A Colourful Coalition

George Monbiot – on the blue/yellow-orange coalition:

[B]etter than I had expected. The agreement’s environmental policies are more Lib Dem than Conservative, and more progressive…Let’s see how it works in practice.

Daily Maybe – on the Green Party offering a “comprehensive offer” to disillusioned LibDem members.

Rupert Read – welcomes the Con-Lib plan to scrap building a third runway at Heathrow airport. He also outlines his main reasons for leaving the LibDems for the Greens. For Cllr Read:

We can have prosperity without growth; but we cannot have environmental sanity with growth.

Total Politics – interviews the Green Party election campaign director, Paul Steedman.

Chris Huhne – is to take the Energy & Climate Change post in the new coalition government.

Historic Green Victory

The Green Party has won its first ever Westminster seat. Caroline Lucas, who will represent the Brighton Pavilion constituency, beat her closest rivals by a margin of more than 1,000. It is a first in UK electoral history and represents a real breakthrough for green politics.

Update:

Channel 4 profiles the UK’s first Green MP.

At Open Democracy the Green councillor, Dr Rupert Read, is unsuprisingly upbeat about the future of his party.

And an article in the Guardian asks ‘what next’ for the Greens?

Green Party

epolitix – reports that Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, is calling for a “Green New Deal”.

letsrecycle – welcomes the Green Party pledge to double spending on recycling and waste management.

BBC – provides an at-a-glance review of the Green Party manifesto.

Myles Allen -on why he wont be voting Green.

The Telegraph – on why many of their readers (you would presume) will not be voting Green either.

Libs ‘n’ Greens

The polls are narrowing. Keep an eye on UK Polling Report to follow the trends and see what happens after the historic first ever leaders’ debate on Thursday.

Today it is the turn of the LibDems to launch their election manifesto. According to the Independent climate change will be at the heart of the LibDem manifesto with a “green theme” running through each chapter. Nick Clegg told the Indie:

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing this generation. The old establishment parties offer warm words but weak, compromised solutions. The Liberal Democrats are the only party putting the battle against climate change front and centre.”

And according to Andrew Grice, the Liberal Democrats call for a “carbon-neutral Britain by 2050 and a 40 per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. They want 40 per cent of Britain’s electricity to come from clean, sources by 2020.”

Meanwhile Politics.co.uk has the Green party as favourites to win the constituency of Brighton Pavilion. If you’re interested in the battle for Brighton then this short video from John Harris is worth watching. Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Green Party deputy leader Adrian Ramsay suggests a breakthrough could also be on the cards in the Norwich South constituency.