New principal speaker for Greens
The Green Party has announced that is to appoint Keith Taylor as its new principal speaker.
Mr Taylor will hold the post jointly with Caroline Lucas MEP.
The appointment comes after the untimely death of Dr Mike Woodin, who died of cancer in July aged just 38.
The Green Party’s principal speaker is the party’s figurehead who deals will public and media relations. The party’s convention holds that the position is always shared by a man and a women.
Mr Taylor is the leader of the Greens in Brighton Council and achieved the highest-ever vote for a Green candidate in the 2001 General Election.
Mr Taylor is a popular figure within the Green Party and was a local businessman before become a councillor.
Speaking today Mr Taylor said: “I always thought I wasn’t the sort of person who would join a political party, but then as a community activist I saw that the Green Party was the only one that was doing the right job and asking the right questions.”
Outlining his political priorities he said: “We’re the only party challenging the core neoliberal agenda of privatisation, globalisation, militarisation and a tokenistic approach to the ecological crisis.
“We must get our priorities right. Climate change is the biggest threat to world stability, to the environment and to our economy.
“Increasingly Greens are getting elected and when we get elected the public see us making a difference.”
A party spokesman today said that voters should watch his career “with interest” and pointed out that since Mr Taylor won his Brighton seat the Green’s have doubled their strength to six councillors and managed to push Labour into third place in the recent European elections.
