Yesterday evening, after a long day’s roaming, I was relaxing with a pint in the Bonaparte bar at Bristol Temple Meads rail station when in walked Caroline Lucas MP, flanked by flunkies. She was there, it eventually became clear, to be interviewed by a national newspaper journalist whom I recognised but can’t for the life of me name (poss early 60s, genial but jowly, white hair, black eyebrows.) They sat together at a table for two; she iterating sincerely-held beliefs in a series of firm finger-jabs, he generously indulging this with the honed eyebrow-raised superiority of the senior hack.
But what a curious entourage it was, fussing around the UK’s sole Green MP. Ranging in age from adolescent to decrepit, and clad in alarming garments including a bright purple fleece and a tattered tweed blazer, they really did look like the sort of oddball assortment that you might find, as I previously speculated, meeting in the backroom of a public library to discuss the workers’ revolution. Caroline, it was clear, is the acceptable telly face of the Greens.
Easy to sneer at that lot – as I’ve just proved above – but I suppose they do at least they add a bit of variety to the political landscape, otherwise now entirely composed of identical PPE graduates.
one of the truly terrifying things about living in germany is that over there they actually take the green party almost seriously.
ReplyDeleteVery much my experience when CL came to leaflet the town centre during the last election. There was her, in quite normal workday clothes, and then there was the troupe of zanies along the pavement, also leafleting. They did look much softer than the regular zanies here, though, who are often two-mongrel men and sturdy with it. I think the regulars, being tougher, would make the better politicos.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! Excellent! Though I'm only 52. And don't often write for national papers (and certainly wasn't on this occasion). All the rest is true.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can see, Green Party's membership is one third harpic, one third useless and one third serious and I have a horrible feeling history will pass them by. I'm seriously considering joining them.
Ah sorry about the age thing, Anonymous, if that is you - blame the poor light in the Bonaparte.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I recognise you from somewhere and I like the cut of your jib. I wonder how you found this post?
Do drop me a line at editorial@thedabbler.co.uk if you're an underappreciated writer interested in becoming involved in the world's greatest superblog.
Of the group of local Greens with Caroline, I'm by far the closest to being decrepit. But I hope you were looking at the wrong group, as we had no adolescents with us in Bonapartes, and I don't think we had a purple fleece either. Perhaps not even a tweed blazer...
ReplyDeleteMaybe a check of the Politics Show will reveal the truth.
I don't recollect any flunking either, apart from making sure no-one nicked CL's luggage during the interviews.
Maybe it was more mauve than purple. Bad light in the Bonaparte, Pete.
ReplyDelete'Ere, you're not one of those daft buggers who wants us to Boycott Bitton Station cos of the carbon footprint are you?
No. But then we're members of the AVRS! If Bitton was a racing circuit I might think differently (and inconsistently)
ReplyDeleteI'm a great believer in inconsistency. Consistency is the most overrated virtue. Far too few Greens admit to theirs, so you give me heart, Pete.
ReplyDeleteConsistency is the most overrated virtue
ReplyDeleteI reckon Obedience takes that prize