Greens Target Highgate And Kentish Town North; Labour Holds On To The Disco Ball
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat contribute reporting from somewhere within the M25.
The Camden local elections on 7 May are, by every metric I can find, going to be the most genuinely contested in nearly twenty years. The Green Party, freshly emboldened by Zack Polanski and a London Assembly campaign launch that Fitzrovia News kindly reported on without dismissing as performance art, is targeting Highgate (where they already have a councillor) and Kentish Town North. Labour is hitting back with the kind of housing-policy attack lines that, I have come to understand after twelve years of canvassing in roughly this part of the world, are the political equivalent of saying “well at least we tried.”
The Steve Reed Quote
Secretary of State for Housing Steve Reed told the Local Democracy Reporting Service, in what I can only call a tone of professional weariness, that the Greens have tried to block at least 42,000 homes across the country since 2018, including over 13,000 affordable homes. “From Lewisham to Camden, Hackney to Islington,” Reed said, “Greens have opposed thousands of homes in a city where the housing crisis is most acute.”
This is, I think, both true and beside the point. The Greens are not, in 2026, primarily a housing-policy party. They are a vehicle for north Londoners who feel that Labour, under Keir Starmer, has decisively given up on the bit of progressive politics they actually like. That bit is, as far as I can tell, a vague but intense feeling that someone in government should be visibly upset about something.
The Highgate Question
Highgate, which I know reasonably well, is in many ways a perfect Green target. It contains the highest concentration of well-meaning people per square kilometre in northern Europe. The pubs are nice. The hill is scenic. The people who own the houses do not, by and large, need their house prices to go up further. They have, in many cases, already won.
The Disco Ball
The Islington Tribune covered an event in Islington last week, headlined Under the disco ball, a clash over who will really help people find somewhere to live, which is to date my favourite headline of 2026. I have been to a lot of Islington political events and I can confirm that exactly one of them, in the past decade, was held under a disco ball. The disco ball was donated by a local pub. The disco ball was, on the night, the most coherent participant.
What I Will Be Watching
I will be watching turnout. Camden historically polls around 35-40 percent in local elections. If turnout breaks 45 percent, the Greens will, in my opinion, take more seats than current polling suggests. If it stays at 38 percent, Labour will hold most of what they hold. The deciding factor, in my non-expert estimation, is the weather. If it rains, the Greens win. If it is sunny, Labour wins. If it is unseasonably warm, you cannot find a Labour canvasser anywhere near a council estate.
For more from me visit my author page and read further at prat.uk. See also The Daily Mash.
