Bristol Local Election Results – Kiely Out/The Slow March of the Greens

I have been looking at the Bristol Local Election results, which have not changed the council numbers much with Labour winning two seats and the LibDems loosing two and the 'resurgent' Tories coming in with the same number of councilors:

Liberal Democrat 31 (-2)
Labour 25 (+2)
Conservative 13 (no change)
Green 1 (no change)

While nationally Neo-Labour are getting a bit of a hammering (last time I looked loosing 151 seats overall)in Bristol they gained two, though I think that was the 'Kiely' effect over the privatisation of homecare – Kiely lost his seat to Labour in Easton, so he's out! (Respect party managed a third place, and were pretty close to beating the LibDems)

But I think the real story is the slow, but sure march of the Greens as a political force in Bristol, and this is driven by the change in the culture of the city towards ecological and sustainable issues, plus a dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties.

This time round, the votes by % were are follows:

LABOUR 29.67
LIBDEM 27.21
CONSERVATIVE 25.20
GREEN 14.24
BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY 1.96
The Respect Party 0.86
UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY 0.44
INDEPENDENT 0.25
SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE 0.18

If you follow the green vote over the last few years is has steadily risen; in 2004 it was just over 5%, in 2005 just over 8%, in 2006 it was just over 12% and they gained their first seat in Southville. While this time they have not won any seats, if you look how close they came it gets interesting; in Southville they were only 6 votes of winning and in my ward, Ashley they were only 110 votes behind the LibDems.

A couple of other points of note – while they may have benefited from local dissatisfaction with the LibDems, Neo-Labour polled the same percentage of votes this time as in 2006 and the fascist BNP only managed 1.96% - which is still 1.96% more that they should get.

Still, elections are only a single day of so-called 'democracy', we still have another 364 days a year to fight for our rights and environment.

You can find out more from the council site here:
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/electionresults