It's astonishing, if true, and not just Ann Widdecombe making stupid stuff up!

Thank you.

Just thinking aloud as I’m having trouble deciding. Thanks for your responses, Alex.

And that might work better if you are a relatable member who has been through it and knows what works, rather than a local figurehead or creative.

Good point.

Good point. Of course Mothin is running from a similar angle but less keen on TTW. Trouble is the candidate recognition isn’t necessarily there from the start, although helpful if it is, and perhaps more attention needed within TTW to existing local campaigns?

Although, saying that, a role on GPEX might contribute that equally. Carla and Adrian have I would have thought brought that about through GPEX rather than as spokespeople as such.

Incidentally, completely accept your argument for needing someone who will be pushing for scaling that up as don’t know whether it will be put on the back burner, despite promises it won’t. Obviously depends who the leader(s) are. Food for thought, certainly.

Have we got the resources? Acting as devil’s advocate here but obviously SM/MSM has greater reach for less money and effort, so if both could happen together it might make a bigger impact.

I'm noticing endorsements but, agree, it shouldn't be used to gang up and bully people. Also my choices will largely be based on what I think candidates might offer, not on who they have endorsed.

Doesn't that he seems sensible in hustings have any bearing? i.e. that it might lead him to make a sensible decision on who he is endorsing.

PS I like that you are not convinced by populism and you obviously have experience of what works on the ground.

Hi Alex, it’s not about knowing exactly, more about what you feel you could provide as a deputy leader. What you would do that would have impact beyond the impact that you already obviously do have as a councillor? I picked up on the radical hope message but that doesn’t seem different to me.

I said I wouldn’t comment again. I really will try and make that my last one on this.

It might even work short-term, who knows, I’m torn on that, though I can see the risks, but it also contributes to that climate of depressing politics which I personally think Greens should try and avoid /4

On the other hand Adrian is using a common understanding of populist politics (which Zack’s politics does look like) and criticising that strategy. It might be that Zack has something else in mind but what Adrian is describing is what Greens Organise describe as their strategy /3

And the process of tightening it up so that it delivered four MPs. It comes over as slippery to me like Boris Johnson. I am not a particular fan of TTW and there may be ways we can improve it, but I’m much less of a fan of slippery, vague, sound bite politics. /2

Yes, it’s depressing but that was what Zack did, and when Adrian directly picked him up on it by saying he didn’t support TTW, he responded in an aggrieved way because “briefcase politics” could mean anything, even though it’s most likely to refer to TTW 1/

He's simply not. I'm going to end this here as it's getting nowhere.

And then the worst bit is that his supporters parroted the sound bite he used to directly attack and ridicule. That's clever, but not the way I like politics to be.

Well more so the current leadership. That's much more insulting than simply disagreeing with a strategy.

Zack used the term "briefcase politics" early on to attack his opponents.

Choosing to pitch one group against another is fundamentally divisive. A leadership contest is by nature divisive. Not always as fraught as this one (the stakes are high) but it's about differences or why bother

I would say, with 'the super organism', it's not just about one class against another, it involves all of us, caught within the capitalist industrial mindset, although that's so huge - sloganeering isn't going to be enough.

Adrian Ramsay disagrees with Zack Polanski's strategy just like Zack Polanski disagrees with Adrian Ramsay's strategy. They have different outlooks on what will work best for the party and in the wider societal context. That is all.

This is just laughable, sorry. And feels a bit like an attempt to gas light.

I don't know whether to begin to try and explain how Green Politics is different from that of old Labour. Probably not worth my time. It's perfectly possible to appreciate the damage that extreme wealth has had without it being the only thing that defines us.

Again it’s not as simple as that. I would say that Zack might be good at attracting people who are drawn to simple explanations, whereas Adrian and Ellie might be better at attracting people who see the world in a more complex way and the nuances.

She was also a much better communicator than Zack on that occasion, I thought.

.@EllieChowns was excellent, incidentally, at explaining a different, more inclusive and positive way of making arguments, in the debate I watched earlier.