We're catching the bus.
Morning.
This is no ordinary but, it kind of works as a metaphor for the general election: it
runs on crap, poetically put.
Pretty much, yep.
If Britain is now full of impatience at politics as usual and there's a rising sense of new,
independent ways of thinking, where this poo-powered bus is going is right on the cutting edge.
Historically, Bristol was known as the place where people were not having it.
On a single morning in Bristol we find the city alive with activism: people recycling
food waste into free dinners.
This is what we've got so far from, like, a couple of places.
Ok, and this is food that would otherwise be thrown away.
Yes.
And protesters camped at the top of trees to save land from a new bus route.
Struggling through the woods here.
Our land is just disappearing, we're digging the graves of our grandchildren.
Self-resilience is a really important part of what we are trying to connect with.
I live quite near Bristol and like it here... a lot.
It's no coincidence that the Green Party think they're in with a shout of winning here in
the constituency of Bristol West.
All of the things that I believe in they seem to stand for.
It's probably easy enough for the Greens to get votes amongst certain kinds of people:
students, bohemians, Guardian readers, people like me, but if they're really going to establish
a foundation in Bristol, they're going to have to speak to parts of the city where politics,
any politics, doesn't really make much of an impact.
Because if they don't, they're in danger of not so much being a political movement as
a middle class sect.
Which is why we've come to the outer edge of the constituency and the neighbourhood
of Lawrence Hill.
Are you going to vote in the election? You're not going to vote at all?
Have you registered to vote?
So Lawrence Hill, yeah, a bit of a different location...
This is not natural Green territory we're in now, is it?
This is not natural Green territory, no.
There's no Whole Foods shops.
There's no Whole Foods...
Haven't seen anyone with a CND badge on.
No, no. It is definitely not.
Excuse me, sir.
Jude is the refreshingly unspun Green candidate for the city council here in the poorest ward
in the south west.
Hello young people.
Well away from her party's usual comfort zone, she's been energetically trying to build support.
Green party - eh? No.
I don't know, I'm still thinking who am I going to vote for?
It's like they're having an election meeting. In a bus stop in Bristol.
There shouldn't be things being sold off for people to make profits.
No, no, no way because in Jamaica they sell everything. Only thing leave for them to don't sell is
the people them in Jamaica the government don't pick up and sell.
People say "don't vote Green because the won't get in" but they could here.
Darren Hall, he could be your MP.
This is quite a working class area.
Yep.
With a lot of black and minority ethnic voters, neither of whom, thus far, the Green party
has done very well with.
Yep.
Right? That's true isn't it? So this is your biggest challenge what we're in the middle
of here.
I'd say two things. We've done a huge amount of work on things like housing.
What other issues do you speak to people in areas like this?
We're very clear about treating people fairly around migration and asylum seekers.
You know, we haven't pandered to any of that fearful territory of the right.
But you've got to get at least ten times more votes than you got last time win here. Roughly.
It's in that region, isn't it?
Yeah, but it's... it's three times the amount of local votes we've had in between.
I'm missing out the stepping stone in other words, right.
Yeah, exaclty.
It's not as bad as it looks.
No.
Ha ha
I'd been a political activist but never actually joined a party. I joined when Caroline became leader.
Those were the days!
Ha ha ha ha!
In the build up to the election the Greens, as you may have noticed, have had a bit of
trouble with getting their message right.
Here, Darren is putting in extra work on how to answer the tough question and avoid those
pesky brain fades.
The Greens say they will scrap tuition fees - how will you... how will you pay for that?
This is about an investment in the UK... an investment in the future of our society.
Why should people spend their hard earned money on taxes towards benefits.
It's a crazy system where employers can knowingly pay people less than the living wage because
they know the state is going to pick up the rest of the bill.
What would the Green party do stop that situation getting worse with the citizens' income?
So, actually we still need to develop that, erm...
Ha ha ha ha ha!
The citizens' income is about enabling....
If you're being charitable, some of the Greens' recent problems might be down to the fact
that until recently they were a small party adjusting to the spotlight.
But obviously that's changing. Here in Bristol, in the last year, they've gone up from 250
members to over 2,000.
So, who's joined the Green party in the last six months here?
