Greater London Assembly Election Campaign
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There are 12 candidates standing for Mayor. If we'd stood we'd have been the only one using the word "socialist":https://www.londonelects.org.uk/news-centre/news-listing/mayoral-candidates-announcedThere are also 12 parties (not the same) contesting the party list section (scroll down the above), once again none calling themselves "socialist".The list of candidates standing in the 14 constituencies can be found here:https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/who-vote/constituency-london-assembly-member-candidatesThe ones in those we're contesting are:
Quote:Lambeth and SouthwarkBUKOLA, Michael Adewale – Caroline Pidgeon's London Liberal DemocratsESHALOMI, Florence – Labour PartyFLINT, Robert – The Conservative Party candidateKANUMANSA, Amadu Santigie – All People's PartyNIX, Rashid – The Green PartyPARKIN, Kevin Leslie – The Socialist Party (SP-GB)RAMADI, Idham – UK Independence Party (UKIP)Quote:North East* includes the boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Waltham ForestALLEN, Tim – Respect (George Galloway)ARNOLD, Jennette – Labour PartyJERAJ, Samir – Green PartyMALIK, Sam – The Conservative Party CandidateMARTIN, Bill – The Socialist Party (SP-GB)SILBERMAN, Jonathan – Communist LeagueSTACY, Terry – London Liberal DemocratsVACHHA, Freddy – UK Independence Party (UKIP)Quote:South West* includes the boroughs of Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, and Richmond upon ThamesARBOUR, Tony – The Conservative Party CandidateBUICK, Adam John Lewis – The Socialist Party (SP-GB)CRAIG, Alexander Alan – UK Independence Party (UKIP)FRIEZE, Andree Michelle – Green PartyROBSON, Rosina Jane – London Liberal DemocratsWHELTON, Martin James – Labour PartyHere, apart from us, in all the constituencies there is only one other candidate claiming to be "socialist" or "communist" — the Communist League, a way-out trotskyist sect, that happens to be standing against us in North East. Respect is standing there too (and maybe the S does stand for "socialist" in inverted commas). So where have all those calling themselves "socialist" gone? No doubt back into the Labour Party. It's a return to the 1970s when we (and the now defunct ILP, whose remnants are also back in the Labour Party) were the only people calling themselves socialist to stand against Labour. Time to insist all the more that we are THE Socialist Party.
Apparently, according to this report in Friday's London Evening Standard, there was going to be a 13th candidate for Mayor:
Quote:TWELVE candidates will stand to be the next Mayor of London, but former boxer Winston McKenzie was knocked out due to incorrect papers, officials have confirmed. Former Ukip member Mr McKenzie planned to stand for the English Democrats, but his nomination forms were found to contain "duplicate signatures" and were incomplete. Lesser-known contenders include Lee Eli Harris of Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol, Ankit Love of the One Love Party, and Prince Zylinski, who has challenged Ukip's leader Nigel Farage to a duel.We had been considering putting up a candidate but the cost (£20,000) was the deciding against factor, though obtaining 332 signatures (10 from each of the 32 London boroughs) would have been a formidable task. But if the cannabis party was able to do it, so could we even though there will be many more cannabis users in London than socialists (with no doubt some overlap).Not yet worked out what the One Love Party is: whether an Eastern mystical sect or someone seeking publicity for their business.
Winston McKenzie, formerly of Labour, formerly of Liberal Democrats, formerly of Veritas, formerly of the Conservatives, formerly of the Unity Party, formerly Independent, formerly of Ukip.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_McKenzie
He was also in Celebrity Big Brother. So if he'd stood, with George Galloway there'd have been two of them standing for mayor of London.
This Thursday (7 April) members of North London Branch have arranged to do some more door-to-door leafleting in the North East constituency. Meet 6.30pm at Tufnell Park tube (Northern Line). Bring leaflets. And every Sunday from 10 April and up to and including 1 May, members will be leafleting in the Lambeth & Southwark constituency and holding a stall outside Head Office from 11am.
