Greens eye Westminster
The Green Party’s annual conference opens in Chesterfield today with the Greens hoping that it will boost their chances of returning their first ever MP.
Principal Speaker Keith Taylor, who is eying a seat in Brighton Pavilion, will be making a keynote speech with co-Principal Speaker Caroline Lucas MEP.
Unlike the other parties, the Greens do not have one single leader. They have two Principal Speaker roles, which are always held by a man and a woman.
Ms Lucas and Mr Taylor will be speaking from a specially made joint podium.
The timing of the speech clashes with the opening of the Liberal Democrat’s spring conference in Harrogate.
But the Greens are not afraid of comparisons, and are even going as far as to claim that they, not the Lib Dems, are the “real opposition”.
They will unveil their general election slogan: “The Real Choice for Real Change”.
Speaking before the conference opened, Mr Taylor said: “How can the Lib Dems claim to be a real voice of opposition when they accept the Government’s agenda of privatisation, when they recently opposed congestion charging in Edinburgh, and when they only turned against the war on Iraq after their market research told them to do so?
“The other parties are TweedleDum, TweddleDee, and the TweedleDems. Only the Green Party, with our intelligent, radical and compassionate vision for politics, can provide an authentic voice of opposition.”
He added: “The Green Party received over a million votes in the European Elections and – at least in a few key constituencies – voters could now elect a real alternative to the war-mongering and deception of the Labour Party. Once in Parliament, even a handful of Green MPs would change the face of politics for good”.
