I WAS unable to attend the Green Party's public meeting on the Iraq war and so was interested to read the story headed Bring them home' in the Citizen of December 23 to see what was said.

I was struck by the precision of the description of Billy Pye as representing the Lancaster Coalition Against the War'. Please note that this organisation has repeatedly refused to affiliate to the National Coalition to Stop the War, even after many requests to do so.

Could it be the result of hostility to the Respect organisation of George Galloway and, in particular, a sectarian hostility to the Socialist Workers Party?

After the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 the coalition thrived in Lancaster, as shown by a 300-strong meeting held at the Phoenix Club. But since then everything has stagnated locally, unlike in the rest of the UK under the leadership of the National Coalition supported by the trades union movement.

I must also draw attention to Chris Coates's reference to ordinary people', which seems to me to suggest he thinks he and the Greens are somehow special.

He probably means us mere working class people who make up the 8.5-million strong and still growing trades union movement people who have no problem, I can assure him, in expressing their grievances via the unions.

Many hundreds of thousands of these ordinary' people have supported a variety of political movements and not just the Greens, who seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis as to whether they are a revolutionary or a reformist organisation, leading to some very strange behaviour and some unusual political relationships in the last year especially over the war.

I hope the people mentioned here will note my remarks in the generous and helpful spirit in which they are made.

All we in the trade unions want is not to be misrepresented or treated as a mere convenience, as too many organisations such as the Greens tend to do. We take offence at such behaviour.

Steve Metcalfe, Lancashire Association of TUCs.