Election: green votes, canvassing and fraud

What with doing election press stuff and a busy few weeks of meetings I've not been pounding the streets canvassing as much as I would have wished. Some people are happy to leaflet and don't enjoy canvassing - I'm the other way round - I enjoy meeting people and listening to what concerns them - talking and sharing my passion for creating a better world - that sounds a little naff but that to me is what it is all about - and we can only do that by listening and doing it together.

Photo: Out canvassing

Anyhow Saturday saw me out in Rodborough with our candidate Phil Blomberg - a great guy committed to stopping the housing development on the Rugby fields, seeing more renewable energy new developments and much more - he is on the Parish Council - read more by seeing his election leaflet here. Greens have come second in that seat on the last couple of occasions - we are the best chance to bring about changes on the Council. I'll be out again today - it was good to meet folk - and even ended up with a very broken wooden gate that someone didn't want - it has already been recycled into part of the roof of a playhouse I'm building for my partners' granddaughter.


Green votes look set to rise

I was interested to read that an opinion poll showed voters feel they have more in common with Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas than any leading Labour Party figure. The poll, carried out by Populus published in the Times newspaper a week ago or so, asked more than 1,300 people to give leading figures from Britain’s four main political parties a score based on the extent to which they ‘share your values on social and environmental issues’.

Participants gave Caroline Lucas, who was named one of the top 100 ‘eco-heroes’ of all time in an Environment Agency survey last year, an average rating of 4.21 (out of ten), higher than either of the three Labour figures: David Miliband (3.95), Tony Blair (3.62) and Gordon Brown (3.61).

It is good to see Green politicians starting to get recognised - and it is entirely in line with the general rise in awareness of environmental issues and support for the Green Party in recent
years. In fact Green party membership is on the up - in stark contrast to that of the Labour party and the Green party vote is on the up - infact it has been going up for the last 3 general elections with a record local election last year. Green party candidate numbers are also on the up - this year we are fielding a record number of candidates - and amongst young people, we are one of the most popular parties - at universities our membership often exceeds that of other parties put together - e.g. LSE.

Labour has failed badly when it comes to meaningful action on climate change. It would seem people can see through the hype and are aware of the yawning chasm between the government’s rhetoric and reality - not just on climate change but on a whole range of social and environmental issues.”

The poll coincides with a Guardian/ICM poll which shows that nearly a third of voters have turned their backs on Labour and the Tories, with labour facing ‘wipe-out’ from many councils in next week’s local authority elections. The Green Party is polling at more than double its rating this time before the last election - I'm hoping we'll see more gains across the country.

Electoral fraud??

I came across a blog entry yesterday (29th April) on Conservengland re electoral fraud and more - one example being that the Times reports on an analysis by Britain’s electoral watchdog that it is estimated that there are at least 1m and possibly up to 3.5m people whose names appear on the electoral roll even though they are ineligible to vote.

The evidence does seem to be growing for the need for action on this. On my Ruscombe blog entry for 17th November I highlighted concerns over e-voting or electronic-voting and the international campaign raising awareness about the problems of this. Indeed we need action on all of this soon otherwise this will only discourage people voting even more - it is bad enough already when it seems like whoever you vote for the Government gets in.