Sadiq Khan was Shooters Hill’s choice for London Mayor, taking 48% of the vote in the ward, against Zac Goldsmith’s 28% according to the breakdown by ward of the capital’s votes published by London Elects. The Green’s Sian Berry was third with 7%, followed by UKIP’s Peter Whittle and the Lib Dem’s Caroline Pidgeon. This compares to the 2012 result when Ken Livingstone got 46% of the Shooters Hill vote, against Boris Johnson’s 37%. Across the whole of London Sadiq took 44.2% of first preference against Zac’s 35%, so Shooters Hill was a bit more pro-Sadiq than the rest of the capital
Sian Berry got the most second preference votes, with 24%, though of course these votes don’t count under the system adopted. Only the votes of the top two candidates count, and Sadiq again beat Zac in Shooters Hill with 16% against 10%.
In the ballot for the Greenwich and Lewisham constituency member of the London Assembly, Labour’s Woolwich-born Len Duval once again out-performed the mayoral candidate, taking 52% of the Shooters Hill vote, well ahead of the Tory’s Adam Thomas on 19%. Green Imogen Solly was narrowly beaten into third place by UKIP’s Paul Oakley. The BNP and Britain First did not put up a candidate for the constituency member. Len increased his margin of victory from 2012 when he got 51% of the vote against the Conservatives’ 22%.
The turnout in Shooters Hill ward for the London elections was just 44.24%, excluding postal votes which made up some 22% of the total votes cast. Let’s hope this week’s referendum on whether to stay in Europe gets more voters voting.
One of the striking trends in the ward-by-ward breakdown of the elections for London Mayor is how the balance between the two major parties has changed in Greenwich over the last three elections. This is shown in the three ward maps below showing which party had most votes in each Greenwich ward in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Back in 2008 the borough was split between Labour North and Conservative South, with Shooters Hill ward very much on the cusp voting for Tory Boris for Mayor and Labour’s Len for London Assembly member. Over the course of the three elections Labour have had the largest share of the vote in more and more wards, moving southwards, until in this year’s mayoral election the conservatives had most votes in just three, and in the London Assembly ballot Len Duval narrowly topped the polls in Eltham North too.
UKIP have also seen an increase in support over these three elections. In the London -wide assembly member polls, where we vote for a party rather than a person, UKIP’s share of the vote in Greenwich has gone from 2.78% in 2008 to 5.67% in 2012 up to 9.35% this year. I understand that we may get a ward level break-down of referendum results: it’ll be interesting to see how this correlates with the parties’ polling in this year’s other ballots.
In the meantime, I’ve finished all my deliveries of Remain leaflets, and freed up Thursday to help with leafletting and reminding Remainers to vote. Fingers crossed that the nation sees sense.
