TUSC and the General Election
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We now know who is financing the TUSC candidates deposits. It's not the RMT. It's the old, practically defunct "Socialist Alliance" from a £100,000 legacy they've received. See:http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-89f6-Socialist-Alliance-gets-100k-boost-to-election-prospects#.VOmOmCwoFqAhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/events-and-announcements/left-unityorg-peoples-assembly?page=56#comment-20919
Here's a TUSC election clip for Alan to comment on and suggest we do something similar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfsNNcha6pU&feature=youtu.beThe content is very vague and doesn't say much.
Certainly the content wouldn't be the same if we were writing the script …The style and presentation was imaginative…although the child's voice-over was a bit tweeeeCompare it with these older TUSC videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u8LerPf4e8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyG1KPeCAT0and i dare say not too expensive to make as animated videos go…So yes…i will say that in a series of videos that i keep saying we should make, (and not just for elections), we should do something in similar wayi have always been impressed by this SSP election video and forget the actual reform content but see how it was full of factual information, presented in a simple enjoyable fashionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD-hAuCBDLABut i think they had a few media professionals on board to advise and make it.(BTW how is the re-editing of the European election video going?)
I saw someone selling "Socialist Worker" so I thought I'd buy a copy to see what they had to say about the elections. They are a junior partner in TUSC and call for a vote for TUSC but only seem to give prominence to TUSC candidates who are SWP members. In Oxford there are conspicious by their absence in the campaign for the TUSC candidate there, who is a member of SPEW and is virtually just a one-man show.Where there is no TUSC candidate their position is to vote Labour:
Quote:Millions of workers who do not think much of Ed Miliband will nevertheless vote Labour to eject the Tories and block Ukip. In a withered and distorted way Labour retains a link to organised workers through the union leaders. If there is no left or radical candidate then we are for voting Labour.Outgoing Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas is identified as one "radical candidate". But "in Scotland where there is no socialist candidate it is impossible to call simply for a Labour vote or for an SNP one", leaving their folowers in such places not knowing which way to turn.Basically, they want a Labour government..
TUSC are contesting a couple of local council by-elections in Kingston, Surrey, as well as the parliamentary seat. One of their local candidates states in this week's Surrey Comet that:
Quote:This society has plenty of money, it is simply in the wrong hands. I want to ask the community what they need and campaign for a budget based on that.So that's what it's all about: redistributing money within existing society. It's probably an honest expression of his views but is just crass reformism. The Trotskyist strategists behind this, however, will see it as an appeal to the "trade union consciousness" they think workers are incapable of advancing beyond.
Threads like this really drive home the differences between the SPGB and 'the others'. Despite having some qualified reservations (the Left are cynics but might be right about the capacity of workers), I am with you on this and wish you every success in the elections.
According to the BBC website, TUSC's 135 candidates got a total of 36,327 votes, an average of 269 per constituency, which will be less than 1%. OK, we only got an average of 90 per constituency but then we were standing for socialism and nothing else while they were promising a whole host of reforms (a million more council houses, £10 an hour minumum wage now, etc, etc, etc).Lesson: you might as well ask for whole bakery rather than just some bigger crumbs.
http://www.medway.gov.uk/PDF/Rainham_North_declaration_of_result_Locals_2015.pdfMust. Not. Laugh.Oh, go on then.Bwahahahahaha!!!!!
I was speaking to a TUSC candidate recently who told me that, when he first stood in his constituency, he had got quite a respectable vote, but the second time, it had plummeted. I suggested that maybe the reason was that the electorate had had time to get to know him…
Oh, apparently TUSC are challenging the result, although can't see how. Surely they had an agent there at least to see the votes counted?
I think this comment on Urban75 sums up why some vote for TUSC (even if nobody does in Rainham)http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/lefty-party-predictions.334708/page-5#post-13886637
The Weekly Worker have now published the results of all those they call "left candidates":http://www.cpgb.org.uk/may2015candidates.htmlWhat is noticeable is how well the Socialist Labour Party did compared with TUSC. Can't think why. The name perhaps? Class War got even less than us.
TUSC have now produced a list of their results with a commentary:http://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/338.pdfThe last section is headed 'Candidates not in the TUSC umbrella'. It doesn't include us (or Class War), presumably because they don't think that we'd ever agree to (they're right) but, curiously, they include the National Health Action party, a single issue, left-liberal party which did considerably better than them but which would probably never agree to shelter under their umbrella either and would be foolish if they did as that would only lose them votes.
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