Green shoots: a little bit of history

I'm pretty exhausted and my election is anything but over as I have local election counts to attend. It's been an extraordinary election which has been extremely difficult for the Greens. We fought a hard campaign and fought it well, but this election has been defined by the 'excitement' or should that be 'fear' of a change of national government.

The Guardian's facile endorsement of the Lib Dems came to nothing and that Liberal moment was the dog that didn't bark as the yellow surge saw the Lib Dems lose MPs rather than gain them.

However, while the Green vote was squeezed hard around the country (more on this over the weekend) the big news of the night is that the Greens, despite all the odds, have made history with their first ever Member of Parliament.

Caroline Lucas, one of the most accomplished and talented politicians in the country, took Brighton Pavilion. Sadly she will not be joined by the likes of Salma Yaqoob or Dr Richard Taylor but it is now the job of the party to turn that first MP into a resurgent movement that is prepared to stand up for what is right in the face of an incoming austerity government.

Name	Party	Votes	%	+/-
Caroline Lucas	Green	16,238	31.3	+9.4
Nancy Platts	Labour	14,986	28.9	-7.5
Charlotte Vere	Conservative	12,275	23.7	+0.4
Bernadette Millam	Liberal Democrat	7,159	13.8	-2.2
Nigel Carter	UK Independence Party	948	1.8	+0.6
Ian Fyvie	Socialist Labour Party	148	0.3	-0.1
Soraya Kara	Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality	61	0.1	+0.1
Leo Atreides	Independent	19	0.0	+0.0
Majority		1,252	2.4
Turnout		51,834	70.0	+7.7

You can watch Caroline acceptance speech here.