policy concessions out of the dominant perspective coalition partner(s), maybe something on climate change or raising the minimum wage for example, as the price of cooperation.

In my view this would be a very dangerous thing for the Green party to do. We need only to look across the Irish Sea for a stark warning of where these things can lead. The Irish Greens joined a coalition with the right wing Fianna Fail party, were complicit in many unpopular policies (including road building) and promptly withered away into a micro party and it set them back a generation in electoral terms.

Even closer to home, geographically at least, the Lib Dems entered a coalition with the Tories in the UK four and a half years ago. The Lib Dems could have joined a ‘rainbow coalition’ including perhaps the single Green MP, Caroline Lucas, the SNP, SDLP, PC and Labour, which just would have had an overall majority. Some senior Labour figures poured cold water on this idea anyway, but the Lib Dems chose instead to form a coalition with the Conservatives.

As I said above this was all couched in terms of ‘stability’ and the Lib Dems didn’t want to be a in multi-party coalition as they thought they would have more influence on government in a two party arrangement. The suspicion is too, that getting the status and the Ministerial limos also came into their MPs thinking.

The decision has been disastrous for the Libs Dems, losing half of their members and two thirds of their voters and they will be lucky to retain half of their MPs at the next election and will throw away thirty years of steady electoral progress. The headline betrayal was the increasing of student tuition fees, when they said the complete opposite in their manifesto.

So, Greens beware! The furthest we should go, is to enter a Confidence and Supply arrangement with the more progressive parties and no deal whatsoever with the Tories. A C&S arrangement guarantees against a no confidence motion in the government and voting for the government budget. All other issues are considered individually and voting for or against on the merits of the policies. The C&S agreement should also be only for one year at a time, with new negotiations every twelve months.

This would provide some stability but also give the Greens the freedom to keep our principles and distance ourselves from any bad policies that the larger party wants to introduce. And of course, no trappings of office, limos etc, which would be a good thing because people are sick of self-serving politicians and this would no doubt increase our popularity.      

           

Is Socialism Green?

The Amazon rain-forest has degraded to the point where it is losing its ability to benignly regulate weather systems and is likely to lead eventually to more extreme weather events, according to a new warning from Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science Centre, one of Brazil’s leading scientists. The Amazon works as a giant pump, channeling moisture inland via aerial rivers and rainclouds that form over the forest more dramatically than over the sea, the author says. It also provides a buffer against extreme weather events, such as tornados and hurricanes. In the past 20 years, the author notes that the Amazon has lost 763,000 sq km, an area the size of two Germanys. In addition another 1.2m sq km has been estimated as degraded by cutting below the canopy and fire. As a result, the deterioration of the rainforest – through logging, fires and land clearance – has resulted in a decrease in forest transpiration and a lengthening of dry seasons.

This might be one of the factors of the severe drought affecting south-east Brazil. São Paulo – the biggest city in South America – is facing its worst water shortages in almost a century. October, which is usually the start of the rainy season, was drier than at any time since 1930, leaving the volume of the Cantareira reservoir system down to 5% of capacity. “Amazon deforestation is altering climate. It is no longer about models. It is about observation,” said Nobre. 

Forest clearance has accelerated under Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, after efforts to protect the Amazon were weakened. Last month, satellite data indicated a 190% surge in deforestation in August and September. The influence of the “ruralista” agribusiness lobby in Congress has also grown in recent years, making it harder for the authorities to push through new legislation to demarcate reserves.

 A new United Nations report that has found that the destruction of the environment has left an area of farmland the size of France useless for growing crops. 7.7 square miles of agricultural land being lost every day because it has become too salty. Climate change is making the situation worse because warmer temperatures require more irrigation and increase the speed at which the water evaporates, the report warns. A total of 240,000 square miles of farmland worldwide has now been contaminated.

The Indus Valley in Pakistan is one of the worst hit areas, with salinization cutting rice production by 48 per cent in recent years, while wheat is down 32 per cent. Salty soils also cause losses of around £469m annually in the Colorado River basin, an arid region in the south west of the US. In Turkmenistan, more than half of the irrigated land is damaged by salt. Salt damage can also be reversed through measures such as tree planting and crop rotation using salt-tolerant plants, but these measures are extremely expensive.

