carolineeffect-2014

Here is my blog piece on why I will be voting for Caroline.  However you use it, It is vitally important to the green party that you vote in the ballot to select our candidate.  2014 may seem a long way off now for new members but trust me you will look back and kick yourself for not taking part.  I am not passionate about Europe and I still want to run for the London Assembly so I will not be reading through all the questionnaires, rules, and manifestos, but I will be voting.

Reason number 1, the Caroline effect.
G = Mus + number of Carolines squared
so if you double the number of carolines you basically quadruple the Green vote.
When I was in the pub after the meeting with my local party, which was then Enfield, Douglas Coaker asked me who the ones to watch were in the Green Party.  I think this was before the leadership contest, but after the 2012 elections, in which I was a few votes and drop-outs away from taking part myself.  I said, I think Caroline Russell and Caroline Allen could do really well, both hailing from Islington where Development House happens to be.  Caroline has been one of my favorite people on twitter since the 2012 elections, and has her own blog too, tracking her frenetic green politics. She has always spoken well at husting and meetings, even making Cameo appearance at informal Green meetings in Barnet. One of my favorite tweets was her explanation of how she was named, after a relatively modern pop song.  As a young green I am sure you identify with the song "sweet Caroline" anyway I call this collaboration of local greens named Caroline, the Caroline Effect.  People rightly or wrongly associate their names with the Green Party and that lends Caroline Allen an enourmous amount if soft power when publicising us greens. My simple message is that Caroline Lucas led us to victory in Europe initially, and this Caroline could make a similar victory on the road to Brussels.

Reason number 2
Green Activist
Caroline Allen is a powerful green activist because of the way she is effective in the workings of the party. Her actions as a member of policy committee till 2012 have brought us together as greens behind the clear sections she has been part of re-writing. one argument against her, used on rival deputy leader candidate and former Young Greens co-chair's campaign site, is that she is good at what she does so should remain specialised. Would Einstein have been offered the job of Israel's first president if he had stuck to what he was good at, inventing nuclear weapons?  Caroline proves that you can take a lot of roles at various levels; local, regional, national, internal, external; and win them all holistically.  I am voting for someone who is genuine as an activist, not specialised. We do not want our MEP to be a cog divorced from the workings of her community, but a leaf of a green living being, connected to policy writing, local issues and so on.

Reason number 3
Science
I identify with her science background because though she is a vet and I work on a molecular level, we both get science.  The difference is she has found a way to make a job out of it, and I was unable to carry on working in so called green chemistry, which was not green at all. Science and technology are organised in political organisations and it's fundamental that we are represented by someone who can grasp the problems and solutions of air quality.  Caroline's frustration that local government are doing nothing on the issue is demonstrated in a letter to the local papers about a new waste facility North Londoners have been campaigning on, especially in the Coppetts ward of Barnet which borders on Enfield and Harringey.  Her appearance at the annual fundraising dinner at Barnet Green Party probably helped her think of writing on this strong campaign. One thing that separates climate campaigning from previous anticapitalist issues is that it attracts scientists such as Caroline and this benefits our thinking. As the first Caroline in Europe told me at Glastonbury, most of our environmental law comes from Europe. But she obtained her doctorate in Elisabethan English.  A scientist is needed to defend our air that we take for granted, and fish that is under threat, and so on.

Reason number 4
Attitude
When she suggested she's running for European elections, she was so humble about the whole thing, but the fact she didn't want to win that when focussing on the deputy leadership contest, doesn't mean she didn't want it once her supporters have envisioned how good she'd be at the job, and it seems to have positively snowballed.

Reason number 5
animal rights
A core part of our manifesto will be to do with respect for animals.  Unlike most vets Caroline is not afraid to say so. Animal rights should be part of this campaign.

Reason 6
honorary young green
She seems much younger and more trendy than the other candidates.  The green party are supposed to be different and she proved her support for young people during the double dip recession, by employing one to stuff envelopes with me and the other 2012 candidates.
With young greens voting for someone new will send a clear message that we have been given by the new leadership election, that we are not the future of the party, we are the party now.  Move over, grey parties, the time has come for the next generation of greens to take a stand.





Reason 7
Technical issues about proportional representation that I won't bore you with.

B A Samuel
Plenty12.blogspot.com