Candidates' Hustings invite for the London Assembly South West constituency at United Reformed Church, First Cross Road, Twickenham TW2 5QA on Tuesday, 12 April between 7.30pm and 9.30pm. About ten minutes walk from Strawberry Hill rail station..Our candidate, Adam Buick, will be in attendance.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/candidates-hustings-london-assembly-south-west-constituency-twickenham-730pm
Candidates' Hustings invite for the London Assembly North East constituency at St. Mark's Church Hall (Lower Hall), Colvestone Crescent, London, E8 2NL on Saturday, 23 April between 5pm and 7.30pm. About five minutes walk from Dalston Kingsland station on the London Overground network.Our candidate, Bill Martin, will be in attendance.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/candidates-hustings-london-assembly-north-east-constituency-dalston-5pm
West London Branch Street Stalls(subject to change depending on how the first ones go):SATURDAY 9 APRILChiswick: High Road, 12 noon – 2pmHounslow: High Street, outside Treaty Centre, 11 – 1pmSATURDAY 16 APRILBrentford: High Street, 12 noon – 2pmKingston: Clarence Street (pedestrianised part), 11 – 1pmSATURDAY 23 APRILChiswick: High Road, 12 noon – 2pmFeltham: High Street, 11 – 1pmSATURDAY 30 APRILBrentford: High Street, 12 noon- 2pmKingston: Clarence Street (pedestrianised part), 11 – 1pm
The famous election booklet which allows candidates for Mayor to state their case, and which would have been one of the main reasons for us putting up a candidate for Mayor, is now published on the London Election website here:https://www.londonelects.org.uk/download/file/fid/744To have taken advantage of this we would have had to have collected 332 signatures, put down a deposit of £10,000 and paid a further £10,000 for a statement in the booklet (this last is not obligatory and 2 of the 12 candidates for Mayor have not done so).That we are contesting three constituencies is featured in the booklet as it lists all candidates and their parties.The booklet will be distributed to all London electors in the coming weeks.
A reminder about the Candidates' Hustings TONIGHT, Tuesday, 12 April, between 7.30pm and 9.30pm for the London Assembly South West constituency at United Reformed Church, First Cross Road, Twickenham TW2 5QA. About ten minutes walk from Strawberry Hill rail station..Our candidate, Adam Buick, will be in attendance.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/candidates-hustings-london-assembly-south-west-constituency-twickenham-730pm And this Thursday, 14 April, at 8pm, a public open discussion meeting, 'London elections: why bother voting?', at The Cock Tavern (upstairs in the Function Room), 23 Phoenix Road, Somers Town, London NW1 1HB, which will be facilitated by the London Assembly North East candidate Bill Martin.http://allevents.in/london%20nw1%201hb/london-elections-why-bother-voting/80002812010715#
[quote-Socialist Party Election Blog] South West street stalls West London branch's experiment with doing two street stalls in different parts of the constituency with two members each rather than one with four members worked. Successful stalls were held in Hounslow and Chiswick. As it happened, with the same result: leaflets handed out, a few pamphlets sold, a contact made and our presence noticed.It also gave us a chance to get the feel of the areas which are in fact different. Richmond and Kingston are leafy suburbs with only a couple of Labour councillors between them (the one in Richmond a defector from the LibDems rather than directly elected). Hounslow is Labour-dominated with only a handful of Tories (from wards in Chiswick as it happens), with a large population of people from a South Asian background and migrants from Poland and Rumania.In Hounslow there were three rival stalls, all religious; two christian and one muslim (who gave us a free copy of the koran), fulfilling the role of being the heart of a heartless world as Marx once put it.In fact we had to discuss religion as much as politics, with a sikh and a christian who were both highly critical of Islam and, as they saw it, the preference given to its followers by the government and the likes of the SWP. We said that we were not afraid to criticise Islam as a religion, but we were opposed to all religion and all religions. We would have sold another copy of our pamphlet How the Gods Were Made if we'd another one with us.On the political side, a man from Poland shouted at us that he had come from a "post-communist country". We shouted back that he'd come from a post-state-capitalist one. At least two people defended extending Heathrow airport as this would provide more local jobs, one saying that Boris was mad because he wanted to close down Heathrow. A bit of an exaggeration of his position, though in line with its logic because this would be the only way of stopping the inhabitants of the leafy suburbs being disturbed in their back yards by aircraft noise.Next Saturday we'll have two stalls again, one in Kingston and the other in Brentford.[/quote]http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/
