I mentioned some time back that the Greens have selected one Sarah Cope, (who does not live in Walthamstow and who has no known connection with the place) to aspire to represent the people of this constituency.

I appreciate that the people of Walhamstow have particularly high standards - the constituency has been home to Parliamentarians such as the retiring Neil Gerrard, (one of the few honest men in the current corruption-riddled Commons), and in the past luminaries such as Clement Attlee have represented us.

Chaps of the calibre of Winston Churcill (who has the status almost of a local as he represented the constituency next door) would brave this unique part of London in political times past. In the General Strike of 1926, Churchill's coach was reportedly overturned on Walthamstow High Street. With such a rich political history, it may therefore be a little intimidating for Ms Cope to actually set foot in the constituency and meet the public she wishes to convert into voters in order to fill such boots.

Nevertheless, I am a bit surprised to realise just how timid Ms Cope has been this past year. Ms Cope does not mention Walthamstow or meeting the voters of Walthamstow once in the whole course of this year on her personal website and she has only been photographed once in the constituency. This was on 6 October. She was accompanying the Euro-trougher Jean Lambert on a lame exercise to get a petition going about the arcade site. This petition shows the pair to be either totally ignorant of or irrelevant to the current debate about the development of the site, merely calling meekly for the council to build something "in sympathy with the character of Walthamstow" blah blah blah. The news is, Sarah, they ain't building anything but a temporary ice rink, which is what the whole scandal is about.

Apart from this one documented foray, Ms Cope has been to Apple Day at Hornsey Vale Community Centre, politicked about in Brighton and Blackpool, discussed the work of the Royal Free Maternity Services Committee at a Hornsey Neighbourhood Health Centre's User Group meeting, done her bit to Defend Haringey Health Services, fussed herself over making energy monitors available to users of Haringey Council's library service, worried about dead-end streets in Stroud Green, played 'spot the councillor' at a Sustainable Haringey Network stall (no point residents playing 'spot the candidate' in Walthamstow when that's what's entertaining her), cavorted round a climate camp in Blackheath and at Kingsnorth and also implied she had been kettled on the G20 demo, (though providing little by way of detailed evidence that she really was in the thick of it at all. Nice banner, anyway).

It is, as I mention above, what she hasn't done that is what interests me. She hasn't done anything meaningful to get to know about the needs of the people whose votes for Parliament she will be asking for in the next election. Walthamstow clearly means nothing to Ms Cope, who is actually concentating only on getting elected to the local council in Stroud Green. That is not here.

Back in December 2008, when she was selected, Ms Cope described herself as a 'hurricane'; telling those who cared that standing for Walthamstow was going to be a 'challenge' - 'especially if the local elections and the GE are called on the same day in 2010'. Back then she was saying a load of guff about how she would be 'rather busy', but that it was a 'Good job I'm not afraid of hard work'.

So I ask, what hard work? She has not shown hard work at all in her role as Green candidate. She seems to want to take the Green voters of Walthamstow for fools. Of course, Sarah Cope being a dud perhaps should not bother people who will not be voting Green at the next election; not unless they believe in democracy.

But I ask myself, why political parties should be allowed to put up pig's-bladder-on-stick candidates like Ms Cope who can't be bothered to take their roles seriously. The Green voters in Walthamtow should be entitled to be taken seriously, not taken for granted. There must be someone else who lives in Walthamstow and who cares about the place who could stand for the Greens. Someone whose opportunity the unimpressive Ms Cope has taken and is clearly wasting.

Why doesn't she stand down and let someone who is seriously interested in representing this constituency as a Green have a go as candidate?