Letter: A Green present or a grey future

Sir: Your leading article of 23 September on the Liberal Democrats ended with the suggestion that by watching events at Brighton this week "we may see the glimmer of policies for the next millennium". If you had reported on the previous week's Green Party conference in Hastings you would have seen a very clear expression of the policies required today.

A basic income scheme to provide for everyone's needs. A shift from taxing desirables such as labour to taxing the undesirables of pollution and profligate energy consumption. Radical action to combat global warming. Abolition of nuclear weapons. A Europe based on a decentralised confederation of strong regions.

If we are to develop a healthy, sustainable world based on social justice in the next millennium it will come from a Green perspective, not from the growth-obsessed short-termism of the three grey parties.

DAVID CROMWELL

Southampton, Hampshire