How to solve a problem like Brighton Pride?

Just before I head off on my summer holiday, I wanted to come back and discuss the upcoming Brighton and Hove LGBT Pride festival, which will be taking place on Saturday 13th August. I recently asked you for feedback on the decision this year to charge for entry. Thanks to all who contributed, although I wasn't ready for either the volume of responses or the polarized views I received! Whilst it was evenly-balanced, it was hard not to detect an underlying anger amongst some that the principle of free entry had been undermined.

LGBT Pride in the city has been a politically charged issue for many years, which isn't surprising considering the impact our particular festival has on the community. The weekend itself brings hundreds of thousands of people into the city, spending a vast amount of money with local businesses, both within and without the Preston Park party itself. As a result, the successful governance and running of the festival is monitored by many interested parties across the city, not necessarily just those known for their LGBT rights advocacy.

Unsurprisingly, the cost for running pride continues to rise. In the last year or two a great deal of concern has been raised by the statutory authorities and the Fire Service about public safety at the park event, as attendee numbers have steadily grown. Without agreement to fence the park (at a cost of around £100,000), it was made plain that licenses might not be granted this year. Alongside this additional cost, clean-up costs and community policing are needed to preserve the quality of Preston Park, tackle anti-social behaviour and under-age drinking over the weekend. For the last two years, Pride has operated at a significant loss, meaning that profits haven't been available to plow back into local LGBT organisations, who are now operating in a harsh financial climate and desperate for support.

On a personal note, I'll be honest and say that charging for Pride is something I have always been exceptionally uncomfortable with. During the mid-1990s living in London, I have vivid memories of Pride being the centrepoint of my yearly calendar, a chance to show some visible political muscle against rampant homophobia and a place where we could come together to party, regardless of whether we could afford to pay. When financial problems meant our celebration was taken over and business brought in to run the event, transforming it into a ticketed "Mardi Gras" with a "parade" through central London instead of a march, I walked away aghast. Regardless of the gains we've made legally over the years, I believe more strongly than ever that there is a political element to our experience of being LGBT that we risk losing when commercial realities come to bear in guiding these community events.

Paradoxically though, I find myself angry that in spite of nearly 100 volunteers collecting donations with buckets last year, that it translated to approximately 13p donated per attendee. This means that a majority of people enjoying Pride didn't pay a contribution towards the running costs of the festival last year. I wonder how many of these are amongst those people who are railing against the introduction of a charge. Retaining a "free" festival can only work with contributions from the Council, the businesses who will make a profit out of their participation and from a community prepared to back up their wish for Pride to continue with practical support. Sponsorship monies are declining, especially for local businesses squeezed hard by the recession. The new Green Council, as I've written about elsewhere, is struggling with a diminished central Government grant and needs to prioritise public services for the elderly, vulnerable and children. That they are still contributing a donation, providing soft loans to Pride and stepping in to cover some of the costs of running the St James St after-Pride street party is to be welcomed.

More so than ever at this time of tightened belts, we need as a community (and as a city) to take individual responsibility for making sure Pride remains viable and reflective of it's values of inclusion, campaigning spirit and celebration of diversity. This isn't just in financial terms. In the new climate of the "big society", we need to accept that if we want to retain public goods, it will mean giving our time and political support to protect them.

This isn't to say the new system is perfect. I can already see a number of elements that could be improved upon:

• We need clearer mechanisms to ensure that the low-paid, disabled and students are able to access reduced admissions similar to under-18s and to communicate the ticketing system more clearly.
• A more robust approach is needed to ensure that those businesses (especially the gay bars) who benefit from the festival and the post-Pride drinks in St James St contribute a fairer amount financially and play a role in managing the event.
• After criticisms from the local community, we need to bring a plurality of different voices to the management of Pride, allowing individuals from the black and ethnic minority, youth and disabled LGBT groups more influence in the planning of future events. We must ensure that the voices of private profit do not dominate and that prices are kept as low as possible.
• We need a public demonstration that raising a profit for Brighton & Hove Pride means investment in our struggling community groups all year round, not just fattened the wallets of businesses. The benefits of buying a ticket need to be underlined.

