Green Party candidate Mary Page is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the West of England mayoral race today
The Green Party’s Mary Page says she is “quietly confident” about winning the West of England mayoral race today – not because of a YouGov poll putting her three points ahead of Labour’s Helen Godwin, but because she is the bookmakers’ favourite.
“Bookies don’t like to lose money,” she says. “so I always think their figures are likely to be quite accurate.”
The latest odds from bookmakers put the Greens at 10/11 and Labour at 3/1.
A YouGov poll published on 25 April had the Greens in the lead on 27%, Labour second with 23%, Reform on 18%, Conservatives on 17%, Lib Dems on 13% and the independent with 2%.
Meanwhile, a More in Common poll predicted that Labour would win the Weca mayoral race. More in Common put Labour on 23%, ahead of the Conservatives with 21%, Reform and Greens both on 18%, Lib Dems on 15% and the independent on 5%.
Page thinks that the Greens are doing well because they have a “newness” and “freshness”, adding, “this enables people to go, you know what I am fed up with all of these other people and parties.”
At the general election last July, she says the Green Party chose the slogan “Real hope, real change” because they wanted to show “there is an alternative that you don’t have to blame someone else for your problems. You don’t have to be angry at the people who live in your community because they’re different from you.”
She adds: “The people you should rightly be cross at is a government that has failed you [the Conservatives] and Labour, who have continued austerity mark 2.”
If elected mayor, Page says she would focus on delivering a “freedom card” for residents to travel on trains and buses for a lower cost. This would replace the “Birthday bus” scheme which Norris introduced, which gives people free bus travel for the month their birthday falls in.
Instead, passholders would get the same number of free journeys, but spread through the year. She supports having the “right homes, in the right places, at the right price,” and says that her plan for areas with new housing developments such as Thornbury is to connect them with sustainable transport options.
Currently, she says large numbers of homes are being built without the infrastructure around them that is needed.
The previous mayor of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) was Labour’s Dan Norris, who held the position since the 2021 election. He was also elected as the MP for North East Somerset and Hanham last July, but was recently suspended by Labour following his arrest in connection with rape and child abuse allegations.
Page says the allegations against Norris haven’t come up much on the doorstep.
However, she believes frustration with Labour was already there, as Norris and former Bristol mayor Marvin Rees clashed on key issues, delaying progress.
She also notes that Norris’ decision to spend £10,000 of taxpayers’ money to cover a bus with his own image to promote the “Birthday Bus” scheme also contributed to his unpopularity.
One of the most frequently mentioned facts about Page is that she led the ‘Scrap the Role of Mayor of Bristol’ campaign to abolish the city mayor role — she even quit her job in the civil service to do so — yet she is now standing to become the West of England mayor.
“The mayor had all the say,” she says, which she disagreed with and felt was “autocratic”. In the end, voters agreed, and decided to abolish its directly elected mayor following a referendum.
Page says she has run her mayoral campaign on a shoestring compared to her rivals, using £1,500 of her own money to print 50,000 leaflets at the start of the election.
She says she would never take big donations. “No one can buy my values, people can’t fob me off with extra money,” says Page, a former journalist for BBC Radio Sheffield and political advisor at South Gloucestershire Council.
Arron Banks, the Brexit bankroller and Reform UK’s Weca mayoral candidate, is one of Page’s rivals. He has admitted that he doesn’t understand what the mayoral role actually entails and has said he will hire a deputy who he will direct “from his chateau”.
Page says: “If he is as good a businessman as he says he is, he can read the information on what the job is and work it out for himself.”
Banks has talked about sacking all 400 officers at the West Midlands Combined Authority to cut down on costs. “He talks about saving money but we wouldn’t even have a mayor if he was elected, he says he’d do the job one day a week, and hire a deputy mayor to do his role. He’d cost the taxpayer more,” Page says.
Page emphasises Left Foot Forward that should would be doing the mayoral role for the people. If elected, she says her priorities would be: “people, planet, then party,” adding “the party won’t like me saying that but it’s got to be that way.”
Whatever the result, Page is happy with the campaign she’s run — and is ready for a break.
“Drum & Bass On The Bike is back in Bristol this weekend, and I fully intend to be there,” she says. “He even wished me well with my campaign this morning.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn’t have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
