24/07/2009 by Steve Tierney.

1st: Conservatives — 13,591 votes
2nd: Labour — 6,243 votes
3rd: Lib Dems — 4,809 votes
4th: UKIP — 4,068 votes
5th: Greens — 3,350 votes

Majority: 7,348
Well done all!  Teamwork and hard graft come up trumps again.

Note the strong UKIP showing … almost up with the Lib Dems.  Important, bearing in mind the Ramsey By-Election result yesterday.

Labour vote has collapsed dramatically, but they did still maintain second place (which is more than I’d expected.)  Down to their hard-core voting base, I presume. 

There’s just no way to spin this other than a massive victory for the Conservatives.  This was a Labour seat and it has swung so far over that we have more than double their votes now.  Repeated at a general election this would result in a huge and resounding majority.

The Lib Dems and the Greens (battle bus notwithstanding) must be feeling pretty dejected.  This is Norwich, after all!  If they can’t get a decent showing here, then where?

Posted in Victory, Green Party, Liberal Democrats, Labour Party, Parliament, Conservatives | No Comments »

21/07/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Shades Of Green
While I was in Norwich at the weekend I was surprised by a striking sight.  Juddering its way along one of the main streets a bright green double decker bus presented quite a spectacle.  Loudspeakers mounted on the behemoth blared something about: “Vote Clean, Vote Green” or some such propaganda.  I was struck by the sheer hypocritical gall of a party that drives that beast along the roads, disturbing a pleasant sunday with self-congratulatory distorted announcements, noise pollution and air pollution wrapped up in one vehicular monstrosity. 

Ah, but don’t worry.  It runs on Biodiesel made from cooking oil (apparently).  So that’s all right then.  The fact that biodiesel comes mostly from corn, soybeans, and palm oil plant all of which require large spaces in which to grow to produce decent yields is neither here nor there. These ingredients may be good for producing biodiesel but they also happen to be a major food crop for people and animals - but let’s not let that concern us.  It’s not like anybody is starving in the world, is it? The increase in demand for these raw ingredients has surely contributed to rising food prices and adversely affected the poorest. So, should we grow food or fuel? The greens seem to think that the answer is fuel, particularly where it might win them a vote or two in Norwich. 

Perhaps they will address this and make the battle bus’ next upgrade even greener?  I don’t know, to be honest.  Maybe green activists will be strapped under the hood, peddling with all their might to power its groaning engine?  You’ve gotta love ‘em.  

Meanwhile, the sole green member of Cambridgeshire County Council, Simon Sedgwick-Jell, is quite another story.  Intelligent, concise and thoughtful he has been impressive in every committee I’ve seen him in.  It would be fair to say that where Policy Development is considered he has actually done more on his own than the entire Liberal Democrat contingent.  This mostly due to the fact that he does turn up once in a while to take part.  If I had voted in a Lib Dem (unlikely, I grant you, but this is a flight of fancy) and then discovered they weren’t doing the job I had elected them to do (mostly out of a fit of pique for not getting their way over making the meetings public as far as I can see) I’d be pretty angry about it.  But perhaps Lib Dem voters don’t mind their representatives spending their time sulking instead of working? 

Still, its a full council meeting tomorrow (or today - I should probably go to bed.) I will finally see something of my yellow-hued colleagues.  That’s great.  I’ve missed them.  Particularly Cllr Moss-Eccardt.  I can’t wait to see what wonderment of procedural joy he has in store for us this time.  Somebody pass the popcorn!
  

How to be clean and green.  Double-Decker style!
(Look in the grill at the front!  There really are
Green activists in there peddling for power!)

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