Greens In Government
I'm afraid it's all spin which has become the hallmark of the SNP in recent years - overpromising and underdelivering.
Harvie fails to impress on Green delivery in interview
Patrick Harvie’s ego runs through Conor Matchett’s interview (20 August). Not only is he proud of his and co-leader Laura Slater’s achievements in government, he is also confident that the Bute House Agreement between the SNP and the Greens will continue to deliver for the people of Scotland.
Mr Harvie, however, provides no evidence of either achievements, delivery or examples of future new joint initiatives with the SNP, nor does he apologise for the Green leadership’s catastrophic failure in policy implementation over the last year, delivering virtually no environmental policy change.
Astonishingly, Mr Harvie reserves his deepest criticism not for his political opponents but towards SNP MSPs Fergus Ewing and Kate Forbes and former Scottish Greens leader Robin Harper. The latter left the party citing its failure to prioritise environmental issues over policies like gender recognition reform and abortion clinic buffer zones. It’s clear Mr Harvie feels that Mr Harper failed to adapt to a progressive agenda with independence at its heart. Mr Harper claims that the Green Party has sold out its core values to the extent that “it has lost the plot”, abandoning its roots as a radical pressure group. It needed to cooperate with the UK parliament, listen more and shout less, he claims.
Mr Matchett could have pressed on the Climate Change Committee’s damning accusation that the Scottish Government’s climate change targets are in danger of becoming meaningless as they lack a clear delivery plan or why, according to the Lib Dems, 47 million cubic metres of sewage were allowed to be discharged into our waterways in 2022.
Neil Anderson, Edinburgh
