Greens could hold key to next election

Blair told his colleagues in the early hours of that momentous morning: “Now I know I have won.”

Ed Miliband will be among many politicians anxiously waiting for the Hove result in this coming election year.

It is a Labour target seat of the kind the party must win if it is to have an overall majority.

Hove has been a bellwether seat since 1979, always going the way of the election victor.

After the Blair and Brown years, it went Tory again in 2010.

The contest this May looks to be between Labour’s Peter Kyle and Graham Cox for the Tories. The Conservative majority was only 1,868 in 2010.

Both are good candidates. Kyle has an impressive record working for the caring services, while Cox was a successful senior police officer.

The Tories have lost the personal vote of the hyperactive MP Mike Weatherley, sadly forced to stand down through ill health. Labour relied for its best victories on the pulling power of its first Hove MP Ivor Caplin.

But the other parties will still have a considerable say in what happens at Hove.

Last time around, Paul Elwood, a popular local Liberal Democrat councillor, garnered nearly a quarter of the votes.

Elwood is not standing this time and his party is down in the dumps, so where will those votes go?

A survey has shown that UKIP could gain enough votes to deliver the seat to Labour by taking most of its support from the Tories in this marginal seat.

But against that is the prospect of the Greens doing well and persuading hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour supporters to vote that way.

The Green candidate is Christopher Hawtree, a highly energetic, entertainingly eccentric politician who cannot be ignored.

With his loud heckles and penetrating laugh, Hawtree was a regular in the public gallery at meetings of Brighton and Hove City Council for several years.

Tired of his ceaseless interventions, some councillors said: “If you’re so clever, why don’t you stand for the council yourself?”

Unlike almost every other political spectator, Hawtree did exactly that. He joined the Greens, stood on a soapbox in George Street and won a seat in central Hove four years ago.

Hawtree is most unlikely to win but he is well known and has been around longer than the other contenders. The Greens already have other Hove councillors in Brunswick and Goldsmid.

Greens will appeal to left-wing Labour supporters who feel their party has gone soft. I fancy they will comfortably outvote UKIP in Hove and should beat the Lib Dems too.

Brighton Kemptown is a similar seat which Simon Kirby holds for the Tories by only 1,328 votes. Kirby is standing again, challenged by the experienced Nancy Platts for Labour.

Once again, Greens hold the key to victory here. They have had several Kemptown seats on the city council and the neighbouring Pavilion constituency is the only one in Britain to have a Green MP. Caroline Lucas, who is likely to win again, is bound to be worth a few votes next door as well.

Some voters have inevitably been disappointed with the Greens in office, as their minority administration grapples with the many problems facing Brighton and Hove City Council.

But many more will vote for them because Brighton likes to be different.

Until now, Greens have generally polled well only in a few odd cities such as Brighton and Norwich, apart from gathering protest votes in European elections.

But there are signs their appeal could be more widespread this May. In Dover, there have been reports of a surprising surge of interest in an area not known for environmental action.

There will be other factors playing a part in this election, such as whether Labour loses scores of seats to the Scottish nationalists.

But the Greens could have a significant impact on the result even if they fail to get another MP elected beside Caroline Lucas.

If Ed Miliband finds Tories have held on to Hove thanks to a strong showing by Christopher Hawtree, he may well exclaim: “Now I know I have lost.”