Usually on election day voters will ignore their local voting history and vote completely differently when it comes to electing the Government – a popular incumbent re-elected regardless of local issues or a complete 180 degree change because the country wants to get rid of a tired and tainted Government. For the last 30 years it’s been Labour or Tory.

Is anything different this time? Well the analysts are talking up a hung parliament and all that business about MPs expenses coupled with the liberal elite angry with New Labour talking us into 2 wars. And possibly voters aren’t quite ready for the Tories?

In Norwich South we have had a Labour MP since 1974 with a 4 year Tory interlude after the Thatcher landslide of 1983. The current incumbant, Charles Clarke, is now a political has-been. That’s not being dis-respectful and is not to say he isn’t a good constituency MP (his office successfully sorted out a problem of mine a couple of years ago).

It’s often bandied about that locally Labour have been in power for 70 odd years. In the late 1990s and early 2000s the Liberal Democrats broke the stranglehold and had control of the City Council for 4 years. I was a Lib Dem councillor then and I like to think that in some small way helped lay the foundations for the rise of the Greens. Nelson ward whom I represented pretty much has a demographic of well-to-do middle class liberals (with a small L). We had a full complement of Lib Dem councillors. We were young, vegetarians &, importantly, greenies (with a small G) who happened to find themselves as Liberal Democrats. As one of two drivers in the ward we had a slant that was not quite the same a the rest of our Lib Dem colleagues in other wards. At about this time Rupert Read, who delivered for us, switched to the Green Party and Adrian Ramsay was stirring.

Four years as a local politician & activist (in my case 5) takes a up a huge chunk of your time if you endeavour to do the job well. In 2004, with boundary changes & all up elections, I and my colleagues decided not to seek re-election – we had lives to get on with. Maybe I also saw the writing on the wall – the Green stronghold ward was being absorbed into Nelson and it was critical for the Greens to win – and they did. They took all 3 city seats in one fell swoop. The rest is history.

The Green Party in Norwich are on the verge of taking control of the City Council if local elections are held (If ? I heard a rumour that if Norwich gets unitary status the local elections will not take place this year!). Adrian has the backing of a dozen former Liberal Democrat & Labour councillors and he certainly seems to have the support of disaffected die-hard Labour supporters.