Caroline Lucas makes her maiden speach in Parliament. Click here for full speech made on May 27th durning the debate on Energy and Climate Change.

” I have an additional responsibility, which is to speak not only as the new Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion, but also as the first representative of the Green Party to be elected to Westminster.

You have to go back several decades, to the election of the first Nationalist MPs in Scotland and Wales, to find the last maiden speech from a new national political party.

And perhaps a better comparison would be those first Socialist and Independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution. When Keir Hardie made his maiden speech to this House, after winning the seat of West Ham South in 1892, there was an outcry. Because instead of frock coat and top hat, he wore a tweed suit and deerstalker.

It’s hard to decide which of these choices would seem more inappropriate today. But what Keir Hardie stood for now seems much more mainstream…………………”

Elections for Lancashire County Council and the European Parliament take place on Thursday June 4th.

For information on the Green Party campaign in the North West see: http://northwest.greenparty.org.uk or http://petercranie.blogspot.com

The Flood defence wall and new quayside pathway on St Georges Quay will be opened by the Mayor of Lancaster on Thursday April 23rd  – at 2pm. Everyone is welcome. (Meet at the Millennium Bridge end of the Quay at 1.45.)

This is part of wider St Georges Day celebrations taking place on the Quay on the day and over the weekend. In the evening on April 23rd there will be a talk in the Maritime museum by Dr Sam Riches entitled “An English Saint for English People? – The reinvention of St George.”

At the weekend there will be Family Craft workshops in the Maritime Museum on sunday afternoon 26th April 11am -1pm & 2-4pm.
And in the evening on the Sunday there is Live folk music in the Quayside pubs.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party Leader and MEP for the South East will speak at a meeting in Lancaster in March just prior to the Green Party spring conference in Blackpool.

The meeting titled – Future Bleak or Future Green? – will take place in the Hugh Pollard lecture theatre on the University of Cumbria campus on Bowerham Road, Lancaster. (Formerly St Martins College.) on Thursday 19th of March – starting at 7pm.

Admission Free.

The American energy company Canatxx has said that it intends to submit its new planning application this week to store gas in a huge underground storage facility in salt caverns beneath the River Wyre at Preesall.

Gina Dowding, the prospective Green parliamentary candidate for Lancaster & Fleetwood said “If the area was not suitable for gas storage in 2007 I don’t see what has changed to make it safe to store gas here now.” (more…)