Highbury West by-election

I've just found out that we'll be facing a Council by-election in Highbury West on 5 May as Mary Creagh has resigned her council seat in order to fight Wakefield in the General Election.

Highbury West is one of our best wards and we narrowly missed getting our first councillor elected there in 2002. I now find myself in the position of fighting two elections - most likely on the same day - as I have long been selected as a candidate for Highbury West.

Based on the 2002 result we need to convince about 80 Labour voters to switch in order to elect Islington's first Green councillor. Given the work we've been putting in year-round we're confident that we can do this. We're helped by the fact that Highbury West is somewhere that the LibDems do appallingly badly. They came a poor third in 2002 and in last June's elections to the London Assembly and the European Parliament.

Here's my first press release of the by-election campaign:

Greens confident of winning first councillor

Islington Green Party announced their candidate for the Highbury West by-election today. Jon Nott, 32, stood in the Highbury West in the 2002 council elections when the Green Party narrowly missed out on their first Islington councillor. Jon also stood for the London Assembly in June last year and again the Green Party were the clear challengers to Labour.

"Only the Green Party can beat Labour in Highbury West," says Jon. "We are the only party working for Highbury residents all year round and this is reflected in the level of support in recent elections."

"Highbury West has suffered badly from the way the Council has mismanaged the Arsenal stadium move. Residents deserve someone who will speak up for them on the Council and only the Green Party provides the real choice for real change."

"The Green Party is the only party to oppose the further privatisation of Islington's schools and the only party offering a real solution to transport problems. Greens on the London Assembly and in the European Parliament are already delivering improvements for Highbury West residents - electing a Green councillor will make a real difference."

The LibDems came a poor third in Highbury West in both the 2002 Council elections and last years' London Assembly and European Parliament elections.

Jon is a former Vice-Chair of CND, whose headquarters are in Highbury West, and has lived in Islington for five years and worked for a human rights campaign based in Archway since 1998. He lives with his partner and her daughter.

The Highbury West by-election has been called for Thursday 5 May following the resignation of Cllr Mary Creagh. Mary Creagh is standing down to pursue her political career in Wakefield, where she will stand at the General Election.

Notes:
1. The Green Party was only 148 votes short of winning their first Council seat in Highbury West in 2002. The Liberal Democrats were over 600 votes behind.

2. In Highbury West Jon Nott was the clear challenger to the winning Labour candidate in last June's election to the London Assembly.

Labour - 784 (32.5%)
Green - 565 (23.5%)
LibDem - 371 (15.5%)
Conservative - 288 (12.0%)

Honest politics

The weekend's revelations about the Tories plans for huge cuts in public spending might be dominating the agenda, but they aren't the only party trying to mislead voters.

The papers are full of articles by ministers and their friends arguing that a vote for progressive anti-war candidates (or the LibDems) will not teach Labour a lesson, but will lead to a Tory government - completely missing the point that most tactical voting is done on a seat by seat basis. In fact there are several sites such as So Now Who Do We Vote For which are set up precisely to help you work out how best to vote tactically and ensure that you don't let the Tories in.

Interestingly, the Tories are paying for ads in the Islington Press telling people that a vote for the LibDems will let Labour back in. As the Tories have no prospect of even coming second, let alone winning it seems that they are afraid that tactical voting could cost them their deposits and are desperately trying to shore up their core vote.

Of course, the past masters at misleading voters are the LibDems and their graphs. The latest Islington North graph is a classic example and follows the text book advice: "Does a strong third party challenge make a nonsense of claims that it's a two horse race? Simple, just leave them off the graph - the voters won't notice."

The misleading LibDem graph

and the real figures, showing the extent of Green support in Islington North.

Canvassing

Yesterday was our first day of election canvassing. Until now we've been keeping up our year round issue-based canvassing - talking to people about local issues that we've been campaigning on and taking up casework on their behalf. Over the past few weeks more and more people have been assuming that we were electioneering and with the announcement less than a fortnight away we've decided to make the switch.

Canvassing some streets is like calling on old friends. Many of the residents are people we've spoken to several times over the course of the year's canvassing and they're happy to talk to us about the election precisely because we don't just come round when there's an election on.

Unsurprisingly a lot of people are undecided at this stage. Although we've been thinking about the election almost constantly for months, for most people it's only just coming onto the radar. The signs are good though - a lot of Labour voters can't bring themselves to vote for Blair and there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the LibDem council - we're offering the option to vote for rather than against something. Add in the fact that we polled over 20% in Islington North in last June's GLA and Euro elections and we seem to be on track for a significant increase in our vote.

Critical Mass

Just back from the monthly Critical Mass cycle ride, followed by a quick meeting with Malcolm, my Election Agent, to sort out the weekend's canvassing.

Critical Mass is one of those things where it's difficult to describe the appeal until you try it. A load of cyclists meet up on the South Bank on the last Friday of the month and ride around for the evening. There's no fixed route, no destination, just the chance to see what central London would be like if the primary mode of transport was the bike rather than the car.

