A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Caroline Lucas about a subject we both care about and have a history of involvement with – nuclear energy. It was a wide-ranging interview. During it, I found Lucas to be engaging, warm and polite to the point of being pleasant. The tape was lost and the interview never appeared. No matter, the point is that Lucas struck me as honest – despite our disagreements – and likeable.
In the brief exchanges I have had with Lucas in parliament, nothing has changed this view.
The cover of Honourable Friends? is adorned with a comment from celebrated academic Naomi Klein describing Lucas as ‘One of the world’s bravest and most principled politicians’. It is an amazing claim – truly extraordinary – and suggests a heavy self-regard which unfortunately permeates much of the book. It is hard to imagine Aung San Suu Kyi or the incredible José Mujica making such a claim.
The book is an enjoyable, yet fuzzy, read. Neither manifesto or memoir, it roams in an almost stream-of-consciousness style across past Green triumphs and future Green concerns. In fairness, at no time does the book pretend to be something it is not and Lucas acknowledges the gonzo-like hybrid form from the very outset. Whatever its weaknesses, the book is the better for it.
Despite the charm of the book and its author, it is easy and unfortunately necessary to be critical. Lucas describes her election as ‘… a moment of history: the first new political movement to enter parliament in nearly a century.’ This is simply wrong. I expect that the Social Democratic party and the Liberal Democrats would take issue with this. Such claims can be interpreted in many ways, from the romantic to the detached, and readers will draw their own conclusions.
Elsewhere, Lucas describes the motive of Green candidates: ‘We stood to give people an alternative, one they could vote for with a clear conscience, without the compromises and evasions of traditional politics.’ Such claims inevitably anger the blood, and cloud what is at times a useful and insightful account.
From the first week I entered parliament I developed a healthy contempt for it – even before it was fashionable to do so. Lucas describes the petty, venal, self-serving, suffocating, mean-spirited small-mindedness of Commons life well. From its grotesquely byzantine practices to its perverse rituals, she will not be the first or last member of parliament to consider themselves – in thought and deed – an ‘outsider’. I would go as far to say that such an approach is conducive to good parliamentary mental health. However, political outsiders rarely spend 10 years in the European parliament before entering Westminster.
Ultimately, the book is an account of the politics of symbolism as opposed to the politics of achievement. Keir Hardie would never have written a book like this; he would have been working too hard to pursue the ‘evasions and compromises’ that would have improved the lot of British working people. Like me, he would have done so with a clean conscience.
The unintended consequence of Honourable Friends? Political perfection is an illusion; political progress is not. And yes, you do have to choose.
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Jamie Reed is a shadow health minister
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Honourable Friends? Parliament and the Fight for Change
Caroline Lucas
Portobello Books | 304pp | £14.99