This column – unlike, say, Greenwich Time – does not do party political propaganda. Since living in Greenwich, I’ve voted for all four parties contesting our three local council wards. I’m not going to tell you how to vote, and I doubt you’d take any notice if I did. What I can do, however, is give you the information to decide how you can best use your votes to produce the effect you want.
If you are broadly satisfied with the council, the choice in any of our local wards is easy – give all three of your votes to Labour. If you are dissatisfied, and want change, you’ll have noticed that all the other parties have, at various points, been sending round leaflets claiming that they are the only ones which can beat Labour, that it is a “two-horse race” and that voting for anyone else is a “wasted vote.”
In a sense, each of them is right – depending on where they say it. In each of the three wards, a different opposition party has the best chance of defeating Labour. First, you need to know which ward you live in.
Greenwich West is anything west of the park and Naval College. This includes the town centre, West Greenwich, and the bits of SE8 that are in Greenwich borough, such as Millennium Quay. All three of this ward’s councillors are currently Labour.
Greenwich West is a contest between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with the Conservatives some way in third.
Peninsula includes East Greenwich (between the railway line and the river) and GMV. The boundary starts at the Trafalgar Tavern, goes down Park Row, turns along Park Vista (including the houses on both sides), and then follows the railway line. All three of this ward’s councillors are currently Labour – though, in a sign of potential vulnerability, one of the sitting Labour councillors, council leader Chris Roberts, has done a “chicken run” to a a safer ward.
Peninsula is probably a contest between Labour and the Greens, though the challenger here is less clear than in the other two wards.
Everything south of the railway line, east of the park and west of the A102 (M) is in Blackheath Westcombe. This includes nearly all of Maze Hill, the Blackheath Standard area, Westcombe Park, and the bits of Blackheath Village that fall in Greenwich borough. One of this ward’s councillors is Labour and the other two are Conservatives.
Blackheath Westcombe is a contest between Labour and the Conservatives, with the Lib Dems a long way in third.
The ward map is here and you can check any specific address here.
The judgments I’ve made are based on the results at the 2006 council elections (and on no other elections – the Mayoral vote is not really comparable.) There are three councillors in each ward, so you have three votes. Last time, Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives each stood three candidates in each ward. The Greens only stood one candidate in each ward.
The percentage shares of the vote for each party in 2006 were as follows:
| Labour | Lib Dem | Conservative | Green | |
| Greenwich West | 40.7% | 31.9% | 19.6% | 7.9% |
| Peninsula | 45.7% | 21.7% | 21.3% | 10.9% |
| Blackheath Westcombe | 36.7% | 17% | 39.1% | 7.2% |
Because the Greens only stood one candidate in each ward in 2006 (they are standing three in each ward this year), they limited their capacity to get votes and these figures probably understate their level of support. Many Green supporters would probably have cast more than one of their votes for the party had they been able to. There are also substantial differences between candidates of the same party – in Peninsula, Mary Mills got 250 more votes than her two Labour colleagues.
So I have also worked out each party’s share based on average votes per candidate. They were as follows:
| Labour | Lib Dem | Conservative | Green | |
| Greenwich West | 34.9% | 27.3% | 17.6% | 20.2% |
| Peninsula | 37.6% | 17.9% | 17.4% | 27% |
| Blackheath Westcombe | 32.1% | 14.9% | 34.2% | 18.9% |
One last thing – you can, of course, register a qualified endorsement of/ protest against the council by splitting your votes, giving some of them to Labour and some to the opposition.
Happy voting!
Andrew
Like Ian the Lib Dem candidiate standing in Greenwich West who doesn’t even live here you seem to be using out of date statistics and of course at the last Local Council Elections the turnout was less than 30% so hopefully on Thursday we will find out how a lot more of the local electorate will vote.
The facts from the last election for which ward figures are available are from the GLA Elections in 2008.
The percentage of the vote then was:
Labour 34%
Conservatives 24%
Green 16%
Lib Dems 13%
Also the Lib Dems only currently have 2 seats on Greenwich Council so if people in Greenwich want to get rid of Labour rule here after 38 years they need to use there 3 votes to vote for the 3 local Conservative candidates or there will be no change just more of the same.
The Conservates have laid out a very substantial,detailed Council Election Manifesto available to all on the website: far more detailed than that of Labour or the Lib Dems offering real change and a return to local democracy.
So Conservatives should vote positively from the Conservaive Candidates – no room for tactical voting here.
It goes without saying that I am a little disappointed in your research Andrew. Your grasp of the details of the last set of Council elections is quite correct, but surely it would make sense to outline the results in the last set of elections which can be measured at a ward level. These were the GLA elections in 2008 and give a quite different picture of the results which I think your readers should be aware of.
The numbers given below do not include postal votes, but are all the votes cast on the day for the three parties on the list system (I could have proved my point better using the mayoral vote, but I thought that would be unreasonable).
Ward/Party Cons Green Labour Lib-Dem
Blackheath Westcombe 34 15 27 13
Greenwich West 24 16 34 13
Peninsula 25 16 31 12
I think these figures change your analysis substantially, suggesting that the Lib-Dems are a spent force across the area, with the Greens firmly entrenched as the third party. Obviously they also suggest that the Conservatives and Labour are the main contenders for the three seats.
However, I think this discussion of tactical voting is a false one. I do hope that voters will take into account the other factors that matter at local level – in particular the promises each party has made in its manifesto. The Conservatives on the Council have produced a clear vision for the borough in the future (A Contract with Greenwich), while Labour and the Lib-Dems could not muster more than a side an a half of A4 to outline the whole future of Greenwich (please do check the websites, it is true).
Similarly, I think where the candidates live often has a substantial bearing on the elections and in Greenwich West we have three local candidates from across the ward (unlike the Labour veterans who are staying on). In Peninsula and Blackheath Westcombe we have two candidates each that live in the ward – while in the latter, I believe that Labour have no candidates that live in the ward.
Greenwich Conservatives have campaigned hard on local issues over the last two years and I hope that voters will move beyond the statistical facts you present, which can easily be contradicted by the 2008 election figures. I think the only way to get rid of this Labour Council is to vote Conservative on Thursday.
Chaps,
I ignored the Mayoral votes because we are not electing the Mayor of London. This is not a London-wide contest (in which the Lib Dems were nowhere). It is a local contest in which each ward is different.
The Tories have employed this trick before of not comparing like with like. In the 2006 Council elections they tried to use the 2004 Mayoral votes to entice voters away from the Liberal Democrats but as it happened the 2002 Council results proved a far better predictor.
I think that Andrew is broadly right in his analysis, although I suspect that his formula for compensating the Greens may be too generous to them. When I attended a count for the first time in 2006 I was astonished by how many people split their votes or only used one or two of their three choices. If there is only one candidate from a particular party they will hoover up a lot of votes which might be otherwise be split two or three ways.
“It is not the critic who counts … the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who errs, who comes short again and again … but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1910