I have been coming under a lot of pressure from the Greens who want me to stand aside for them in Norwich North.
This from Norfolk Blogger:
A few lies being spread about the Norwich North By-Election
A few lies are starting to be spread to various websites and blogs which seem to be emanating from the Green Party. So it seems it is right to out these lies in to a factual context.
1) The Greens did not win the popular vote in Norwich North. They came 4th across the whole constituency which includes far more than just the four Norwich Wards.
2) Norwich North is NOT on the same boundaries as Norwich City Council. Half of Norwich North is made up from parts of Broadland District Council, an authority that has no Greens elected.
It seems that the Greens, so keen to position themselves are showing that facts shouldn’t get in the way of misleading the electorate.
http://norfolkblogger.blogspot.com/2009/06/few-lies-being-spead-about-norwich.html
That is not just fourth, it is a very distant fourth, with the Tories miles ahead. A strong independent candidate is needed to stop a simple swap of Labour for the Tories, which won’t improve anything.
I am standing to give the voters a chance to reject all the political parties and put an honest man into parliament.
I will not put my snout in the trough. I have proved I am not motivated by money by giving up an extremely lucrative career as Ambassador on principle in opposition to our complicity in torture.
I am not just a single issue candidate. The sleaze of the expenses scam is not the entire problem. It is a symptom of the situation, where we have very low quality MPs who are just hacks to party machines. These MPs were sleepwalking into the economic disaster of the unregulated casino economy and the banking crash. These MPs have voted through the wholesale erosion of our civil liberties. These MPs voted us in to an illegal and disastrous war that has increased the fundamentalist threat.
I am born and bred in Norfolk and there is hardly a lane in Cawston or Drayton I haven’t cycled down. I know the estates of Hellesdon.
I hope that we shall channel people’s resentment at the corrupt careerists who run our parliament and political systems.
We are going in Norwich North to start a movement for reform that will bring in a flood of Independents at the following general election. It’s a Norfolk movement for people power. We are going to start on Mousehold Heath working for freedom against a corrupt London, just like old Robert Kett.
Only this time, we are going to win.
It would be interesting to know just how the proportion of candidates elected of those that actually stood, compared across the parties; I haven’t seen this information on the BBC. I would expect it to be higher for the minority parties than New Labour, but I suspect that it might not be so ‘amazing’ in comparison to the Tories.
@Craig
“[T]here was a very large increase indeed in Independent Councillors in Thursday’s election.”
Were there district elections, as well? I can only find results for elections to the County Council – which showed the Greens did well: a gain of five seats to give them a total of seven.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=NewsSplash&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=NewsSplash&itemid=NOED06%20Jun%202009%2008%3A34%3A57%3A707
SJB
I was talking of the national result
Yes, it would be better for the Tories. You seem to be being deliberately obtuse. Of course I am not saying that independent people ahve already taken over the political system from the parties. I am saying there is a historical shift towards independents having a real chance of getting elected, as opposed to it being an extremely rare event, and we have to work to further that trend.
My question intended to highlight tne fact that the achievement of the minoity parties, apart from not being as ‘amazing’ as you claimed, provides objective grounds for doubting whether a ‘flood’ of independents is going to come in at the next election. Your latest post (disregarding personal remarks)sounds a lot more restrained than this claim.
@Craig
Ok. But it is submitted that an additional six Independent councillors (bringing the total to 97) hardly qualifies as a “very large increase” – even in percentage terms.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/html/region_99999.stm
If you stand you have my vote
Craig; It’s unfortunate that you lean so heavily here on Norfolk Blogger, a notorious & bilious anti-Green propagandist.
I think that it would be great for you and the Norwich Greens to get into a conversation. I’m sure that you could sort something out.
One obvious possibility: You could join the Green Party and stand for selection for them for the byelection!
Leonard,
Thanks, I really don’t want to be a candidate for any party. It would be hypocriticial of me.
Norfolk Blogger may have history with the Greens, but the cold fact that the Greens came fourth in the constituency wide Norwich North vote on Thirsday is true.
Craig, by my reckoning (based on http://www.norfolk.gov.uk), the Greens came 3rd not 4th across the Norwich North wards, albeit only marginally ahead of the LibDems (Con: 38.2%, Lab: 19.2%, Greens: 16.4%, LD: 16.0%, UKIP: 8.8%, BNP 1%).
What could be significant is that UKIP stood in less than half of the wards, and one would suspect that a fair proportion of Tory voters might have voted UKIP given the chance.
Were the BNP to field a parilamentary candidate, that would open it up even further (they only stood in one ward in the local elections). One would expect that they would cream a few votes off Labour, the Tories & UKIP.
With that in mind, to say that Greens are delusional to think they have a chance is a bit harsh.
Leaonard, I do not hide behind a false ID, so at least I am not gutless like you.
As for your comment Chris, your statistics are simpyl wrong. Add them up and remeber that Taverham and Drayton are also part of Norwich North until the next General Election. Your statistics appear to omit them.
Just what Norwich needs – another left wing fantasist already feeding off the state at the expense of everyone else. Greens, Labour, Murray there is no difference except of course Murray would no doubt want more money diverted from England to Scotland so that Scots can go free to his university but the English can’t. If you are going to vote for some sort of over bloated incompetent centralist regime you might as well vote watermelon rather than for someone who lives 500 miles away.
Craig, I note that the LibDems are not averse to quoting irrelevant stats themselves to make predictions that are some way off the mark.
LibDem leaflets going through doors in the EuroElection said “It takes about 150,000 votes to elect an MEP in the East of England. [true] The Greens only got 25,000 across the whole of the East at the last General election [utterly irrelevant, since General and Euro elections are so different] and have only a handful of councillors [false, on any reasonable interpretation of a ‘handful’]. It continues “LSE academics have predicted that the Greens will lose all their UK MEPs at the European Parliament elections on June 4th [this is presumably quoting an earlier prediction http://www.predict09.eu which says “Reproduction of the data contained in this website is authorised provided credit is given to the authors of this study and Burson – Marsteller”: no such credit was given]. The LibDem leaflet goes on “You don’t have the luxury of voting Green when the final seat on the East of England list will be either a hard-working LibDem MEP or a fourth Conservative” [the final seat was won by UKIP, and the Greens came next, both were ahead of the second LibDem and fourth Conservative – the LibDem leaflet may well have helped UKIP win that final seat – the Greens needed 16,000 more votes to win that seat, by contrast the Tories would have needed more than 120,000 extra votes to win it and the LDs more than 92,000 extra].
Craig – you should try and get the Greens to stand aside for you, rather than the other way.
They don’t have enough voters in Norwich North to win but, by supporting you, then they could present themselves as the kingmakers and a force to be reckoned with. That would then asist them with their real campaign in Norwich South in the general election.
If they threw their weight behind you, and helped you get your leaflets out, then you could thank them vocally for their support afterwards. A much better story than “Greens lose again”
Everybody’s a winner…
The Libertarian Party candidate may be the youngest of the lot, but at least he has a refreshing new party behind him.
Socially Liberal, Austrian Economics and Fiscally Conservative, certainly don’t seem to be like any other party out there.
The candidate might not do very well seeing as no one has really heard of them before, but will be an interesting one to follow.