This is for London readers only. I appreciate people who don’t live in London are probably fed up with having to hear about Ken v Boris and so on.
The London Mayoral & Assembly election is on Thursday. I’m voting Green – i.e. Siân Berry for first choice. Met her once, when she was handing out leaflets on Camden Road in the rain. Very nice she was too.
Then Ken for second choice. Not just because Siân recommends doing so, but because I think he’s doing a pretty good job, all things considered.
It’s frustrating that the media has limited much of its so-called balanced coverage to the Big Three, lumping the Green Party in with all the tiny have-a-go parties, despite the Greens’ long history and high membership.
I think the really important thing is to vote at ALL, as opposed to not bothering. Where this is particularly essential is on the less-hyped side of the election – the voting for Assembly members on a London-wide basis. Using the peach-coloured ballot paper, voters pick a single party and the seats are allocated accordingly.
The Greens already have two accomplished Assembly members – Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson – who are hoping for re-election this way. But ideally this result would be doubled and the Greens would add two more members: another dedicated Green, Noel Lynch (who also reads this blog – Hi Noel!), and… Siân Berry. Which given her Mayoral campaign has made her the best known Green in the capital, seems fairly, well, fair.
The peach paper is also where the BNP might gain seats. Hence the importance of voting on this sheet at all. BNP supporters never ‘forget’ to vote. They never ‘can’t be bothered’. So it would be wrong for the BNP to gain seats purely because through apathy by others, or because voters weren’t aware they had more to do in the booth than just vote for a Mayor.
(There’s a third ballot paper, an even less trumpeted yellow one for Assembly Constituency candidates. This is where voters – tending not to recognise any candidate names on this sheet at all, or even the name of their Assembly Constituency – usually plump for candidates according to party. Which given this is worked out per local district, means the smaller parties don’t stand a chance. The Lib Dems didn’t win a single Assembly Constituency seat in 2004, let alone the Greens. Still, I will be voting Green here too – for Pete McAskie, who is also terribly nice. It’s all about sending a message, as they say.)
I suspect many dyed-in-the-wool supporters of one of the Big Three parties would rather the fourth biggest party on the London Assembly was Green rather than BNP. In which case, I hope they consider voting Green on the peach paper, regardless of who they want as Mayor.
From today’s Observer editorial:
There is a stronger case to be made for casting ‘first preference’ votes for Siân Berry, the Green candidate. The party has already used its toehold on the London Assembly to wring green concessions worth millions of pounds out of the mayoral budget. A respectable score for Ms Berry, an intelligent and articulate advocate of her cause, would send a clear signal to whoever wins the mayoralty that London cares about environmental policy. It would also deprive the British National Party of fourth place, a small but notable step towards the mainstream.
Full article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/27/london08.livingstone
Sian Berry’s columns at the New Statesman site are also worth reading:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/sian-berry
