This is the third and final installment of “James bothers GPEW leadership candidates”, and today the question is something both tiny and yet, I believe, crucial.

In May last year, the party took its first leadership role anywhere in the UK, with experienced former Labour Councillor Bill Randall heading up Brighton and Hove Council for the Greens. The city has become the party’s stronghold, with its wacky Pavilion (pictured), but it’s still a minority administration: 23 Greens, 18 Tories, 13 Labour, putting Labour in the traditional quandary of the Lib Dems – support the Greens and bolster them in office or oppose them to side with the Tories. In February, Labour made its mind up and aligned with the Tories to amend the Green budget to remove a 3.5% Council Tax increase the party had proposed to protect local services.

Now the quandary was for the Greens: vote for the amended budget and run a Council with more cuts, or vote to reject the entirety of the party’s proposals (and quite possibly be ejected from office). The group, shortly to be led by one-man brains-trust and then budget lead Jason Kitcat, voted with one exception to accept the budget. That exception was Deputy Leadership candidate Alex Phillips. I wanted to know how the others would have voted.

One leadership candidate would have voted against, two for, and one thought I probably shouldn’t have asked the question. Two deputy leadership candidates would have voted for, and another would have joined Alex in voting against. Don’t say this election isn’t offering a choice. The answers to the three questions I’ve looked at have determined my vote, and I’ll explain why at the end.

Q. The Green administration on Brighton and Hove Council represents the first real Green executive power in the UK. How would you have voted on the most recent budget, as amended by the opposition parties, and why?

Leader candidates

Natalie Bennett: We know that austerity is entirely the wrong path for Britain, and that we should be investing in the future. But until we are running the country, when we are running councils we will have to work within the circumstances we find ourselves. Brighton in proposing the maximum possible 3.5 per cent council tax rise set out an innovative approach that was copied by more than a score of others up and down the country (including some Tory councils). And their extensive consultation process, I have heard from Brighton NGOs, was much appreciated and admired.

But since they are a minority council, when the Labour councillors decided to join the Tories in blocking the plan – something we must keep highlighting – there was not way forward with that. Not having been in the room, I can only express a general view that in difficult circumstances I think it is important for teams to stick together and work together for the generally agreed direction – so I think I would have voted for the budget.

I also think that the first Green council collapsing after less than a year in office would have been seized upon with glee by our political opponents, and I think that Greens in the rest of the country, particularly those in leadership positions, can only trust our Green councillors to have done their best in the circumstances. And we must ensure that we don’t provide political ammunition to our opponents by expressing public opposition to their actions, while being prepared to ask questions and be a ‘critical friend’ in private where that seems appropriate.

Peter Cranie: Our group in Brighton and Hove united in proposing and arguing for a 3.5% increase. That was the right thing to do and getting beyond how we feel about the vote that followed, we should be asking what other party in the country is willing to argue for increased taxation to protect services? Not Labour. Not the Liberal Democrats.

I think a lot of us feel we wouldn’t vote for a budget that results in cuts but the reality is that 23 Green councillors got put in that position. We had not spent time as a national party planning how we might handle minority administration on a council. In the same way we haven’t discussed how we would manage a larger group of Euro MPs or a group of MPs at Westminster. Our national party was not in a position to support or advise our first council, or to assist with planning the budget process and working on the best approach. That is a national failing and it needs to be addressed, otherwise we are asking the impossible of our elected councillors when they do get into a position of power, shared or otherwise. They have a duty not just to the Green Party but also to the local constituents that elected them.

So Brighton and Hove councillors went into a high pressure situation and the reality where Labour councillors combined with the Tories to vote the increase down. To me, that was the crucial vote and every time we gaze internally about how our councillors should have voted, we are distracted from the real issue – a red/blue consensus on budget cuts. There is a political trap here. By not focusing on the Labour and Conservative groups voting together to force additional cuts to services, we fall into it.

