Channel 4 has reportedly confirmed Jacob Rees Mogg and Caroline Lucas to represent ‘No Deal’ and ‘Remain’ respectively in their debate scheduled for Sunday. The Government and Labour Party representatives are yet to be determined…
John Bercow has spent half his Speakership boasting about how he was going to improve working conditions for women in parliament. Now the very women Bercow’s PR drive claimed he was defending want him to step aside over his bullying of female staff.
A cross-party group of senior female MPs is calling for him to suspend himself from his duties while he is investigated. Caroline Lucas is tabling an Urgent Question in the Commons today, she says: “I think at the very least he should withdraw from that decision and that the three deputy speakers might judge on that. There might also be a case for stepping back temporarily if an investigation is carried out”.
Jess Phillips, previously a Bercow fan, says: “clearly there has to be some kind of independent investigation. And it may be that he should consider stepping back until that has taken place”.
The Sunday Times reported Harriet Harman is considering moving against Bercow. It is significant that the anger against the Speaker isn’t just coming from the Duddrigde / Bridgen crowd – these are female MPs and Labour MPs on whom Bercow has previously relied on for support who now want him to step aside. Will Bercow listen to the women he claimed he would use his Speakership to protect?
Caroline Lucas must be the only person still claiming the government is not recognising animal sentience following the exposure of last month’s fake news. She is once again attempting to have the EU protocol on animal sentience moved into UK law after Brexit. As Guido has noted previously, the EU protocol is weaker than what is being proposed by Michael Gove. The Brussels legislation only recognises animal sentience in EU-related policy in six areas – agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development and space policies. The new Defra bill applies to all domestic policy with no exemptions, not simply repatriated EU policy, in all areas, not merely the six covered by the EU. By any fair reading, the new bill goes significantly further than current EU standards – it means ministers must always have regard to animal welfare. What Caroline Lucas is proposing would be dramatically less ambitious and worse for animal welfare than the government’s policy. As she scrabbles to respond to Gove’s green agenda, Lucas is actually proposing to make things worse…
Greenpeace, the Green Party and Caroline Lucas are celebrating a 50% drop in the price of offshore wind power with tweets galore using the graphic above. It sounds like great news for electricity bill payers that the price of wind power has dropped 50%. It is not quite as good as it sounds.
The government’s guaranteed price to wind power producers has dropped 50% in 2 years. The price to the consumer will still be set in the energy market place. A welcome saving to taxpayers it may be, it is not a 50% drop in the price to the consumer. Shale gas would likely be even cheaper if the Greens got out of the way and let the industry get on with fracking it. The Green Party and their allies are the cause of higher energy prices.
Caroline Lucas is making out that that somehow the even more heavily subsidised nuclear industry could be ditched in favour of renewables. In reality given that wind power produces less than 5% of the UK’s energy needs and the output is basically zero for 64% of the time this is not very likely. She’s spinning more than the wind turbines.
Only one Brexiteer, again…
Apart from the sound, lighting, acting and script it’s a good concept…
Clive Lewis, Vince Cable and the Green Party are launching the official “Progressive Alliance” tonight at an event with Paul Mason, Zoe Williams, someone from the Bernie Sanders campaign and the Spanish socialist group Podemos. They might be a roll call of cranks and MPs who’ll say and do anything to win their seats, but the Progressive Alliance has quietly agreed deals in at least 30 constituencies across the country. As you can see from Guido’s Map of Chaos, the Greens, LibDems and Labour are standing aside for each other all over the place.
Greens backing Labour: Copeland, Brentford and Isleworth, Eltham, Warrington South, Southampton Test, Ealing Central and Acton, Hastings and Rye, Ilford North, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Pudsey, York Central, Derby North, Carlisle, Workington,
LibDems backing Labour: Bury North (and secretly in Ealing)
Greens backing LibDems: Richmond Park, Twickenham, North Kingston, Brighton Kemptown, Lewes, Westmorland and Lonsdale, South West Surrey, Oxford West and Abingdon, Southport, Harrogate and Knaresborough, North Cornwall, St Austell and Newquay, St Ives
LibDems backing Greens: Brighton Pavilion, Skipton
Seems to Guido that the Greens are getting a pretty bad deal here. In exchange for helping Labour and the LibDems across the country, they are being helped in just two seats – and only one that they have a hope of winning. Naivety or selfishness from Caroline Lucas?
