IN his letter on the Lancaster May Day March Richard Newman-Thompson describes the Green Party as a "party of the right masquerading as the left".

A simple look at the facts of that march (which

Newman-Thompson wasn't present at) will dispose of his daft claim.

From the steps of the City Museum the invited Green Party speaker, Chris Hart, made a stirring attack on the economic globalisation to which this Labour Government is wedded.

Chris saw globalisation as dangerously increasing the gap between rich and poor across the world, and as leading to disastrous environmental decline for all of us.

This is hardly the talk of a "party of the right".

Meantime, down in the Square itself, I was handing out Green Party leaflets attacking the Labour Government's creeping privatisation of our public services.

So the Green Party was firmly on the side of the ordinary people and trade unionists at the May Day March, trying to protect public services from Labour's right-wing undermining of them.

The Green Party members present at this rally contributed peacefully and rationally to the May Day debate, as we have for a good number of years now.

In no way were we a disruptive presence, and we

certainly did not try to prevent other speakers from having their say.

Richard Newman-Thompson's phrase, "party of the right masquerading as the left", strikes me as a good description of the Labour Government itself, although these days Tony Blair hardly any longer bothers to masquerade as anything other than the neo-liberal ideologue he is.

The whole long series of "cash for access" scandals - Ecclestone, Enron, Mittal, and so on - has shown us just how deeply the Labour Party is now in thrall to big business.

Voters and activists who want a political alternative which will challenge the grip the big corporations have on our lives and culture will increasingly turn to the Green Party.

Cllr Tony Pinkney

Lancaster Green Party