After the Mayoral Election: Why I'm Still Green

I promised in my first post that I wouldn't shout about politics, and I'm going to try to keep that promise. But I've spent the last few weekends leafleting, standing outside stations and having the same conversation about air pollution roughly four hundred times, so I hope you'll forgive me one post about it.

The London elections were last Thursday. You'll know by now that Sadiq Khan is our new mayor. Sian Berry, the Green candidate, came third - ahead of the Liberal Democrats - and the Greens kept two seats on the London Assembly. If you only judge by who ends up in City Hall, that doesn't sound like much. I don't think it's the right way to judge it.

I joined the Green Party a few years ago, mainly because I was tired of voting against things rather than for them. What struck me when I started going to local meetings was how practical a lot of it was. Yes, there's climate change, and that's the backdrop to everything. But most of the conversations were about housing that people can actually afford, buses that turn up, cycle routes that don't feel like a dare, and the fact that parts of this city have air you'd be told off for breathing anywhere else in the country.

As a freelancer who works from home in a rented flat, a lot of that is very personal. My rent goes up every year. My income doesn't always. The main road at the end of my street is one of those places that regularly breaks pollution limits. None of that is abstract.

The Green campaign this year was built around a few big ideas: a not-for-profit lettings agency and stronger renters' rights, cleaner air and fewer polluting vehicles in central London, safer streets for walking and cycling, and fairer fares on public transport. What's encouraging is how many of those ideas have been picked up, at least in some form, by the bigger parties over the last couple of years. Small parties often win arguments long before they win seats.

The two Green Assembly members will be part of the body that scrutinises the mayor, asks awkward questions and pushes for policies that otherwise wouldn't get a look in. A lot of good, unglamorous work happens on committees and in reports that most people never read. That's where small parties can have a real effect.

I'm staying a member, and I'll keep volunteering when I can. Not because I think the Greens are about to sweep to power in London - I'm an optimist, not a fantasist - but because I think it matters to have a party that keeps putting the long-term questions on the table, even when they're inconvenient.

Normal service will now resume. The next post will be about something much less contentious, like food. Or board games, which, as anyone who's ever played Monopoly with my family will tell you, are actually far more divisive than politics.