Two letters have been published in the local press in the South West constituency.This in the Surrey Comet on 8 April:
Quote:Green Party mayor candidate Sian Berry has a point (Surrey Comet, April 1) when she says that the present model for providing so-called affordable housing, as housing at a rent or price below the going rate, isn't working as it is based on signing "big deals with developers". These deals have to allow the property developers to make a profit but the more below-market-rate housing the mayor requires them to provide in any project the less their profit. So there are limits as to how far they can be pushed. If they aren't allow to make enough profit they will just walk away. Not enough profit, no production. That's the way the capitalist system works and why it should be replaced by a society based on common ownership and democratic control, which will allow production, including of houses, for use instead of for profit. Adam Buick, Socialist Party candidate GLA South West constituency.And this in the Richmond and Twickenham Times on 15 April:
Quote:George Galloway (RTT, April
is right to pick up on Sadiq Khan's promise to be "the most pro-business Mayor ever". This shows that Labour, even under Corbyn, still wants to be seen as better managers of the capitalist system than the Tories. But capitalism can never be run for the benefit of those who, in Galloway's words, "work for businesses". This is why it needs to be replaced by a system based on common ownership and democratic control not production by profit-seeking businesses. Adam Buick, Socialist Party candidate GLA South West constituencyHustings in TwickenhamOver 70 people were present at the hustings for South West constituency candidates organised by the Friends of Twickenham Green last Tuesday. The vast majority will have been politically committed, but in answer to questions they heard the socialist case on the EU, housing, academies, crime and polllution and were given our leaflet when leaving. A member living locally took a box of leaflets to distribute in the area including St Mary's University. So that's Twickenham covered.For those interested in such things, the Tory, Tony Arbour, said he was a Brexiter while the Ukipper, Alan Craig (who himself stood for Mayor in 2008 for the Christian Peoples Alliance), didn't say who he would be giving his second preference vote for Mayor to: Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan.. Don't know if this is the official UKIP line.
Another Saturday's stallsWest London members were out again yesterday with two street stalls in different parts of the South West constituency.Brentford turned out to be a bad choice as there weren't many passing by, so we moved on to Hounslow and gave out leaflets, sold the Socialist Standard, made a few contacts, even got a £5 spontaneous donation, and engaged in discussions with workers from eastern Europe including one from Russia who agreed with us. That's the second week running that we've been in Hounslow, so people there will be beginning to note our presence.The stall in Kingston went on as planned despite the cold (8 degrees centigrade). Both the 'Remain' and the 'Leave' campaigns were leafleting, so we changed our tactic and gave out our election leaflet instead; the one on the referendum headed "An Irrelevant Sideshow. The Socialist view on the EU referendum". This provoked a discussion with three young supporters of staying in. They put us on the spot a bit when, after we had said that one minor benefit of being in the EU was the free movement of workers and the relaxing of border controls and couldn't see any benefit to workers from leaving, they said why not vote to stay in as an out vote would take this benefit, even if minor, away. We had to reply that for us the over-riding issue was capitalism or socialism and that, in or out, capitalism and its problems would still continue. They turned out to be Labour Party members from Leatherhead in Tory Surrey, so they must know what it is like to be in a small minority faced at election times with an alternative (Tory or LibDem) both of which they reject. An 'Out' supporter told us he was going off to live in Bulgaria, apparently not realising that this might not be so easy if his side won.Next week it's Chiswick again and Feltham but if Feltham turns out to be like Brentford it could be Hounslow for a third time.http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/another-saturdays-stalls.html
More recent posts on the GLA campaign here.http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/
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