Will an election ever be green?

Reading the green parties announcement today saying Gormley predicts election will be fought on Green issues my first thought was well he would say that wouldn’t he.

There is an joke about a physicist a engineer and a mathematician who are asked to build a fence around some cows. The engineer carefully designs the fence and builds it around the grazing cows. The Physicist goes the most efficient enclosure would be a circular one and builds it and herds the cows in to the pen. The mathematician makes a tiny little enclosure around himself/herself defines that as the outside and everything else as the inside and thus the cows are in the enclosure.

Why do I put some science humour into a post on the greens you ask. Well to back up his claims that the issues the Election is going to be fought on are going to be green issues he defines green issues as.

Rising electricity, gas and petrol prices, Ireland’s over-dependence on oil, traffic chaos, and social issues like childcare and anti-social behaviour. This is traditional green territory

Now most of theses issues would be core part of all parties certainly the other parties on the left would call them traditional policies of their own. So sure these issues may very well be traditional issues of green parties does that does not make them Green issues.

To me the real green issues would be stuff like environment and urban planning. Both issues which are going to be issues in the election but to what extent and will it benefit the greens.

Lets take Urban Planning for starters. I think the market is a very good indicator of what people want you only really know what people want when they are will to put their money where their mouth is and the Market will more or less cater for this. So what does the market suggest that people want. Houses and what does it suggest they don’t want. Tower blocks. In this country when people think of high rise flats they think of Ballymun. Now the reason for Ballymun turning out the way it did is many and bad urban planning is top of the list.

But be that as it may it doesn’t dissuaded people from thinking that the Irish will be anything but house dwellers. People are obsessed with property prices and they all say the first thing to lose its value when the bubble busts will be flats. Be that true or not in the world of politics perception is truth. So the Green Party trying to persuade people to not commute and live in higher density housing is going against what many people want from housing. A big back garden for the kids to play in.

Obviously this is not possible for all in Dublin and hence the moving to Carlow, also kids are spending more time playing playstation then running in the big gardens. But still in the minds of many people the greens are arguing for people to move from Big Garden land to Ballymun. While School provision and transport provision is a big issue. The greens are seen more for urban planning for the sake of reducing emissions rather then nice commuter belts in Wexford

Also take the issue of the environment. Energy security is vital in Ireland. As Nuclear is not the answer, we are left with renewables as the answer. This should be Green pay dirt. They are the green renewable party and people know this. But are people going to vote for this? I am not sure. I don’t think that energy security is that big of a deal with people. They go “wind mills are great but I look at other issues and sure all parties like wind mills”. On the other hand there are people who are passionate about wind farms who will vote based on this issue. However these people are not driven by the environment or energy security issues they are driven by the base Irish issue. Property prices. How often on the radio do we hear people going on about how Wind Mills effect the price of property. Loads of time while many people will reply back I think they are quiet nice. How many of them will vote for the Green Party to have more nice windmills probably less then the people who will not vote for the green party because of property values.

We have talked before about the Green Parties effect on rural voters. My self with How the Green Party can get farming votes. And Niall with the excellent Green Day in Ireland So I wouldn’t go back over old ground.

Green voters tend to be Urban and middle class (or so David McWilliams tells us). Who are in many ways far from the environment (In some cases the kind of people who move out to the countryside and give out to farmers for spreading slurry. I mean what do they think organic fertilizer is.) and who lets face have less financial worries then most people and thus can make the environment a priority when voting.

The problem I see for the Green Party becoming larger is not that most people disagree with them but that the people who disagree with them are more vocal then the people who agree with them. People against wind farms will vote against wind farms but will people in favour of wind farms vote for them number 1? I am not sure they will. I don’t think Green issues are that far up the agenda of most people. They may be a good transfers party but will that win many seats without the number 1’s?

While many of their policy are probably dead right in many ways they are simply just not Irish policies and thus they will always struggle unless they can define Green issues as being broader left issues.