I am standing because, particularly in David Cameron’s constituency, there is a statement to be made that might actually be heard, and that’s that we should have a better basis for running our society and our economy than we have at the moment.

I have lived in Witney for more than 20 years and I am an academic in management by background.

Oxford Mail:

Stuart McDonald

The Green Party is not a party concerned entirely with the environment. It is, of course, central to our interest but we have a full range of policies like any other policial party.

We are not just a group of tree huggers and muesli munchers.

West Oxfordshire is one of the richest constituencies in the country and yet the gulf between the very rich and the very poor is absolutely huge. The idea that we have food banks in the Prime Minister’s constituency is absurd and yet there we are.

With the issue of the A40 there is no point doing yet more to make it work well. You have got to have complementary transport, you have got to have public transport.

Whether that comes in the form of a tram or light railway doesn’t really matter.

The Prime Minister has quite recently said that the A40 is a boot on the throat of economic development in Oxfordshire but then he went on to say that we have got to have a dual carriageway which is unimaginative and not the answer.

I am taking the election very seriously. I ran five years ago and we took it very seriously then. We invited all sorts of speakers to the constituency to show what issues we are interested in but no one else is. The problem with the dominance of any one political party is that they become complacent and arrogant. They think things are pretty good as they are.

Well, things might be good for them but not for other people.

The people who don’t take it seriously are the Conservatives, but they don’t have to.

I don’t think I will win but that’s not the point. The point is to put forward our vision for a better way of doing things. Otherwise you have got a large Conservative Party, a Lib Dem party which has prostituted itself and a Labour Party which is keen to cling to the middle of the road.

We are a radical alternative and it would be awful if people didn’t have the opportunity to vote for that.

I think that in some ways our campaign has already started and it will be based on both national and local issues. We want to show how what happens nationally affects what happens locally.

For example Mark Wood – the Bampton man who starved to death – was a member of our party and his sister Cathie will be speaking in about a month or so. There you have a national policy which has had catastrophic local effects.

The campaigning is absolutely exhausting and you are going from one event to another. It is hard work but I am looking forward to it.

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