Election Reflections

A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us on 6th May. You helped us almost double our vote across the borough - up from 17,560 in 2006 to 33,673 in 2010.

This is a major achievement and shows what many of us already knew - that these days the Green Party is a serious presence in Lambeth. Under a proportional voting system we would have gained 6 councillors and held the balance of power in the Council.

However, it certainly wasn't all good news for us. The local election coincided with the General Election and a massive swing to Labour (they won 44% of the vote and gained 70% of the seats on the Council). We lost our one Green councillor and failed to win any more seats.

There's lots we can learn from this. First, we're now much more aware of how difficult it is to fight a local election on the same day as a national election. The Greens do not have the money, profile or media coverage to compete with the big three parties on all fronts at once. Hopefully the fixed 5-year Parliamentary terms that the new government is proposing mean we won't face this problem again until 2030....

We also need to recognise that, despite everything (growing inequality, record rent rises, spiralling social care costs, persistent unemployment) Labour still has very strong residual support in this area. We need to get better at communicating with these people, and persuading them that it is Green councillors who will champion their interests and values most strongly.

Losing our councillor in Herne Hill is a big blow. Becca Thackray - who for the last 4 years has been the one Green Party member on Lambeth Council - has given a fantastic demonstration of what Green councillors can bring to an area.

She has worked incredibly hard for her constituents on all sorts of issues, while also bringing major changes at the Council level, including commitments to reduce carbon emissions, pay a London Living Wage to all staff and give local people a say in how planning money is spent in their area. She deserves enormous thanks.

The other major group to thank are all the volunteers who helped us in our campaign this year. We were joined by so many inspired and creative people who, like us, hoped to achieve something special in this area. I hope all the foot-slogging and hard work hasn't put anyone off! And that all our election volunteers will stay with us as we continue our campaign for a greener, more just and more inclusive Lambeth.

You can't believe everything you read

Have you seen the 'Election address' editions of Labour News that are doing the rounds for the council elections? The Herne Hill one has the grand headline 'TWO HORSE RACE IN HERNE HILL - Only Labour can beat the Tories', accompanied by an unreferenced graph, with no scale, suggesting that in Herne Hill Ward Labour have approx 45% of support, the Tories around 40% and the Liberals around 15% (my estimates, based on the sizes of the 3 bars) - and no mention of the Greens.

I'm one of the Green Party candidates in Herne Hill. In the last local election we got 36.7% of the vote (aggregated over 3 candidates), to Labour's 37.3%, and one of our candidates (Becca Thackray) got elected with more votes than any of the Labour candidates. The Conservatives came a distant third with just 16%.

We've asked Labour for an explanation for where they got the figures from and why we're not even featured on their graph.

So far we've received two different stories. First, they tried to tell us the graph was based on the results of the London Mayor election, but then we pointed out that in Herne Hill Ward 58% of people voted for Ken and only 21% for Boris - hardly a tight 'two-horse race'. Now their election agent has told us the graph is "an illustration of our view of the respective strengths of the three main national parties in this area." In other words, they've made it up!

At risk of engaging in boring old Punch-and-Judy politics, these Labour lies really are breathtaking. Not only are they pretending we don't exist - which you'd think was brazen enough seeing as we've already got one councillor in Herne Hill Ward - but they're also fabricating data. The reason? To mislead voters.

No wonder people despair of politicians.

Record number of Greens to vote for in Lambeth

Just a few days after the news that a record number of Green candidates will fight the General Election, I’m very happy to report that we’ve also achieved our own mini milestone here in Lambeth.

On 6th May, there will be 63 Greens standing in the local elections in the borough – our first full slate of candidates.

It may sound like quite a small triumph, but the Greens are not like other parties – we don’t have enormous sums of money to spend, and although we have many hard-working and dedicated members, this doesn’t automatically translate into having 63 would-be councillors ready to put themselves forward for election.

What does it mean to have a full slate? Well, it means that we can now test ourselves in a direct head-to-head with the three main parties.

In the last European elections we came 4th across Lambeth, but had we polled just 1.6% more we would have come second, ahead of both the Lib Dems and the Tories.

And in the last local elections we came second in 5 wards out of 21 and a close third in many other areas. With 63 candidates we’ve every chance of doubling our vote, pushing the Tories into 4th place borough-wide, and – who knows? – even giving the LibDems something to think about.

Of course, we’re not just interested in being triumphant runners up. The big picture for us is about how many councillors we can get elected. We’ve been targeting Herne Hill and Brixton Hill wards, where we’re getting a fantastic response from local residents. I think people see us as a breath of fresh air and something, finally, to get excited about in local politics.

If you’d like to get involved, or to hear more about our campaign, please do drop us an email.

Call for Green and Black people to register to vote

Shane Collins, Green Party Parlimentary Candidate for Dulwich and West
Norwood presented Rev Al Sharpton with a Brixton pound at the Operation
Black Vote 'Register to Vote' meeting Thursday 21st Jan at Friends
Meeting House in Euston.

Shane said 'The Rev Sharpton comes from Harlem, the spiritual home of
Marcus Garvey and his message of keeping economic power in the community
is more relevant than ever today with the corporate takeover of much of
our lives. This message has been taken up by Transition Town as
exemplified by the Brixton Pound which i was proud to present to the Rev
Sharpton'.

'Voter registration amongst the black community is around only 45% in
younger age groups, similar to the black youth unemployment rate. There
is a connection. Black and green people have the power to change the
results in the local and general elections but only if registered and
voting.

'So remember Rosa Parks, honour Nelson Mandela, take heart from President
Obama and register to vote by contacting your Town Hall or
www.electoralcommission.org.uk. Remember racists register and racists
vote.' For elections on 6th May the deadline to register is 20th April.

Quote from Rev Sharpton speech

“How you define yourself is how you confine yourself. You have all this
technology, Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry’s. And you can’t get ten black
Britons to go and vote?

“At a time when we can elect Presidents, there is no excuse for us to be
sitting down and not doing anything, and avoid recognising that it’s a
new time.”

Greens ahead in Brighton

Who says that a Green vote is a wasted vote? News just in from Brighton shows that Caroline Lucas is on course to make history and become the first Green MP. With a tired New Labour regime and a Tory party champing at the bit to carry out 'Thatcherism Mark II' the only progressive alternative vote is for the Greens in Brighton.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader, only candidate able to keep the Conservatives out in Brighton Pavilion constituency

- UK’s first Green MP now a serious prospect - ICM constituency poll

Greens take a 10 point lead over Labour and an 8 point lead over the Conservatives in their target constituency of Brighton Pavilion - ICM Research telephone opinion poll.

Headline results

1. The Greens have the greatest support with 35% of the constituency’s voters followed by the Conservatives on 27%, Labour on 25% and LibDems on 11%.

2. Almost two thirds (63%) of Labour and Lib Dem voters in the sample said that they would be likely to switch their vote to the Greens if that party was best placed to stop a Conservative win. 37% said they were very likely and 26% said they were quite likely to switch their vote in that situation.

Read the full story here.