I think that once again the Green group will be looking for the full 3.5% increase. There are some good ideas I heard proposed by other councillors, including those from Liverpool, that I heard about on the train back from the AGC hustings, which Brighton and Hove Greens could consider using. We need to work together as a party to prevent Brighton and Hove Greens avoid a red/blue coalition and another frozen budget. It certainly won’t be easy though.

We are an anti-cuts party. At a local level we are doing what we can to mitigate the damage wreaked by the coalition government. We lost a battle in Brighton and Hove at the last budget despite union and community support but we to need focus now on how we win the argument and the campaign against cuts in the longer term.

Pippa Bartolotti: I would have voted for the amended budget primarily because I would want our first Green Council to be seen in action for as long as possible. Voting against would have left us wide open to the very real risk that a Lab/Tory gang could have forced us out of office. However, I am very proud of Alex for sticking to her point of view, and for illustrating that we are individuals, with individual consciences who can work together, and that not having a party whip is a positive.

Romayne Phoenix: I would have voted against the Labour / Tory amended budget. Please see the Oxford hustings (YouTube).

Richard Mallender: I would have gritted my teeth and voted for it. I used to be a councillor in Brighton, I understand the political landscape there and I know how long and hard the local party worked to achieve what they have. They don’t have a majority & Labour are determined to destroy their hard-won credibility. They have a fundamentally Green budget and they should not fall back in the face of opposition sabotage.

Caroline Allen: I am anti-austerity of course; it is economically illiterate and completely immoral that those who had nothing to do with causing the crisis we face are now paying the price. I have spoken to a number of Brighton councillors about this, as this is clearly a massive issue. My assessment is of a bunch of genuine people, anti-cuts themselves, trying to do their best for the people of Brighton in face of a Labour/ Tory trap and the very real threat of a no confidence vote. The process of drawing up the original Green budget needs to be applauded. The final vote was clearly a very difficult decision and I wasn’t party to the discussions, in particular whether there was the possibility of going back to the members. However, as someone who manages a team who have to work together under very stressful situations, I know the importance of supporting your team when the chips are down. So on balance and with incomplete information I believe I would have voted with the other councillors. In either case I would want to try and avoid keep revisiting difficulties and differences. My team at work don’t always agree; but if there is an issue we discuss it, learn and draw a line under it and get on with the job in hand, in our case fixing sick animals. In this case the job in hand is of course doing the best for the Brighton residents, on which I think the Council are doing very well, but also highlighting Labour’s disgraceful behaviour.

Alex Phillips: I voted ‘no’ because for me the Tory-Labour amendment to take Pickles’ bribe and freeze council tax was unpalatable. I had sought advice from the Head of Law at the council beforehand, who had assured me that any vote of no confidence in the Leader could happen at any full council meeting and that under the Strong Leader Model, which we were operating under back in February, a vote of no confidence legally meant absolutely nothing. I knew that voting against the Tory-Labour amended budget would not mean handing over control to them, it would have meant either rescheduling the meeting for a week later (which would have allowed us to engage with the public, our members and the wider party) or implementing a budget which we did not vote for. The latter would have sent a very clear message to the public that the cuts were forced upon us, as a minority administration, and that those cuts are Labour-Tory cuts.

Will Duckworth: I would certainly have voted against the amended budget.  We must not cling on to power for its own sake or even to administer cuts a little more caringly.  Had the then Lab/Con budget been passed I would then have taken the consequences be it to have suffered a vote of no confidence or to have administered the cutting budget with the constant reminder that the cuts are a direct result of the other parties’ decision that we voted against.  Either way I believe that our future electoral chances in the area would then have been greater and our standing in the rest of the country would have been enhanced.

This one is the defining question for me. Friends in Brighton were appalled at the idea that the Greens might have handed office over to the Tories less than a year after setting up what is clearly Britain’s most progressive local authority. Minority government means accepting you can’t get things all your own way, it means picking your battles, and it means prioritising what’s in the best interests of your constituents. It also in this case means slating Labour remorselessly for picking the Tories ahead of the Greens. This will not help them in the long term. But in this case, painful as it is, it means voting for the budget.