Some voices are calling for a boycott of this year's Brighton & Hove Pride and calling for an alternative celebration on the beach. Whilst I would never argue with someone exercising choice, if anything is going to kill Pride and the benefits it brings to the city, it will be significant numbers staying away. As somebody who has happily contributed a significant donation to the buckets at Brighton Pride for the last 13 years, I'm saddened that it has come to mandatory ticketing - but I will be there on the day, ticket in hand to show my support in Pride's efforts to invest in the essential work being quietly undertaken by community LGBT organisations all year round. I hope I will see some of you there, either passing by the Green Party stall or in the dance-tents.

Verdict on the first few months of Brighton & Hove's Green Council

As people start drifting away for their summer breaks, the dust is settling on the first three months of Brighton & Hove's new minority Green Council. Now the fake war of words around protest camps in the city and the petty politiking around Traveller encampments has died down, we have started seeing the emergence of real issues that will make or break this Council. Speaking with Councillors, watching streamed Council meetings and following the twists and turns of debate between our political opponents and the local media, we can already see the contours of battles ahead that hold both promise and warnings for my colleagues.

In the last few weeks, we have had some real cause for celebration. The Council is now intending to bring forward the introduction of a living wage for it's own workers and establishing a Living Wage Commission for Brighton & Hove to examine the opportunties and challenges in rolling this out across the public, private and third sector in the city. With rising inequality hitting women and the vulnerable more savagely as the national cuts bite, this is a discernable step forward and a rallying call for what Greens can achieve if given political authority.

Work is moving forward on a number of other crucial fronts, such as a new city-wide climate change plan, an increase in house building and a re-examination of our strategy for the South Downs. The latter change could be one of the more lasting achievements of the Green Council and I would encourage the Cabinet not to take their eye off the ball here. Alongside good governance, it will be essential for us to have flagship, visible and lasting policy successes to our name by 2015. Linking up our new National Park more robustly with the city has the potential for expanding our attractiveness as a tourist destination for new audiences away from the city centre, bringing revenue and jobs to the outer wards. Broadening accessibility, infrastructure and communicating this well are essential pre-requisites for making this work, but could serve to secure our reputation as the green capital of the UK.

The other positive improvement we are already seeing to the work of our Council is that consultation and participation are now definitely key elements to our work. With each announcement from the Green Cabinet, we are hearing a great deal about how we will be consuting more widely with community groups, unions, business and third sector organisations. If we are to achieve policy changes in Brighton that stick, we need to be basing our decisions on informed debate with the community. So far our record has not been without it's missteps, but there does seem to be a sea-change from the approach taken by our precedessors. As a new administration with limited experience in running a Council, this strategy doesn't hurt us either, because the process will throw up potential political problems at quite an early stage of discussion.

So, where are the problems? We are now at the mercy of our manifesto and public statements before the local elections. The realities of holding power mean that with the best intention in the world, there will be times when we need to take a different route to that publicised earlier. The charge that we will continue to hear, at least for the next 12 months or so, is that we fought on a platform of resisting all cuts. I'm seeing this regularly thrown back in the face of the Cabinet during meetings as the detail starts to emerge of how the Council budget is balanced. The truth is very clear. In our city-wide GreenLeaf newspaper, we explicitly promised to "Resist to the greatest extent possible, Government cuts" and talked of areas that we could cut without hitting front-line services. This was echoed in our Alternative Budget, which clearly laid out areas where funding would need to cut in order to protect front-line services for children, older people and the vulnerable.

We need to challenge this distortion every time it is uttered by our opponents. Common sense, let alone the written evidence, dictates that we need to still balance a budget with more limited resources. We have our local MP, Caroline Lucas, fighting the cuts on the national stage - the Green Council needs to blunt the impact from voters as much as we can. Two areas that we haven't started tackling yet are our pledges to cut £0.7M of management costs from senior Council Officer roles (especially as this funding was earmarked to go back into Connexions) and the cutting of Councillor allowances. Whilst I personally support decent Councillor allowances, so that running for these elected positions are practical options to more than just the independently wealthy, I am nervous that a lack of movement on these points is leaving us open to charges of acting in self-interest once in power. Politically, this is especially dangerous right now.

