Parkin emerged as the most articulate and telegenic Green Party spokesperson after 1989 and was credited with being committed to Green Party policy and practical in terms of political tactics. Caroline Lucas remembers being “exhausted in the office and she’d burst through the door and bring with her new thoughts and ideas” while journalist Walter Schwartz considered her “the party’s best all-rounder, the easiest of the Greens to imagine as a Cabinet Minister. She is a highly organised political animal. Most Greens are not.”