Your say / Politics
‘What Labour win in Bristol doesn’t tell you’
No one will pretend anything other than the fact that Labour won these elections. They won the mayoral election by an enormous margin (far more than could possibly be accounted for just by RPZs, there must surely also be a Corbyn factor).
They also won the council elections. They ended up with 37 seats, taking three from the Greens, two from the Tories, one Lib Dem and the UKIP seat.
But upon a little inspection, it is amazing how little it would have taken for the outcome to have been different.
is needed now More than ever
First off, the importance of your surname. There were a lot of votes cast on the basis of picking one candidate from one party, and one from another – and there is no doubt that the person highest up the list tended to do better.
Hence, we have lost the excellent Daniella Radice, the Tories have lost former lord mayor Alistair Watson, and Labour lost Eileen Means – largely because of the letter their surnames begin with.
When it comes to votes, I, unashamedly write this from a Green Party perspective, but the rationale applies across the board.
We lost a seat in Central ward by seven votes.
We missed taking a second seat in Cotham by 75 votes.
We lost a seat in Windmill Hill by 96 votes.
With another 166 votes in Bishopston, and we would have kept two councillors.
We lost a seat on Easton by 186 votes.
We lost a seat in Ashley by 220 votes.
Add them up and with another 178 votes, we would have had thee more councillors (and maintained our numbers at 14).
With an additional 750 votes we would have six extra councillors (and gone up to 17 and been the second largest party).
In total 270,000 votes were cast, across the city – so an additional 0.07 per cent of the vote would have meant “status quo” and an additional 0.3 per cent of the vote would have meant we’d had a great election. Even if you just include votes in those wards mentioned, it is still a small percentage.
And if you realise that all of these seats bar Cotham went to Labour, then something like 300 switches from Labour to Green would have given us five extra seats.
I probably shouldn’t namedrop a Bristol Post reporter on a Bristol 24/7 blog, but I remember speaking to Ian Onions before the count on Saturday and saying the margins between success and failure were small. I hadn’t realised just how small.
So, the message I’d send to Green voters is this (and I’m sure the sentiment, with a different party, is mirrored by others): when we say we need your vote, we really, really do need your vote.
When we say “please go out and vote”, we mean “please actually go out and vote”. Your vote, or your failure to vote, or giving a sympathy vote elsewhere really does have an impact.
Oh, and my message to Labour is – enjoy the moment – but we will get these seats back. You are just keeping them warm.
Charlie Bolton is leader of the Green Party group in Bristol.
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