Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who voted Green in Greenwich & Lewisham on May 1st. I didn't get elected (it was always a long shot!), but the 16,511 people who voted Green on the London-wide member list did help to ensure that our two existing London Assembly members, Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones were re-elected. Congratulations to Len Duvall who was re-elected as London Assembly member for Greenwich & Lewisham.

The 'vote Green on the peach paper' message appears to have worked, as although we were in 4th place in the constituency results, we leap-frogged the Lib Dems and were in 3rd place on the London-wide list vote. Our percentage of the London Assembly list vote rose slightly in Greenwich & Lewisham, from 10.9% to 11.2%, although this includes an increase of over 4,000 in actual Green votes, due to the increased turnout. We also came in a respectable 4th place in the mayoral race, both in Greenwich & Lewisham and London-wide. Well done to Sian for all her hard work.

Not quite the result Greens were after, as we had hoped for 3 or 4 Green members on the London-wide list, no elected racists and a Mayor who understands the urgency of action on climate change, but given the big squeeze on smaller parties' votes in the Ken/Boris battle, I think we did well to stand our ground, while Lib Dems lost a couple of seats and UKIP/One London were wiped out.

I fear London may now be in for 4 years we can ill-afford of inaction on climate change, worsening air quality and congestion and developers getting away with little or no affordable housing in new developments, but I hope that I will be proved wrong on this. Darren and Jenny will work hard to hold the new mayor to account and to push him to build on their hard-fought Green successes from the past few years, but with Conservatives hokding 11 out of 25 seats on the assembly, Boris Johnson has more than the third required to pass his budget, so the influence of members from other parties may well be limited over the next 4 years.

I very much hope that the new Mayor decides to stick with London's Climate Change Action Plan and the targets of 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 as well as to proceed with the levels of investment in cycling and walking promised by the previous Mayor. I was alarmed by his comments in an interview immediately after his election where he again called for an airport in the Thames Estuary, which would suggest he hasn't grasped the urgency of the need to cut carbon emissions.

Finally, I'd like to congratulate fellow Lewisham blogger James Cleverly, who stood as Conservative candidate for Greenwich & Lewisham in 2004, and has just been elected as Conservative member for Bexley & Bromley with an incredible 105,000 votes. While we're clearly from different sides of the political spectrum, James is a decent bloke who doesn't fall into the 'nasty Tory' category. He's also a cyclist and will, I hope, push our new cycling mayor to make London the cycling capital of the world. Like I said, I hope.

Right, now I'm taking a couple of days off then it's back to business as usual and catching up on Council stuff!