Eco-socialism should not be mistaken for anti-technology or an anti-civilisation critique that strives to find balance with nature by returning to some kind of pre-industrial tribal society. ‘Primitivism’ can be described as seeking social transformation along these lines.  Eco-socialism  seeks to synthesise what might be regarded as some of the most desirable aspects of more primitive societies, such as their decentralised and ecological means of existing, with some of the most desirable aspects of modern society, such as its science and technology.

Green socialism is not some misanthropic back-to-nature utopia.  Our environmental crises have their roots in the social system of production so  the solutions to these ecological problems must be  radical of social relationships. The goal of a future socialist society will be to maximise human potential in order to stimulate a flourishing of humanity achieved through the free association  of producers within society. Human flourishing cannot be achieved, if we are constrained from exercising or capacities. I cannot quench my thirst without water; I cannot nourish my hunger without food; I cannot protect myself from the elements without shelter.

The political-economic system has overridden our genetic and social makeup, the result of that combination determines all our relationships, and it’s also the greatest influences in the way we think, evaluate our life and nature. The many hunter-gatherers the Arctic, the tropical forests of Congo and Amazon, also of the deserts of the Kalahari and of Australia, relate to one another cooperatively and fairly. Their relationship was due to the political-economic system they had, that system also helps to give those people the feeling of being a part of nature. Best of all is, it’s the way of life our genes evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, therefore that political-economic system suits our make-up, and furthermore, it was very successful. That system was what enabled people, with the most elementary tools and material, to live on all continents, except Antarctica. It was efficient; it allowed plenty of time for social and artistic pursuits. Today, with those attributes, we  have the advantage of our technology.

 Agriculture gradually introduced private property. That private property gave an opening to the warrior class to seize properties; it also reduced cooperativeness and increased competitiveness. To deal with competition within our human social needs, a class structure appeared starting with chiefs then proceeding to more complex hierarchies based on hereditary. Fairness for present and future people no longer dominated decisions – they were increasingly based on power of violence and belief. This hierarchal system produced civilisation, that’s centralised control, with objects being more valuable and important than relationships, resulting in continual oppression with periodical slaughters in wars. To hold society together it required both a brutal domination by a hierarchy and a fervent belief in it and in a deity all the more sacred as it was inscribe.

We see life in fragmented segments. Each bit examined in isolation and detail looks easy to manage. But life isn’t like that. It’s highly interconnected, and it’s that inseparability that has produced and maintains our wonderful divers living planet. Competitions in a social setting, is either overt or covert violence, if it’s physical it will also be psychological violence. Its extent of its potential hurt is proportional to its competitive intensity. The exaltation of winning is counter balance by the pain from other people’s loss and at times of many people. This is so between nations, companies, individuals, and sport people in boxing or playing chess. The intensity of the gratification or distress is dependent on the intensity of the competition. Winners in capitalist societies gain more power due to “their” wealth, which creates the unseen link to power. This gives them a competitive advantage, over the bottom section of the wealth hierarchy of capitalism in a “classless” unpredictable world.

The capitalist system cannot tolerate nor adapt to declining resources and at the same time increasing demands from the effects of global warming and a growing population. To survive we must gradually but quickly change from a growth economy of capitalism to an economy that can manage its shrinkage until we reach a sustainable life. This can only be achieved by progressing from the unfairness of a competitive economy to the fairness of a cooperative one. This would also improve our physical and mental wellbeing.

The competitiveness turns potential friends into enemies and that has detrimental effects on people’s psyche, which is becoming obvious. Those emotional dilemmas are largely caused by the necessary loneliness of competing. Even when one is in a team, the ideology of competition creeps in, so relationships are still chancy. Solitary confinement can have a permanent injurious outcome according to the time of aloneness, but one can feel alone in the midst of a multitude of people that competition creates. Competition is a factor that produces that overwhelming multitude of people, it’s the most serious problem we will have to face when or if we come to our senses. The competition is spurred on by religious, economic, and military needs, of the necessity to have the greatest number to be the strongest.

It’s in everyone’s interest to change course as quickly as one can. The reality is we have a common interest of survival, but we believe we have diverse interest. Therefore we see a need for a competitive advantage over other people, which overrides the knowledge of the planet’s depleting resources and global warming. Namely under capitalist philosophy, we see people as opponents, even enemies instead of potential colleagues and even friends.

