I was wondering how long it would be before Sian Berry - the Green Party Mayor Candidate and the London Green Party overall would state the bleeding obvious - that Ken has the best environmental policies (after themselves of course). The Greens have asked all their supporters to give Ken their second preference and Ken has done likewise asking Labour supporters to give Sian their second preference.
This election is...
going to be close and all those who want to see someone elected Mayor who actually believes that climate change is serious and needs addressing, needs to put Ken as either their first or second preference.
My biggest fear is that the bogus Evening Standard charges of corruption against Ken will put progressive people off voting altogether (lower turnout will help the BNP achieve 5%) or that environmental progressives will vote for Sian Berry and Brian Paddick and end up with reactionary 'Kyoto opposing' Boris as Mayor.
If you think Ken is better than Boris on the environment then you have to vote for Ken to ensure Boris doesn't win. Only a vote for Ken will see the £25 'gas guzzlers' charge introduced and the resulting £500m revenue raised spent on cycling and walking.
Boris is incompetent and has not costed his policies - he admits so himself. Boris supports the model of public transport that has decimated bus use in Manchester, the West Midlands and other urban conurbations. Boris supported Metronet and the PPP. Boris frankly hasn't a clue how to improve London.
As Ken says, this matters more than Celebrity Big Brother. It is the continued growth and imnprovement of public transport in London, the building of more affordable housing, and continued improvement of the London environment as a place to live and work that is important, not Boris's media celebrity.
My biggest fear is that the bogus Evening Standard charges of corruption against Ken will put progressive people off voting altogether (lower turnout will help the BNP achieve 5%) or that environmental progressives will vote for Sian Berry and Brian Paddick and end up with reactionary 'Kyoto opposing' Boris as Mayor.
If you think Ken is better than Boris on the environment then you have to vote for Ken to ensure Boris doesn't win. Only a vote for Ken will see the £25 'gas guzzlers' charge introduced and the resulting £500m revenue raised spent on cycling and walking.
Boris is incompetent and has not costed his policies - he admits so himself. Boris supports the model of public transport that has decimated bus use in Manchester, the West Midlands and other urban conurbations. Boris supported Metronet and the PPP. Boris frankly hasn't a clue how to improve London.
As Ken says, this matters more than Celebrity Big Brother. It is the continued growth and imnprovement of public transport in London, the building of more affordable housing, and continued improvement of the London environment as a place to live and work that is important, not Boris's media celebrity.
According to the YouGov poll this week only 1% of people have the Greens as their first choice, so it won't make a lot of difference either way.
ReplyDeleteThe Greens got 57,331 votes - 3% of first preferences in 2004 and 208,686 second preferences - 11% of total. In an election this close these votes will matter. For comparison, Ken won with 828,380 votes - 43% of total (250, 517 of these votes were 2nd preferences). Remember the supplementary vote still means that those who do not put the top two candidates in their preferences still waste their votes (22% of voters did this - the Tories only got 35% of 1st and 2nd preferences).
ReplyDeleteAll the minor parties tend to do much better than the polls suggest when it comes to the actual election. I suspect Green support has grown since 2004 and if Ken helps their profile they may take votes from the Lib Dems. In Brighton the majority of Lib Dem support has switched to the Greens since 2004.
Neil! You aren't allowed to just write 'Sian Berry', you're supposed to prefix it with 'petite blonde thirty-something Sian Berry'. How many votes did UKIP get, BTW?
ReplyDeleteAh... 6%! Not bad!
ReplyDeleteNeil, any comments on this article?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/03/20/red-ken-and-the-nazis/
Mark: UKIP got 6% because the London elections coincided with the Euro election in 2004. Their profile will be lower this time - I doubt they will do anywhere near as well.
ReplyDeletemark: just noticed that was 6% of 1st preferences, if you add in 2nd preferences they got 10% - i.e less than the Greens on 11%!
ReplyDeleteR&W: The BNP accusing anyone of being fascist is hilarious. I nearly fell off my chair at the following bit -
ReplyDelete"The IRA were, and still are, a fascist movement with the racist and genocidal aim of expelling everyone from Ireland and Northern Ireland that they regarded as not Irish".
And what do the BNP stand for? Oh, yes - expelling anyone from Britain they consider not British. Whatever the truth about the IRA/Sinn Fein (and I can believe the above and about their links with the Nazis during the war), the BNP are little if any better. I find both of them distasteful.
It is well known that Livingstone long regarded talks with the IRA as the only way to bring peace to N.Ireland - British PMs have since done exactly that and proved Livingstone right. It is hardly seen as controversial today. Livingstone has always categorically condemned terrorism and his meeting with Muslim clerics today, is only what British PMs will be doing tomorrow (and like with the IRA, hardly anyone will bat an eyelid). the hypocrisy of the right is astounding. Even as the Tories (backed by the Tory press) were criticising Ken as 'odious' in the 1980s, we now know they were holding secret talks with the IRA at the same time.
Neil, fair's fair.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I can well understand why the Irish want to chuck out the interlopers and Brits (and I would happily withdraw from N Ireland and let them kill each other), they are, as a simple matter of fact, total murdering scum. The aims of the BNP are of course totally insane but to the best of my knowledge, they haven't killed thousands of people with bomb attacks and so on.
Further, there is a difference between a government holding talks with the IRA in secret (or with Iran or any other repulsive regime), and what Red ken is doing, which is openly glorifying Islamic terrorists, whoops, 'clerics'. And that madman Huge Chavez.
Mark: There was that nail bomber in London, but I think the main reason the BNP have not turned to terrorism is lack of support, resources and know how rather than any noble restraint. If the BNP had the support Sinn Fein/ IRA had in Ireland, then we would soon see their current bully boy intimidation of minorities and socialists turn to something nastier.
ReplyDeleteNeil, the BNP is a political party, not a terrorist organisation.
ReplyDeleteThey know perfectly well that the bulk of their voters would turn their backs on them if they went for terrorist atrocities. Look e.g. at Fathers 4 Justice, their members pulled one stunt too many and the organisation just disbanded/collapsed. The Irish have a different mentality.
I mean, compare the IRA/Sinn Fein with the SNP or Plaid Cymru, who are totally gentlemanly about achieving what they want to achieve.
Mark: The only difference between Sinn Fein and the BNP is that the support for IRA/Sinn Fein was so strong and their cause seen as so just, that the denial of a political voice (over generations and the oppression Catholics received as a religious minority) led to an acceptance of terrorism as the only option they saw to advance their cause in N.Ireland.
ReplyDeleteIf the BNP had a similar history of being violently oppressed over generations and had such high levels of support within an identifiable oppressed minority, I have little doubt they also would take the terrorism option. I am not sure what you are suggesting by saying 'the Irish have a different mentality'?
What I am trying to say is "The Irish have a different mentality".
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of minority/separatist movements or parties in Europe. Some are non-violent (SNP, Plaid Cymru, Austrians in South Tyrol, Catalans, Danish in Schleswig-Holstein) and some are psychopaths (IRA, ETA, anybody in Yugoslavia).
As to your comment 'The only difference...', wot? Were it not for the appalling levels of violence perpetrated by the IRA, I would have every sympathy with their aim of a 'united Ireland'. The BNP are completely off any sort of rational radar; but they are very sophisticated about it.