London Assembly 2012: What are the Green weaknesses?

In the last of this week’s series on the political landscape for the London Assembly elections we come to the difficulties the Greens will have to overcome to do well in May. Feel free to read the equivalent pieces on the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats.

Jenny Jones second from right with Green Party women activists.

The Green Party: Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones.

Like the Liberal Democrats the Greens find themselves fighting an election to primarily win Assembly seats when the press and the public are entirely focused on the office of Mayor.

That means using the Mayoral election as a platform to increase the ‘list’ vote whilst maintaining the illusion that your candidate is destined to wear to the vermilion robes and shining crown of London Mayor(ess).

Problem one: to be boring, but not too boring

Caring about environmental and social issues is mainstream. Many voters are for traffic reduction and green spaces but won’t necessarily vote for the Green Party if they think it means rounding drivers up into internment camps or the abolition of money.

The Greens position themselves as a radical party which, considering the bland alternatives, is at least a bit of spice. However, radical policies are by definition challenging. Given that most people have no direct experience of Green politicians, they are an unknown quantity and so it’s important they do nothing to imply they are anything but *normal* people saying what other politicians refuse to say.

That means less demands for children to wear masks (which is all a bit Michael Jackson, and no one is calling for or relates to) and more joining the calls for road safety (which Greens are making a leading contribution on, and is actually making a difference).

One problem this creates is that if you ensure you’re messaging is too safe you can end up not giving people a real reason to vote for you. It’s not hard to get people to agree that air pollution is a bad thing but in London 2012 there’s literally only a handful of people in the city who actually think it’s the issue of the election.

The crux of the matter is that the Greens need to be radical enough to enthuse and mobilise a good vote, without being so, well, creative in their policy ideas that people are frightened that compulsory veganism is just around the corner.

Problem two: To punch above their weight

It’s not exactly a state secret that the Green Party is by far the smallest of the four parties. It has fewer members, less finance and less national resources to draw on. That in itself would be bad enough.

If you get a badly photocopied leaflet from Labour it can give the impression that it’s a local team of ordinary people doing their best. If you get a shoddy leaflet from the Greens you just assume they don’t know what they are doing. That difference in expectations means their materials have to have a very high quality (which the Greens are good at, but it costs money and time).

The deeper aspect to that problem is that they also lack the army of experienced politicos the other parties have. London has one Green MEP, two Green Assembly Members and two Green councillors. They are denied the wealth of experience that comes with having a dozen or more MPs, hundreds of councillors, spin doctors, interns and a raft of council leaders and cabinet members.

They lack the in-depth knowledge of every area of London because they lack the size to have roots and full-time personnel everywhere. That means they need a campaign that nails the issues Londoners care about without being able to know every corner nor leaflet them all about issues on their street or area. That’s tough.

The Green challenge is to muddle through and produce a more professional campaign than the professionals on a strictly amateur production budget. No film stars or media moguls for them… in other words they need to pull off a Blair Witch Project (possibly without the Blair).

Problem three: wasted vote syndrome

Strangely people seem to think that voting for people who don’t get elected is a “wasted voted”. Presumably that means the majority of UK votes are wasted because *most* people in *most* elections vote for someone who does not win. It’s one of the reasons that First Past the Post has a clear distorting effect on people’s preferences.

In the 2009 Euro elections 1.3 million people voted Green (on a low turnout), in the 2010 General Election only a quarter of a million people voted for them (on a high turnout). Had the Greens been involved in a huge scandal? Not one that I noticed. In fact it was the proportional element to the Euro elections that meant people felt their vote would not be ‘wasted’ and hey presto – Green MEPs.

Now people *know* that Jenny Jones will not be Mayor, if they know who Jones is that is. They *don’t* know that Greens have consistently had AMs elected, via the PR list vote, and they’ve made a genuine difference to the character of the Assembly. The challenge for the Greens is, at every opportunity, to make it clear that a Green vote means something.

That means Assembly votes not the Ken and Boris show

But remember, there’s a problem. The majority of voters think the Mayoral election is the only vote that matters, and that’s the one that emphasises the smallness of the Greens. Every time that a voter is told that it’s all about the Mayor the less relevant the Greens appear.

Having the only woman candidate is a real stroke of luck for the Greens, virtually guaranteeing them a place at a myriad of events and media opportunities that they might not have had had the Lib Dems selected a woman candidate – but the Greens  have to resist the urge to frame the election as ‘against Boris’ no matter how much they want to.

Unseating Boris means voting Labour, everything else is window dressing. Green votes are going to come from people who want something different from the same old Punch and Judy – if they can be convinced that they aren’t just throwing their vote down the memory hole. The Greens need to use the Mayoral platform to talk about the positive influence they have in the Assembly as if the Mayor is the most boring subject in the world.

That means concentrating on the good that the Greens that will be elected will do. Boris bashing or Ken cuddling could be poison to their campaign but it’s all too tempting to keep taking sips.

You can read the equivalent pieces on the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats.