16th September 2008

John Marjoram writes to correct 'First' magazine's coverage of the three party conferences. In fact there were other party conferences as John points out. 

Hoping not to be accused of being too pedantic but in your “First” edition  of the 6th September article on the annual conference season you talk about the Lib Dems being the first off the blocks. In reality of course both Plaid Cymru and the Green Party had successful conferences in the previous week to Nick Clegg’s Party. In the case of the Greens conference they voted in Caroline Lucas MEP,as their first leader in their 35 year history with a conference attendance of well over 500 hundred delegates. Further they launched together with nef-(the new economics foundation) and other NGO’s , “A Green New Deal” which is basically joined –up policies to solve the triple crunch of the credit crises, climate change and high oil prices They have now 120 Councillors represented on principle authorities which include places such as Brighton, Oxford , Lancaster and Norwich. In Stroud we have 6 councillors on the District Council and the Greens have a majority on the Town Council.

Nationally the “Others” including Plaid, the Scots Nats and Greens now make up 12% in the opinion polls compare this to the early fifties when Labour and Conservatives commandeered 98% of the vote. So two points are worth making, despite our archaic voting system of “first past the post” the Labour and Tory vote is crumbling. Secondly, I would expect that “our”political magazine would look more carefully into raison d’être of smaller parties, whether through the conference circuit or doing analysis of their policies!?

Regards
John Marjoram
Green Councillor
Stroud District Council and also Stroud Town Mayor