David Jones and David Henry are both vying for political success locally and nationally over the next two years for the Green Party.
They both have political aspirations within Salford and Westminster, with the pair having been nominated to represent the Green Party at the next General Election.
David Jones is set to be involved in both of these elections, as well as also representing the Green Party at the next General Election.
Mr Jones has been selected as the local election candidate for the Blackfriars and Trinity ward in 2023, having been hugely involved with the growth of the Green Party’s activities within Salford.
He has also been selected as the Green Party’s candidate for the next Salford Mayoral Election and as a candidate for the Worsley and Eccles South constituency.
Mr Jones’ colleague, David Henry has also recently been chosen as a Green Party General Election candidate for the Salford and Eccles constituency.
Local elections are scheduled for May 2023, while the Salford City Mayoral election is due to take place in 2024.
The forefront of the debate for the pair is likely to be climate change and the pursuit of a green economy.
Mr Henry said: “It is one of the biggest issues affecting mankind at the moment, it is a huge, catastrophic event. Sometimes it feels like there is very little we can do about it, but that’s not true and people are working towards it.
“We can have things like moving to no carbon based transport, hopefully our whole public transport network will be carbon free soon, but that has been held back by things like COVID and a lack of investment in places in the North, with our public transport system in a terrible state.
“We have to give some credit to the way the Greater Manchester authority has taken some of those things forward as a priority, but obviously there’s more that can be done.
“In Salford specifically, there are some issues. The roads are a mess, there’s a lot of congestion, even the clear air zone/congestion charging, we don’t know if that’s going to go away anytime soon.
“Things like recycling are not really that efficient in some places, so in terms of green issues there’s quite a few things that we can pull up locally and nationally.”
Mr Jones, who is an Environmental Scientist by profession, also highlighted the local council’s policies around climate change, as he urged for a more proactive approach to dealing with the matter.
He continued: “A lot of the measures put in place are very reactive rather than proactive. We should be planning now for what’s going to happen 20, 30, 40 years down the line, and that’s not even be touched or talked about. They need to start acting pretty soon.
“An increasing number of councils now have signed climate emergencies, but a lot of them are just lip service. It’s just sign this and here’s some publicity for us and then they just seem to push it to one side and don’t really do anything about it.
“You need to put that much more at the front of everything that is going on as the whole thing has to be integrated.”
Mr Jones and Mr Henry both also revealed how the Green Party are hoping for a “breakthrough” in the Salford area, and previewed their electoral plans for the next two years.
Mr Jones said: “If you look at local elections now, there’s more parties standing now there’s more choice now, if you give people a choice, which is what elections are about, they’ll come out and hopefully support you.
“When we first started in Salford in 2014 we were averaging 4% towards Green Party vote an in last year’s elections we were averaging 16% across Salford, so in a short space of time we’ve grown and grown and grown and we’ve got that momentum building now and we’ve got the party building.”
Mr Henry also provided his opinion on recent non-associated climate protests, with the public mood reportedly shifting amid recent disruption.
He said: “Their actions are divisive, and the Green sort of ethos is we need to bring everybody with us in terms of climate change, we can’t leave anyone behind and we expect everyone to catch up at the same time, so if people are getting their opinions and attitudes changed towards the environment because of misdirected direct action then those sorts of methods need to be readdressed.”
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