Tuesday 21 July 2009

Goldsmid By-election : Vote Green but with..er..no illusions

Ironic to be stealing and adapting the old SWP line on voting Labour, but it just about sums up what I would be doing this Thursday if I lived in Goldsmid.

The Tories will hopefully receive the punishment they are due from the voters after allowing lame-duck Lainchbury to stay in place so that they could vote in their Mayor and Cabinet. The stalling over his inevitable departure made it impossible to hold this by-election at the same time as the euro-elections, which means that extra expenditure has been incurred. Taxpayers' money spent on keeping the Tories in control of the council - just fancy that!

New Labour is reeling from the defection of former councillor Vince Meegan, who is calling for a Green vote. Clearly they couldn't win a raffle (even if they bought all the tickets!) and by all accounts the Green campaign has left them standing.

So it's a vote for the Greens....but.....there are concerns. For example, their very late arrival on the right side of the housing transfer issue in 2007; in some areas Green councillors have voted FOR academies (though not here, I hasten to add). My main issue with the Greens is that they are a progressive force but many of them still think that the market can bring green reforms. Hopefully what is happening at the Vestas factory (see next post) demonstrates very clearly the problem with that.

But a Green victory would still be an advance.

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