Friday, April 28, 2006

The yellow high tide

This sign - on a busy road in my home town tells me a number of things:

  1. Tactical voting is key to any Lib Dem success, rather than who they are and what they stand for.
  2. They can't afford to leaflet or canvass this time round as they are running out of support and money in the party. (Ian Dales doing a good job of keeping track of the GBP 2.4M donation fiasco that I've commented on over a number of occasions also. )
  3. They can't come up with a new slogan - we're all fed up with this off yellow one.

However, due to the strange rules of politics at the moment the Lib Dems are expected to do well in the Council elections on May 4th. I suspect this will be down to momentum they built up over many years - the full impact of the disaster of their party leadership and finances has yet to be felt. Plus does anyone know what they actually stand for ? ( Apart from getting elected to claim expenses and salaries ?)

In 4 years time ( unless John Prescott gets his mind back on his job and abolishes English councils to create special euro-socialist regions - hold on would that make any difference? ) there will be a yellow ring round the top of the bath where the Lib Dem support once floated.



PS Got a spare £2.4M anyone - see the FT ....

4 comments:

elaine x said...

... i'm giggling because before i noticed you were in the UK, i thought this was a sign posted somewhere here in the "united states" ... as with our government 'democrat' means nothing more or different than 'republican' ... e.g., greedy, disconnected and self-important.
good luck on the greenification of the UK ... we like the green party more and more here as well ... maybe if we give them a two-front battle with pressure from the UN, something might change globally ... perhaps i'm dreaming ...
cheers ... keep up the great work!
peace & harmony,
elaine
'freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!'

Man in a Shed said...

Thanks for the comment Elaine. British politics is going through a period of realignment at the moment. The blue party on my post is the Conservative party, which is the right of centre party. Under new party leader David Cameron it has placed a far higher priority on environmental issues.

If your main concern in the environment then this is a good thing as it means a consensus is starting to emerge on what Britain has to do for the Environment. The impression we get of the US is that the need for change hasn't been accepted ( although strangely enough a lot of the technology to help slow global warming is being developed in the US - something that doesn't get much publicity here ).

Ellee Seymour said...

There is an easy way to prove you really are green, and that is lead by example. Eg. I know of a German MEP who grows sugar beet and runs his car on the biofuels produced from this.

Arnie in California runs all his state cars along the same lines. All our public buildings, incl schools and hospitals, should include recycling facilities for paper, glass, cans etc.

And I'm afraid legislation is the only way to get people on board with this. I hope we can be convincing about our green credentials, not just give it lip service.

Man in a Shed said...

Ellee, my Shed is painted green !

On a more serious note I've technical done work for the IEA Greenhouse reduction program on CO2 transport and storage. This is the option the current govt and I think the US are leaning towards. What I noted from this was that for all the hot air that comes out of Europe on this subject, little practical is done ( with the honourable exception of Norway ). And much of the leading technical work is done and funded in the US.

There is an interesting battle developing here between NIMBY environmentalists and those who are looking for a technical solution.

But your point is a good one - we've just started separating our rubbish at home. The kids fight for the joy of emptying the recycling into the special blue bin outside, and I'm thinking of solar panels for the house ( the major motivation here is that I have serve doubts about energy supply in 3-4 years in the UK - but it may cost too much). I'm just waiting for my first Lib Dem election leaflet of the campaign - so I can pulp that too !