Caroline Lucas has admitted for the first time that the Green Party WAS offered a £250,000 inducement to stand aside for the LibDems in the Richmond by-election. The Electoral Commission tell Guido that offering such a bung is a criminal offence and that this is a matter for the police…
With regards to any allegations about donations offered as an inducement to stand down candidates, it is a matter for the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether an offence has taken place and ascertain which laws may have been broken.
Section 107 of the Representation of the People Act includes an offence of “Corrupt withdrawal from candidature”. The offence is a matter for the police to investigate, and any related complaints must be raised with the police (and not with the Electoral Commission).
Lucas told the Daily Politics the offer was not accepted – even though the Greens did stand aside – and farcically claimed she “can’t remember the name” of the person who offered the bung: “I’ve forgotten the man’s name for the purposes of this debate”. Lucas said at the end of the interview that she would reveal the name when she could remember it, though the Green Party is now refusing to do so. The Greens have to release the name, otherwise they are covering up a criminal offence…
Coalition of rubbish latest: Tim Farron explains how he’s pleased the LibDems are helping the Greens win Brighton because “I’m a fan of Caroline Lucas”. The LibDems are laughing at the Greens here. A LibDem candidate has stood aside in just one seat, that of Caroline Lucas, while in return the Greens are standing aside to help the LibDems in seats across the country. Pure naivety…
Caroline Lucas has tried to get a Green Party colleague suspended for tweeting out a Guido story. Readers will remember our revelation that the Greens had been offered a £250,000 inducement to further a so-called ‘Progressive Alliance’ with the LibDems. Our story provoked uproar among Green members who feared they were being sold out by the leadership. One concerned Green, Sutton councillor Nick Mattey, tweeted out the Guido story and expressed his fears that the Greens were plotting to “carve up” seats with the LibDems. Guido has been passed an internal Green Party report revealing that Caroline Lucas attempted to get Mattey kicked out of the party for his tweet. In a formal complaint, Lucas wrote:
“Nick Mattey has brought the party into disrepute by further spreading the dissemination of private leaked documents… [The party must] suspend the above named member pending investigation.”
In his defence to the Green Party disciplinary committee, Mattey wrote:
“The contents of the Guido Fawkes article were very disturbing… The reason that we have a free press like Guido Fawkes is that it that prints uncomfortable truths. Newspapers and the media need to expose this type of inconsistency and hypocrisy, this is vital in any democracy.”
Mattey decided not to renew his membership so is now out of the party. Caroline has repeatedly campaigned to protect whistleblowers and claims to be a defender of those who seek to expose shady deals and cover-ups. Yet when those deals and cover-ups involve the Greens, she tries to silence their exposure…
Green Party leader Caroline Lucas flew in business class to Washington yesterday on a gasoline guzzling, CO2 spurting aeroplane which dumped almost a tonne of carbon into the atmosphere. A spokesman for Lucas confirmed to Guido that she flew on British Airways and said:
“Caroline is in Washington DC on a work visit with the Environmental Audit Committee. Travel was arranged by the [Environmental Audit] Committee.”
A popular carbon footprint calculator states an average flight from London to Washington pumps out 0.92 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent – equivalent to 4 months average C02 emissions by a household. In 2009 Lucas compared holidaymakers flying to Spain to thugs stabbing people in the street:
“When asked if flying to Spain was as bad as knifing a person in the street, Ms Lucas said: ‘Yes – because they are dying from climate change.’”
Killer!
At PMQs Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, asked the PM if she would sack Transport Secretary Chris Grayling over Southern Rail. The PM retorted that the unions are the ones responsible for the unnecessary strikes. Shouldn’t Ms Lucas have declared her £7,000 donation from the RMT?
