With the Green Party in Brighton

I can't exactly remember why I joined the Green Party. Maybe the change was caused by weeks of listening to "Costing the Earth" on Radio 4 when I drove home from yoga. Maybe it was a terror at the threatening loss of bees. Maybe it was because I miss the sparrows that were 2 a penny when I was a kid. And now if you see one it's something special. Maybe it's because I often watch Russell Brand and his True News (Trews) on Youtube and I felt that I too, wanted to be engaged with politics. I can't remember a specific moment when I felt pushed to do it, but I became part of the Green Surge earlier this year, (when the membership of the Greens suddenly rose) and I'm glad I did.

This weekend is a 3-day weekend so I thought I would spend one day campaigning for Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green M.P., who is standing for re-election down on the South coast.

The Greens email you with notifications about meetings and involvement and as soon as you say you will go they send you instructions. It was quite a cold morning when I arrived at Brighton station rather later than the specified 10 a.m. and I found the "Eco-centre" (a run-down-looking shop with an intercom door) opposite the station after looking for it all round the block, because it doesn't look like anything much. But the girl inside was really friendly, took my details, said I would need some training and then she would put me in a team and send me to a ward.

I was lucky because I was given a lift with 3 other people to Sue Shanks' house out in the Preston Park area of Brighton (this is actually 1 station back from the town centre on the train line). Mike was a very handsome young man from Dulwich, his friend Minnie from Queen's Park, and John, a Maths teacher, was a very experienced canvasser from Brighton. I asked to team up with John as he know what he was doing and was keen to get on with it, and we were given a canvasser's pack and off we went to find the streets. So I didn't get any training, but I had John. John knew the way.

At this stage in the campaign all the streets have already been canvassed. Our role was to knock on houses whose residents had been out last time canvassers called, and try to find out which way they would vote. The role of a canvasser is to gain information and only partly to engage people in conversation about why they will/won't be supporting your candidate. So where we encountered people who said they would support Caroline we took their email address and checked their phone number, in case they don't vote on the day and we can persuade them at the last minute to go to the polling station and cast their Green Vote.

We had a code for how keen/not keen each voter was on voting Green. We also had a code for people who were rude, etc. Where people were out we put a card through the door with the voter's name on. where our information about the household was wrong we updated it. It was clearly a busy Saturday in Brighton and many people were out doing things with their children and riding bikes and all the usual things people do on a Saturday, but we had enough conversations for me to get to know some of the issues in Brighton.

With some people the Green Party is very unpopular because of its stance on cars. Parking spaces are at a premium and therefore parking is expensive. Some people even have to pay £100 a year to park on the street outside their houses. In some places traffic speed has been limited to 20 miles an hour - this is actually where the residents voted for the change, (according to the leaflet) - but some voters have really hated these changes and are also angry because of spending on cycle lanes.

Another cause of rage and frustration is industrial action by the bin men. The Green Party had to implement a law on equality of pay for men and women and have done this in such a way as to enrage those who drive the refuse lorries. They haven't been on strike for a while but they sometimes work to rule in such a way as to leave certain streets out of the collection.

Any problem that people have is amplified by the local press, which is virulently anti-Green. So complaints make headlines: "Greens are ruining our City" type of thing.

All local councils have had to implement cuts because of funding slashes from central government which is on an austerity mission, and in Brighton these cuts are blamed on the Greens even though Tory-run councils are just the same. In fact, the Greens have done well to protect children's services such as Sure Start centres, which in some areas of the country (probably the most needy) have been closed down.

The Green supporter is usually better-off and able to see the bigger picture, and likes its stance on Trident (scrap it), the railways (re-nationalise), fracking (leave it in the ground), social care (improve it) and the NHS (no privatization whatsoever).

In the afternoon John, whose company I had enjoyed and with whom I had much in common, had to go and do something else, so we said goodbye back at Sue's house and I stayed there to eat. Sue (a Councillor in Brighton and fantastically energetic and brisk, also has a lovely house) and her assistant Carly(?) had provided loaves of bread, butter, cheese, salad, and biscuits. So we sat around the big dining table in the front room and ate, and the young people (they were all in their 20s) all discussed actions they had been on. They were very friendly and intelligent, I enjoyed meeting them all.

 Then I had a coffee (I was pretty tired) and then walked with a young man to the Park for a rally. I had never been to a rally. There was a green bus, from which Caroline Lucas made a speech, and another speaker Mark Thomas, made another speech, and I squeezed into a group photo. Afterwards we milled around and chatted. I took a leaflet for another action for Keep it in the Ground and had a good chat with that young man. Caroline Lucas was there and I asked her for a photo. (She is very nice and obliging).

Then I walked back to the house, got another partner and another couple of roads to canvas and off we went again, but this time we were in a Tory area! You can tell Tory areas by their tidy gardens (mostly paved) which give pride of place to the driveway and car - always a newish, shiny, look-at-my-status sort of car, sometimes a 4 x 4. There is almost no point in talking to the owners of Gas Guzzlers about voting Green. They are almost hilariously short-sighted about all issues, ending and beginning with their own standard of living. They vote by post as they don't like to mix with other people down at the polling station. They are essentially private people, very reluctant to tell you which way they'll vote. We also talked to some very old ladies who told us they would vote Tory because their fathers had. Apparently there is no likelihood of a Tory M.P. down there in Brighton, but Labour may well swing things around. So I wore myself out on this ghastly Toryland but I enjoyed getting to know my new partner Hywel. And then we got lifts back to town, (Hywel was staying in a Green member's spare room in Brighton) and I eventually got home but I HAD NEVER BEEN SO TIRED!

Meanwhile, I was pleased to hear of the founding of the Women's Equality Party until I realised that it will, one day, split the Green Vote, and but they have no policies, apart from thinking that women must have a louder voice in politics. What exactly do they want to do?  all very vague.