Many of the candidates flagged up the need to criticise Labour in the strongest terms for this decision, but I want to see a leader elected who sees how vital the rest of the budget was, and how essential it is for the party to remain strong and in office for both local residents and the party. That rules out Romayne for leader, for me, and it rules out Will as well as Alex for the deputy slot. The latter is particularly frustrating, just as it was at the time, because she is an excellent speaker, a first-class organiser, and incredibly hard-working.

Peter’s position is interesting – perhaps we should move on, perhaps I shouldn’t have asked the question, perhaps indeed the party wasn’t prepared for this situation – but I think the party has a right to know whether leadership candidates prefer purism or pragmatism. It’s disappointing, although I understand his position, and I am a huge fan of Peter’s hard work in his region and his strategic analysis, but I cannot put him top for this reason. However, on every other count I still rate him highly enough to put him ahead of Pippa (I don’t really feel “centrist” is a label we should adopt, in particular, despite her calm and balanced answer here). However, if I’d been answering my own question, I might have written something pretty close to Natalie’s answer, just as I’ve admired her other two answers posted here before. I also cannot fault the positions set out by Richard and Caroline here, but Caroline has had the edge between those two for me, given the first two questions in particular.

Taking all the answers as a whole, my top two picks are therefore as follows.

Leader: 1 – Natalie Bennett, 2 – Peter Cranie
Deputy: 1 – Caroline Allen, 2 – Richard Mallender

Given the gender balance requirements, if Natalie wins, Caroline will be struck out and a man selected. It’s an unfortunate situation – I do think Natalie and Caroline would be the party’s best choice from this list. I agree with gender-balanced selection for candidates to stand in elections, at least over areas large enough for that to work, but for these positions I’m not convinced. When Caroline Lucas was the obvious candidate for leader, I’d hoped Sîan Berry might stand as her deputy, but it wouldn’t have been possible either. So be it, for now at least.

Anyway, that’s all folks! Well, technically I also asked about media management and fundraising, but I don’t intend on reflection to publish those answers, given the tension between a detailed answer and giving up details of our strategy. Any GPEW member wishing to see them can email me for a copy. Thanks again to all candidates for their very illuminating answers, and may the best person of each gender win.

This is the second in my wee sequence on the leadership contest currently underway in GPEW. The Scottish party has it easy, relatively – our two main elections are the locals and Holyrood, both of which are fought under a form of PR.

For GPEW Westminster is probably both the most important election, at least in terms of national profile, and also the hardest to crack. Hence my second question, below, again put to all eight candidates, and again, thanks to all for their answers.

Q. How many Westminster seats would you hope the party could target by 2015?

Leader candidates

Romayne Phoenix: As we are now, we must fight to keep Brighton Pavilion, and target Norwich South to build on the increasing support in that constituency. Then we need to look at London and Cambridge and decide whether to target seats in each of these areas with a history of support / positive voter figures. We will be in a very different situation from 2010 if voters accept Labour as the party to oppose the coalition government’s policies – a recent survey showed that people could not really believe that the Labour Party could have policies that would be actively against the interests of the majority.

However, 85% of the government’s planned cuts are yet to be felt and now the promise is for continued austerity until at least 2020. If we work effectively to build the alternative message – through campaigning in addition to our TTW elections work – then we could attract enough support to target and expect success. If we build enough support then we could target a few more seats – well chosen and with effective election teams to drive the campaigns through – and then we could be heading for serious political attention and a further increase in party membership and support.

Peter Cranie: We must hold Brighton Pavilion and we can win Norwich South. These are Target to Win (TTW) 2015. There must also be up to a dozen seats that must be TTW 2020. The first major step in these seats is to be targeting a second place finish or a credible 10 to 20% of the vote share. They are likely to be Labour or Lib Dem held seats, and if we have either a Labour or Lab/Lib coalition after the 2015 election, delivering more of the same austerity medicine (as we know they will), we will have a major opportunity to advance politically.

