Green, maroon and moronic

We have European Parliamentary elections tomorrow (not local ones where I live). I’ve already cast my vote via the post – I’ve missed out voting in the past because of ending up not being able to get to a polling station in time (normally because of work) so I have been a firm believer in the security of a postal vote for the past 10 years.

So I’ve already marked the ‘X’ on my ballot paper to be counted. I’ve voted for the party that run my Borough, who are also the party of my MP (I live in Brent and so feel free to do your own homework). I can tell you that I didn’t vote for the Green Party – and today just reinforced why...

We got back to Camden from a prospective client meeting at lunchtime. So a colleague and I jumped out of the cab and dashed to a favourite sandwich eatery to get, surprise, surprise, a sandwich. As we started walking down Camden High Street we could hear someone ranting on a megaphone in the distance.

We turned round a few times and as the traffic started up from the traffic lights the words ‘Vote Green tomorrow’ came into ear shot. Then the orator came into view. A lady passenger of a maroon Toyota Prius was heading toward us down the road, window down, megaphone hanging out of the car with luminous green ‘Vote Green’ posters sellotaped to the rear windows. Again she cried ‘Vote Green Tomorrow’.

Now my colleague and I looked at each other and as I though it, my colleague yelled out “Get on your bike and stop driving around in a car”. Green lady yells back “It’s an electric car – vote Green tomorrow”, as they sped off into the distance.

Man oh man – so many things funny yet fundamentally wrong about the whole thing:

1. Where does Green lady think that electricity comes from? Let me tell you: the burning of fossil fuels or nuclear power
2. A Prius does use a bit of electricity but we do have to remember that they actually use more petrol to get themselves around
3. Aural spamming is not a good way of persuading people to do anything you want them to do
4. The car was maroon, yes I know, maroon – can a car possibly be sprayed a worse colour? Who buys a maroon car?

This is the problem with single issue organisations – if you are single issue you lose all credibility the second you don’t totally act in line with that single issue.

I think that the environment is hugely important and a difficult thing to balance with our modern lives of, to name just a few things, cars, planes and doing our shopping online (where our little one-off purchases get whizzed from across the globe). It’s a huge quandary.

I don’t want be too disparaging of the Greens. Single issue political parties are important. They keep us on our toes, we need people with extreme issues (as long as they don’t cause genuine harm) – it’s just that shrieking from an ugly coloured, pseudo-environmental credentialed car expecting the recipients to be mobilised into action is, well, just plain moronic.