In Praise of Politics

We’ve been accused recently, and perhaps with some cause, of focusing too much on the machinations of the English and Welsh Green Party and not enough on what’s happening up here in Scotland. It’s certainly true that in the run up to GPEW conference next month, and with two of our editors and most of [...]

Why the Green Party should elect a ‘Shadow Cabinet’

This guest post is by Jonathan Kent, and was first published on his blog, The Headstrong Club.
This September, when the Green Party of England and Wales meets for the first time as a party represented at Westminster, members will be asked to vote on a proposal to elect a Green Shadow Cabinet.
In some ways it’s [...]

Adam Pogonowski: Derek Wall for Deputy Leader

Guest writer Adam Pogonowski is a Cambridge City councillor, and blogs at adampogonowski.blogspot.com. Here he explains why he’s backing Derek Wall for Deputy Leader; you can read Adam Ramsay’s case for re-electing Adrian Ramsay (no relation) here.
The role of Deputy Leader is to build and maintain grassroots support for the Green Party, and to engage [...]

Where next for Welsh politics?

By Sam Coates, who works for the Green Party in Wales
Now that Labour is out of power in Westminster Wales has an interesting medal, it hosts the highest level of Labour government in Britain. Although certain areas returned to the Tories in a way that didn’t happen in Scotland, Labour still dominates the political culture [...]

Greens need to resist mainstream pressure for political ‘justification’…

There are two key paragraphs from Rupert Read’s recent article, which addresses the impressive growth of the Green party membership and its implications, I wish to highlight:
“We need to review our policy commitments to ensure that there is nothing there to embarrass us, because our policy commitments are going to come under more scrutiny than [...]

Green shoots of a different kind

This is a guest post from Norwich Councillor Rupert Read on the challenges and opportunities facing the Green Party of England and Wales, which raises issues of importance also to other Green Parties. Dr Read blogs at Rupert’s Read and is a regular contributor to ourKingdom.
The Green Party of England and Wales has been experiencing [...]

Ken Livingstone hints at endorsement of Tony Juniper (but couldn’t possibly comment)

Fans of House of Cards will recognise it immediately. When asked whether he was urging Cantabrians to vote for Green candidate Tony Juniper over Labour’s Daniel Zeichner, Ken Livingstone cannily replied: “If I sit here all night you will not get me to say it. It would make life so difficult.”
Or, as Francis Urquhart would [...]

The 5 best bits of Green spring conference.

(Green Party of England and Wales) Spring Conference fun is over, so I thought I’d write my top 5 things from the weekend, for those of you who missed it.
1) The equality panel. Kate Pickett (co-author of The Spirit Level) and Indy columnist Johan Hari discussed inequality in society. Both were excellent. Kate Pickett’s thesis [...]

Green Party Conference Days 3&4: A sensible health policy

After a certain degree of criticism last year around the time of the European elections, much of it fair, over some of our policies related to healthcare it was decided to conduct a full review of the relevant section of our, recently renamed, Policies for a Sustainable Society document. Jim and Stuart have blogged on [...]

GPEW Conference Day 2: First a tragedy, then a farce

Lots of policy to talk about on day 2 of the conference, some of which I’ve mentioned already, some which I haven’t. We began with two more emergency motions, both fairly uncontroversial. First up, Turkey, and the systematic attempts of the Turkish government to shut down political expressions of Kurdish nationalism. I didn’t quite catch [...]

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