In March 2014 I was selected as the Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Bath. Nobody thought much of my chances at the time - we had gained 2.4% of the vote at the previous election. However, there’s no point standing for election if you don’t intend to win, so both I and the local party decided that we would mount a strong campaign.

The campaign saw a huge increase in membership of the party, both nationally and locally (membership in BaNES went up by 600%) and we saw the election of our first MEP in the South West, Molly Scott Cato. This undoubtedly gave us some momentum. Thanks to the increased membership and some very kind donations we also managed to leaflet every house in Bath at least three times, something we’ve never managed before.

There were more hustings in Bath than almost any other constituency. I attended around 25 events and appeared on TV and radio. Getting our message out was vitally important, as when we’re heard, we are liked. Indeed, in every hustings where an exit poll was taken we came first.

On the 7th of May 2015 the general election was held. I received nearly 12% of the vote, with a 9.6% increase on the 2010 result. This was only a few hundred votes short of third place.

On the same day we had our first two councillors elected and very nearly got three more, so we now have a group on the local council.