A plan for a huge new coal mine in Australia is likely to be stopped in its tracks by an acute water shortage very possibly related to global warming.

Well it seems all that it is going to buy you is 240 miles of slightly wider road, which will just move the traffic jams a bit further away from Britain’s M1.

Alternative suggestions: hospitals, schools, development aid for Africa, a citizen’s income…?

Isn’t it nice to know we’ve got a “green” government.

Now the dust has settled from last Thursday’s elections, the overall picture from a Green Party perspective is clear. The results proved that when a Green group gets established on a council, people like what they do, like what sort of councillors they are.

In Brighton, we leapt from six to 12 councillors, in Lancaster from five to 12, and in Norwich we reached 10 councillors. (They have annual elections there, so leaps don’t happen quite the same way, but we missed out by ONE vote on getting another seat – and that was an enormous swing to us. That would have made us the second-largest group on council, and was in Thorpe Hamlet ward, where I made my contribution with an eight-and-a-half hour canvassing day – if I’d only done nine hours…)

Norwich is particularly interesting because in the parliamentary constituency of Norwich South we achieved the highest overall vote of any party. That’s a seat currently held by Charles Clarke – and the Norwich Evening News is already acknowledging that fact by including a Green comment in a piece on Clarke’s political future.

I haven’t seen the breakdown figures on Brighton, but we must also be doing very well on overall votes there.

As for the back story to Lancaster, I don’t know a great deal, but it seems it was seriously a shock result that saw the Greens unseat the Labour leader on council.

There’s a complete listing of results here.

It is clear that what the Green Party has to do now is get a lot more footholds, that can make the same sort of leaps as these cities have made… sounds simple when you say it quickly!

(Jim also has a summary, from a slightly different perspective.)

… a passing Green Party person stops to give you directions to a polling day committee room, not because you are wearing a rosette or other party paraphenalia, but simply because you are on a bicycle, and in this part of the world that’s pretty unusual.

Today is election day in Wales, Scotland and many English local areas (the biggest set of local elections on a four-year cycle).

I’m off to rural Bedforshire to help out with an operation there. Elsewhere there’s a lot going on in Norwich (video link), Brighton, Huddersfield, and many other places…

Good luck to Green Party candidates everywhere!