Peter Duncan Allen
Green Party
Oldham East and Saddleworth Constituency
Address
High Peak Constituency
We offer a vision of hope and optimism
The Greens have a lot to offer people in Oldham and Saddleworth. We have policies that a lot of people instinctively warm to when they hear about them.
Policies like investing for job-creation — promoting a new Green industrial revolution that could restore UK manufacturing industry and take the lead in renewable energy production and create large numbers of jobs while cutting CO2 emissions. Many will welcome our position in favour of an immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan. The Green Party was opposed to the war from the start, although it gives us no pleasure to be proved right in our prediction that military intervention by foreign powers would not be able to provide a solution to Afghanistan’s problems, and would lead to the futile loss of thousands of lives.
We are against cuts in public spending. Not only are cuts unjust and unfair, and will cause hardship and suffering for people in Oldham and elsewhere, particularly the already vulnerable and disadvantaged, but they will do little to reduce the deficit.
In fact they are likely to make a bad situation even worse. Cutting a £25,000 job may save as little as £2,00 per year once lost taxation and increased benefit payments are taken into account. Moreover unemployed public-sector workers spend less in the local economy, putting private sector jobs at risk. Instead of cutting services we would increase taxation of, and crackdown on tax avoidance by, big business and rich individuals.
At a time when many express cynicism and despair about the behaviour of politicians and the deceit and betrayals of the established parties, the Green Party offers a voice of optimism and a vision of hope. Our fully costed policies would create a more sustainable economy and society and a fairer world.
- An advice worker in Manchester, the 50-year-old is a member of the UNITE union. He lives in Glossop where he has been involved in an active anti-war group and helped establish the campaign to re-open the Woodhead Tunnel for rail use.
