28th December 2005

The Green party gets less media coverage than other political parties so it was good to see a letter in The Citizen with my name about pensions (3/12/05). However to my surprise the words were not mine but rather from the website 'blog' of the Citizen Editor's Ian Mean!

I would not have chosen to highlight the potential fallout between Blair and Brown over pensions, but would certainly agree with much of Ian Means' blog calling on the government to take the Turner report seriously. Greens have long been calling for a universal 'Citizen’s Pension': a basic, weekly pension guaranteed for all, free from means testing and rising in line with average earnings.

A Citizens pension would abolish abject pensioner poverty and recognise the real, but unpaid, contribution that millions of women have made to society when they have worked in the home rather than the workplace. Greens are also calling for major institutional changes in the pensions industry to restore confidence and encourage people to make more voluntary contributions.

For those interested in catching up on Green views there are now over 400 Gloucestershire Green party news items from 2005 alone, including those covered by The Citizen, please visit our new look website: www.glosgreenparty.org.uk

Philip Booth, Press Officer, Gloucestershire Green Party.