After coming back from a week of celebration - membership soaring past UKIP and the Lib Dems, along with gaining 11% in the latest Ashcroft poll - it was only a matter of time before the right-wing media try to dampen spirits and create fear in the minds of voters.

 

Enter Matthew Holehouse and his below-the-belt and mischaracterised summary of Green Party policy - titled ‘Drugs, Brothels, al-Qaeda and the Beyonce tax...’ Not only does he have a hole in his name, but there are many holes in his story.

 

Zero Growth Economy

By now you should have all know that the term ‘economic growth’ is loosely thrown about by politicians day after day to express how ‘successful’ their term in office is. So much so that it has become meaningless and unrepresentative of the state of our living standards and happiness.

 

For many decades our obsession with growth has expanded the global economy to measures that have had detrimental financial consequences - most recently the 2008 crash. This has led to strict austerity measures that have hit everyone hard but the wealthiest. Consumerism has pushed us to the point of purchasing goods that we do not even want and leads to relative deprivation and poverty in many areas - eroding the bases of self-respect and the feeling of worth many have in their own lives. Think of a balloon that is expanding. Simple analogy, but it’s inevitable that it will pop.

 

Growth is extremely one-sided. As the economy grows as a result of our purchasing only the wealthiest benefit, allowing the gap between the poorest and the richest to grow and living standards to decline - ridiculing the neoliberal conception of ‘trickle-down.’ You don’t have to look far to find reports on the concentration of wealth amongst a few people and the endless stories of corporations dodging and evading certain taxes - potentially now to the point where we all appear immune to it all.

 

Holehouse claims families will be materially poorer as a result of a zero growth economy, but ignores the fact that this is the case now when our government’s efforts to grow the economy only elevates the wealthiest more and more. What a zero growth economy would focus on is stabilising it, not pushing it to the boundaries that could repeat another crisis and another let off for the bankers. We rely heavily upon the financial and services sector, and have little under our belts elsewhere. We have to start being modest. We are not as economically expendable as we once were.

 

The Citizens Income

This is a long-term economic policy that aims to give every adult a weekly sum to prevent poverty, homelessness, and our sheer dependency on the unpredictable levels of employment. This means the end of tax allowances and the primary parts of the welfare state (you know, that welfare state that the right-wing press are always complaining about?).

 

Holehouse seems not to like the idea of choosing your own type and pattern of work, but wasn’t Milton Freidman’s neoliberal centrepiece called ‘Free to Choose?’ The Citizen’s Income will not bring a halt to the idea of a job as Holehouse implies. But this also means they can afford to reduce their working week away from the 9 to 5, five days-a-week cycle, which, in essence, can solve problems of unemployment as work availability will increase.

 

This will also be an incentive for self-employment and small business creation, for people will be able to take the risks in creating their own products. The more small independent businesses, the more competition. Am I right? That’s what you want isn’t it? Competition.

This won’t necessarily apply to everyone, some may use their financial security to enter the voluntary sector. As if that’s a bad thing too?

As for the cost, Holehouse ignores the fact that considering everybody in the country will get this income, for the richest in the country this sum will come straight back out through taxes anyway - paying for part of the scheme itself. Not to mention the abolition of most welfare and tax allowances will also pay for this. On top of that, this policy will reduce poverty and provide financial stability, meaning poorer people can pay more into the economy as they will have the means to afford more goods, ultimately stimulating businesses. These outcomes are also misrepresented by the fact this takes the upper limit of citizen’s income and excludes trident from the defence budget.

 

Taxes

Holehouse again uses a patronising rhetoric to condemn a perfectly sound policy when he criticises the Green tax. Firstly VAT, an evident tax on the poorest in society would be scrapped. That’s a good thing. Secondly taxing more on products that contribute to environmental damage is much needed.

 

We don’t have to get into the whole climate change ‘debate’ - 97% of environmental scientists can’t be wrong. The world is increasingly becoming adversely affected by our fetish for cheap foreign goods, and although we may not necessarily see the effects here in the UK, it generally impoverishes poorer countries, exploits developing nations and workers, and has detrimental effects on our environment.

 

Nations such as China and India, particularly those who prioritise industrial development to ‘keep up with the West,’ have failed to agree to global diplomatic agreements on reducing carbon production. If Britain steps in with this tax, especially with our historical footprints and for which we will benefit from, this can get the ball rolling. Why he sees a green tax as a bad thing makes little sense.

 

As for the inheritance/presents tax, this is an issue that deals with the problem of the wealthiest families transferring wealth by alternative means - in fear of being taxed on a monetary sum. Holehouse failed to mention that Green inheritance tax has certain bands and that ‘most ordinary gifts between members of families with moderate incomes will not be taxed.’ Another way he has exaggerated Green policy into a financial disaster orchestrated by the party.

 

Drugs and Brothels

Holehouse here implies the decriminalisation of certain drugs and policies regarding prostitutes will re-enact a scene in the Wolf of Wall Street, additionally assuming that drugs and prostitutes will be rife and the streets covered in crime.

