The End of the Beginning

Well, it’s over.

The Green Party received 15.88% of the vote in Earlsdon (270 votes shy of overtaking Labour for 2nd place).

It was fascinating being at the election count. Each ballot box (from the 8 polling stations) gets emptied onto a big table, and vote counters bundle up the papers into packs of 25. While they are doing that, you try and spot how many, on average, are marked “Green,” so you can gauge which areas of the ward are strong in support, and which need work.

After the count, they invite you to inspect the spoiled ballot papers (BNP scrawled across some, “wish there were Socialists running” on others) and which ones have been awarded to candidates (those with check marks rather than x’s).

Then, a few minutes later, they gather the candidates and agents together again and tell you what the final vote is. I suppose, if there was 20 votes between 1st and 2nd, this is the time to request a recount.

15 minutes after that (i.e. giving the winner enough time to compose a speech), the results are announced from the podium and put up on a computer screen with a percentage breakdown.
Andy Matchet for the Conservatives, the winner, nearly received an absolute majority (49.7%). He approached me right after the “spoiled papers” stage, and basically said, hey, you aren’t going to win the ward anytime soon, why are you so against incineration, why not sit down with us and talk about recycling?

The Greens are a separate political party, not only a lobby force for the three “real” parties, and we have a much wider agenda than just recycling.

So, sure, we’ll engage with the council and pressure them, though I sincerely doubt we’ll buy into incineration of plastic and aluminium, but we aim to run again and again in Coventry and build up a base of voters for the Green cause.

It’s time for some time off, so I can stop being so election-focused. All the walking and walking and walking of streets has left me, well, not exhausted, but pretty tired.

I’ve got a wedding to co-organise for early August, and suddenly, that’s only 13 weeks away! We’re off to do rings in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham tomorrow, then wedding list in Solihull on Sunday.

If anyone wants to contact me in the future about Green activity in Coventry, please do so on 07906 316 726, or, sgredding2003@yahoo.co.uk.

Voting For Policies You Believe In

Tony Blair is asking us to judge Labour on “the big picture” …but that’s the problem, isn’t it?

From the “big picture” perspective:

- How has Iraq turned out?
- After 8 years of Labour, why did Jamie Oliver find such unhealthy food in schools?
- The long term impact of tuition fees will be more student debt, less savings, and less ability for people to get on the property ladder
- Labour’s policy on city academies will lead to exclusive access to curriculum and admissions being the preserve of wealth donors

Why vote for a party that is carrying out not just one policy, but many policies, that you disagree with?

In Earlsdon, I've tried to use this blog to outline how we would use our first seat on Coventry City Council to show that we can introduce different policies, put new issues on the agenda, and propose resolutions that other parties would not.

Vote for a party whose policies you believe in. Vote for a party whose policies you want to see extended and deepened.

Vote in a positive way on Thursday, whether you are voting for the Green Party, or for the Tories, Labour or the Lib Dems.

Two Nights To Go!

On the long weekend, we received a canvassing boost from the Leamington Green Party (thanks again to Ian, Jenny and Nick). We managed to cover Winnifred, Broadway, Spencer, Newcombe, Poplar, Berkeley Road N and S, Avondale, and the 2nd half of Styvechale.

Yesterday, Tom and I went to the Earlsdon Festival on Hearsall Common (very rainy off and on).

On the way back to Mayfield Road, we dropped into the Church Hall of the Earlsdon Methodist Church for a plate of May Day food. I had the good luck to take a seat across from their vicar, and we had an amicable chat about how campaigning was going. I floated the idea of having an all-candidates meeting next year during the council elections, since as a first-time candidate, it seems very odd not to have one.

There are 4-5 streets left in the north part of the ward that we want to cover, plus we want to take a stab at the streets south of War Memorial Park.

I've also received this fancy dan letter from my agent, Clive, from the council, authorising my entry into all eight polling stations on Thursday. I plan to vote in the morning before work, then we'll take a drive around to the other seven on Thursday evening.

I Will If You Will

The Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (part of the Sustainable Development Commission) has released an interesting report called, "I Will If You Will." How we travel, what kind of electricity provider we have, where we holiday, and what we eat matter.

Consumers need to be able to buy green products and services as second nature. It’s time to start a new British love affair with sustainable fish and chips, to offer air travellers automatic carbon offset from their flights, and to make schools and hospitals carbon neutral. Consumers are ready & willing to act on climate change and the environment, but can’t see the point, because they feel their efforts would be isolated and in vain.

