Election Focus 2017: Voting for hope

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the day we decide, individually and collectively, what we want from our government for the next five years.  This is our opportunity to show politicians our values, our hopes, and our vision for the UK. I urge you to make the most of this opportunity – please vote, and encourage others (particularly young people) to vote too.

Vote based on policies

When you vote, don’t do it based on what the media (or social media) say; vote based on policies. Much of our media has vested interests to protect, which may not be the same as what is in your, or our collective interest. Look beyond the headlines at what the parties intend to do.

Obviously, environmental policy isn’t the only thing you’ll think about when you vote, but please do take it into account, as there are important differences between some of the parties. I hope my blog posts comparing what the party manifestos have to say on various environmental issues have been helpful to you.

• Climate change and energy policy
• Protecting nature
• Air pollution
• Protecting our seas

If you’re not sure who to vote for…

Having spent so much time immersed (reluctantly) in the manifestos, I’d got to the point where I wasn’t sure who I was going to vote for. Three of the UK-wide parties (Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens) had quite good policies on environmental issues. And my constituency is such a Tory safe seat, my vote will have no impact on the outcome. (More on this later, if you’re in the same position). So I spent some time working through the ‘Vote for Policies‘ tool, covering all the issues I was remotely interested in. It’s more time-consuming than other similar tools I’ve tried, but I’ve found it the most helpful. If you’re not sure who you should vote for, give it go – it’s worth investing a bit of your time today to make sure you make the right decision.

If you’re considering voting for the Conservatives…

Please remember that, by voting for the Conservatives you are giving them permission to:

• make fracking easier, including taking power to decide on whether fracking should be allowed away from local councils, and allowing exploratory and monitoring drilling to take place without the need to get planning permission.
• try to bring back fox hunting
• weaken environmental protection laws once we leave the EU (unlike Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Greens, the Tories do not make any commitments about keeping or enhancing the current levels of protection)

They make a few, vague but seemingly ambitious environmental claims (on climate change, air pollution and the environment in general), but consistently provide no details on how they will achieve them. This undermines their credibility, and is in keeping with the way they’ve run this whole campaign – refusing to answer questions on what they will do or how, and treating the voters as idiots who’ll happily write them a blank cheque. Soundbites are not going to reduce air pollution-related deaths or bring down our carbon emissions.

If you’re considering voting for UKIP…

If you think that there’s a chance that 97% of climate scientists might be right about climate change, please do not vote for UKIP. Climate change is too big an issue to pretend it isn’t happening, and we don’t need to do anything about it. Their policies on this issue would make the problem worse. We cannot afford that.

Vote tactically to keep the Tories out

As well as thinking about whose policies you like best, if your constituency is not a safe seat, please think about tactical voting. I truly believe that five more years of a Conservative majority government will be very bad news for the environment (and our health service, schools etc. etc…)

Is it worth voting if you’re in a safe seat?

Where I live is one of the safest Tory seats in the country. How I vote will make no difference to who ends up as my MP. So does it matter if I don’t vote? I believe it does. I can vote with my heart for the party I believe has the best policies – I don’t need to compromise to keep the worse option (the Tories or UKIP) out. But what does that achieve? When people look at the total number of votes each party received nationally, they will see my vote, and know that I support those policies and that vision for the UK. Opposition parties get “Short money” from the public purse, based on how many votes they receive. So by voting for my preferred party, I am also increasing the amount they receive (by a tiny amount) to support their work.

Tomorrow I’ll be voting for hope. Please join me.

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Election Focus 2017: protecting our seas

For today’s Election Focus, I am looking at what the parties say about how they will protect our seas. I have split this into several headings: protected areas around our shores; international marine protection; plans to tackle plastic pollution; and fishing.

Click on the image to see it full size.

How the parties say they will protect our seas

My reflections

• The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems are all a bit vague on UK marine protected areas. How much (more)  will they protect? What does that protection include? The Greens give a bit more detail.
• Only the Tories talk about marine protection around British Overseas Territories, and their plans sound ambitious. I am not sure if they are referring to the marine protection zone already announced, or if this is additional.
• Labour, the Greens, UKIP and Plaid Cymru all talk of introducing (or investigating) a plastic bottle deposit scheme to reduce waste. The Green Party seems to be the most ambitious in this area.
• With Brexit, future fishing policy is a big topic, and now is a good opportunity to improve management of our fish stocks. The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all mention sustainability in their plans. UKIP have a lot to say on fisheries, but it’s all about taking back control, with no mention of sustainability.
• Plaid Cymru and the SNP are both very quiet about protecting our seas.

Election Focus 2017: air pollution

Air pollution is a very important issue,  and we’ve been letting our politicians off the hook on it for too long. When I studied for my MSc in Public Health I learnt about the health effects of air pollution, and was amazed more people aren’t up in arms about it.

It’s estimated to contribute to 40,000 deaths each year in the UK. It makes children ill, and life unpleasant for those of us who work in cities. And it affects the poorest in society the worst – those who can’t afford to live further from major roads.

As a country, we’re really not doing well on this issue. The EU sets legally binding limits on air pollution, which we repeatedly exceed. The government were taken to court in 2015 for failing to do enough, and they lost. Last year a cross party committee of MPs criticised the government’s revised plan and called air pollution a public health emergency.

Given this, you’d hope all the political parties would have robust plans to deal with this problem in their manifesto. Let’s see what they have to say.

I have split this into several headings: legislation, diesel vehicles  (a major source of pollution), other related transport policies, and other measures.

