Queuing up to hear me???

Last night I took part in a Friends of the Earth / Stop Climate Chaos rally at the Friends' Meeting House at Euston, along with Secretary of State Hilary Benn, Tory spokesman Peter Ainsworth and FoE boss Tony Juniper. I was slightly startled on arriving at the venue last night to find the queue snaking down the Euston Road! I can't recall ever speaking at an event where people were queuing up to hear me before - though I suspect that the presence of the Secretary of State may have had something to do with it!

The event itself was very worthwhile. Tony Juniper set out the key concerns of FoE about the Climate Change Bill. Hilary Benn said the Bill was itself a triumph for 'people power' and was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Peter Ainsworth ran through the changes that the Tories and Lib Dems had managed to achieve together on the Bill in the House of Lords. I then set out the Lib Dem position, where we want to beef up the Bill considerably, including trying again to get the CO2 cut target up to 80%.

I've spoken at a few of these events now, and unless you listen very carefully you could be forgiven for thinking that we all basically agree. But the reality is that whilst the environment spokespeople of the parties can say 'green things' to 'green groups', none of it has any credibility unless their party takes these things to its heart. I pointed out that whilst the Tory environment spokesman is, I am sure, sincere, the rest of his party is much more flaky on things like nuclear power and anything to do with economic development (eg airport expansion). Likewise, DEFRA may do its best, but it is a tiny department whose green agenda gets trampled on by the Ministry of Transport (cf Heathrow expansion), BERR (cf new coal-fired power stations), DCLG (eg housing insulation standards) and most of all the Treasury (cf the lack of a truly 'green' tax agenda). Only if environmentalism runs through the heart of a party - as it does with the Lib Dems - can you be confident that what the environment spokesman tells environmentalists is actually what the party would do in Government.