VOTES FOR POLICIES https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
I thought I better check where I stand theses days, and it looks like I am still a rock solid Green:
And it also looks encouraging for the Greens in Bridgend, if they get their act together to put a candidate up!
If you keep visiting the site, it will update the figures as we approach the election. Despite all this, I still predict a probable lost deposit and 5th or 6th place, if the Greens stand. Finishing ahead of UKIP would represent some sort of worthwhile outcome.
As well as the usual Lab/Con/Dems, we also have Plaid Cymru, TUSC and our friends in the Pirate Party vying for some of our target audience (and UKIP).
With FPTP, it is a lot easier to hang on to votes you shouldn’t have, than to gain votes you should have.
Voting for what you really want is a tactic that too few run with – and the strategy of the left factions standing against each other makes it so.
If there was a SYRIZA-like coalition of the left, between Greens/PC/TUSC/Pirates, Labour MP Madeleine Moon would be out on her ear and have to start paying for her own jolly trips all over the world, instead of having another 5 years serving Porthcawl (I doubt she even knows where Wildmill is) handed to her on a plate.
Hey ho!
P.S. Just to bang on about the same point a little more – here are the current scores for Ogmore constituency. The potential for a joint Green/PC assault on this safe Labour seat is clear enough. Instead, we have two people I have the utmost respect for going head-to-head and getting nowhere (I suspect).
Bridgend's Green Leftie 
Here in the Pirates we did consider for quite some time backing a Green candidate. If the candidate was known to us enough and honest or if there was a joint ticket in place, it would have certainly been possible. Instead with the lack of Green candidate and response from the Greens we decided to contact TUSC but they did not reply either. The Plaid candidate did not have any means of being contacted so that left us in the Pirate Party with a choice to either back a candidate that will not engage with us or field our own. Inevitably we’ve chosen to throw £500 at the commission and hoist the sails.
The news is now that Greens have potential candidates waiting and really want to field one of their own. Upon asking if they would consider a joint ticket as four parties scrambling over the same demographics is not going to go well, the invitation was declined as their wasn’t enough time left to work out a deal.
While this is great news for those who really want to vote “pure green” (if there is such a thing) it’s bad news over-all for the left and good news for Madeline Moon.
In the Pirates, we’re making friends with a few other minor parties and while I did suspected it would be Greens we would co-operate most closely with, it turns out, Something New, Young People’s Party, The Whigs and a few others are all showing signs of interest. Plaid have even come around to releasing mutually endorsed statements with us. Yet the Greens and TUSC seem mostly disinterested.
I’m hoping the anti-austerity alliance and the settling in of the newly passed motion to allow joint candidates in the Greens will enjoy more co-operation.
(As a side note I’ve also learnt the BNP will definitely not be standing a candidate here reasonably early on – as some of you may remember last time a BNP candidate did stand here.)
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I fully understand all that you are saying. There is still along way to go before we even dream of the sort of outcomes achieved by SYRIZA. Self-interest and factionalism are still being allowed to dominate our politics. There are a few positive signs (but not in Wales, sad to say), but it remains to be seen whether these seeds take root and get nurtured after the GE. I somehow doubt it.
Bon voyage!
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Yeah I agree. Wales is also slower (perhaps more cautious or more loyal to traditions?) than other parts of the UK when it comes to allowing in newer parties.
I think the sooner the campaigners in Wales realise you’ve got to be in it for the long haul the better.
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That really does look good for the Greens in Bridgend. There are now Green Candidates for Bridgend and Ogmore. There could be cake to go with coffee on Wednesday.
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Do you know who the Green Candidate is?
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I learned today that it is proposed to instal Tony White as the Bridgend candidate. He is another solid ‘old-timer’ (like Laurie Brophy in Ogmore), but lives in Neath. He will give as good as he gets, I am sure.
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