With the Green Party leader Caroline Lucas the bookies’ and pollsters’ favourite (1) to win a seat in parliament on 6 May, Labour today made its pitch for the eco-vote – and was sharply criticised by the Green Party.
Caroline Lucas commented:
“Labour has been doing greenwash for twenty years, and this is one more classic example of it.
“It’s crucial that people aren’t taken in by Labour’s latest green spin. It’s classic too-little-too-late Labour policy. It risks Britain’s future in various ways, including missing out on some marvellous economic opportunities. The Green Party’s manifesto offers to invest heavily in greening and modernising Britain’s economy, creating a million new jobs in the process, while delivering warmer homes, much better public transport, real sustainability and energy security. Labour’s eco-policy is a pale shadow of this."
The Greens' critique of Labour's plan included a number of damning remarks:
• Labour plan: Helping pensioners on low incomes with their energy bills.
• Green Party says: What pensioners need is homes that are easier to keep warm. The Green Party wants to prioritise pensioners and those in fuel poverty in a £4bn-a-year home insulation plan that would cut the fuel usage of almost every home in the UK and sustain 80,000 jobs in the process.
• Labour plan: "A national grid" of electric car charging points, helping to put an anticipated half a million electric cars on the road by 2020.
• Green Party says: What about public transport? We can have massive improvements in bus and rail services, and a cut in fares, if we switch money from the new roadbuilding that drives traffic growth. And in cutting the amount of traffic on the streets we’ll save British business billions of pounds a year in the costs of congestion, not to mention improving health by cutting the traffic pollution that causes thousands of premature deaths every year in the UK.
• Labour plan: 5,000 low carbon apprenticeships.
• Green Party says: This is pathetic. It’s nowhere near enough. Britain faces a terrible problem of mass youth unemployment, threatening the future of countless families and ultimately the economic wellbeing of the country. Green MPs will fight for a new economic package aiming to create over a million new jobs in the UK over the next few years. This would include 350,000 training places in the first year of the programme, offering training opportunities for 700,000 young people and victims of redundancy. This is what Britain needs to develop the well-balanced, low-carbon economy of the future, restoring British manufacturing industry and economic stability.
• Labour plan: Low carbon economic area in every region.
• Green Party says: The whole country needs to be a low-carbon economic area. Apart from tackling climate change, the conversion to a low-carbon economy will give us warmer homes, greater energy security, much better public transport, greater economic stability and huge numbers of extra jobs.
Note
1. Top UK online betting site Betfair has Green Party leader Caroline Lucas odds-on favourite to win. William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power also have Lucas as favourite. The YouGov marginal constituencies poll (October 2009) and a Green Party/ICM poll in Brighton Pavilion (December 2009) both suggested a Green Party win.