Although at its root the Mass is making a political point about the need for traffic reduction and an end to our oil dependence, when you are actually riding it turns into a very social occasion. I spent most of the evening chatting to Chris Asbhy, the previous Green Party candidate in Islington North, Matthew Tempest, a Guardian journalist who I first met when he was reporting on Green Party conference and Matt's wife.

Jesse, who I know from my involvement in Housmans Bookshop and Peace News was also there distributing flyers for the World Naked Bike Ride in Hyde Park in June. I like their slogan "STOP indecent exposure to vehicle emmissions", but I'm not at all sure about the practicalities of naked cycling.

I leave the Mass outside Buckingham Palace as they head south and I make for King's Cross for my meeting.

Make My Vote Count

I've just signed up as a supporter of the electoral reform campaign Make My Vote Count.

This is a campaign run by Make Votes Count and the Electoral Reform Society to promote a fairer voting system.

"The present winner-takes-all voting system frequently gives governments exaggerated majorities and leaves a tiny minority of voters in marginal seats to decide elections. A fairer voting system would produce a more representative parliament and make everyone's vote count equally."

They are running an online petition to be delivered to the new government after the election and have options to email all your candidates telling them of your support for a fairer voting system.

Sadly, not all the links on their website were working when I visited so I couldn't look at their campaign blog or their candidate profiles, but I've signed up for their email list and I'll post here when their site becomes fully functional.

Kelly stays vague on school food

Despite Blair's warm words about Jamie Oliver's feed me better campaign to improve school meals, it seems that Education secretary is doing her best to sound like she's taking action without making any commitments she can be held to after the election.

You would almost think she cared more for the opinions (and profits) of school catering companies like Scolarest than the children and parents whose interests she's supposed to look after.

More racists attacks from the Tories

Michael Howard is playing the race card again. And again he forgets to mention that the "problem" he sees is actually a result of Tory policies.

Councils used to have a duty to provide sites for travellers, but the Tories abolished that responsibility when Michael Howard was Home Sectretary. Now Tory Councils like Brentwood refuse to provide council owned sites and refuse to help identify sites that travellers can purchase (at no cost to the taxpayer). The inevitable result is that travellers have to park up illegally, providing the Tories with an ideal opportunity to hurl racist abuse and sterotypes at travelling people.

Even the local Tory candidate admits that the anti-immigration posters run by the Tories a few weeks ago were "insensitive", but it seems that the Tory leadership are set on whipping up imagined threats for the Daily Mail to rant about. It just goes to show that the Tories don't change their spots and however pleasant individual local candidates are, a vote for the Tories is a vote for racism and xenophobia.

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

Today, on the eve of Stop the War's protest on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we launched the Green Party's first ever billboard campaign. In case you can't read the smaller text on the jpeg it says "The war in Iraq was illegal. Labour lied. We will end conflict by launching peace and human rights agreements, not missiles."

Islington Pensioners' Forum - Labour self-destruct

The first official hustings today. The Pensioners' Forum is always a great gig - you're guaranteed a good argument, but unusually it wasn't the LibDem council coming in for most of the flack.

Emily Thornberry, Labour candidate for neighbouring Islington South & Finsbury, self-destructed in spectacular fashion during her introductory remarks. She mentioned that she would be speaking to Gordon Brown this afternoon and wondered if she could pass on the thanks of Islington pensioners for the one-off £200 Council Tax rebate he announced yesterday. The answer was a resounding no. Well, could she tell him "thanks, but it's not enough"? Again, no.

Instead of seeing that she had misjudged the mood of the meeting, Emily ploughed on regardless - "So, should I tell Gordon that pensioners in Islington don't need the extra £200 and he should take it back?" At this point the meeting briefly descended into chaos as the pensioners told Emily what she should say to Gordon Brown (in essence, restore the earnings link and give us a decent basic pension, not loads of means tested top-ups).

After that the rest of the meeting seemed quite calm with a few surreal moments as the Tories pledged to restore the earnings link and cut pensioners' Council Tax. Don't they realise that pensioners are all old enough to remember the Tories idea of fair local taxation - it was called the Poll Tax.

Budget

I listened to the budget with extra interest today. Brown's "budget for pensioners" comes the day before I am due at my first official husting - at the Islington Pensioners Forum. And it was good to see Labour stealing some Green policies for their budget, even if they are watered down.
But the main theme of the budget seems to be opportunities missed. Despite all the Labour rhetoric on climate change there is a paucity of action. Freezing fuel duty and setting aside £30bn for new roads will hardly reduce the 25% of CO2 emmissions caused by car traffic.

The headlines will no doubt focus on the "election giveaway" for pensioners, but as usual the devil is in the detail. Take free local transport for example. The Green policy of free LocalPlus travel includes local travel and travel to the nearest major town or city. In rural areas, thousands of pensioners will find that Labour's poorly thought out scheme means that they can't travel to their usual market town because it's over the county boundary and not included in their free pass.