When the electors of St Clement’s Ward voted Liberal Democrat on May 6, 2010, they were calling for change, change in the City and change in the country. They overturned the result of the 2008 poll and more than doubled the Lib-Dem share of the votes. The Green Party share of the vote fell from nearly half to less than a third. The result was tight – Dr Graham Jones, Lib-Dem campaigner who had visited every street in the ward, listening to hundreds of residents in the four months after his adoption, won by 14 votes, but comparison with 2008 shows that what the people wanted was clear.

Dr Jones paid tribute to the Green Party councillor he unseated, Mary-Jane Sareva, and promised to work hard and do his best for the ward, as she had done.

‘I invited the voters I met to be part of a revolution in British politics – and that’s what we have, with no party given a mandate to govern Britain on its own. The new coalition has adopted large swathes of the Lib-Dem manifesto, and it means that the British people have what they wanted – certainly what they were telling me on the doorsteps – a fairer Britain (including a revolution in our politics) and a stable economy. Now my job is to translate that locally, working with my fellow councillor for the ward as much as possible and always with the object of making St Clement’s Ward a better place in which to live, work, study, shop, relax, and bring up a family.’

St Clement’s Ward, Results 2008, 2010

                                      2008 (23%)                             2010 (57%) 

LibDems                     158 (13.8%)                            898 (29.5%)

Green Pty                    558 (48.6%)                            884 (29.4%)

Labour                         280 (24.4%)                            762 (25.0%)

Cons                            152 (13.2%)                            500 (16.4%)

Total                          3044                                        1148