The report specifies that Government should:

- Unite with business to get the most damaging products out of the shops, and replace them with environmental products, e.g.
- TV and set-top boxes which use massively less power when on standby
- Affordable hybrid cars
- Alternative fish species to Britain’s much-loved, but hugely over-fished, cod
- Take the lead and make all schools and hospitals carbon-neutral by 2015
- Automatically give travellers the option to carbon offset their flights, to demonstrate the environmental impact of flying
- Develop a working economic model to track the links between national income, consumption growth and resources, by 2008

Being A "One Issue" Party

It's the biggest perception that the Green Party needs to overcome to make Britain a four-party system.

We are a party that will put the environment first. Other parties (the Lib Dems, Labour, the Conservatives) will put profit and private interests first.

Ecology and sustainability are the guiding principles by which Greens make policy decisions.

But, we do have a constellation of other policies:

i) same-sex rights: I lived in Bonn from September 1998 to August 1999, and I arrived in the city in the midst of a national election campaign. Gerhard Schroeder was about to become Chancellor for the first time, Helmut Kohl came to give one of his final campaign speeches on the Marketplatz in Bonn, it was a great time to arrive. The German Green Party posters had same-sex couples doing the tango, and their poster slogan was, "We Bring Spice to the Dance."

ii) the euro: The euro represents a centralisation of economic controls. The Green Party believes that economic decisions should be made at a local level. We don't want monetarist decisions in the hands of unaccountable bankers. People should elect those who raise taxes and set interest rates.

iii) pensions: The spring Green Party conference voted to promote party support for the nine trade unions that voted to strike to protect the local government pension scheme for existing members.

iv) crime: again, our conferences have called for a ban on imitation weapons, and we strongly support more vigorous efforts to prosecute rape.

v) anti-war, pro-peace: As part of a 4-week radio license, I did an interview with Carol Rank of Coventry University's Peace and Reconciliation Department. One thing she highlighted was a need for more secondary school projects on conflict resolution: teaching youth how to solve problems and work together, not resorting to fist-fights or using knives. The Green Party has been part of the Stop The War Coalition, and we are against any future military adventure/strikes on Iran. It's madness that the US spends $400 billion a year on its military (when they are only 5% of the world's population). We also need an international treaty on the sale of light weapons (machine guns), similar to the campaign for the treaty on landmines.

A Carbon Budget for Coventry

75% of people in an online poll wanted governments to tackle climate change by making a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 3 percent each year.

This is the position of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, and it will be highlighted by a few rock concerts this weekend (as Thom Yorke, of Radiohead, is a lead supporter of the coalition).

Governments are being urged to "employ all policy tools at its disposal, that emissions are controlled in all sectors of the economy, and that governments take into account the carbon-creating effects of non-environmental policies."

What I would like at the Coventry level is a system of scrutiny and reporting on carbon emissions by the council itself. We can't expect the rest of Coventry to practice what we would preach if the council doesn't lead the process.

Compulsory Voting?

I would be against any system of compulsory voting.

The radical solution was backed by Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary Peter Hain and Commons Leader Geoff Hoon. Mr Hoon said it was "disturbing" that young people and those from deprived communities were "falling out of the habit of voting".

I think the real problem, at least in Earlsdon, is that the other parties don't campaign. Too many voters have congratulated me on being the first to canvass them.

If council meetings are held during the day, if there are no scheduled month-on-month surgeries for councillors, if there are hardly any updates on council decisions between elections, why is it surprising that people are abstaining from the political process?

Small Business and Earlsdon High Street

Again, I want people to vote Green in a positive way, so we can have a campaigning voice on the city council, but this poll spells the problems out for Labour.

Myself and two party members (Cathy and Clive) covered five more streets yesterday (St Andrews, Shaftesbury, Stanley, Arden, Palmerston). Clive and Tom (our local party co-ordinator) were able to print up strips of paper to say "sorry we missed you" -- these could prove to be a real help.

I also talked with small business owners on Earlsdon High St. I talked with Kendall's, Tim's Joint, and Gibberds. The butcher who runs Tim's Joint had very strong feelings about his council tax, farmer's markets drawing business away, the lack of local parking, a strong bias towards the city centre, and the decline of independent fishmongers and butchers.