I stood as a paper candidate in the Levenshulme ward of Manchester City Council in the May 2008 local elections, and also helped out in our target ward of Hulme. I really enjoyed all the work, and here’s a summary of what I got up to!
Being a paper candidate means that you put yourself forward as a name on the ballot paper but do no actual campaigning, leafleting or general electioneering. The target ward was Hulme, where our current councillor was standing down and we have strong Green support. We needed to work hard to retain our seat with a new candidate!
When the election was called, we needed to collect ten signatures from residents of each ward in Manchester to nominate a Green Party candidate to stand for election. As long as people are in this is not too difficult! I collected signatures for myself in Levenshulme, just knocking doors of people on the electoral register and asking for their support. I also collected signatures in 3 other wards. It’s quite interesting work, and people always ask you about the Green Party and what we believe so I gave out lots of mini manifestos!
Once all the nominations were in, the local media got in touch to see what we were up to in the area. One local paper wanted someone in the party to be photographed in the ward they were standing as part of their election coverage. I was available and cycled down to Levenshulme train station and was photographed outside, ready for canvassing with a clipboard, rosette and more mini manifestos! The photo was used, along with some comments, and lots of people told me they’d seen me in the paper! It’s surprising just how many people read the local paper – I was surprised how much reaction it got from my friends!
A local pressure group called ‘Friends of Levenshulme’ also got in touch with me to invite me to a local election hustings with the other candidates for Levenshulme and the neighbouring ward. This was the only husting held in Manchester in living memory, so I was very keen to take part and offer Green Party views on the future and regeneration of Levenshulme. I gave a 3 minute speech at the hustings then answered people’s questions along with the other candidates. This was quite scary and nerve racking, but I think I did well! I had to read up on Green Party policy for local services and regeneration – I hope I got it all right! The community are keen on getting a community centre built, and I urged them to consider making it as green and sustainable as possible, which I hope they will do – if it’s ever approved! The debate got quite heated at times, but I managed to cope!
More details of the hustings are here:
I also helped the Hulme campaign by going leafleting and canvassing – the leafleting was fine, so long as I didn’t get lost!, and canvassing was quite enjoyable, getting people’s views on their area and talking about how the Greens would improve it. I was a bit too scared to go canvassing by myself (well, out in pairs but knocking on neighbouring doors alone), so we stayed in pairs. This did work quite well as we could both remind each other of things from our ‘canvassing scrpit’ in case the other forgot!
On polling day I helped deliver leaflets, did some telling (sitting outside a polling station asking people for their polling number, so we didn’t go and disturb them later to remind them to vote), leafleted a school run and did some ‘knocking up’ (reminding Green voters to vote). During knocking up, at 9.30PM, we found a lady who wanted to vote but couldn’t walk to the polling station, so it was a mad rush to find a car to take her there! We got one in the end and she was the last person to vote at her polling station.
We all went to the grand Manchester Town Hall for the counting of the votes. There was tea and biscuits and Newsnight election coverage on a few big screen TVs. After having a bit of a sit down and some tea, I went to the Levenshulme count. It seemed like it would be quite short, but seemed to take ages, so I discussed Green Party policy with the two ladies who were checking people’s passes to go in and out of the counting room. That was really interesting! I found I knew more of our policy than I thought, and both ladies agreed with lots of or policies and I think they voted Green!
Eventually the votes were all counted. As a candidate I got to see the spoiled ballot papers – mostly just people voting for more than one candidate, but one or two wrote UKIP or BNP, which is quite scary really. I didn’t win of course, but got double the Tory vote which was nice! The Lib Dem was re-elected, expressing concern over low turnout in his acceptance speech, though the rest was just waffle!
We returned to the tea and biscuit area, to find we’d lost Hulme by just 50 votes. Devastating! But we got 40% of the vote, and we can build now for the next election in 2 years time, where we can hopefully reclaim the seat! Our vote was stable across the city, around 9%., which in a proportional representation system would mean we would have got at least one seat! Ah well, we have to work within our system for now, and work on changing it!
I would really encourage other Young Greens to stand for election – you don’t have to do as much as I did! You can just sign some forms and go to the count if you like, or more! It’s a great experience and an insight into local politics you can’t get any other way!
