Friday, November 24, 2006

Derek Wall elected Male Principal Speaker of the Green Party

Derek Wall has been elected the male principal speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Round 1
Ashley Gunstock 273
Keith Taylor 572
Derek Wall 657
Re-Open Nominations(RON) 17
Invalid vote 1
blank ballot 1
So Ashley Gunstock was eliminated

Round 2
Keith Taylor 705
Derek Wall 767
RON 35
So Derek Wall was elected

I was surprised by Ashley's vote actually, very high considering he was clearly the third candidate, well done to him, although I'm interested at the low(ish) turnout in the postal ballot - although it may well compare favourably to previous years for all I know.

Derek has cut and pasted the Green Party press release onto his blog for all to see with quotes from himself and the new Female Principal speaker and fellow member of the Green Left who blogged here earlier in the year on her new position (she was elected at conference).

Congratulations Derek, comments everyone? This story blogged elsewhere [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] also BBC and Guardian

12 comments:

Phugebrins said...

That's not a huge number of votes... or at least, less than I expected.

Anonymous said...

Principal speaker, surely? Unless they have an unprincipled speaker as well (I can think of a couple of Hackney candidates...)

Anonymous said...

Can I second that principAL please!!!! :-)We have lots of trouble trying to get the MSM to get it right.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the vote would have gone the same way if Green voters had been involved in some kind of US style primary - some how I doubt it. How you guys can ditch a proven vote winner like Taylor for a ideological candidate like Derek Wall, who did nothing very spectacular in Windsor, I really don't know. Ideological self-indulgence, I guess. I think you will pay for it politically.

Matt Sellwood said...

I'm starting to share Jim's irritation at anonymous contributions. I've been on three green blogs today, and they *all* have anonymous posters slagging off Derek, Green Left or both.

Please be honest about who you are!

Matt

Ed said...

Fantastic news.

Note the brain dead reference to Derek Wall being all 'ideological' from the anonymous contributor above. Here's some news, Mr Anonymous, you are, necessarily, 'ideological' yourself. Or perhaps you think you have direct access to the world of fact unmediated by normative, ethical and other ways of interpreting the world. In fact accusing one's opponent's of being 'ideological' is classic Toryism - I wonder if our friend, whether he admits it or not, is rather conservative in his instincts.

Jim Jepps said...

Quite right Ed - and apologies to those offended by my spelling, I absolutely guarantee it is 100 times better than it used to be - if that's any help.

Incidently it is due to anonymous posting that I had to take my comments facility down last weekend as they were (apparently) in danger of invalidating the election (with supporters canvassing for the candidates anonymously)... hey ho

Anonymous said...

I'm one who shares some concerns about Derek possibly wanting to go beyond his remit as principal speaker and present the party beyond where the current policy lies, but it's a bit unfair for people to publicly criticise now the election has happened and before we've seen him in action.

I say we should wait and see if he can do the job with sound political judgement. If he does then we all benefit, if he doesn't when then we can vote him out next year.

And because matt sellwood is a lovely man who doesn't deserve to be wound up I'll not be anonymous!

Jim Jepps said...

Thanks Matt - I think what's important for those who want the Greens to do well is to make sure Derek does the best job he can.

That might, at times, mean criticising him to keep him on track - but hopefully people will give him the support he'll need to do a good job and also keep an open mind... I think he'll prove in practice what his political judgement is like and, as you say, next year he'll either reap the rewards of a good performance or party members will decided to give someone else a go.

Jim Jepps said...

Right that's it.

Anonymous comments from now on are on warning... unless you play nice you will be deleted - just like the crass anti-Keith Taylor comment I just zapped - man that felt good!

EB said...

Are Derek and Sian members of the Green Left plattform, it is not clear from the posting?

Jim Jepps said...

Yep - they're both members of the Green Left