The first area of conflict is over the selection of a candidate to fight the Greens' number one target seat of Brighton Pavillion. Labour's David Lepper held the seat last time but he is standing down at the next election. In a four way marginal, the Greens are well placed and have a real chance of winning their first parliamentary seat.

In 2001 and 2005 the Greens' candidate was Keith Taylor, leader of the Green Group on Brighton Council and a popular and respected man locally. He confidently expected to be reselected. However, Dr. Caroline Lucas, MEP for the South East region which includes Brighton announced that she wanted the seat. Dr. Lucas was selected by 45% to 35% for Taylor. However the selection appears to have caused real bad feeling in the party and locally as a perusal of the stories on this page will show. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Dr. Lucas has said that if the election is in 2009 then she will not stand in Brighton but will defend her European seat instead.

Now this bit is a partisan point, but both Taylor and Lucas say that they are looking to be Britain's first Green MP. While that is absolutely the case in terms of being Britain's first MP who is a member of the Green Party, I think Labour can make a claim for having a genuine 'green' MP in our own Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South. Alan has a passion for the politics of climate change that should inspire the party to adopt green policies rather than green rhetoric. He also puts his money where his mouth is as this story proves.

Moving on, the Greens' second major division is on whether or not to have a leader. Not really a problem for most parties, but a real one for the Greens. At least they are being green and recycling an argument that last split them in the heady days of 1989 - 91 which led to Sarah Parkin and Jonathon Porritt leaving the party. The politely put argument can be found here. The far less comradely argument will have been heard by anyone who tuned into The Westminster Hour on Radio 4 where Caroline Lucas and Dr. Derek Wall gave a pretty convincing impression of two people who could barely stand the sight of one another. I thought Elenor Goodman was going to have to shout 'Break!' at various points.

While it's perhaps a bit rude to intrude upon a private grief, I would like to make a couple of points. Firstly, I think Britain needs a Green Party and I think it needs one that can win seats on councils and at the European and devolved administration levels. We need one because the issues that the party focusses on are really important and mainstream parties need to grapple with them and offer convincing solutions. To be taken seriously, I do think the Greens should have a leader and I quite like the idea of that leader having to seek re-election every two years as is proposed.

Secondly, if Britain ever adopts PR for parliamentary elections, and I know many of you will fight tooth and nail against it, coalition government will become the norm and politics will necessarily be conducted in a different way. If Labour is looking for a coalition partner, I would be intensely relaxed about having the Greens play that role. Obviously that assumes that the Greens can win enough seats in the first place (e.g. getting over a 5% threshold if we went for AMS), but in principle I have no problem with a red-green coalition.

So I hope that the Green Party gets over its present difficulties. And, should Dr. Lucas win Brighton Pavillion, provided Labour has won a comfortable working majority, I may even raise my glass to congratualte her on an historic achievement.