I take my hat off to the Norwich Greens. Extraordinary results. Let me list the ways they've done well.1. They're now the official opposition, just two seats away from being the largest party.
2. They won three new seats last night, all from the Lib Dems, and held the other two they held already.
3. The Greens scored more votes across Norwich than all the other parties (Grn: 29%, Lab: 25%, Con: 23%, Lib: 22%).
4. Take Nelson ward, for example. The Greens won 66% of the vote, with Labour second on 12%!
5. Norwich South looks entirely winnable at the next UK General.
Councillor Ramsay (above), now leader of the Opposition in Norwich, spoke at our conference last year, and is an inspiration. Other English results will be blogged here later.
I'd be interested in your opinion on the wider Green performance - was a total increase of 5 seats across England & Wales in line with expectations?
Still, impressive result in Norwich alright.
You're right, across England it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. A fair few strongholds didn't have votes this year, such as Brighton, so it's hard to read.
The Liberals and the Greens would have done a lot better if these voters had understood the system and the polling:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7386518.stm
You know and I know that any second preference other than Ken or Boris was always going to be wasted. Yet I met people who would be voting Ken 1 Sian 2. Odd.
Yes, the whole mayoral electoral system lends itself to a two-way celebrity contest, in which sensible voices get drowned out. But then the very position of mayor, as currently defined, is a bad idea anyway, in my opinion. Too much power in one person's hands.