Blue won't be Green

3.50.45pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 27th Apr 2007

Winchester City choking under Conservative control

Perseverance is one of the most important qualities in politics, and David Cameron has once again written urging local Lib Dem campaigners to support the Conservative party. His mail-merge letter says attractive things about the need to tackle climate change, decentralise the state, defend civil liberties and have a solid, not slavish, relationship with the United States - all key Liberal Democrat themes.

The problem in taking his advice is that the original is better than the copy.

Friends of the Earth has just analysed the manifesto of the Scottish Conservatives and given it nought out of ten. That is an even worse result than the analysis of the Conservative party's voting record in the European Parliament - where much environmental law is determined - at the time of the 2004 elections. The Tories were not just the least green party in Britain, but the least green in the whole of Europe.

At local level, Conservative councils are simply not heeding Cameron's green call. Even in his own constituency, the Tory West Oxfordshire council is cutting its recycling budget, despite having one of the worst recycling rates in the country. Tory Swale council is holding up the wind farm in the Thames estuary that would provide 1% of all the UK's electricity needs.

Tories on the London assembly and Richmond council opposed higher parking charges for gas-guzzlers. Indeed, the only way Cameron is likely to persuade much of his party to jump on the green bandwagon is by telling them it has four-wheel drive and a turbo engine.

You can back the Liberal Democrats' Green Tax Switch campaign at www.greentaxswitch.com