It’s been an inauspicious start to the Green Party’s election campaign. Natalie Bennett has given two radio interviews this morning where she produced rather poor answers regarding her party’s policies. On the Today programme, Bennett said Britain’s foreign policy should be centred around appeasing Russia:
‘What we need to do is put diplomatic pressure on Russia, put economic pressure on Russia, but we also have to understand that if we’re negotiating with Russia, it’s really important not to take what you might call the Versailles approach, to understand that President Putin has to walk away with something – things that we might not necessarily like. So we have to stand up for international law, for human rights, but we also have to acknowledge that we’re living in the real world. So use all those pressures, but use them subtly, build international alliances, work together.’
She also promised that the Greens would tax pretty much everything — Myleene Klass would not be happy:
‘We don’t just tax property because that excludes about two-thirds of wealth; we also want to tax pension pots, holdings in cash, Ferraris, whatever else it might be.’
But her really disastrous interview came later on LBC, where Nick Ferrari backed Bennett into a corner on her party’s plans to build half a million new social homes. She unable to quantify any of the costs behind the scheme — not helped the fact she had a ‘huge cold’:
Ferrari: Yes, but how much would that bring? The cost of 500,000 homes, let’s start with that. How much would that be?
Bennett: “Right, well, that’s, erm… you’ve got a total cost… erm… that we’re… that will be spelt out in our manifesto.
Ferrari: So you don’t know?
Bennett: No, well, err.
Ferrari: You don’t, ok. So you don’t know how much those homes are going to cost, but the way it’s going to be funded is mortgage relief from private landlords. How much is that worth?
Bennett: Right, well what we’re looking at with the figures here. Erm, what we need to do is actually… uh……… we’re looking at a total spend of £2.7… billion.
Ferrari: 500,000 homes, £2.7billion? What are they made of, plywood?
Bennett: Erm, basically what we’re talking about is 500,000 new homes and basically each one pound spent on this brings back £2.40…
Ferrari: Yes, but what is the total cost of 500,000 homes?
Bennett: [Long, long pause] Erm… it’s a cost of £60,000 per home.
Ferrari: £60,000 per home?
Bennett: Because what we’re talking about is, is the opportunity for…
Ferrari: That can’t include the land?
Bennett: Well, what we’re talking about is, what we want to see is the possibility of, um, of homes being built…
Ferrari: That’s not much more than a large conservatory, £60,000. So where’s the land, how are you going to pay for the land?
Bennett: [Even longer pause] Right, well, what we’re, what we’re looking at doing is, is… is basically *cough, cough, cough*
Ferrari: Are you alright?
Bennett: Yes, sorry, as you can probably hear, I have got a huge cold.
Ferrari: I’m terribly sorry to hear that.
Bennett: So, so what we need to do is, is social rental homes.
Ferrari: Right. Still don’t see how you’re going to get this… some at £60,000… you don’t actually know how much this is going to cost, do you?
Bennett: Uh, yes, we’ve got a fully-costed programme which we’ll be releasing, which will be released…
Ferrari: Shouldn’t you be aware of what that cost will be now?
Bennett: Uh, right, yes. So what we’re talking about is £6billion per year. So the current budget is £1.5billion a year.
Ferrari: £6billion? That will be attained by taking mortgage relief from private landlords? That’s £6billion-worth is it?
Bennett: And we’re also looking at investing… [long pause]. Yes, well, it’s… we’ve got the fully costed figures here.
Ferrari: You’ve said that on a couple of occasions. How much does mortgage relief from private landlords bring in then?
Bennett: [Long pause] *cough, cough* Basically, we’re talking about an overall saving of £4.5billion.
Ferrari: What? Mortgage relief is worth £4.5billion a year?
Bennett: And this is other saving as well, from private landlords as well, we’re looking at housing benefit reforms and what we also want to do is bring in caps on private tenants.
Ferrari: Yes, do you think you could have perhaps have ginned up on this a bit more Natalie Bennett?
Bennett: *cough, cough* Uh, I think that we’re talking about a whole range of…
Ferrari: No, you personally, do you think you might have ginned up a little, might you have read into this a little more in hindsight?
This is by far the most cringeworthy interview of the election campaign so far. It will take a lot for someone else to do worse. It’s worth listening to in full to hear how badly Bennett deals with Ferrari’s questioning:
If this is the best performance the Greens can offer up, it doesn't bode well for a effective campaign. Labour will be delighted at these performances. Natalie Bennett is doing the job for them of proving the Green Party are not a political force to be taken seriously.
UPDATE: Bennett has apologised on the Daily Politics for the LBC interview:
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