Today is the big day of the Green party campaign launch. So, naturally, the Green leader Natalie Bennett took part in a series of live radio discussions this morning about her party’s manifesto. What could have possibly gone wrong?
listen to ‘Incredibly Awkward Interview With Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett’ on audioBoom
Here’s a snippet of the interview, transcribed before this mole could listen no longer:
(Nick Ferrari – NF/ Natalie Bennett – NB)
NF – The third key theme is that the Greens will ensure everyone has a secure, affordable place to live – how would that be brought about?
Give a gift subscription to the New Statesman this Christmas from just £49NB- Well – a couple of things we want to focus on here. In terms of council housing we want to build 500,000 new social rent homes…
NF – Good Lord. Where will you get the money from for that?
NB- Well what we want to do is fund that particularly by removing the tax relief on mortgage interest for private landlords. We have a situation where private landlords at the moment… basically running away with the situation of hugely rising rents, collecting large amounts of housing benefits
NF- But how much would that be worth – the mortgage relief for private landlords?
NB – Erm, well, it’s, that’s part of the whole costing of all of this…
NF – The cost of 500,000 homes – let’s start with that – how much is that going to be?
NB – Right, well that’s erm… you’ve got a total cost um that will be spelt out in our manifesto…
NF- So you don’t know?
NB – [Inaudible response]
NF – No you don’t, right.
NF – So we 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?
NB – Right, what – what we’re looking at, in terms of the figures here um – what we need to do is actually [silence] er… we’re looking at a total spend of 2. 7 [pause] billion…
NF – 500,000 – 2.7 billion – what are they made of, plywood?
NB – Um, basically, what we’re talking about is 500,000 new homes and each £1 spent on these brings back £2.40
No – but what is the total cost of 500,000 new homes?
[Painful silence]
Painful indeed.
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