I can give you one example from local knowledge. In the local elections in Liverpool this year we had higher than usual turnout due to the coincidental Mayoral content, but still only about half what we would expect in a General Election. Labour “won” Liverpool Riverside constituency with 64% of the vote and the Green Party was “second” with 18%. We finished first in one ward (54%), but had second place finishes in 5 of the other wards that are included in the constituency. I’ve since contested the by-election in one of these wards where we were second, in a particularly strong Labour area, and we’ve nudged the vote up from 6% to 9% (which is the level of vote we need to win a Euro seat in the NW).

What is crucial is that there are one or two of these seats in each of the Euro regions that we can win in 2014. The election of an MEP is crucial in raising our electoral credibility, but this will have to go hand in hand with an increase in the number of local councillors between 2014 and 2019. It will then be about applying the lessons learned from our successful Parliamentary TTW work in Brighton Pavilion and incredibly hard work in the constituency sustained throughout six years.

Natalie Bennett: We need to hold Brighton Pavilion but Brighton will have be far more self-sufficient this time round if we’re to spread the benefit of winning that Parliamentary seat. I think it is vital that we identify the “next generation” of Parliamentary seats and are fighting to put them in a credible position by the 2020 election. The Green Party’s ambitions have to go beyond having one MP.

However, we’re starting this process late. If we were going to win, say, three seats in 2015 we would be able to name, today, the constituencies and the candidates and point to election results that would persuade the electorate in the constituency that a Green vote is a winning vote. It’s a tough thing to say but I don’t think we can do that right now. To say anything else would be a triumph of optimism over analysis.

This means that we urgently need to raise our game. Over the next two years we to develop ten serious next-generation seats across England and Wales where we are fighting for a second or third place to set us up for 2020. During the heat of 2015 the pressure will be on us to focus all our resources on Brighton Pavilion if we haven’t put in place realistic structures to ensure we spread our message across the country. With four regions with new MEPs who didn’t have them before this is very doable, but it simply won’t happen unless we make a conscious effort not to fall back into a safe, overly conservative electoral strategy.

Pippa Bartolotti: This all depends on the strength of the local parties and their commitment to put vast amounts of energy into support for the candidate. There is no way but the hard way, and right now I would not like to put a number on it as I know much will change in the next 3 years.

Deputy leader candidates

Alex Phillips: The 2014 Euro elections will provide an opportunity to see which constituencies are providing the bulk of Green support. Using this data, the party should find the top 20 constituencies to target come 2020. Five years of sustained resource targetting and Green councillor growth in these constituencies can make them winnable under first past the post come 2020. Remember, you may only need 31% of the vote to win under first past the post. You don’t need to win over everyone, just enough of them to get you over the line. For 2015, retaining Brighton Pavilion and winning in Norwich South have to be our top two priorities.

Richard Mallender: 2015 is not far away! I think we should set one target seat per region.

Will Duckworth: Hope ? 20. Expect ? 3. This is very expensive and we need to think carefully about standing lots of Parliamentary candidates and get the best possible value for money. We need to stand candidates in the proportion of seats needed for BBC coverage but we need to fight target wards with one eye on holding on to our deposits whenever possible. With the likely increase in the cost of the deposit for Parliamentary elections we need to use our resources wisely.

Now is the time to support and strengthen local and regional parties in order to build for the European elections in 2015 and beyond.

Labour will have the wind in their sails at the next election and we will have to work very hard to keep Brighton Pavilion. The second strongest constituency is Norwich South where Adrian Ramsay doubled his vote in 2010 to 15%, and would need to double this again to win that seat. The third target seat was in Lewisham with Darren Johnson coming fourth with 6.7% of the vote( which was a 3.4% drop on the previous election).

