We wouldn’t cut service, say Greens

Green Party candidate Peter Allen

A new Green Party candidate has been selected to fight the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.

Peter Allen (50) is employed as an advice worker in Manchester is a member of the UNITE union.

He lives in Glossop where he has been involved in an active anti-war group and helped establish the campaign to re-open the Woodhead Tunnel for rail use. Married with six adult daughters, he will launch his campaign at the Salt Cellar cafe in Church Lane, Oldham, on Saturday.

He said: “The Green Party has a fully costed set of policies which do not involve cuts in public services.

“We would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in renewable energy, recycling and upgrading the housing stock.

“We would reduce the obscene level of inequality that blights our society. The Coalition Government are proposing vicious cuts in public spending which will hit the poorest hardest and will do lasting damage to our public services. Their policies will deepen the recession and increase unemployment.

“The alternative presented by the Green Party, paid for by increasing taxation of the rich, clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, and withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan, is needed more than ever.”

His campaign team includes his election agent, Oldham’s only Green Councillor, Ian Barker.