BY BRAD JAMES
The verdant, lush sheen of the Green Party seems to be in danger of calcifying into rather something of a putrid mould this week. Where they once ostensibly held a regrowth to the stale hinterland of political slush, the party’s leader, Natalie Bennett has been deemed to have putrefied the Greens by her very own actions nonetheless. Single handedly throwing into question the efficacy of her party.
In a recent interview on LBC with Nick Ferrari, Ms. Bennett was quizzed by the broadcaster on a number of her policies, including her economic plans and her party’s ideas on social housing. Throughout the course of the interview, Ms. Bennett stumbled and Nick Ferrari’s questions were met with extended periods of silence. He pressed her on the cost of building half a million homes, Ms. Bennett answered that it would contained within the party’s manifesto. “So you don’t know?” Mr. Ferrari fired. “No. Well… er.” Came the Green leader’s faltering response.
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She herself dubbed the interview as “excruciating,” the Green MP Caroline Lucas dismissed her leader’s bad turn by declaring that everyone has a bad day. The media itself has delighted at this spectacular fall from grace. Ms. Bennett further went on to attribute her entropy to “having a bad cold.”
The week has only plummeted farther down the recycling bin for the Greens, after Brighton council, the sole council in the nation under Green Party control, has failed to set a budget. This mishap came after plans to raise Council Tax by 5.9% was blocked by six Greens voting against the motion, due to the rise coming hand-in-hand with a compromise figure of £18 million in cuts to services. The rebellion gave a hearty two fingers to the Council leader Jason Kitcat (pardon the pun), who has previously been lauded for his ability to work alongside other parties, who sorely missed the mark in appeasing his own ranks in this instance. A week of gaffes for a party dubbed the real alternative by many of the dissatisfied left is now eagerly being rent apart by the vultures of the free press, who can delight in gorging on this gratis two pronged faux pas’. Yet of course, in their heady rush to decry and condemn, the media have achingly missed the mark, yet again.
Green Party sympathizers such as Owen Jones even tweeted: “Unbearably awful interview.
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Green supporters will be exasperated that a great political opportunity has been trashed.” It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and undermines any supposed efficacy of commentators who should see the wood for the trees here. It goes to show that left and right in the political establishment merely serve as hands on the same body that grab the attention of the populace and yank the puppet strings with equal pitiless fervour. Because their subsequent and earnest dismantling of a new kid on the Westminster block (Ms. Bennett intending to stand in Holborn and St. Pancras come May) overlooks the impossible standards we are putting on those we elect.
The public now unconsciously expects everything to be so polished and refined, that any hint of error heralds the carrion to congregate following the death of a person’s opportunities. An innate expectation has developed – fuelled by the media – where those in the public eye need to be flawless, has evolved insidiously over the years. Such a philosophy has damaged politics itself, hence the Press Secretaries, Chief Whip’s and so on emerging from the rotting Body Politic like maggots. All of this has been culpable in removing politics away from a personal sphere that enables us to all interact with the civil servants that are elected to administer the nation’s smooth management. What I heard on the fateful interview where Natalie Bennett apparently imploded, was an experienced politician’s interview railroaded by a right wing, loud-mouthed demagogue, Nick Ferrari. A man who intentionally allowed his sensationalism to override his own brain functions, in a recent row with Steve Hedley, Assistant General Secretary to the RMT.
Hedley, in a heated interview, asked Ferrari: “have you stopped beating your wife?” The entire media savaged the Union Official in a censuring akin to a Biblical Old Testament plague. Blind finger pointing and faux outrage became the position du jour to obfuscate the true meaning behind Hedley’s question. “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Actually serves as a conundrum to prove some questions are not capable of being answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” but the media has been cut by Occam’s Razor and simplicity is not a useful tool for fogging the minds of the masses. Running a nation, even a local Council, is complicated enough, is it a healthy and thriving convenience to confuse issues even more? Numerous paymasters lurk in the shadows behind press and broadcasters, even political parties and views favourable to those clutching the purse strings are the most lucrative, so objectivity is easy to waste. Unfortunately, the opinions of voters are squandered with equal aplomb.
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