Ok, in the last year?
Wow, even the candidate!
Yeah.
Jude has been campaigning a lot around a large council estate in the inner city neighbourhood
of Redcliffe, where success for the Greens is more of a long game.
Local politics, the election, how can it help you?
No? No.
Are you interested in politics?
What do you mean, like?
I'm from the Green party. Have you heard of the Green party?
Will I be the Prime Minister?
You can.
How do I do that?
If you could have David Cameron here, what would you say to him?
Make weed legal.
Make weed legal?
Yeah.
I have to say that is a Green party policy. So... can I give you one of these?
Are you going to vote?
Erm, I might do. I don't know, I'm not registered but I might do.
Ooh, ooh if you're not registered to vote can we? You can do it online. 20th of April
is the deadline.
I said "there's going to be an election", she said "what's that?"
Really?
I have no idea.
How old are you?
21.
Right, so you can vote.
Vote for what though?
General election... the government.
Oh.
My, sort of, lingering concern, not just about Green politics but, sort of, left radical
politics so to speak, of one kind or another, is that it draws all it's sort of people power and
the people who've been knocking on doors and are prepared to be councillors from people
who aren't doing that badly, right? And they try and then speak for people who aren't doing
so well but the most enduring way of doing that would be for some of these people to
join the Green party, would be for the Green party to be a presence here.
Yeah, well...
Go that's the Green party person over there. They live here.
That's the next stage, isn't it? This is the interesting thing that's happened in the last year.
So, this time last year, you would not find a single Green party member in this area of
Lawrence Hill.
Now, I looked at the figures last week, there are 15 Green party members.
This is where the next elections will be won. So, here 10,500 voters in Lawrence Hill, of
which 2,000 vote. Yeah?
8,500 people do not bother to get out of bed in this ward. If the Green party can activate
2,500 of those votes in the next five years we can certainly win the next election if
we don't win this one.
The Green party wants to give a voice to the voiceless but when their leader appears on
the TV, she tends to get lost in drab talk about fully costed pledges while trying and
often failing to explain the sums.
What about the politics of emotion and hope? How about sounding just as stirring and inspiring
to the Green's potential voters as Nigel Farage does to his?
Do you think there's a danger - if you talk in terms of fully costed pledges and, you
know, talk about policy in the same terms as other parties do - you lose what excites
people, potentially about Green politics, which is that it's actually about a world
that lies way beyond the way the rest of the parties talk about their policies and fully
costed this and that?
We need to keep the emotion - absolutely keep the emotion in it - because I know that when
we're sat around as a party, talking about the things that we're passionate about, it's
an incredibly energetic, positive culture and conversation.
And it's only when you start thinking that you've got to be this role model in politics
that you start to, you know, sound like any of the other politicians.
We get suckered into trying to, like, explain our quite radical visions and policy in the
terms of existing parties, which is where we get tripped up but that's... that's different
from, like, we don't need to abandon evidence based policy, we just need to learn how to
explain it in a way that's meaningful to voters.
Well, look, the Green party aren't going to be in power in 2015. Our role over the next
ten years is to help people understand that we need to be in a completely different world.
I used to vote for Labour.
Yeah?
Er, but nowadays it's not as...
Not as simple. No, no.
Smaller parties are getting bigger.
Yeah, they're getting a chance.
Yeah, is that a good or a bad thing?
It's very good.
It's good?
Because the bigger parties they've nurtured their politics and it's not... it's not real
democracy to see only the bigger parties.
He's a man after my own heart.
To take, to keep everything.
Do you vote as a rule?
Yeah.
And what do you think of these, the Greens?
It sounds a bit better.
And you voted Labour last time by the sounds of it, did you?
Er, no, Ukip.
Ok.
But yeah, I'll have a think about them.
What have you heard about them?
Oh, how they're taking all the benefits away, they're doing this, they're doing that and I think: "oh
well"... I'm a disabled so I'm not able to work anyway.
So you might give them a go?
Yeah, I might. Yeah, they sound quite good.
It's just a new, new way to vote. A new... something else, hopefully. It gives you hope
to vote for.
Hope?
Yeah.
You need a bit of hope?
Yeah.