Caroline Allen: 2010 was tough for many local parties and we didn’t make the progress we hoped for, in many places we went significantly backwards. It’s clear we have a lot to do and I’m not going to make ambitious predictions to try and impress people. I do think there are good reasons to be hopeful though, at this stage I see many places with a lot of potential, even if their 2010 results don’t make them look like real targets. The progress in the West Midlands over a short period shows that regions and parties that are organised can make great progress. How we organise and share good practice over the current year is going to be crucial to the Euro results and into 2015, so I’m not going to look into my crystal ball, but rather look to get elected as Deputy Leader and graft to make things happen.

I was very drawn to the answers from Peter and Natalie, both of whom have a consistently excellent grasp of the electoral and organisational context the party is operating in, and both tied the election of additional MPs in 2015 to success in the previous year’s Euro-elections, which strikes me as essential. Romayne’s question about Labour’s position in 2015 will be important in campaign terms when the election is nearer, but right now we need to tackle the issues that are under our control, which is why I found Peter and Natalie’s answers more impressive here. He sees more of the optimistic side while her position is more cautious, but they’re not inconsistent. I’m starting to wish they’d stood on a job-share platform or on a leader-deputy ticket, although Caroline and Alex also gave strong answers from a strategic perspective. Both with this question and the last one I’ve not seen much that makes me think my pen will hover over either Richard or Pippa, though.

More soon, Green election anorak fans (including Dan, who did an interesting piece on the party’s gender balance rules).

The election to replace Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsay as leader and deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales is underway, with ballots already out, and I sent a few questions to the four candidates running for the leadership, and to the four candidates for deputy leader.

Given that I’m trying to do justice to the views of eight people on a range of issues, this is therefore the first of four or five posts that will hopefully follow in quick succession.

First question follows, then all eight answers, then my very brief views on them at the bottom.

Q: Where are the next million Green voters coming from and why will they vote for us? (i.e. non-voters, new voters, or former supporters of other parties)

Leader candidates

Pippa Bartolotti: My goal is to open the Green Party to new members across the spectrum. I am pretty centrist in my outlook, but passionately anti-cuts with a strong environmental bias. I am just as keen to attract disillusioned Labour voters as working class Tory voters. With the rise of concern for the environment, I see us appealing to conserve(atives) who are changing their priorities. Addressing the non-voter is a big challenge, yet an important one. For this we must appeal to the Green party movement, rather than the Green party politics. We are piloting a social event programme  in Wales which is open to non members and already it is showing signs of success.

Natalie Bennett: We can win all of those groups to our politics. However, in general our biggest gains are when we persuade people who are already voting to switch to us. Much is made of the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote and we should work to win those defectors but we have to be cautious about this. Firstly, in some areas there were never that many Lib Dem voters in the first place and we couldn’t win seats if they all came over to us en masse. Second, those defectors are going over to the Tories, Labour or dropping out disillusioned – we can win those votes in areas where we’re seen as a credible alternative but they certainly won’t come over to us automatically.

The Labour vote however is much weaker than many people realise. Where there is no alternative people are going back to Labour in opposition to this disastrous government but there is no deep enthusiasm for Ed Miliband. When we put the work in on the ground and become seen as the credible opposition we can and do take those votes. In 2014 I think we can raise our vote from 2009’s 1.25 million to 2 million by pursing a broad strategy that leaves no region untouched. I think realistically we can win MEPs in six regions but only if we ensure we’re giving them all coverage, support and political affection. To win, for example, the eastern region (which would be number six on an even swing) we need a modest jump of under 2% but it won’t fall into our laps, and the national party needs to take winning all four of the new regions seriously.

Even in those areas where we are unlikely to be winning an MEP this time it is the perfect opportunity for the regions to start thinking strategically about how we combine regional work with targeting new council seats. I’m very optimistic that, with the right priorities, these European elections can be very good for us, even in regions where we don’t win an MEP. Then we can make sure every region has an MEP in 2018, so everyone in England and Wales has at least one Green elected rep.

