Brighton and Hove Greens’ first budget has attracted the attention of a national Sunday newspaper today (19 February).
The Independent on Sunday asked: “Are we witnessing the Great Green Sell-out?”
The paper said: “They were idealistic once, but now (Brighton Pavilion MP) Caroline Lucas’s party is running into the familiar problems of politicians in power.”
Political correspondent Matt Chorley touched on the “Twitter war” between the Green Party cabinet member for finance Jason Kitcat and Labour peer Lord Bassam, a former leader of the council.
He repeated one of Steve Bassam’s attacks: “They are a fairly visionless group of individuals who are naive and barely competent politicians.”
And he quoted Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown, as likening living in the city to “being trapped in a Green laboratory where ever more madcap experiments are being carried out on a daily basis”.
The paper said: “The council was quick to risk the ire of Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, by ignoring his plea – and offer of £3 million – to agree to a council tax freeze and instead announced a rise of 3.5 per cent.
“Mr Pickles claims the Greens are running ‘a cynical and politically motivated campaign using hard-pressed residents as political pawns’.
“But the Greens insist that to freeze council tax now would store up problems in future.”
And the article mentioned issues such as travellers’ camps, squatters and food waste collections. The first two are not new issues for Brighton and Hove City Council.
It quotes Green council leader Bill Randall as saying that things are “in pretty good shape” in the run up to the council tax and budget meeting on Thursday (23 February).
He said: “The big danger about all of this is the future. Where will local government be in four years? It is really worrying.”
The article sets the scene for the Green Party’s spring conference which starts in Liverpool on Friday (24 February) with a number of members from Brighton and Hove due to attend.
The newspaper also published an editorial – “A new model for green politics” – in its issue today.
