Convenience Big Store: The Greens are wasting a golden opportunity

8 October, 2021

In the headlines

Britain has accused Vladimir Putin of "choking off" gas supplies into Europe, hiking energy prices, in an attempt to bully the EU into accepting his controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Russia's deputy PM, Alexander Novak, says approval of the pipeline would help "cool off" soaring prices. "Vlad's Putin up gas bills," says Metro. The Saudi government has bought Newcastle United football club for £305m, ending the contentious 14-year ownership of Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley. "The Saudis aren't the first wrong-uns to own a Premier League team," says Politico. Dodgy foreign billionaires have been snapping up clubs for years. Now we've got "beheaders on the pitch".

Comment of the day

Flooding in south London in July. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

The Greens are wasting a golden opportunity

Sea levels are rising. Forests are burning. We're in the middle of an energy crisis. So why isn't the Green party "one of the most powerful political forces in Britain", asks Harry Lambert in The New Statesman. Germany's Greens will almost certainly be in the next government, and at one point this year polled at 25%. Our own Greens only got 2.7% of the vote at the 2019 election, and their support is now at 6%. It's not as if small parties can't make a difference: Ukip "changed British political history" by persuading David Cameron to hold the Brexit referendum.

The Green party squanders its "priceless name" with bureaucratic weakness. Its co-leaders have scarcely any power – all the party's policies have to be voted on by members. Its social liberalism turns off voters and there are "stark internal divisions" over its trans agenda. Sure, it may win over former Corbyn voters, but it remains unpalatable for the environmentally conscious "soft right". "Why is the party preoccupied by anything other than the environmental emergency?" As it is, "too many colours other than green" run through its identity. Without greater clarity, the Greens will miss their moment.

High fuel prices are here to stay

High prices for oil, gas and coal are "here to stay", says The Economist. Demand is rocketing post-pandemic. Miffed motorists are queuing up at British petrol stations. Power cuts are plaguing China. Oil has hit $81 a barrel. In greedier times, Big Oil responded to robust demand by splashing out on more drilling. But investors now treat such cash sinks "like week-old fish" – "The mood has swung against the dirtiest fossil fuel." The problem is, we still rely on it.

The past five years have been an "age of abundance". There was almost too much to go around, as wind, solar and a shale boom in the US cut into the market. Oil was cheap. But now the tanks are drying up. Reserves at some of the world's biggest projects have fallen from 50 years' worth to about 25. Gas, a by-product of drilling for crude, has also taken a hit. A supply crunch was averted last year because the pandemic "clobbered oil demand". But once the world restarted, it was only a matter of time before "a squeeze started to emerge". And that's unlikely to change in the era of decarbonisation. The high prices are actually good news in the long term – they will make green energy more cost-competitive, accelerating the transition from fossil fuels. But try telling that to consumers having to pay more for a tank of petrol.

Eating out

Noma won top spot at this year's World's 50 Best Restaurants awards for the fifth time, with another Copenhagen eatery, Geranium, taking second place. British restaurants the Clove Club and Lyle's came 32nd and 33rd. "Call me a sore loser," says William Sitwell in the Telegraph, but that list is "overwhelmingly food as theatre". The best of British dining "has no froths, smears, spherification and not a damn 12-course tasting menu in sight".

Noted

Shanetta Little arrived at her recently bought home in New Jersey to find the locks changed and a red and green flag hanging from a window. Inside, reports The New York Times, was a member of one of America's fastest-growing extremist groups: the "Moorish sovereign citizen movement". Its hundreds of thousands of black members believe that, because of slavery, they are "foreign citizens bound only by arcane legal systems" – and many claim ownership of people's homes. Little eventually ousted her intruder with the help of a Swat team.

Zeitgeist

Millennial gangsters in New York have gone soft, say their boomer bosses. Court papers relating to the prosecution of 87-year-old mobster Andrew "Mush" Russo reveal that young mafiosi threaten their victims via text instead of face to face, and lack the stomach for real violence. "Everything is on the phones with them," grumbled an older mobster.

On the money

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan soared during the US occupation, says The Washington Post, rising from 8,000 hectares in 2001 to 224,000 in 2020. Afghanistan now produces more than 80% of the world's opium and its drug trade "may become a greater threat than terrorism".

Snapshot

Life

Andrew Lloyd Webber found the 2019 film adaption of Cats so traumatising that he bought a dog. And the composer has found a way to take his "little Havanese puppy" on flights – by claiming he needs it as a "therapy dog". When an airline asked for proof, he tells Variety, "I said, 'Yes, just see what Hollywood did to my musical Cats'". Approval came straight back, with a note saying: "No doctor's report required."

Snapshot answer

It's a floating sauna with Alpine views, moored on Lake Geneva. Created by Danish product designer Trolle Rudebeck Haar, it's made from local Douglas fir wood, has room for three people and can only be reached by swimming.