The garden variety of course. They are packed with, among other things, essential vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre that support overall health. As my wife will be quick to tell you, they are not my favourite food, but she serves them up on a regular basis, bless her. I am regularly reminded a diet without them is not in my best interests. So, to ensure my good health I duly consume and, to be honest, my tastebuds are not averse to the flavours of most.
There is another variety of which the same cannot be said. These are the human/political specimens. The Green Party released their election manifesto over the weekend and a diet without what they are offering, I suggest, is in every sane person’s best interests.
The manifesto they have produced has all the hallmarks of a document put together at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Breathtakingly stupid are the proposals that are contained within it. There is not one bit of commonsense in the whole thing.
It is, of course, based on the principles of lunacy that the Greens hold dear. They are bound by their climate change beliefs to the extent they would formulate their budgets around them. They would put a price on agricultural emissions and phase out industrial allocations and forestry offsets, meaning companies have to pay the full amount of the ETS, which would put many out of business. There would be targeted subsidies for e-cargo bikes and a Commissioner for Animals would be appointed with an independent ministry.
It’s no surprise they’re going to reduce energy prices. Where have I heard that before? Oh yes, Ed Miliband, the former energy secretary in the UK, made the exact same statement supposedly saving households £300 per year and then watched as they soared by a similar amount. He wouldn’t allow drilling for available oil in the North Sea, preferring to import it from Norway, who were extracting it from the same source. It looks like that might change under the incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Their foreign policy is naïve and downright dangerous. We would be out of the Five Eyes, not to mention AUKUS. You need to laugh otherwise you’d cry at the insanity of it all.
When it comes to their tax policy, it is clear the Greens are all at sea. Until last weekend they were saying the modelling for their ‘super-rich tax’ was in line with Treasury’s. At the weekend the Herald ran a story where this was disputed by Treasury. The Greens demanded the Herald retract the story. They then said the Treasury modelling (that they had used) was out of step with recent experience, that Treasury didn’t understand its own modelling and they were politicised.
Their slogan for the election is “For All Of Us”. That itself is nonsense. Their campaign launch only attracted 150 people. Of those, 25 said they were newly minted members. Swarbrick said she was highlighting the Greens’ ability to “achieve big things” and their “record in government”. What big things and what record?
Perhaps Chlöe’s statement that their policies are the direct opposite of the “extractive” ones of the National-led Government best illustrates their abysmal understanding of economics. Quote “Every day, powerful men are making decisions to increase the profits of the few at the top. And you pay the price.” This is economic ignorance at the highest level. Apart from their productive capacity benefitting the economy, and therefore the country as a whole, it’s the few at the top who, through their earnings, pay most of the tax she wants to clobber everyone with.
It’s an insult to the rest of the population that these people get anywhere near the House of Representatives. They are green alright, but not in the way they would like us to think. The fewer votes they attract the better off the country will be.
