I was the candidate for the Green Party in 2005 for Liverpool Riverside. We spent £2,628 (see P264) and we held our deposit. I put a decent amount of money personally towards that total as our national freepost scheme was in jeopardy otherwise and despite very little "on the ground" activity, the addressed freepost that went out across the constituency meant that nearly every voter heard from us.
Between 2005 and 2010, we went from zero to two councillors, and in our target ward alone we were getting nearly as many votes as I gained across the whole constituency. We had far more "on the ground" local election activity than in 2005, with a full campaign in one ward and leafleting in others. Yet our vote dropped by 2% and we lost our deposit. Cleggmania (remember that?) played its part, but our reduced spend and the lack of an addressed freepost hurt our campaign. Our spending was only down a bit at £1,852 but the effect was significant.
In 2015 we come into the General Election as Liverpool's largest opposition party. In Riverside, our local election support was 27% compared to Labour's 53%. The Liberal Democrats have collapsed locally (they were in control of the council in 2010) to 3 councillors and will likely have just one left after May. We've now taken all three seats in St Michaels ward and a seat in neighbouring Greenbank. Our campaign team is active in all wards in the constituency. Even if we kept our spending on the General Election to a minimum, we would see considerable progress.
However, we actually want to win Riverside, in this election (or the next one) and that will need financial support. We've seen that it is not enough to just do the ground campaigning. If every voter is to hear from us, we need to raise the money to enable us to do that. So if you want an alternative to Labour in Liverpool, then the Greens need your backing, click on the campaign to the right and help us maximise our impact.
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