A POLITICAL row has erupted between the Green and Labour party with cries of ‘trick tactics’ in the first week of campaigning.

Green party members are furious after a political advert was placed in newspapers by one of their former campaign officers in support of Labour candidate David Drew.

The Stroud district Green party this week denied they were supporting David Drew’s campaign and were keen to distance themselves from the advert, which appeared in the Gazette and our sister paper Stroud News and Journal last week.

The advert was created and paid for by Ron Bailey, of Suffolk, a former national campaigns officer for the Green party, who is seeking to help David Drew, who has served three terms as Stroud constituency MP.

It highlighted Mr Drew’s green credentials and asked those thinking of voting Green to vote for him instead.

However this week Green party members said they were extremely angry with the ‘trick tactics’ used by the Labour group to fight the election.

John Marjoram, party co-ordinator for the Stroud district Greens, said: "This advertisement has shocked and angered Greens throughout the district. We would like to assure them that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Green party.

"We have an excellent parliamentary candidate in Martin Whiteside who is doing everything he can to win on the fair and just policies that the Greens stand for."

He added: "It is a sad day indeed when, after 13 years in government, a political advertisement for a Labour MP dare not even mention the word Labour."

Parliamentary candidate Martin Whiteside said: "I hope the election can be fought on party policies and record in Government – not on trick tactics like this. It is a shame the campaign has started like this."

Mr Drew said that Mr Bailey and his group of campaigners were a cross party group supporting a range of candidates around the country who had helped push through the Sustainable Communities Act.

He said he knew about the advert but that it had been wholly the idea of Mr Bailey and was paid for by him as well.

"The Green party ought to be more mature, they go around saying all sorts of things.

"I am as ‘green’ as they are and I shall be saying during this election, as I always do, that I represent green interests."

Mr Drew, who in 2005 won his seat with a slim 350 vote majority, admitted he needed the Green vote to get the majority he needs this year. He added: "I will fight my corner."