The rules state that “it should be a matter of honour that a financial interest is declared not only .. in debate in the House and its Committees but also whenever a Member is attempting to influence his fellow Members…” Wasn’t Caroline trying to influence the PM on behalf of her RMT sponsors?
Possibly actually worth watching.
Following Guido’s scoop that Caroline Lucas has quit the Stop the War Coalition, her spokesman reveals it was their statement on the Paris attacks that was the final straw:
“Caroline was specifically troubled by some Stop the War Coalition statements after the Paris atrocities. Though the pieces were subsequently taken down she felt unable to associate herself with them. She was also concerned that some Syrian voices were not given an opportunity to speak at a recent meeting organised by the StWC in Parliament.”
This is the article in question, which was later removed from the Stop the War website. It was headlined: “Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”. The victim-blaming piece added:
“Let’s be as clear as possible. The hellish world we live in today is the result of deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies over the past decades.”
You can read 14 other reasons why she might have wanted to quit here.
Stop the War might be too nutty for Caroline Lucas, though Diane Abbott is still a patron and Jeremy Corbyn is still speaking at their Christmas fundraiser. Labour have been outflanked on the right by the Greens…
This morning Guido was alerted that Caroline Lucas’ name had been removed from the Stop the War Coalition’s website. She had been Stop the War’s vice-president and was seen as the acceptable face of the west-hating group. Guido put the call in to her spokesman, who initially refused to answer whether she had quit. It is now confirmed.
Her office say in a statement to Guido:
“Caroline stepped back from the Stop the War Coalition a few weeks ago. Her busy parliamentary and constituency schedule means that she doesn’t have time to fully engage with the role of a Patron and, in light of some recent StWC positions that she didn’t support, she felt standing down was the responsible thing to do. Like the Stop the War Coalition, Caroline is opposed to British bombing in Syria because it will neither keep Britain safe nor help bring about a lasting peace in Syria.”
Body blow for STW, which will now up the pressure on Corbyn to distance himself too…
Caroline Lucas says...
“David Cameron had the audacity to again call his government the ‘greenest ever’ today – at the very same time as he takes a wrecking ball to key climate and energy policies.”
Osborne’s Budget announcement that green energy producers will no longer be exempt from the Climate Change Levy is driving the renewable industry into meltdown. The levy used to only apply to non-renewable energy but, in a spectucular trolling exercise, now businesses have to pay this green tax even if they are purchasing green energy:
Caroline Lucas: “We’ve seen yet another example of reckless short-term policy making that prioritises the profits of polluters over the public interest in a safe and habitable climate”
RenewableUK: “It’s another example of this government’s unfair, illogical and obsessive attacks on renewables”
Greenpeace: “This will make it more expensive for business to buy electricity from renewable power. He is man out of step with the times”
Friends of the Earth: “This is totally bizarre, making renewable electricity pay a carbon tax is completely counterproductive — like making apple juice pay an alcohol tax”
The green tax raid on green energy producers will raise almost £1 billion a year. Hoist by their own petard…
The Green Party press office has had a ‘mare this morning, sending out a series of competing emails as both Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett vied for attention. It seems no one is quite sure who the real leader of their party is…
09:43:
“Lancashire councillors have chance to “draw a line under the government’s fracking fantasy”, says Natalie Bennett”
11:37:
“Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, labelled the decision a ‘fantsastic victory’ in spite of Government efforts to ‘force through fracking’.”
‘Fantsastic’
12:20:
“Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has welcomed Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse a planning application for fracking”
12:35:
“CORRECTION: The below quote was just sent out in Green Party leader Natalie Bennett‘s name, but it should have been attributed to Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas. Apologies for any confusion.”
Did they all get mashed at Glasto, or something?
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Not only did John Humphrys call Natalie Bennett “Caroline Lucas” on the Today programme this morning, he then corrected it to “Natalie Bennard”. They all look the same to him…