I've been impressed with the leadership shown by our new Council Leader, Bill Randall and the command of detail shown by Jason Kitcat as Cabinet Member for Finance and Central Services. In these initial months, it has been essential to have credible figures fronting the Cabinet during a difficult transition. That they have managed to do so with grace and good humour is to their credit. Whilst other members of the Cabinet have taken to their new roles with real confidence and energy, there is the impression from some that they are still finding their feet and are uncertain in their portfolios.

The summer break will give a short respite, but we need everyone firing on all cylinders by autumn, because I have no doubt a savvy opposition will start targeting weaker performers once they have had time to regroup. The Conservatives are already going for the jugular in a particularly unsubtle way, with regular digs at our naivety or lapsed pledges. Labour are playing a better, more dangerous game. Gill Mitchell is taking a consensual, team-player attitude and raising opposition to our policies without rancour, always putting the low paid first. Taken together, this will be a potent mix and could cause problems for the unwary.

Overall then, a strong beginning from the Green Council, with several of our key manifesto pledges inching closer to being fulfilled and the outlines of a strong distinctive policy offer to the public. This is tempered with a need to keep mindful of our flank on some lesser manifesto pledges and internal support to less confident Cabinet members. Yet that said, there has never been a more exciting time to be a Green Party member!

Big Brother is watching: scrutinising our elected representatives

At the risk of looking like an incredible political geek, I wanted to share something that I have found particularly fascinating in the last few weeks: the webcasting of Brighton & Hove Council meetings. Who am I kidding? Regular readers already know I'm beyond keen in using technology to open up politics!

Since December of last year, key council meetings, such as cabinet, planning and scrutiny meetings have been streamed on a live basis and are then available as an archive. Agendas, the contributions of individual speakers and associated documentation are also searchable. At a stroke, this move flips the relationship between electing and elected - no longer are we placed in the position of passively asking for information from the powerful and informed. In this new world, voters have it at their disposal if they choose to find it.

This shift has the potential to revolutionise our ability to hold elected representatives to account. A consistent voter frustration with Council meetings has been that they generally need to be held during core working hours, limiting the ability of most voters to attend. This change crucially brings Council business further into the lives of those individuals with limited mobility.

Whilst the new system is not exhaustive in coverage of all meetings, I am impressed with the steps taken by the previous Conservative Council to truly open themselves up to the public eye. Knowing how strongly my Green Councillor colleagues feel about increasing transparency in public life, I am eager to see how they will build upon this strong foundation in their term in office. Publicising this service more broadly would be an excellent first step.

More than before, now that my local party holds the balance of power on the Council, I'm finding this invaluable in informing me about the major local decisions my colleagues are wrestling with. Additionally, it provides a unique insight and opportunity to scrutinise the priorities and performance of our elected representatives away from the glare of election campaigns.

A single month into our new Council, I'll keep my opinions to myself regarding individual performances, but these webcasts are fundamentally shaping my views about the politicians in the city, both external to and within my own party. I would encourage you to check if your Council is doing something similar. If not, I can't recommend this highly enough, especially for those interested in standing for public office, shaping local political policy or keen to hold politicians accountable. Believe me, it's an eye opener!

Green opponents show their cards as Brighton issues take centre-stage

Forget the honeymoon period - Brighton's Green Council is already under sustained scrutiny and attack by the other political parties in the city. They haven't wasted time on such small formalities as an analysis of their own performance at the local elections, they have gone straight to attack mode.

Already, the fault lines are becoming apparent and there are both positive and troubling implications for us in them. The most damning argument is that as a Council, we are dangerously inexperienced and that by appointing new Councillors straight in the Cabinet, we are risking burn-out, or more worryingly, missing something serious in our duty of care to the city. It is worth being mindful of this view, even though I have every faith in our Cabinet. As a non-Councillor, I wasn't party to the decision-making process that appointed our Cabinet, but I would have made the case for inclusion of more existing Councillors with proven track records in this initial year. The workload and level of commitment expected from our elected representatives both inspires and intimidates in equal measure and the culture shock for our new representatives is not to be underestimated. As a local party, we should find more ways to support those colleagues taking the highest burden.

Where the other parties are letting themselves down is that by pushing this quite so gleefully, it comes across suspiciously like sour grapes and carping from the sidelines. This can only serve to paint them as career politicians, more concerned with position than putting misgivings aside and contributing for the good of the city. That said, we cannot rely upon the patience of the electorate indefinitely to cut us slack.

