Greens reject scaremongering by bankers
For immediate release 3 May 2010
The Scottish Greens today condemned city traders' plans to open futures trading at 1am on Friday, and bankers' warnings about the consequences of a balanced Parliament. (1) The majority of European countries use fairer electoral systems, and there is no evidence that coalition government leads to worse economic management. Basic democratic principles mean a diverse electorate should be represented by a diverse Parliament, not an over-powerful majority administration elected with a minority of the vote. In 2005, for example, Labour won 55% of the seats with just 35% of the votes.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
"This is frankly a pathetic attempt to intimidate the public, the very people who are already paying the price for a failure of historic proportion by the so-called talent in the city. It's the norm in most European countries to have balanced parliaments, and for David Cameron's old school chums in the city to threaten to do even more damage to the economy if the public have the nerve to vote for what they believe in is simply disgraceful.
"Every voter who remembers the contempt these selfish bankers showed for the public will refuse to be bullied by them now. It's time to tax the speculation they rely on, and to pull the plug on the casino banking model that got us into this mess. We won't see this country's building societies, co-operatives or credit unions spending all night trying to undermine democracy, and the bankers should think twice before doing so in the wee small hours of Friday morning."