Friday 9 April 2010

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.

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