Liverpool Wavertree - Thank You

It's a week on and I'd just like to formally thank all the voters of Wavertree before I start blogging about the result. A lot of people voted differently depending on whether it was the local or national elections, so while we got 5.2% for the Parliamentary vote, we got nearly 10% in terms of our local election results around the constituency. I've already explored this issue in the last blog about Liverpool Riverside, but this is one message I received from a voter:

"...i like your party peter but have to go labour. to keep the nasty 1% party out"

There are a few more like it. These illustrate the difficulty in persuading people, even in a safe Labour seat, that they can vote Green without any fear of the Conservatives winning. So for all those people that did vote Green, thank you.

Within Wavertree constituency, we picked up 2 second place council ward finishes, one expected and one not. Paul Kenyon was 2nd in Picton ward (12.3%) which we did expect, but in addition, Julie Birch-Holt finished 2nd in Wavertree ward with 11.5% despite this being one of the seats that there was some local Liberal Democrat activity.

As I've highlighted to colleagues, the forthcoming boundary review that will potentially hand 30 to 40 seats to the Tories on the basis of this year's result, is likely to result in just 4 Liverpool constituencies. We don't yet know what shape they will be in, but in order to build on our constituency 2nd place in Riverside, we now need to be working hard in a number of neighbouring Wavertree wards too. That is a big challenge for us, but it is one that we can take on. Planning is already underway.