Public Image Unlimited

I sit here writing this in my favourite tie-dyed shawl, with the sound of whale song floating out of my stereo and incense smoke wafting across my screen. At my feet sit curled 900 rescued cats, donkeys and geese. I haven’t washed for a week or so but it’s alright: I’ve got my trusty bottle of patchouli. Although, to be honest, you can’t really smell anything much at all through the almighty stench of the super-strength skunk which I’ve been smoking all day. Man.

OK, I admit it, that’s not the actual scene. I’m really sitting here in my favourite jeans and a pair of Converse, listening to The Killers and drinking a cup of tea. But a lot of people don’t know that. They think because I’m a Green Party member, I’m some kind of ‘weird’ hippy. They think we all are: that we’re just not like them.

I asked members of the public to tell me the first thing that came to mind when I said “Green Party member” to them. Heather, 26, an accountant, told me that we are “hemp-wearing, dreadlocked, middle class fantasists.” James, 56, a teacher, regards us as “guitar-waving, long-haired tree-huggers.” Pat, 40, a beautician, imagines us all “wearing hiking boots and wax jackets, with dreadlocks.” Hmm. Looking around at the last Green Party conference, I noticed very few people with dreadlocks. Most people looked pretty ‘normal’ to me. More to the point, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Caroline Lucas make a TV appearance wearing a wax jacket and hiking boots. But folks, in spite of this, it seems we still have a bit of an image problem - and it could potentially be alienating a lot of voters.

It’s frustrating to see that although green issues are high on the public agenda, the old stereotype of a green campaigner still worryingly persists. Even the supposedly enlightened Guardian published a cartoon recently which depicted a wild-eyed, bearded Green Party member in a giant woolly hat bearing a placard saying “Green Party: Hello Mother Earth.” A frightening proportion of the population seems intent on clinging to a vastly outdated idea of what a ‘typical’ Green is like.

Before I continue, I don’t actually see anything wrong with dreadlocks, whale song CDs and tie-dyed shawls per se. Of course I don’t. I have a few very nice tie-dyed items in my wardrobe, and I own not one but TWO whale song CDs. However, I also like/wear plenty of other deeply unhippyish things - much like many other Green Party members. Generally, most Green Party members probably want similar things to the rest of the population: whether that is an answer to the unemployment crisis, better train services...or tickets to see Kings of Leon play the London O2 Arena.

So how do we tell the voters this? Well, I don’t believe we should engage in any of the over-the-top cringe-inducing ‘down with the kids’ displays that other politicians regularly blunder their way through. I will not be writing a rap about saving the planet as part of my local election campaign: Ladywell residents do not deserve that. Neither, for that matter, will I be making a pathetic, desperate attempt to secure the endorsement of Girls Aloud by enthusiastically admitting to a crush on Cheryl Cole. Or wearing a baseball cap with my surname emblazoned across it. Or posing for photographs with Bunny girls. Or - urgh, we can stop there.

Why are more people apparently voting on The X Factor than in the elections? Probably because they don’t really believe that politicians are watching The X Factor too - even if Gordon Brown insists on trying to become penpals with the contestants. Politicians in the main parties are just getting laughed down when they try to convince the general public that they are in tune with popular culture - because, of course, they’re trying far, far too hard to shake off their fusty old politician stereotypes.

But the Green Party is where the smart people are. We don’t want or need to patronise voters, so we won’t. I believe we are perfectly capable of sensibly using our common ground to make connections. We can show people that that we’re just versions of them who got up one day and decided to try and turn our thoughts into political action, rather than some kind of alien race who would never stop protesting for long enough to go for a pint with our mates on a Saturday night.
Because it’s not just about dispelling negative stereotypes. It’s about encouraging far more accurate ones. The Green Party actually boasts some pretty good credentials in terms of representing a wide age range, for instance, which means that even if we did show of a spot of rapping, it might actually come from a member who would conceivably rap in their everyday life.

For the most part, we’re not disconnected and stuck in a time warp like so many politicians from other parties are. We’re full of fresh ideas, we’re enthusiastic, we’re optimistic; and we represent a far broader spectrum of people than some parties, who are still trotting out the same old tired ideas.

The Green Party is for everyone, and not just for a sandal-wearing, tofu-munching elite. But I don’t believe that enough people are aware of that yet, and I really want us to secure the votes of those people who are still in the dark.