May I introduce myself?

I am Stuart Macdonald and I am your Green party parliamentary candidate for the Witney constituency.

I want you to vote for me.

I have lived in Witney for nearly 20 years. I am no career politician. I am standing for election because I am angry. Let me tell you why.

We all benefit when resources are used wisely. Most people now realise this. Just as drink driving became socially unacceptable, Green behavior is now socially sensible. The Green message is accepted just about everywhere.

Beware Greenwash! The other parties have sought to exploit this surge of Green feeling. Beware their greenwash. It is superficial, inadequate and insulting. Their proposals do not address the underlying problem.

The Greens are a modern political party with a radical agenda, and the only party that puts the environment at the heart of radical change.

The rich and privileged live totally separate lives from the rest of us. No wonder they are astonished by public outrage at their mega salaries and astronomic bonuses. No wonder they just do not get it.

It is up to you to demand a fairer society, one where resources are distributed so that the rest of us - not just the privileged - can make choices.

Choices   We seem to have let the privileged few make the choices, and we have meekly accepted the results. We believed what we were told about benefits for the privileged few trickling down to everyone. We accepted that growth was good.

We have been terribly gullible. We now have a society more unequal and unfair than it has been for centuries. It has become all too clear that there is nothing at all good about mindless growth.

Who benefits from this mess?  Whenever resources are free for the taking, the powerful who grab most, be this leisure or health services or education.

Surely we have had enough of the rampant self-interest embraced by both main parties over the last 30 years. The ideology that sought to encourage bright young entrepreneurs to change the world through their energy and determination has been hijacked by those able to exploit our ignorance to make themselves rich. In their hands the promise of the information economy and high technology has become Enron, the Dot.Com bubble and the credit crunch.

Greed has been good, very good indeed, for these few – and very bad for the rest of us. They led us to believe that their activities create wealth: all they really do is consume wealth.

The solution  Many of us still think in the public interest, not just in our own. We want to choose what is good for everyone, not just ourselves. But no matter how good our intentions, we are not going to be able to take better care of our environment unless we have the power to make changes. At the moment, that power lies elsewhere.

Why not show that you will not take yet more of the same? Show that you have had enough. Show that you care. Vote Green this time.

More on the blog at www.profmacdonald.wordpress.com

Tel: 01993-772871 or Email Stuart