Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 08/01/2013
Event: Natalie Bennett: "how can we reshape British society for a low-carbon world?"
Attribution: BBC Radio 4
People:
Evan Davis: Now four months ago the Green Party got a new leader, Natalie Bennett. She's a journalist, born in Australia, not an MP or indeed a Councillor, but her stated ambitions are to ensure the Greens are represented at local level in every major city of England and Wales, and become a force to be reckoned with in every important national debate. This start of a new year, we're spending a few minutes with the leaders of all the main parties, and Natalie Bennett is with us now. Good morning.
Natalie Bennett: Good morning.
Evan Davis: Um, competing against David Bowie, sorry about that, it's just the day we got you on.
Natalie Bennett: That's a tough one. [They laugh.]
Evan Davis: You wrote a nice piece on New Year's Resolutions that you'd like the country to adopt. Why don't you tell us what you think the three New Year's Resolutions should be?
Natalie Bennett: Okay. Well, remember this is for January 1, when you've got a hangover and you've just got to start with the easy stuff. So what I started with was the easy stuff, which was: Wales and Scotland already have a charge on plastic bags - on single-use plastic bags. Let's introduce that, and catch up with them. Let's see that shops switch neon lights and internal lights off, in the early hours of the morning, when we really don't need to be burning up that electricity. And let's introduce 20 mph limits everywhere where people live, work and shop, which will make our roads much more people-friendly, much safer and generally give us a much more pleasant environment.
Evan Davis: Okay, they're interesting things, and they're things that'll appeal, or not appeal, to large sections of the audience, I'm sure. But one interesting thing about them all is that they're not really going to make much difference to anything, are they. I mean, the big picture... These are -
Natalie Bennett: Very much so, and that indeed is what I said in the piece. The fact is, this was for January 1. Now that we're all back from the holidays, we can get on to the much more serious stuff, which means we need to entirely reshape the British economy. We need to bring manufacturing back to Britain, we need to bring food production back to Britain. We need to reshape our financial industries, regulate them very toughly and make sure that they serve the needs of the real economy, not casino-type gambling. So that's the stuff for - now we're all back from holidays and recovered from the hangover.
Evan Davis: Now we've done the plastic bags, let's sort out the whole big economic picture. I mean, one of the things that I suppose I'm puzzled at is this. There are all sorts of ways in which we can do environmental good, by reducing our living standards. You know, we could turn the power off for a few hours a day, that would cut our living standard and it would benefit the environment -
Natalie Bennett: We definitely wouldn't recommend it.
Evan Davis: How - what is your mindset? What is the process? What is the criteria - what are the criteria you have for deciding when something that hurts our living standards, and benefits the environment is worthwhile? What sort of cost-benefit analysis do you do, because you don't do it in money terms, do you?
Natalie Bennett: No, very much not. I mean, what we have to do is ask: how can we reshape British society for a low-carbon world? How can we - everybody - and at the moment, you know, we have a situation where we're living way beyond our means. We're living as though we had three planets, here on Britain, everyone on average. But the fact is that what we need to do is live within one planet. But we also have a situation where even though we're consuming all those resources, huge numbers of people really aren't sure where the money for tomorrow's lunch is coming from, aren't sure where the money for next week's rent is coming from, aren't sure where next month's mortgage payment's coming from. We've got a hugely imbalanced society -
Evan Davis: You haven't quite said how, for example - whether it's plastic bags or speed limits or neon lights, or whether it's big things like nuclear power - you haven't quite spelt out a criterion for choosing when a particular measure is worth it or not worth it.
Natalie Bennett: Basically it's a question of whether we're creating a better society, a society that works within the limits that we have to work in. So, for example, this brings in a whole range of things, from - you know, we want to re-nationalise the railways, because we need a good public transport system. We want to ensure that the minimum wage is a living wage. Now that means that people who earn enough money can afford to have the time and energy to think a bit more about the environment. All of those kind of things aren't obviously environmental measures, and the fact is, of course, although we have the "green" in our title, we are interested in every single issue in Britain.
Evan Davis: Do you self-identify as socialist, in any way at all?
Natalie Bennett: Er, I'm a Green. I have lots of socialist ideas that people would label as socialist, but I'm a Green.
Evan Davis: Let's just very briefly, finally, talk about the electoral ambitions. What's interesting is that there's always a large section of the voters who want to tick the "none of the above" box, right, and not vote for one of the three main parties. In general, they just search around for one of the other, smaller parties to vote for. It was once you guys who got a lot of those votes, now it's UKIP, isn't it - what's gone wrong there, do you think?
Natalie Bennett: Well, I think that what we're looking for are people who want to vote for the policies that we're standing up for. And the fact is, up and down the country, we are delivering, you know -
Evan Davis: You'd like the protest votes as well, though, I'm sure.
Natalie Bennett: We'll take the protest votes very happily, but people who see our vision of a society much fairer, more equal society, and one in which the banks are reined in and which wages are a decent level, and we've got good, solid jobs that people can build a life on, they're the kind of things that we want people to vote for.
Evan Davis: Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens, thanks very much for coming in.
Natalie Bennett: Thank you.