 

Decades of different governments fighting the same war on drugs have failed to tackle the problem, and still do not direct their efforts at the root causes of drug addiction and poverty-induced prostitution. Most of these people are victims and not criminals, and as the government continues to treat both as a crime, it brushes reality under the carpet, allowing us to stop worrying about a growing problem under criminal networks.

 

The Greens urge that if we can control it and regulate it in a more efficient manner, then we will be able to take away the criminality from these problems, reduce the health risks, and protect vulnerable people much more safely.

 

Eton Mess?

The Green policy to have schools more localised and have fewer pupils are surely a way to strengthen our communities better and prevent the problem of overpopulating in the classroom. This is a problem that can have financial strains on schools who take on more and more pupils to gain funding but risk complicating the system.

 

The abolition of league tables puts a child’s more rounded education first, instead of schools needing to revert to certain tactical teaching to ensure a certain amount of students hit the target grades ‘required.’ Education is not about hitting targets and numbers, it’s about preparing the next generation in a responsible way, whether this means academically or creatively; we need both.

 

Why Holehouse sees charitable status of a private school as acceptable is another mystery. Whilst private schools are good for the parents who send their children there, the problem is that education is a positional good, and these schools worsen the prospects of the majority of pupils.

 

And tuition fees. Here Holehouse sees free higher education as a detriment to society, yet the state and society as a whole will benefit from the education of our next generation. We are inherently living in a debt society that restricts financial stability and this is an investment that will abolish the huge levels of debt that shackle students who seek higher education.

 

Beyonce Tax

I can’t really imagine many people feeling sympathetic to some celebrities and artists who enjoy the spoils of wealth and squeeze what they can out of their fans' loyalty. If they want to inspire people and promote their industry artists should be content with giving back to their fans that do a lot to propel their status in society, and help other independent and small acts present in the industry. Remember, we made them.

 

Holehouse complains about the Greens' critcisim of how television networks and newspapers monopolise too much of the market, yet is a supporter of an ideology that advocates competition and variety. It’s okay Matthew, we know you need to impress your boss, Mr Monopoly Man himself, Rupert Murdoch. He also complains about less adverts on TV under a Green manifesto - almost as if people would find seeing Barry Scott and the fat Wonga bloke less as a problem.

 

And football fans need not worry about the use of cooperatives in the ownership of your clubs. This is a policy that actually gives you, the fan, a stake in the club you support within a more democratic structure and process. The trading of stakes of your clubs in the stock markets is often what gets your team in the debts and financial problems that they all currently face. Particularly the big ones.

 

NHS TAX

The vast majority of people in the country value the NHS as a public service and public good, and thus Holehouse’s qualms that see the reduction of an encroaching privatisation of the NHS are unrepresentative ones.

 

Holehouse’s claim that the Greens will enforce a ‘vegetarianism for all’ policy is also misplaced, and actually calls for a reduction on an unnecessary overconsumption of meat.

 

Sign Up to Al-Qaeda

Holehouse stoops even lower claiming that the Greens advocate terrorism and are supporters of Al-Qaeda. What like how the Americans advocated terrorist guerrillas in Latin America during the Cold War? What like how the Americans trained the Mujahadeen - and bin Laden himself - in the fight against the Soviet Union, sparking the origins of Al-Qaeda?

 

The Green’s point here is that the West has picked and chosen what terrorism is and what terrorism does, failing to win the War on Terror, and has only added fuel to the extremist fire that burns in the form of ISIS and other terrorist cells currently today. We need to tackle terrorism differently, attack the root causes, and stop the constant intervention and condemnation without which everyone would be safer. This fits in with the new BBC policy to lessen to emotive fixation of the word ‘terrorist’ to acts of violence.

 

It’s not how Holehouse suggests, that we welcome extremists with big cuddles saying “please trample all over us”; it’s about the West taking a step back, and ceasing its predisposal to dictate how other people, races, and faiths live.

 

Open Doors

Our most talked about issue is immigration, and not about how the government and press use neo-racist forms of discrimination to divide ordinary UK citizens and those who come into our country to seek employment. Not to mention the fact it’s the government, its corporate allies, and the bankers who screw our country financially. There are not enough jobs because companies are not creating jobs as it can decrease their margins. There’s not enough housing because the government does not wish to build social housing for people in need, who with stability could contribute to the economy more.

Only recently it was found that Britons claim welfare in other European countries. It’s a two-way street (not that benefit-claimants both in and out of Britain should be stigmatised).

 

 

In summary what Holehouse has tried to do is take well-thought out, radical, yet positive policies, and turn them into a vindictive swipe at the only compassionate and responsible party currently in mainstream politics. He also failed to mention policies that are popular amongst the public such as the renationalisation of railways, energy and water companies - only sticking to the policies that he can distort.

 

Of course you are not going to agree with all of them. But take a look at other party platforms and see how much you agree with theirs. And maybe read more coherently than Holehouse too.

 

Benjamin Gallaher, January 27 2015

 

Green Policy: Confronting the right-wing attack