In the month since the Greens took office, two issues in particular have flared up with the potential to damage our reputation quite quickly. This has been our response to traveller encampments on the outskirts of the city and the establishment of a protest camp in the Old Steine, one of the most conspicuous locations in the city. In both instances, the Greens have worked hard with both the groups and the local authorities and behaved in an even-handed and responsible manner. The response from the Conservatives has been to scaremonger that we are making the city a "laboratory" for our social experiments and that we are not speaking up for the majority. Just reading Councillor Ben Duncan's statement on the subject gives the lie to that assertion.

However, they are succeeding to a degree in dragging us into the mire on two "minority" issues and keeping press attention away from the more sound policies, such as our commitment to increase house-building dramatically, review transport policies for the city and the agreement yesterday to install solar panels on all Council-owned buildings.

We need to ensure that we get a clear line on why we support right to protest and how we are approaching the policing of such protest in the city and hammer it home each time we speak to the press. The narrative we are beginning to hear is that our inexperience and focus on fringe issues will make the city less productive and attractive to live in. We need sharp headline retorts to these criticism that strike a moderate balance and stay true to our values of supporting free speech and movement. Wherever possible, we need to reiterate that important though these issues are, we are working to a bigger vision that will benefit and transform the whole city.

Building Green success: The route-map to 2015 (part 3)

Throughout this week, I've been focussing on the fresh political landscape in Brighton and Hove. Whilst the UK is living through some of the most challenging financial circumstances in the last twenty years, those of us here on the coast are entertaining hopes that over the next four years, the Greens can forge a beacon of good governance and an inspiring alternative to politics as usual.

However, this historic opportunity leaves us with a great responsibility to prove that we can be trusted with holding power. Our performance here will have implications for the Green Party's reputation across the country. We can already sense that the national media and our opponents will be quick to use our leadership stance and policies here to extrapolate about the party as a whole, for good or ill.

I believe that to make this term of office a success, we need to identify a strong narrative for what we are hoping to achieve and communicate this relatively swiftly, so that voters feel able to measure us against it. In the current circumstances, we should not over-commit and aim for a series of incremental improvements to the city that leave it a more prosperous and unified place.

For me, the main achievement of a first term in office will be to persuade voters that we can be trusted to pay due respect to the core issues that matter to people. We need to ensure we focus as much on these "bread and butter" issues as the green priorities we have strong credentials upon. Ideally, we should be knitting these together to deliver on multiple outcomes at once.

So what are the main issues of importance for residents in the city? Simple. I think our principal focus has to be upon job creation and retention. Critical to this will be placing the Council's weight behind small businesses, to build an enabling environment within which they can flourish. On the expansion of green jobs, I noticed in response to one of my earlier posts, Ben Ramalingam argued for the active promotion of a commercial green network and to capacity-build these businesses in the Sussex area. We need to assess what our principal industries consist of and identify the extent to which these networks already exist for them. If not, we must take a role in convening these conversations so we become leading hubs of activity and market leaders in the country. I sincerely believe that this is an area where we can work productively with the other political parties as well as the business community

Alongside this, we need to stand firm on our principles that require the Council budget to be re-examined to try and avoid cuts to front-line public services. More than any other party, we stand on the side of the disadvantaged and those most likely to suffer the impact of our greatly reduced settlement from central government. That's why recent talk from the Greens about participatory budgeting and opening up the Council more to the public can only help accountability. You can only argue that "we are in it together" if you genuinely level with the public and propose solutions together in an accountable fashion.

The other area of great concern to residents has been the lack of new housing and the number of empty properties not being put to good use. Only 380 new homes were built here in the last year and this number is nearly half of the previous year. Already, the signs are strong that the new Green Council will reverse this and are aiming for at least 1,000 homes to be built in the next year. It is heartening that the new Leader of the Council and both of his Deputies have professional experience in housing, architecture and planning. I have no doubt this will remain high on their agenda.

What I believe the Green Party can offer Brighton and Hove is to bring all elements of the community into a pragmatic and honest conversation about the future. Our reputation as reasonable outsiders sits well with the view many Brightonians hold of themselves: cosmopolitan, moderate, yet iconoclastic. Perhaps we finally have a Council that can truly represent and articulate Brighton's unique identity?

