Guest election blog – Lib Dems by Stephen Moss

I am an author, naturalist, university lecturer and former wildlife TV producer, originally from London but now living in Somerset. I have produced numerous TV programmes and written many books about the natural world and environmental issues, and feel passionately about the need to take urgent action to reverse global biodiversity loss and the climate crisis.

I first voted in the 1979 general election (when to my eternal shame, as a very politically naïve 19-year-old, I voted Conservative). Since then I have generally voted Liberal, but when I lived in North London in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I voted tactically for Labour. I now vote Liberal in the Somerset constituency of Wells and Mendip Hills, a Conservative-Liberal marginal, where local resident Tessa Munt is standing against Meg Powell-Chandler, the former aide to Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings.  

This is my review of, and my thoughts about, the environmental implications of the Liberal Party election manifesto.

Let’s start with the big picture: we know that the Liberal Democrats cannot, under the current system and with fairly low polling numbers, form the next government. However, they can hold the Labour government to account, and there is a chance – albeit a fairly small one – that they can get enough seats to be the largest opposition party, beating the Conservatives into third place and rendering them even more irrelevant; possibly even hastening the Tories’ extinction as a political force.  

That is why, if you care about the environment, and live in any constituency where the Liberal Democrats are second to the Tories – or indeed to Labour – I would urge you to vote tactically for the Lib Dem candidate to try to achieve the maximum possible number of seats for the party.

Things I like:

• Their priorities
  • Of all the main parties, the Lib Dems have the strongest and most prominent environmental policies (even if they do bang on a bit too much about river pollution, which although very important, is not the biggest problem we face).Their ‘Fair deal for the environment’ gets equal billing with the economy, public services, a strong UK and democracy, which is excellent.I was especially impressed by the way they link environmental benefits with economic ones, instead of setting them against one another as the Tories do.The high priority they give to tackling the climate crisis (although they still use the less powerful phrase ‘climate change’); with really practical solutions such as home insulation schemes, clean energy etc. 
  • The way they don’t shy away from mentioning ‘transitioning to net zero’.
• Energy Policy
  • They start by saying ‘Climate change is an existential threat’ – honest, clear and true. And again, they link dealing with the crisis with lowering people’s domestic energy bills – sensible and correct.Driving ‘a rooftop solar revolution’ by expanding incentives, and aiming to get 90% of all UK electricity from renewables by 2030. 
  • Making it cheaper and easier to switch to electric vehicles.
• Environment
  • The section on ‘Natural Environment’ is excellent: clear, honesty, powerful and full of practical ways in which we can improve the environment for people and wildlife.I like the way they start with a clear statement: ‘Protecting our precious natural environment lies at the heart of the Liberal Democrat approach’. About time one of the major parties said this!
  • Ambitious yet achievable targets to double the area of habitats, abundance of species and Protected Areas by 2050.
• Food and Farming
  • A holistic National Food Strategy (though it focuses more on food and health and fails to join the dots by linking this to an improved environment).The pledge to ‘Accelerate the rollout of the new Environmental Land Management schemes, properly funding it with an extra £1 billion a year to support profitable, sustainable and nature-friendly farming’. (My Italics)
  • Supporting farmers in restoring natural habitats and improving species recovery and carbon storage, while still producing food.
• Other
  • A sensible, balanced approach to Housing and Transport policies, which would benefit the wider environment as well as people.A clear support for a pluralistic media, including the BBC, to allow open reporting so crucial in a democracy.
  • Strong policies on Rights and Equality; again essential in a democracy, and so harmed by the Conservative policies of the last 14 years.

Things I don’t like:

• Nothing, really, apart from the few omissions set out below. The manifesto is refreshingly free from the dog-whistles of the Conservatives and the general lack of focus and vision of much of Labour’s manifesto.

Things that appear to be missing:

To be fair, there is only so much room in any manifesto – nevertheless, I would like to have seen them at least mention the issues outlined below:

• The Foreword from Ed Davey does include the water and sewage scandal, but might perhaps have also mentioned the biodiversity crisis or climate change – I suspect they omitted them because they know that these are not a high priority with floating voters. Understandable, but still a pity.
• The ‘fair deal on the environment’ only mentions nature once, in a rather generalised way ‘we will restore nature’ – without saying how (though those details are outlined later).
• The section on Health, while packed with excellent policies, doesn’t mention increasing access to the natural world to improve people’s physical and mental health and overall well-being – also a pity.
• The section on Education doesn’t mention the benefits of outdoor education, or Mary Colwell’s excellent proposal for a Natural History GCSE.

Overall assessment:

By the end of reading this manifesto I felt optimistic and hopeful. So many of the policies resonated with me – not just the environmental issues but also wider ones, which contribute to a strong and democratic society.

Then I remembered that unfortunately most of them won’t be enacted because the Lib Dems won’t get into power. Yet maybe, just maybe, Labour will take a look at these excellent, practical and sensible polices and steal some of them!

Would I vote for these environmental policies?

Absolutely, yes!

This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. They were commissioned by Wild Justice several months ago by approaching a wide variety of conservationists and environmentalists long before the date of the general election was known. Some people who originally agreed to write pieces found the date and short timescale impossible and had to back out. We did not know what they would write and their only brief was to pick one or two political parties’ election manifestos and tell us what they liked and didn’t like about their environmental policies. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.

If you think you could produce a review of one of the 2024 general election manifestos then we would need to receive it as soon as possible, but in any case before 26 June, in a similar format to that above, as a word file and with a .jpg or .png image of yourself, the author. Send any potential texts to admin@wj.samkilday.com and we will look at them. We’ll let you know if we want to publish your piece and we may be able to pay you a small amount for it.