Green Vote Triples in Norwich North
24 July 2009
The Green Party received 10% of the vote, up from 1,252 in 2005 to 3,350 today. The result was by far the best performance ever for the Green Party in a Westminster by-election. In comparison to 2005, the votes of Conservative, Labour and LibDem parties all went down. The Labour and LibDem vote also fell as a proportion of the turnout.
Adrian Ramsay, opposition leader on Norwich council, and the Green Party's deputy leader, said: "This was our best by-election result ever. Our best previous result was 7.4% in the Haltemprice and Howden/David Davis by-election. We started from a low base (2.7% in the 2005 general election), and we trebled our vote. On the ground, we had roughly £12,000 to spend, compared to the £100,000 that the Tories have apparently spent.
"Rupert ran a positive campaign, on issues such as the NHS, renewable energy, transport and living wages, and we are very pleased with the level of interest we've generated. With new members and supporters, we can now concentrate on Norwich South for the general election."
On the issue of the coming general election, Ramsay said that "Norwich South will be different from Norwich North, since two-thirds of Norwich North was outside of Norwich City. The Greens have led local election vote share in Norwich for the last three years running, and we are the official opposition within Norwich City."
Rupert Read added that "the Norwich North campaign was done on a fraction of the budget of the large parties, some of which deluged residents with countless leaflets. We are pleased to have done so well without that kind of overkill."
Results
The full results of the Norwich North by-election (with % change from 2005) are as follows:
* Chloe Smith (Con) 13,591 (39.54%, +6.29%)
* Chris Ostrowski (Lab) 6,243 (18.16%, -26.70%)
* April Pond (LibDem) 4,803 (13.97%, -2.22%)
* Glenn Tingle (UKIP) 4,068 (11.83%, +9.45%)
* Rupert Read (Green) 3,350 (9.74%, +7.08%)
* Craig Murray (Honest) 953 (2.77%)
* Robert West (BNP) 941 (2.74%)
Turnout: 45.76% (down -15.33%)
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