Peter Cranie: All of the above. Demographics will play a part but only if we can actually increase turnout in the 18 to 30 age groups as our support is highest among young people. Non-voters have often given up on politics or don’t feel that their vote makes a difference. Getting the message across that we are close to electing more Greens to represent them will help, but what they need to hear or see is someone who can inspire them to support us. Caroline Lucas has been incredible in that role, but she is just one voice. I believe I’m someone with “fire in the belly”, and I believe that some people need to see and hear someone who has gone through similar experiences to their own and who feels the anger they feel.

We won our first MP seat not by changing our policies but by connecting with a broader range of voters on the basis of our less well-known but very popular social and economic policies. So we need to strengthen the emphasis on reaching those voters who we know are sympathetic to our policies beyond the environmental agenda. There are probably millions of former Labour and Lib Dem voters who are already closer to us on a wide range of issues than they are to their former parties, and we need to make stronger efforts to connect with them. Consider all those people opposed to the anti-austerity agenda who will have no established party other than the Greens to vote for; all those who want a Robin Hood Tax, redistributive taxation, a crackdown on tax avoidance/evasion; those who want to protect the NHS and post offices and who want a not-for-profit People’s Bank, and an end to bailouts but a windfall taxes on bankers’ bonuses.

Romayne Phoenix: There are many thousands of reluctant Labour voters. Some would vote Green if they considered our policies and values, but many will not because we don’t have a PR system and the likelihood of shifting most parliamentary seats at the moment is so unlikely. There are Lib Dem voters who feel betrayed, and if they are beginning to doubt the values of a capitalist society, and doubting the potential success of the current austerity economics, may find a comfortable home with our party. Those who lost any trust in party politics, well before the recent scandals, triggered the Power Enquiry to investigate the historic drop in voter turn out, may be encouraged to support our policies that address many of the concerns revealed by that study. The 50,000 students who demonstrated against EMA cuts and tuition fee increases also deserve a party that supports their interests, and people involved with Occupy and UK Uncut will be able to support our equality policies, anti capitalist ‘post growth’ economics and our open, transparent and democratic internal party structure.

However, few of these potential supporters, voters, members will come to us at all if we don’t go to them first. Our national election agent has crunched the numbers and we are on target to have a few hundred councillors in the next hundred years. I’m standing with Cllr Will Duckworth and we are planning to help deliver the very successful ‘ upgraded’ Target To Win version – The West Midlands Strategy – but even with this plan we will not grow fast enough, build enough local electoral success or increase our membership at a sufficient rate to bring us effective political influence.

We need to take responsibility alongside all others that we can work with to build a mass movement of resistance against austerity and privatisation. This is part of our philosophical basis to work by any (peaceful) means possible to make the necessary progress for environmental and social justice. The work that has started is already helping to create a space for a real political debate about what sort of society we wan to live in. Greens are involved in this. I am Chair of the Coalition of Resistance and we have given platforms to elected Green Party members to contribute to this debate. Caroline Lucas MP was at the centre of the front page of 10,000 COR broadsheets at the TUC March for the Alternative on 26th. But it is not enough for the GPEW to be affiliated to COR. Greens need to be active and campaigning alongside people in their communities on all local issues arising from the destructive effects of austerity measures, and working with them to build strength at both a regional and at a national level.We have so much work to do to counteract the wall of media misinformation that refuses to introduce any alternative ideas into the current political ‘debates’.

We need to help shift the mood of the nation, to bring alternative ideas to more people as we stand beside them in the fight against gross inequality and mismanagement of our economy and our ecology. Then we will get the attention of the masses, then they will look at how we work for them when elected at a local level, then we can call for their votes – from young, old, working or unemployed, other political parties or none, and from any background – and they could work with us to ‘get the vote out’.

Deputy leader candidates

Caroline Allen: A mixture; many non voters are sick of the grey parties and their out of touch, corrupt, professional politicians; we must differentitate ourselves and appeal to those people. Young people will be reaching the age of 18 with the worse outlook in jobs, housing and education for decades; we must speak to their concerns. Labour seem to be in the resurgence, but their support is soft. If we get out and talk people and demonstrate that we care about their concerns they will vote Green. There are millions of people who have been let down by Labour first and now the coalition, millions are struggling. We must speak for and to these people. People will vote for us if we can show how we will make life better for them – we need a positive message of a better Green future.

