Time for Change : voting Green

I started out a socialist. I had five years as a mining engineer in the National Coal Board; it may not have been the most efficient mining industry in the world but it had an excellent safety record considering it's the most dangerous sort of mining operation in the world. I was proud to work for it. Then came Thatcher. The mantra at Rolls Royce (where I was chaplain) was "Remember, we're not primarily here to make gas turbines - we're here to make money." Well, we've all seen where that leads. We've reached the end of that road. New Labour ditched any socialist vision (apart from the NHS) and I'm not hearing any real vision from any of the other main parties. There's no vision left in the bank, just top-down managerialism.

We all know what the real crisis is, but although the 'main' parties are happy to bolt on a bit of greenery to their core ethos, that's all it is - bolted on, not grafted in, and it will soon wither. I've been reading around Green politics since the mid-80s. The Green Party is the only one that comes near to taking humanity's relationship with the environment as the starting point for its political thinking, the platform on which all subsequent policy is built. There was a time when the only thing Green candidates had to offer was that starting platform; they seemed to have no real policy on poverty, or redistribution of wealth, or unemployment, or health care. That has now changed. Here in Oxford, people like the late-lamented Mike Woodin and current MEP Caroline Lucas have helped to create a party worthy of government.

I've voted Green in Euro and local elections for some time now, but the time has now come to vote according to conscience (not just strategically) in the next General Election, which may be sooner than we think.

And if some form of proportional representation is to come - and again, I think its time has come - then in order for people to have a relationship with their candidates (one of the problems with PR) then they need to join the political parties. So I shall be joining the Green Party this week.