Building Green Success: Launching Brighton's new Council (Part 2)

Earlier this week, I started my analysis of the transformed political context in Brighton & Hove following the local elections. As our direct competition for centre-left votes, I explored the implications for Labour of our success and cautioned our supporters not to view the result as a repudiation of that party. Labour's approach in the last two weeks has been measured and publicly respectful, however differently their activists may feel privately. Already, I sense an effective pincer movement between their reasoned opposition and the aggressive denunciation of our policies that the local Conservatives are conducting via the local press. We need to quickly find a voice that responds to their challenges and talks over their heads direct to the voters.

Which is why the right choice of Council cabinet is an essential pre-requisite for us to set the tone for the next four years. We announced the first Green cabinet late last week and whilst I have a couple of minor reservations, I am pleased with both the individuals announced and how they have begun to conduct themselves in their first statements on policy.

Bill Randall, our first Leader of the Council, alongside Amy Kennedy and Ian Davey as Deputy Leaders, have an established track record in leading the Green Group of councillors locally over the last couple of years. As well as a strong overview on the key issues facing the city, they are genuinely pragmatic team-players who have maintained respectful and constructive relationships with other political parties. They command respect amongst the local party and are also known as strong advocates for their constituents, regardless of party affiliation.

Amongst the remaining members of the Cabinet, we have a good mix of those councillors with direct experience of political office, alongside newcomers who have been brought forward due to their professional and private experience with particular portfolio areas. This is a sound foundation to work from. Promisingly, I know of several of our "backbench" councillors who could also do a fantastic job in these positions. I hope this first year in office provides these councillors with opportunities to shadow and assist those in the Cabinet - it won't hurt to nurture the largest pool of talent for the Green Group to select from over the course of this Council session.

One issue that is achieving some traction in the blogosphere is the notion that our cabinet could be more gender balanced - I have some sympathy with that view and would call upon the Green Council to ensure that their policies are impact-assessed to ensure that women, children and the vulnerable are not disproportionately affected by the austerity measures we are being placed under. I would also challenge my local party to bring equal representation to bear as a preferred approach in the future.

Later this week, in my final article of this series, I'll be looking at the key political issues facing the city, share my views on how the Green Council should consider tackling them and give thought to the broader narrative we should be building during our time in office.

Building Green success: Scanning Brighton's political horizon (Part 1)

Over the last few days, those of us living in Brighton and Hove have had our first inkling of what to expect politically over the coming council session. For all of the feverish excitement precipitated by our success at the local elections, the sharp realisation of what controlling our first local authority entails has been a sobering experience for the local party. In the next few days I'm going to write about the new political context in the city and take an educated guess at what challenges the Green Council will face over the next four years.

I'm going to start my analysis today with Labour. No sooner than the results came in at the count than Labour's local leadership moved fast to distance themselves from any talk of coalition with us. Their hasty press release sounded a constructive note and clearly acknowledged our mandate to form the next council, but their positioning neatly left us to shoulder the difficult decisions over the next few years alone. They are generously (!) giving us enough rope to hang ourselves with and leaving themselves space to robustly critique our every move. This is a role that served us well in the past and I don't begrudge their appropriation of it - I personally think it will be important to hold us to account and should assist in tightening our thinking, especially as we get used to our new responsibilities.

On Monday, the Green party membership met collectively to discuss our position and as a result of a sometime robust discussion, we decided to try and re-open negotiations on the budget signed off by the previous administration. In a statement, we asked Labour to work with us to try and reshape spending priorities on the budget in order to take the pressure away from cutting front-line services. Not only does this strategy succeed in drawing Labour closer to our stance of resisting the central government cuts agenda, but I think it sends a strong message that we will aspire to conduct politics more consensually in the city.

Unfortunately, that may be easier said than done. One of the major fault-lines of this particular election has been the souring of relations between Labour and the Greens. I'm sure my perspective differs from theirs, but it has felt to me at times that they seem to resent our appropriation of "their" voters. No party has a right to voter loyalty and our lack of expectation has kept our feet on the ground. This is one of the advantages of coming from nowhere and building up support street by street! Their anger at losing ground in the city is directed squarely at us. At this crucial juncture, it risks preventing us working in a united fashion to blunt the impact of cuts. Already, the tone from Labour activists on Twitter and the influential local politics blog (The Brighton Blogger), is barely keeping within the bounds of civility. Unless cooler heads prevail amongst Labour, this could cause damage to us both. I can foresee real difficulties passing our decisions through full council without some solidarity between our parties. The most vulnerable in the city need us to see beyond our self-interest.