We all have to live under a faulty system, we do the best we can. Change the system and people will change to live under it. People are extremely adaptable if given accurate information we will respond to it.


First published at Socialist Courier

Locally-Controlled, Renewable Energy Championed As Key To Climate Justice

As progress at the UN climate summit in Lima, Peru has been reported as "slow" by many observers so far, green campaigners on Friday called on world governments participating in the talks to end their continued dependence on outdated fossil fuel- and nuclear-powered energy systems and urged investment and policies geared toward building clean, sustainable, community-based energy solutions.

"We urgently need to decrease our energy consumption and push for a just transition to community-controlled renewable energy if we are to avoid devastating climate change," said Susann Scherbarth, climate justice and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. "We must stop subsidizing fossil fuels and put this money towards community-based energy solutions."

Backed by a new white paper by researchers at the What's Next Forum, Scherbarth and her colleagues at FOEI say that locally implemented and decentralized energy systems—including small-scale wind farms and distributive solar arrays that can feed-in to local power grids—are the key to pulling people out of poverty while also addressing the glaring crisis of runaway greenhouse gas emissions that are ruining the planet and the climate.

"We urgently need a transition to clean energy in developing countries and one of the best incentives is globally funded feed-in tariffs for renewable energy," said Godwin Ojo, executive director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria.

With rights activists across the world putting an emphasis on the idea of climate justice, Ojo put forth that Africans are not interesting in the fossil fuel industry's promises that more oil, coal and natural gas projects are the answer to the continent's energy needs or economic woes. Instead, he said, 

"Africans are pointing to real solutions to stop global warming and for environmental justice."

Among other policies, Ojo and his colleagues at Friends of the Earth have endorsed a proposal presented by African nations (pdf) earlier this year which called for an energy transformation focused on renewable sources, local control, and sustainable financing.

According to Sven Teske, a senior energy expert with Greenpeace, the debate that any nation must choose between economic prosperity and cleaner forms of energy should now be over.

"What’s giving this conference and the energy transition an added boost is that the costs of wind and solar energy have fallen considerably over the past few years," Teske wrote in a blog post as the talks began earlier this week. "In many countries renewable power plants are now cheaper and produce energy at a lower cost that fossil power plants. Nuclear energy is losing its allure as it proves to be expensive, dangerous and unsustainable."

Reporting last month from the New York Times showed that the overall costs of "providing electricity from wind and solar power plants has plummeted over the last five years, so much so that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than coal or natural gas."

And according to the Renewables 2014 Global Status Report (pdf), published in November, "Global installed capacity and production from all renewable technologies have increased substantially; costs for most technologies have decreased significantly; and supporting policies have continued to spread throughout the world."

For Teske, such trends shows renewable energy can now "replace the large coal-fired power plants that are the main carbon dioxide emitters" and should allow governments to "feel more comfortable about taking on the tough emissions commitments that are required to combat climate change."

As the What's Next Forum report —titled Global Renewable Energy Support Programme—emphasizes, distributive and decentralized renewable energy systems have several key features which should make them attractive to less-developed and wealthier nations alike. According to the paper's introduction:

It is not a single answer, silver-bullet solution to all our problems, but [feed-in tariff policies] could, if implemented well, have a considerable impact at several different levels.

• It could provide access to affordable, clean electricity to all the 1,3 billion people currently lacking any access and the more than double who have a bare minimum. It could help promote a new, modern decentralised energy model where people everywhere – rural and urban – become more closely connected to energy production, and societies everywhere rid themselves of the dependence on large, centralised and dirty fossil fuels. 
• It could help societies in both North and South to effectively tackle climate change by accelerating the transition to renewable energy. Countries in the global North can get inspired and challenge themselves to re-direct their current energy systems (and lessen consumption). Countries in the global South, supported by countries in the global North, can immediately embark on ambitious trajectories towards 100 per cent renewable community oriented energy, thereby avoiding massive amounts of future emissions.
•  It could help rebuild trust between North and South, by providing an example of a truly collaborative scheme with Southern countries at the driving seat. If initiated successfully, it could spur interest in similarly bold, visionary public investment approaches in other sectors.
• "Solutions to the climate and energy crisis exist," explained Niclas Hällström, director of the What Next Forum. "Among the most innovative ones is a mechanism to deliver international climate finance to Southern communities through feed-in tariffs. These are subsidies that cover the difference between actual costs and affordable, clean energy for people. It is a way to promote decentralised, community controlled energy and is the most effective and visionary approach to tackling the urgent need for transformation to renewable energy."

