I GUESS I AM ONE BIG GIANT WATERMELON, GREEN ON THE OUTSIDE AND RED TO THE CORE

Our parent’s always told us that what is really important in life can never be bought, that love and true happiness  are not products to be consumed, or simply commodities to be purchased.

And yet for the last 30 years we have all sat back and witnessed an orgy of world wide spending, in a consumer led world where buying a new car, a bigger TV, a larger house all seemed to define who we were, and made us slaves to a society hell bent on reaching the point where the world eventually consumed itself.

But then came the crash, and we now live in a world of consumers who could no longer consume, without the money and without the credit, and increasingly without the security everyone relied on to ensure that the mortgage and credit card bills were paid, and we started to  think again as to what is really important to us.

People have started to redefine, who they are, and what it is they really value, and in the current cold light of austerity they realise, as our parents warned us, that life cannot be bought, and they now look to reorder their lives, and set new priorities.

This cultural shift in life pattern is happening all around us, it is redefining not just who we are as a society it is also educating us, making us reevaluate ourselves and our lives, making us question things such as what we should and should not be eating, how we should be living, who we should be helping, how we should use our free time to enrich ourselves not make ourselves.

The current recession has also made us ask some critical questions about trust, the two big players in our lives the banks and the politicians all of a sudden seem far less wise, we don't trust them with our money anymore and we certainly don't trust them with our vote.

But in communities like the one I represent in Castle Ward, austerity and hard times are unfortunately no strangers, and we are  better prepared than most to deal with the consequences of recession.

We are people more likely to be sociable to our neighbours, more protective of the vulnerable, more likely to step in rather than stand aside when the time comes for us to act. Studies find that despite having the least, communities like ours are where you are most likely to find people more social, face to face, more likely to lend a few bob to an acquaintance outside of our family, more willing to befriend others rather than retreat into our own homes.

From my vantage point as a Cllr and MP representing the people of Castle Ward at all levels, I have learnt that true power, true control, can only ever come from within, and I am fed up of fighting against politico’s for votes rather than fighting alongside the community for real change.

I left the Labour Party, and then discovered that really it had left me, I have battled on as an Independent to try to make a difference for local people and have had some successes,  but now it is time to truly give the power back to the people.

For this reason, recently the local Green Party and myself have been holding discussions as to how we might join forces and together offer a real alternative to Castle Ward’s voters and non voters alike, 

I have now joined the Green Party as a statement of my commitment to them, they in return have acknowledged my long standing political independence and agreed that we should now both campaign together locally under an “INDEPENDENT GREEN’ banner, and I will stand at the election as a Green Party candidate

Interestingly enough, the Green Party is the only Party in the UK which you can be a member of and yet still stand at an election as an Independent (but not against an official Green candidate) But as I say above I have chosen to campaign and as an Independent Green and proudly display the Green Party Logo on the ballot paper.

I am now in a party once again whose policy objectives support high-quality public services run for people not private profit. A party willing to protect the NHS and Post Office from privatisation and return our energy, water and rail networks to public ownership, supporting our education system by providing free school meals, abolishing tuition fees and ensuring all schools are accountable to parents. Committed to separating  retail and investment banks and empowering communities with a network of not-for-profit lenders, supporting cooperative, diverse and resilient local economies, reversing the status-seeking wealth concentration that is deepening social divisions and destroying our natural world. 

A big move for me? Well funny enough when reading the Green Party Policy documents and manifesto, I actually found myself rejoining the Labour Party I first joined in the 1980's ! How times change!