What we must also remember is that in spite of Labour only retaining their current number of council seats, they did increase their share of the vote substantially upon the last set of elections, challenging the Conservatives successfully in some wards. For all of our gains, their share of the actual vote was only 1% behind us, although the spread of votes across wards meant that this didn't translate into actual seats. This signals to me that their poor organisation was more of a contributing factor to our success than we'd like to think, examples of which I observed on the day of the election itself. With a thorough analysis of the hard data and a post-mortem on individual ward performances, we can expect Labour to build substantially upon this support at a future election. Incumbents tend to lose their voters, rather than gain them, as they begin dealing with the compromising realities of wielding power.

Finally, Labour nationally have larger resources and profile than us and it is likely that over the next four years, public attitudes towards the coaltion government will harden, especially now as the public sector job losses are starting to come through and will impact upon our economic growth performance. This could benefit us, but we have to acknowledge that it will provide a compelling case for Labour too.

Green election victory in Brighton: But what next?

I can scarcely believe it. Early indications on Thursday night looked positive enough for us to hope we’d held firm and made advances in new areas. Even so, the scale of success for the Greens in the Brighton & Hove Council elections yesterday was shocking, even for those of us who had followed and worked on the campaign.

The results were:

Greens 23 (up 10 seats)

Conservatives 18 (down 8)

Labour 13 (no change)

Liberal Democrats 0 (down 2)

For me, this was definitely an election where local factors were as important as the national trends. Building upon the incremental progress over previous elections and the return of Caroline Lucas as the MP for Brighton Pavilion, our campaign has been characterised by good central organisation and tight devolved ward teams working closely in communities around the city.

As a campaign, the Greens remained wedded to our core principles and didn’t feel the need to be opportunistic or use underhand tactics. In a generally clean campaign, this wasn’t always the case with our competitors, who occasionally painted apocalyptic images of the city under Greens or tried to muddy our image amongst the LGBT community. In spite of this, our main message shone through: we remained steadfast against cuts aimed at front-line services. This continuity of purpose helped convince people that we deserved a chance to try something different.

However, in spite of the elation we feel today, unprecedented challenges already circle us. Of our new Councillors, the vast majority are newcomers to elected office and will have little time to make the leap from activism and electioneering to the realities of public administration. Greens don’t agree with the UK Government’s decision to cut the deficit so quickly. But now, as the largest party in the Council, we are responsible for dealing with unavoidable cuts to our settlement from central government and making sure the city continues to provide the services and support that our citizens depend upon. We must acknowledge that we will have to take decisions outside of our comfort zone.

How do we make this work? The enormity of this challenge means we have to look both outwards and inwards. After a relatively strained campaign with Labour, we need to mend fences quickly, identify the areas where our values mesh well and make common cause. At stake is the formation of an alternative to the ‘small state’ abandonment of those on low incomes. More than ever, we need to get serious about engaging business leaders about how we can marry green policies with an economic growth agenda.

Looking inwards, as a local party it would be easy to ignore the risks we confront as we bask in the warmth of this result. The rigours of this campaign have stretched our organisation beyond capacity. We need to ensure that we take the next few months to refashion our working methods in a way that strengthens the party’s ability to support our elected officers and hold them accountable internally. We need to invest in inspiring a new generation of party activists to replace those now charged with responsibilities to their constituents. This means a Party Executive that has the time and space to reflect upon the strategic horizon and lead, rather than acting as party administrators.

Most importantly, we need to realise that decision making amongst our Green Group of Councillors needs to be done more collectively. Coming to a consensus amongst 23 people will not always be possible. We should learn lessons from the Liberal Democrats and spend time together identifying our red line policies and principles where we vote as a bloc - whilst providing space for individual Councillors to vote according to their judgement on other issues.

Already, our opponents and the national media are looking to see how we function in office when given the chance to prove ourselves. It is no exaggeration to say that the reputation of the Greens nationally as a force depends on us here on the south-east coast getting this right.

