Any colour you like, but we need some sort of PR

Not content with his monthly political column in this magazine, last month Chris Loder wrote a letter pointing out that he “doesn’t tend to write on party politics” and was critical of the other columnists for doing so. Now I don’t want this to come as a shock Chris, but these columns are about party politics. That’s why the three columns alongside yours are entitled ‘Politics’. These other columns are not entitled ‘Constituency issues’ because they are not written by the West Dorset MP.

Rather than play party politics Chris says that he chooses to focus “on what is being done to deliver on the things that matter for

By KELVIN CLAYTON West Dorset Green Party

West Dorset”. The problem with this holier than thou attitude is that the things that matter are not homogenous and clear cut – they are different for different groups of people in different circumstances. The role of the other columnists, as I see it, is to represent, as far as we are able, these other perspectives and point out where the incumbent government is failing. Having said that, I do agree with Chris about not repeating “established party-political central office attack lines”.

I can honestly say that the views I express in this column are my own and are not dictated to me. The fact that my views tend to mirror those of the Green Party is why I am a member. I genuinely feel under no pressure to conform, and can honestly say that at Dorset Council the Green group never imposes a ‘whip’ when it comes to voting. More generally, politics needs to be done differently in this country. The current government and opposition adversarial divide is not conducive to constructive deliberation, and it does not represent the diversity of the country as a whole. This is why we need some version of Proportional Representation. We need not only all views represented in parliament, but all views involved in decision-making.

We need to understand that there are rarely, if ever, clear cut solutions to our problems, and that good decisions need to take into account all perspectives. Chris closes his letter with a passing comment on the yellow leaflets of the Lib Dems. Now it has come to my attention that certain incumbent Tory MPs have changed the colour of their own party leaflets from blue to green. Now why would they do that? Surely they couldn’t be getting so nervous of losing their seat that they were trying to pass themselves off as green? But I’m sure Chris wouldn’t do that.