"We believe it is possible and indeed crucial to transform our energy system to one which ensures access for everyone to sufficient energy to meet their basic needs for well-being and lives with dignity,” said Dipti Bhatnagar, Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator of Friends of the Earth International.

“We need an energy system which supports a safe climate, clean air and water, biodiversity protection, and healthy, thriving local societies that provide safe, decent and secure jobs and livelihoods,” she said.

Written by Jon Queally Commondreams.org

Autumn Statement - The Wrong Spending, for the Wrong Reasons - Natalie Bennett

Pity George Osborne. Here's a politician who no longer believes in himself: yesterday's promises really are today's fish and chip wrapper.

Take the deficit. Back in 2010 he said he would eliminate the structural deficit by 2015. Today he admits that there is no prospect of this and blames the kinds of global factors his 2010 self said were nothing to do with the size of the deficit in the first place.

In fact the Office for Budget Responsibility now says that borrowing will be more than £90 billion this financial year - more than double what Osborne predicted in 2010.

Take spending. Back in 2010 he railed against "wasteful spending". Now he wants to increase it by frittering away £15billion of public money on building more roads - creating more traffic and pollution and locking Britain into a reliance on outdated, carbon-intensive technology for years to come.

Of all the possible 'pre-election giveaways' this is probably the most short-sighted and destructive thing the Chancellor could have announced.

He could have been implementing the Energy Bill Revolution, or something like it, to deliver warm, comfortable, affordable-to-heat homes for Britain, lifting nine out of 10 households out of fuel poverty, creating up to 200,000 jobs and cutting carbon emissions. But instead it is now clear this government will complete its term in office with no effective programmes to deal with the poor quality of our housing stock and the resultant poverty, misery, and NHS costs.

Take climate change. In 2009 George Osborne believed in taking action to tackle global warming: "If I become Chancellor, the Treasury will become a green ally, not a foe." But four years later he said: "I would love fracking to get going in the UK and I am doing absolutely everything I can to encourage it."

Today he froze fuel duty again and cut air passenger duty - two taxes that help to keep greenhouse gas emissions in check. And acts that will help the wealthier at the expense of poorer; poorer households are far less likely to have access to a car, and less likely to fly.

Surely no one sitting around the Cabinet table now really believes that this is "the greenest government ever". The Coalition has managed to exacerbate the environmental crisis rather than ameliorate it, and left Britain trailing way behind on renewable energy when the rest of the world is powering ahead.

But it could all have been so different.

The new Government had an unprecedented opportunity in 2010 - to remake an economy suffering from the effects of the financial crisis. It could have, as it initially talked about, rebalanced the economy towards manufacturing (and I'd add food production), reined in our fraud-ridden, out-of-control banking sector, and launched an effective crackdown on the corporate tax dodging that costs the country between £34billion (official HMRC figures) and £119billion (independent expert figures) a year.

Osborne's promises today on multinational tax-dodging are too little too late - and we'll have to look very carefully at the fine print to see how effective they are likely to be.

Instead, Osborne and his friends have locked millions of workers into poorly paid jobs offering little protection or forced, reluctant self-employment, sought to bolster rather than bury the fossil fuels industry, and increased the gap between the rich and the poor to Victorian levels. He's made the disabled, the ill, the disadvantaged and the young pay for the errors and fraud of the bankers for which they bear no responsibility at all.

The 'official opposition' appears to offer very little opposition to any of this at all - quietly accepting the Coalition's cuts to public spending and hoping a bit of tinkering around the edges will be enough to convince the public to return them to office.

Yet, the public seem less convinced by the failed politics and failed economics of the past than ever. What people do want to see is a credible alternative to austerity that holds out hope for the future and removes fear and insecurity from people's lives.

The Green Party offers real change, rather than clinging to a clearly unstable, unsustainable status quo. We believe social justice and environmental sustainability go hand in hand and that we can only build a more equal society by creating a green economy in which everyone has access to the resources for a decent quality of life.

We need that alternative. As opinion polls show clearly, the British people don't believe in George Osborne's 'long-term economic plan'. And nor, it seems, does he.

Follow Natalie Bennett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@natalieben

First published at the Huffington Post