Greens.. what are they good for?
THERE was a small exchange of cheap shots at the far end of the online world this week which struck a profound chord with me.
The spat involved a small party and spoke of a massive missed opportunity in our current political turmoil.
I’m not talking about Cat Boyd, one of the founders of RISE, the small party of the left that persists in believing a socialist nirvana arrives days after the British working classes are separated along nationalist lines.
Or used to, because Boyd, who argues her own case very well, admitted she voted Labour at the General Election, endorsing the radical Corbyn manifesto. For that, she was slammed online as a nationalist Judas.
Well, good luck to Boyd and her now considerably toughened skin.
No, what got me on Twitter was smaller still. It was SNP MSP Maree Todd (ever heard of her?) tweeting excitement about the dualling of the A9 and Green MSP Andy Wightman ticking her off for liking roads.
It was the Scottish Greens in 140 characters or less – acting as the little conscience of the SNP, rather than the shrill alarm bell of a warming planet.
The Greens have more political leverage than all the radical socialists in Scotland can dream of, yet they’ve wasted the voice they were given to speak for the environment.
Patrick Harvie has palled up with the Big Oil party so much that he could open a basement branch office in Gordon Lamb House.
With the Paris Climate Deal being dismantled, with the hottest summers on record, hell, even with cod stocks in the North Sea recovering, what do the Greens have to say?
Greens, what are they good for? Answers on a postcard to Bute House.