Richard Mallender: From new voters, non voters or supporters of other political parties? We need to get them from all three! Many people are turned off by party politics but are still interested in politics in terms of how decisions affect their everyday lives. We need to be recognised as a strong, credible alternative to the three main parties, win over disillusioned Labour and LibDem supporters in particular and have clear messages for young people that they can trust us, that not all parties are simply varying shades of grey.

Overall, I was surprised at the extent to which the field is interested in targeting Labour voters and downplaying former Lib Dems. Not that I disagree, just that this might be a difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Here disillusioned Labour voters have the option of the SNP, who talk left enough for them to appeal to wavering Greens. This focus for GPEW does also perhaps reflect the seats they’re targeting, where the Lib Dems were often already weak or have already collapsed.

In terms of differentiating the responses to help inform my vote, I am a sucker for a an evidence base for this kind of strategic question. From the Deputy list, Alex and Will score highest with me on that question. I want a leadership team that puts winning first, and that means understanding the terrain you’re fighting over. On the leadership side, Natalie’s answer felt strongest to me, not least because it was the only one to talk explicitly about the European elections which, barring coalition meltdown, will be the next important national election for GPEW, and the party’s strongest as the only national election they fight under PR. I’m also curious about what The West Midlands Strategy that Romayne mentions is. Perhaps someone could elaborate in the comments. On the policy side I felt Peter’s response scored highly. The issues he cites at the end are all strong choices – left policies which are also pragmatic and easy to communicate without sounding like leftist fist-waving, and they’re exactly the sort of issues I’d like to see GPEW put front and centre.

If you found this useful, tune in for more shortly. If not, please steer clear of my next posts for while.

The first two years of this Westminster coalition have been an abject failure on a scale I cannot recall in my lifetime. The Tories and the Lib Dems have turned out to be practically as authoritarian as their Labour predecessors, they’re as anti-wind as everyone predicted despite the husky moment, and they’ve attacked the people with disabilities while forcing the poorest to take non-jobs for non-money. Education at school and university has become even more divided by class. Nick Clegg’s piss-poor efforts to bring the British constitution into the 1910s have failed completely, with his “miserable little compromise” perhaps having set back a chance of change by a generation. And the privatisation agenda rolls on.

On tax, the richest have done very well, while the increase in the personal allowance is at least dubiously progressive, and probably worse. It’d be hard to see a more blatant spot of class war than cutting the 50p rate while forcing a quarter of a million people out of work in one year alone, with all the squeezed public services that means, plus sundry other offences like selling off playing fields in defiance of a pledge to the contrary.

Ah, but it’s all about the economy, they keep saying. We came together in the national interest, they say. You might think that means Nick Clegg lying back and thinking of England, but this austerity regime was their idea too. And on their own measure they could hardly have made a more spectacular mess. If you believe in growth, a double-dip recession and a -0.7% quarter two years after the last lot left surely marks you down as a failure, especially when it’s not even having the impact promised on the deficit or the ratings. It’s not just as though they disagree with Keynes, it’s like they’ve never heard of him. This entire economic experiment, like some brutal IMF programme imposed on the UK, is as likely to fix the economy as a dose of leeches is to fix syphilis. Even for those of us opposed to the standard growth model, these aren’t the alternatives to growth we were looking for.

So, as the coalition agreement starts to fray, as Cameron loses his right to UKIP-lite delusions and homophobia, and as Clegg loses a quarter of his members in one year, the worst may now be over. The less they can achieve, the better off we will all be. At least if a programme of economic, social and environmental suicide is attempted by an incompetent and divided administration, there may be something left for the next lot to pick up (not that it would make sense to have any faith in Labour after their last go).