A musical weekend - and press coverage

Saturday night at a neighbours' wonderful party - in their garden with live music, BBQ and a great veggie curry - then Sunday and an afternoon in the sun listening to more music at a Green party fundraising Garden party in Stroud - not normally the sort of Green party fundraiser but was so good that I am sure we'll do something similar again.

The musicians and the songs included Native American influences - I was particularly moved by the words of some - and some were right up to date talking about the threat of GM - the Government's latest moves to push GM are going almost unnoticed - did get a letter in Western Daily but press release hasn't been taken up.

At the neighbours party someone commented The Citizen was particularly good to the Greens - it has certainly got better - as in the past we've been largely ignored - indeed their are several copies of my letters to their editor challenging their 'censorship' last year prior to the elections - but do we get a fair whack now?

We are still not asked to comment on the big stories despite getting an average of 20% of the vote across the Stroud District - and the rare times we do get asked to comment are nearly always the traditional 'green' topics - I am sure it is for us to improve as well - to be more effective at getting our message across.....

Our letters do get into the paper - but certainly not all of them - the Glos Green party website carries many of them including the unpublished - we should be in much more often as it is now only the Greens that are the opposition on so many issues - calling a halt to further privatisation of our health services, opposition to GM, opposing the wars, calling for fairer taxes, challenging others on climate change etc etc. The other three parties are now so similar on most issues you can hardly tell them apart - just like Blair, Cameron is failing to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, just like Labour, the Tories want more road building and airport expansion.....but more on the workings of press another time......we are certainly much more fortunate here in Gloucestershire than many other areas, with the quality of local journalism.