Obviously from a political narrative point of view, Siân is doing well, getting great coverage and clearly making the Greens serious contenders in this election. And you can expect more and better things from the campaign in the next weeks.
The office here is running a very focused campaign than in previous years, with a team of volunteers and staff working in a much more dedicated way than in any recent Green party campaign that I can name.
Siân is of course an experienced campaigner, and that has led to some great photo ops, and no doubt will lead to more in the future. The team she is leading alongside Darren Johnson is delivering innovative and engaging politics – exactly what the Green Party is about. And hopefully, we’ll get a result to match.
Of course, a big part of that for London’s Greens is getting more members elected to the Assembly. With four votes to cast, and all the attention of the Mayoralty, that’s complicated to get across at times, but the extra scale of Siân’s campaign should lead to more votes and more Greens at the GLA.
The campaigns in general however I have to say are a bit lacklustre. Brian Paddick’s website and campaign is the most pedestrian, in my view. Ken’s does a bit better, and Boris’s website is perhaps the only one with any flair other than Siân’s.
Boris though is getting to known for his unpleasant views. Many Londoners are quite scared about the prospect of Boris. They have nothing to fear from Paddick, whose rambling late night blog posts are becoming legendary (has he nothing better to do?) but Boris is a worry.
This mop-haired buffoon is of course actually quite prepared to pepper his populism with what are actually quite racist comments, as with his promise to remove ‘political correctness’ from stop and search.
Similarly dismissing affordable housing targets as preventing affordable homes is just another way of suggesting we leave Londoners to the sharks.
I really don’t think that Boris or Paddick are the sort of choice Londoners want. That is what makes Siân, as a Green London Mayoral candidate so interesting: she actually posesses the qualities Londoners want in a representative, being on our level, pushing new ideas and having an aspiration for a human-scale city. Somehow that transcends what the others have to offer.
