Are England's Green politicians actually mixed up?

SteppenHerring

I mean, they say they're in favour of science and technology for solving energy problems but then there's the homeopathy and the total opposition to live-animal experiments. Then some of their policies are really left-wing but on the other hand, going back to local village type living sounds really Tory.

rjsterry

Eh? Homeopathy is official Green Party policy? What's prompted this thread?

veronese68

Are we allowed to call them green? Shouldn't we consider all aspects of their heritage human, martian or otherwise?

cyclingprop

Green? You can get a cream for that.

rhext

Well, a quick squint at their website perhaps puts things in context:

"Make available on the NHS complementary medicines that are cost-effective and have been shown to work"

But since Homeopathy manifestly fails the '...have been shown to work' test, not sure it would get a lot of traction.

It doesn't say 'no animal testing' but it does say 'ban on causing harm to animals in research...etc' combined with a committment to invest more in alternative approaches. There's nothing wrong with that from a scientific point of view, it's just saying that harming animals is too high a price to pay for faster advance in healthcare/cosmetics etc. I'd strongly disagree with the former, but strongly agree with the latter.

To me, the manifesto is a classic, 'pressure group, no chance of getting into power' statement. You can afford to commit to this sort of stuff when you're not actually going to have to balance the books and keep people relatively happy and all you really want to do is to try to nudge one of the main parties in the right direction.

Of course, you need to be a bit careful because if you do end up in power and have to face the practicalities it can all go very badly wrong indeed.... Apparently, there was some party once called 'the liberal democrats' that made that mistake :-)

SimonAH

Homeopaths don't have normal brains, they have brains that have been successively diluted until they are essentially pure water

SteppenHerring

Surely if homeopathy were true then tapwater would cure everything?

veronese68

SimonAH wrote:

Homeopaths don't have normal brains, they have brains that have been successively diluted until they are essentially pure water

But the more dilute the brain the more powerful it is. No?

walkingbootweather

I believe the cure for fluid on the brain is a tap on the head, and for water on the knee you be perscribed drainpipe trousers.

bompington

walkingbootweather wrote:

I believe the cure for fluid on the brain is a tap on the head, and for water on the knee you be perscribed drainpipe trousers.

I laughed like a drain

JamesB5446

My main gripe with the 'Green' Party is their stance on nuclear energy and GM farming. It's as if they want a larger carbon footprint.

rhext

JamesB5446 wrote:

My main gripe with the 'Green' Party is their stance on nuclear energy and GM farming. It's as if they want a larger carbon footprint.

Again, it's pressure group politics. If they were actually in charge they would have to deal with the problem of an expanding population with growing energy requirements....interesting to see how long those policies held up in the face of those issues. If they're not in charge, they can complain loudly about the things they don't like because it's 'someone else's' problem to fix them.

You see it all the time: 'this is a bad thing and I want it stopped'; 'but if you stop then an even worse thing will happen'; 'the government should find a better way of solving the problem, I want the bad thing stopped'. 'But what would you do instead?'. 'I don't know and it's not my job to think of it. The government should find a better way of solving the problem, I want the bad thing stopped'.

rjsterry

cf. the hoo-haa about the waste incinerator in Hertfordshire on the news last night (and the one near me previously). "I don't want people burning my rubbish near me; I'd like it burned somewhere else where I can't see it. But I want my rubbish disposed of, of course."

nigglenoo

Would it not be fairer to actually read the policy before slinging mud?

http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/he

For instance:

"Assessment and Regulation of Medicines:

H326 The safety and regulation of medicines will be controlled by a single agency. This agency will ensure that medicines meet minimum safety standards, provide clear labelling of both ingredients and side-effects. The agency will cover existing synthetic medicines as well as those considered as natural or alternative medicines.
The effectiveness of treatments will be assessed by the agency using the best clinical evidence available. The agency will use independent panels of experts to assess treatments. The agency will assess the effectiveness of treatments across the entire health care spectrum, from synthetic pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures to public health interventions and complementary therapies.
We recognize that the assessment of treatments is a lengthy and ongoing process that should be driven by clinical need rather than either political or commercial influence.
The agency will produce recommendations that compare effectiveness against cost allowing the NHS to decide which treatments are required to meet the needs of the service within its budget."

Slightly more worrying is:

"Mental health:

People using mental health services and their carers should have the right to information at the point of diagnosis relating to complementary/alternative treatments and should be able to access these via the NHS as appropriate."

Hopefully 'appropriate' means meeting the standards re effectiveness and cost as set above.

EDIT: You might also want to read the transport policy: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/tr

godders1

nigglenoo wrote:

Slightly more worrying is:

"Mental health:

People using mental health services and their carers should have the right to information at the point of diagnosis relating to complementary/alternative treatments and should be able to access these via the NHS as appropriate."

Hopefully 'appropriate' means meeting the standards re effectiveness and cost as set above.

I would have thought so. Given that treatment of mental illness in this country is heavily weighted towards pharmacological methods I would assume that by "complementary/alternative treatments" they mean talking therapies (that have good evidence supporting their efficacy; CBT, psychodynamic therapies etc). If so then I agree with them.

I am not anti drugs for treatment of mental illness (far from it in fact) but in many cases talking therapies are indeed either viable "alternatives" or are very useful in "complementing" drug therapies.