Election results 1 May 2008

What an election it was, nationally there were spectacular gains in Norwich, where the Greens are now the official opposition; an astonishing leap in Solihull, from fourth to first in one year to displace the Labour council leader; group status in Liverpool with a second seat; and first seats in Cambridge and Stroud. Sheffield and Camden Greens (north London) both gained one seat to make full Green wards in Central and Highgate respectively. The grand tally sees us with five extra seats to a total of 116 on 39 unitary authority councils. Labour got a real kicking, even loosing Mayor Ken Livingstone to Boris.

In Reading Labour has lost the Council after 22 years, its now under no overall control. For the next two years we have Cons 20, Lab 18, and LibDem 8.

In Park Ward our vote has continues its upward trend, a result of years of work all year round. In:
2003 189 votes,
2004 417,
2006 474, 4th place
2007 688, 3rd place 129 behind and
2008 994 votes, 2nd place, just 20 behind the winners.

Sadly, despite doing nothing all year, Labour chose to pour enormous effort into Park ward on polling day and managed to increase their own vote just enough to squeeze past Rob White. It's a measure of how much effort this cost them that they increased their vote in Park by approx 25% compared with last year, against the backdrop of a Labour collapse both locally and nationally. Another way of looking at it is that beating Rob cost them key Labour seats elsewhere in Reading, including Dave Sutton's (council leader) in Katesgrove. For some reason Labour are more afraid of the Green Party establishing a foot-hold than they are of losing to the Tories.

In Park despite leaflets saying they could win from both the Tories and Lib Dems, their vote fell. All three parties said we couldn't do better than 3rd place, all were wrong. We must be doing something right.

To everyone who made this possible, many thanks.
Labour 1014 up 204
Green 994 up 306
Cons 704 down 113
LD 286 down 44


For more news on the election see:
http://votegreenparty.org.uk
www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2027214_reading_election_news_minifeed
www.readingchronicle.co.uk/articles/1/1406
'THE Green Party’s Rob White was “gutted” to have failed by just 20 votes to topple Labour heavy Jon Hartley in Park ward but pledged to win it next time round.'
Ex Reading East Mp has something to say at
http://janestheones.blogspot.com

The other parties have interesting things to say on the election, www.labourhome.org
discusses a 'Rumour has it that Jack Straw and David Miliband are considering leadership bids.' It must be the beginning of the end for Brown, Labour can see they won't win a General Election with him and are getting desperate.

Locally www.readinglabour.org.uk says 'Labour gives Tories a bloody nose in Reading'. And Labour leader David Sutton 'declared victory for his party despite losing his seat in Katesgrove'. Thats an interesting way of describing losing control of the council and losing their dear leader. 'Tory boasts of being about to take overall control of Reading Borough Council, boasts repeated by David Cameron when he visited the Madejski Stadium three weeks ago, were shown to be just hollow when elections on 1 May left Labour as the largest party on the Council.' They have been in steady decline over the last few years:
2004 Lab 35
2006 Lab 32
2007 Lab 25
2008 Lab 20.
Any more success and they will disapear.

From the Lib Dem perspective it was a limited success, with Mr muckspreading Warren Swaine taking Katesgrove from David Sutton, they are up by one on last year (they lost Peppard to the Tories and gained Redlands from Labour).

At www.redlandslibdems.org.uk/2008/05/liberal-democra.html
'In Park, Labour held their seat and the Greens came second. Our man, Neal Brown, had worked so hard so its a shame - I'm sure we'll see Neal again :D This was a highly contested ward, effectively a 4 way marginal! With some interesting tactics played from all sides (Green really weren't 85 votes from winning) - there was often many parties canvassing at the same time! Plus, the Greens were seen driving to a road and getting out carrying bicycle helmets! OK, so we libdems drove about too, but at least we had two hybrid cars to take us ;-) '

This was written by Glen Goodall, who wrote recently that he is 'rarely seen without my bicycle', which sounds a little sad. Does he ride it or is it an accessory? I've been campaigning for more bikes for years, what have they done? They seem to be following in Martin Salters footsteps, thinking a single letter or photo of them standing in front of something is a campaign. So more lies and spin from them, no wonder they got nowhere in Park, getting 44 fewer votes than their low vote last year.