Local Elections 2011: The battle for Brighton commences!

Early this morning, I found myself walking in drizzle towards a polling station in a staunchly Conservative corner of Brighton. I have to admit it felt that my start to this year’s local elections was an inauspicious one. In spite of first appearances, it is turning out to be quite a special day.

What has really struck me is the solidarity I felt with the people I’ve been matched with outside polling stations. I’ve chatted to more Conservative activists today than I’ve ever done before and in spite of being diametrically opposed to many of each other’s policies, it has been enjoyable to get a different perspective on Brighton life. On top of that, it’s heartening to hear from people passionate about putting their energies into our local community. My faith in human nature has received a boost today from the most unlikely quarter.

But how is the election looking on the ground at 7pm? I’ve spent around six hours monitoring votes outside polling stations throughout the day and I’ve been surprised at the complete lack of Labour or Liberal Democrats activists working alongside us. In both wards I’ve been in (Withdene and Queen’s Park), Labour is the obvious challenger to the incumbents, yet I’ve not seen anybody gathering up data for tonight’s “knocking up” of voters. This will cost them valuable time tonight in mobilising their vote.

That lack of organisation, especially in Queen’s Park, where they have put a massive amount of money, activists and time in to try and dislodge our three Green councillors, has taken me aback a little. Others are reporting a similar lack of sightings of Labour activists in both this ward and others. Either there is a strategy to focus heavily elsewhere in the city or the rumours of their renewed strength have been exaggerated.

It is obvious that turn-out is going to be a little lower than expected too. Although I’ve worked some of the less prominent time-slots, I was surprised at how patchy the numbers were coming through the door. That said, those individuals coming in were younger than I’ve seen previously, so we may be getting the vote out well for the Greens and potentially the AV referendum.

I’m heading out again to try and encourage voters into the polling booths fairly soon, but will try and tweet updates from both the street and the count in the next few hours too. Watch this space and my twitter feed for more detail!

Next week, I’ll be analysing the impact they will have upon Brighton Council in some depth and how the Greens locally should react to the new political circumstances here. I’ll also be unravelling the aftermath of the AV campaign, which at this stage is looking exceptionally disappointing for those of us who support a change in the electoral system.

And a final word for all my colleagues within Brighton & Hove Green Party, who have been an inspiration for their commitment not just to working the campaign, but for taking the time to engage so regularly and energetically with the people we hope to represent. I really hope that their efforts translate into a chance to build and sustain new ambition for this city.

Local Elections 2011: Delivering Green credibility

For those of us with political nerd tendencies, we are two weeks away from a particularly fascinating set of council elections. Whilst I’ll be scouring the results nationally to see how other Green Parties have fared, you’ll not be surprised to learn that I’m going to be especially keen on seeing what the results will mean for my local party, Brighton & Hove!

For this blog to be relevant, I’m keen to try and locate my views as much as possible in a real life context. As well as being a general member of Brighton & Hove Green Party, I was lucky enough to be the Secretary of the local party here during the recent General Election, so am hoping my analysis reflects a number of different perspectives. And remains constructive!

As you may be aware, we have achieved a great deal here in successive Council elections: from three to six to twelve Councillors and a final thirteenth as a result of a Hove by-election. This support is mainly concentrated in the central part of the city. The hard-working records of our elected representatives went a long way towards proving our credibility during the historic election of Caroline Lucas as the Green Party’s first MP.

Buoyed by this recent success, yet mindful of the mountain to climb, this has been our strongest and most ambitious campaign so far. It has given us to the confidence to try and move our message out to the outer wards with a vision that is realistic, progressive and feels like a positive road map out of financial insecurity. It has also been really heartening to see a number of our new candidates developing in confidence throughout the campaign and working as a counter-weight to front-line service cuts.

On the downside, we have a Conservative administration pushing forward the austerity agenda, a local Labour party that is rapidly regrouping and mounting unemployment in the city. The Liberal Democrats are an exceptionally small presence here, so their current unpopularity will have very little concrete impact.

After the dust settles on the election in the next two weeks, I’ll be coming back to look at the results and give my reflections as to what we can learn from the outcome nationally, as well as lessons particular to Brighton & Hove. I’d also love to hear your views too, so please get in touch!