Perusing the Scotsman's election coverage I came across this article.
Patrick Harvie is an experienced parliamentarian and leader of the Scottish Green Party. He, like the rest of his party, are always keen to highlight their honesty, caring and niceness and contrast it with the typical deceitful mainstream politicians. In the introduction to his party's manifesto Mr Harvie writes, 'We have consistently brought a fresh approach to politics...Greens have argued for years that business-as-usual politics could not last.'
So it comes as somewhat surprising to see see him engaging in business-as-usual politics by dissembling with the rest of them.
Let's be clear Vince Cable and the coalition government are not privatising the Post Office network - they are investing more than £1bn in it and protecting it for the future by looking at mutualisation (a Green party principle one would have thought).
The Royal Mail is a separate loss making letter and parcel delivery business.
Either Patrick Harvie and the Scottish Greens are too stupid to know the difference or they do know the difference and are happy to lie to Scottish voters by deliberately confusing two different policies. Either way it is a pretty good reason to reject them and their so-called 'fresh alternative'.
I hope this clears up your misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteCheers
James
SCOTTISH GREEN PARTY RELEASE
For immediate release 27 April 2011
GREENS: LIB DEMS DELIVERING TORY PRIVATISATION AGENDA ON POST
Claims today by the Liberal Democrats that they will support Scotland's postal services were dismissed today by the Scottish Greens, who pointed to the comprehensive privatisation of Royal Mail being championed by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary. Legislation to enable Royal Mail to be privatised is just weeks away from completing its passage through Westminster. Greens argue that the Royal Mail is a vital public service that should stay in public hands, and that the market fundamentalist approach of the current coalition and the previous Labour government will undermine the universal and affordable provision of postal services across Scotland.
The Scottish Greens have set out a manifesto commitment to open negotiations with UK Ministers to buy out the Royal Mail's Scottish operations and keep them in public ownership. The party will also protect and enhance the post office network by making them into "one stop shops" for a better range of services and to help social enterprises to take over post offices threatened with closure.
Patrick Harvie, the Greens' top candidate in Glasgow said:
"It's bare-faced cheek for Liberal Democrats to be posing outside post offices pretending to care about them while Uncle Vince in Westminster is getting ready to sell off the Royal Mail for a short-term profit. It's time for the Lib Dems to understand that we are talking about a genuine public service, not just some indistinguishable commercial operation, and that if they had any principles whatsoever they'd be opposing these daft plans.
"Greens are ready to open negotiations with Westminster about keeping Scotland's postal network in public hands, and we have plans to help communities and social enterprises take over post offices that are threatened with closure. They are the social and economic bedrock of many rural communities in particular, and with a little investment rather than more ill-judged privatisation, post offices can retain that vital role."
Thanks James for confirming the fact that the Scottish Green Party is deliberately confusing the post office network with the Royal Mail. I'll leave it to anyone who reads this to make up their minds about your motivations.
ReplyDeleteHowever my view is that the only bare faced cheek is coming from your organisation.
I think you've gone down the rabbit hole if you can't see a) that our comments were perfectly clear and b) that the postal network requires both a strong publicly-owned Royal Mail and protected post offices.
ReplyDeleteSorry James - if that is the case why say, 'It's bare-faced cheek for Liberal Democrats to be posing outside post offices pretending to care about them'. It's clearly designed to mislead people into believing that post offices are to be privatised.
ReplyDeleteWhy no welcome for the commitment to keep post offices in public hands (or indeed mutual hands) or for the commitment to end the closure programme? Because you are trying to conflate the policy for the Royal Mail with that for post offices. It's dishonest and misleading.