All credit to the Greens for increasing their vote share by 4 percentage points, and going from one seat to four.
But did the middle class types who voted for Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay’s party in leafy Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire actually read the party’s rather bonkers manifesto?
Waveney Valley, which straddles the River Waveney between Norfolk and Suffolk, is apparently home to people with Right-wing economic and social views, boasts high home ownership levels and harbours strong support for Brexit.
According to the Electoral Calculus website, meanwhile, the rural consistency of North Herefordshire, falls into the category of seats it describes as “strong Right”, and has a high proportion of car owners.
Can those who voted for the Greens really have done so knowing that they want to ban domestic flights (where the train journey is scheduled to take three hours or less) and renationalise the railways?
Or that they would support a wealth tax on assets above £10 million in a move that could only guarantee the super rich fleeing the country in their private jets?
Perhaps their newfound supporters missed the bit where the Greens proposed a national insurance rise for higher earners, despite taxpayers already facing the highest tax burden since the Second World War?
Did they also overlook the Green councillor who sparked outrage by shouting “Allahu Akbar” to celebrate his victory in May’s local elections?
One imagines the ladies who lunch must have also failed to notice the part where the Greens were forced to backtrack on proposals to promote “natural” deliveries and reduce Caesarean sections like it’s 1972. While the yummy mummies may well be in favour of free school meals for all pupils – despite the estimated £2.5 billion annual cost – I’m not sure they’d be up for rent controls, not least because everywhere they’ve been tried they’ve sparked a housing crisis.
While we all share a desire to rid our rivers of sewage and our seas of microplastics – I’m not quite sure that middle England appreciated that a vote for the Greens was as hopelessly self-defeating as Greta Thunberg flying around the world in a bid to reduce everyone else’s carbon footprint.