Click on the image to see it full size.
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What the parties have to say on tackling air pollution

My reflections

• I am not sure if the sentence from the Tory manifesto about planting trees is how they plan to tackle air pollution, or an unrelated point. It’s all in the same paragraph, along with promises to reduce litter and fill in potholes. It’s certainly not a robust response to a public health emergency.
• Many of the other manifestos spend quite a bit of time criticising the government’s record on air pollution. It’s an open goal and well deserved. But successive governments have failed to get a handle on it (including the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition, and Labour before them).
• There’s not a single mention of diesel in the Tory manifesto, despite it being a big contributor to the problem.
• I think the Lib Dem manifesto is the most convincing on this issue.
• UKIP and SNP give no indication of wanting to reduce air pollution, and UKIP’s policies may well make the problem worse.
• On a side issue, while searching for ‘air’ in the UKIP manifesto, I came across six mentions of Tony Blair. Given how long he’s been out of power, this seems a bit weird to me.

Election focus: protecting nature

For my second election focus, I’ve chosen the issue of protecting nature. Looking through the manifestos was a lot quicker for this topic than climate change, as the parties had a lot less to say. I’ve grouped what they have to say into the following topics:

• wildlife legislation
• protected areas (NB. I’ll do a separate post on marine conservation areas, so haven’t included that here)
• international wildlife protection
• fox hunting
• the badger cull
• neonicotinoids
• woodland
• other wildlife issues

Remember, this is just based on what they say in their manifestos (some of which had lots more detail than others) – I’ve kept my own thoughts out of the table. Click on the image to see it at full size.

What the parties have to say on wildlife legislation, protected areas, international wildlife protection and fox hunting

What the parties have to say on the badger cull, neonicotinoids, woodland, and other wildlife issues

My reflections

• The Lib Dems had the most to say on these issues, and generally it looked pretty good to me. I particularly like their promise to set legally binding natural capital targets.  I’m disappointed they didn’t come out and say they would keep the fox hunting ban. Their phrasing on the issue of bovine TB is obviously carefully selected not to upset anyone, but I find it’s lack of a direct statement on where they stand on the badger cull unsettling. The badger cull isn’t  effective, humane and evidence-based, but the current government is fond of saying it is.
• I was surprised how many of the parties had things to say on woodland – they obviously think there are votes in protecting trees rather than bees or badgers. The Tory promise to “continue  to ensure that public forests and woodland are kept in trust for the nation” made me laugh, given their previous (failed) attempt to sell off publically owned forests. They must think voters have very short memories.
• Once again the Tories make bold claims (“We pledge to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it”) withour providing any information on how they will achieve it. But they say they will produce a 25 Year Environment Plan. We’ll just have to imagine what might be in that plan.
• The Greens have surprisingly little to say on this topic – maybe they feel it goes without saying.
• UKIP don’t have a huge amount to say on this topic, but what they do say doesn’t look too bad.
• SNP and Plaid Cymru don’t have a huge amount to say on this topic either.

Election focus 2017: climate change and energy policy

Thanks to Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election, three years ahead of schedule, I have to leave the lovely world of hedgehogs, dormice and baby birds to delve into the murky world of politics. Over the next week, I’ll try to summarise where the major UK parties stand on various environmental issues, based on their published manifestos.

I’m starting this series with the biggest challenge facing our generation: climate change. Where we mark our X on the ballot paper next week will have big implications not just for the next five years, but for much longer. And there’s a real difference between the parties on this issue as well.

Climate change is a huge issue, and overlaps with many other areas of policy. I’ve split up each party’s position into a few headings, to make it easier to follow:

1. Targets & commitments
2. Legislation
3. Power generation
4. Britain’s place in the world response to climate change
5. Homes
6. Mitigation
7. Transport
8. Science & industry

NB. I’m not going to report on all of their policies related to homes / transport etc – just those they link to carbon emissions or climate change.

The manifestos of the parties varied greatly in length, meaning some give much more detail than others. I didn’t ask them for further information, or search their websites. Having said that, the longer manifestos didn’t always mean more information about how they were going to achieve their stated goals.

The following tables are, I hope, an accurate reflection of what the parties say in their manifesto.  Of course, we all know that manifesto promises don’t always materialise, but, without a crystal ball, the best we can judge parties on is their prior actions and what they say they will do in the future. Click on the tables to see them full size.

Where the parties stand on climate change targets and commitments, legislation, and power generation

Where the parties stand on Britain’s role in the world response to climate change, and homes

Where the parties stand on climate change mitigation, transport and science and industry

 

My verdict

I’ve tried to be fairly neutral in my reporting of what the parties say, and you can draw your own conclusions. But since it’s my blog, I thought I’d add a few of my reflections, which you can ignore if you want to.

• The Tories provide very little detail about what they will actually do to combat climate change. They don’t spell out what their power generation mix will be, but their support for shale gas shows that they just haven’t got the idea that fossil fuels are not the way forward. They pay lip service to our carbon reduction obligations, but provide no info on how they will meet them. They even try to claim credit for the Climate Change Act that was introduced by the Labour government in 2008.
• Some of the parties refer to climate in change in many different sections of their manifesto, showing that they get that this issue is not just about power supplies, but will reflect many aspects of our life.
• Some of the parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP) present a clear vision of how they see Britain playing a role internationally,  – I found this quite inspiring.
• Some of the parties (Labour, Lib Dems, SNP) presented the climate change challenge as an opportunity to develop new technology, industries, exports and jobs in the UK.
• A vote for UKIP is a vote for climate catastrophe.
• The Green Party manifesto was about a quarter of the length of some of the others, so inevitably has less detail. I’m not sure how the Tories managed to write 88 pages while saying so little about what they will actually do. Labour and the Lib Dems both have quite long, detailed manifestos.