Leadership

As we were leaving Worcester on Saturday morning Mike Foster MP (Labour) came to speak to us. Mike claimed that he supports all that we are doing, and then proceeded to tell us how good the Labour government's record on climate change is. When we challenged Mike that the government's record is actually very poor, he claimed that they cannot go further without more leadership from 'the public'

Mike referred a lot to the UK government's leadership on climate change globally, talking about the passion of the past and current prime minister, and the effort made at G8 summits such as in Gleneagles.

We challenged him that talking is not leadership. Real leadership from the UK would be a radical reduction in carbon emissions. In the UK, carbon dioxide emissions are now back at the same level they were in 1992 when I was learning about climate change at primary school.

Each day on the march we have one person in charge of making sure we go the right way and get to meetings on time. I had the dubious honour today. If I led in the same way as the Labour government, I would have sat in a chair at the start of today and lectured everyone about the importance of us walking from Worcester to Ledbury. But I would not have put one foor in front of the other. We would still be sat there now as the sun set.

Distance covered so far: 648 miles

(PS. As you might have guessed, Mike refussed to suport any of our specific demands)