Results in: thanks to everyone

Well, the results are now in for the elections and the Greens have both happy and sad news.

At last we have achieved that historic first with Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavillion with the first Green MP in British history. More people voted for us across the country than had ever voted Green in a general election before and outside of London we are welcoming new Green councillors in areas we've never had them before.

In London though there has been a massive surge to Labour that has managed to sweep all before its path in the council elections. The Guardian's Dave Hill describes well the scale of Labour's resurgence winning back councils and seats that many had long thought were long lost.

For Lewisham this has meant that Labour has won seats from all the other parties on council including the Greens who have gone from six councillors to just one, Darren Johnson in Brockley. If the elections had been on different days we may well have been looking at an increase in councillors not a near wipe out, and more people still voted Green across the borough than have ever voted Green in Lewisham council elections before, but it wasn't enough.

Here in Crofton Park we fought a strong and honest campaign and I'm really proud to have worked with my fellow candidates Hati Gunes and Roger Sedgley as well as our campaign rock Anne Scott without whom we would have been totally lost.

Although more than a thousand people in Crofton Park voted Green at least once we came a disappointing third place. That's life, but it doesn't mean that the Green Party is just going to disappear.

On Monday we're having our first party meeting after the election and over the next few months we'll be reassessing how we move forward from here to fight for a fairer society, against privatisation, low pay and climate change, to build a stronger movement that gives communities a real voice and direct say regardless of who is and is not in the council chamber.

Mayoral election: second preferences

One of the three elections you'll be able to vote in on Thursday is that for Lewisham Mayor. It's not a brilliant way of organising local government because it leads to too much power in one person's hands, less collaborative decision making and far less accountability. If we ever get the chance the Greens would like to see us dispose of the directly elected Mayoralty and return more power to our directly elected council.

We've got a great candidate for Mayor in Dean Walton, who is currently a Brockley councillor and has built up a good reputation of working with others and, as the Green's national treasurer, his head for figures and prioritising budgets is second to none.

I'm enthusiastic for Dean and hope to see him get a great vote.

The way the system works of course is that you get two votes, first and second preference. This allows you to vote with your principles for first choice and then the 'lesser of two evils' for second. It's quite a neat system which, for London Mayor, allowed the Green Party to promote our excellent candidate Sian Berry without harming Ken Livingstone's campaign to keep Boris Johnson out.

Lewisham Greens are not taking a position on who to vote for second preference at this election, but there's no reason why, in the spirit of mature politics that refuses to demonise the opposition we shouldn't have a personal preference on who to vote for in second place.

Personally I'll be voting Dean Walton [1] and Steve Bullock [2], not because I love Labour or think that there is a huge gap between the policies of the three old parties but because there is a question of weight and seriousness.

Steve Bullock, as Labour's Mayor, has shown time and again that he takes difficult decisions seriously and, whilst I definitely do not agree with all of the decisions he's taken, his priorities are about the effects these decisions have on the people of Lewisham not on the size of his vote.

In contrast the Lib Dems have simply never shown an ability to see politics as anything other than a vehicle for their own propaganda and Chris Maines, who seems to be a very nice person, seems extremely thin politically when placed against his Labour rival.

For me I'm glad of the opportunity that I can vote for a radical Green vision that fights against cuts in services and for decent wages for the lowest paid *and* be able to express a preference on who I'd like to see as Mayor of Lewisham if Dean doesn't quite make it. For me that second choice is Steve Bullock, although as I say there's no 'line' on this from the Greens and some will no doubt be voting for other candidates as their second choice.

Using your vote in Crofton Park

Some Parties, mentioning no names, like having a bit of fun with bar charts. Often plonking a load of numbers in front of people that have very little to do with how their vote might count at the coming election.

The worst example I can think of recently was the Lewisham Lib Dem leaflet that insisted during the European elections that "Only the Lib Dems can win here" despite the fact that the elections are conducted under proportional representation. Of course when the result came out they had won one seat out of eight, just like the Greens - and the claim that only they could win was quietly forgotten. (In case you think I'm picking on the Lib Dems check out this recent Tory bar chart from Manchester that will make your mind boggle!)

So in the interests of full disclosure I thought I'd let people know how electors actually voted in Crofton Park, which is where it will count for the local elections. We don't have a Crofton Park break down for the most recent elections, the Europeans earlier this year, although if you're interested you can see how Lewisham as a whole voted here where you'll see that the Greens came second behind Labour with the Tories third and Lib Dems fourth.

This first graph is how people voted in Crofton Park ward at the election prior to that, the London Assembly elections of 2008 that saw Boris Johnson elected as Mayor, a sad day I'm sure all but 17.9% of us can agree.


Labour's really given up the ghost in the area so it's unlikely they'll be benefiting from Ken's electoral boost this time round at the council elections. That puts the Greens in a good position as the party with the second highest number of votes last time round and the Lib Dems look in pretty bad shape trailing in a very weak fourth place.

However, the election results that are most relevant for the locals is the local elections last time round, in 2006. Here we've averaged the vote of each of the three candidates of the four main parties, but if you want to check there's been no jiggery pokery you can read the full breakdown for yourselves here.


This result was a real surprise for us as we hadn't realised we had this much support in the area. Our top placed candidate Jeremy Hicks, who is now our election agent, would have needed just 137 more votes to have gained a council seat. Since then Crofton Park residents will know we've really stepped up our campaigning in the area and we're getting a great response on the doorstep.

Anyway, I hope these figures are useful and feel free to pull me up on them if you think I've played fast and loose with the facts. I certainly recommend that whenever you see a political leaflet with a bar chart on it pay careful attention to what poll they come from and whether they are in any way relevant to the election you are voting in.