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The second paragraph of this report suggests that SPEW has decided to “enter” the Green Party via a SPEW front organisation.
“Socialist Students also produced the letter as a leaflet, which our members took along to the Young Greens Convention as a way of opening up discussion with Young Greens members about the 20 November campaign. Socialist Students members in the Green Party attended the convention and also helped to raise the international youth walkouts inside the conference.“
Typical Leninist tactic of trying to jump on any bandwagon that’s rolling. These people have no principles or, rather, this dishonest practice is a principle for them.
There is another local by-election a few tube stops from Head Office in Clapham, in neighbouring Wandsworth’s Trinity ward. London branch won’t be contesting it but we will be distributing leafletting in the ward a leaflet suggesting that those who want socialism should write “SOCIALISM” across their ballot paper.
Wandsworth is odd in that it is one part of the country where the two main contenders are still Labour and the Tories. Neither Reform nor the Greens enter into it.The council is made up of 29 Tory and 28 Labour and one independent. The by-election has been caused by a Labour councillor moving up the greasy pole.
Actually, to be honest, I think you have more in common with Bruno Bauer who was among the first to argue that Jesus wasn’t a historical person and was one of the group Marx and Engels fell out with and polemicised against in The Holy Family.
Marx argued that the criticism of religion should lead on to the criticism of the conditions that gave rise to religion. Bauer didn’t get beyond criticising religion.
Not been following this thread as I thought that the question had been resolved ages ago — “Jesus” was not a historical person but either an idea or ideal or an amalgam of dozens of freaks calling themselves Jesus and the Jewish Messiah and proclaiming that “the end of the world is nigh”. And that it was Paul who was the historical figure who thought up Christianity.
But a newsletter from the South West London Humanists just landed in my intray. Which contains the following which might be of interest to those who are following this thread:
“ The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile?
For anyone interested in these things, this piece by Ann Conway-Jones, The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile? is worth reading: “A recent phenomenon in New Testament research is the involvement of Jewish scholars. They perform the vital task of correcting Christian misunderstandings, distortions, stereotypes, and calumnies, with the aim of recovering the various Jewish contexts of Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement”. It seems a lot of people forget that Jesus was Jewish, and so was St.Paul, even after his famous vision on the road to Damascus. As well as thinking that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, Paul was convinced that it all meant that the End Time was imminent. He even said in one of his letters – the earliest texts in what much later became the New Testament – that he expected to live to see it. The Jesus Movement was just a strand in what’s known as ‘2nd Temple Judaism’ – all part of a creative process at a time when just about everyone believed in the supernatural.”Link to the book here:
In the election on Thursday for the replacement of Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester the turnout was only 25 percent. In other words, 75 percent of those eligible to vote didn’t consider the outcome important or significance enough to bother to vote. Which suggests that even in Manchester ‘Manchesterism’ is seen as not being up to much. They are right — just a bigger trough for local politicians.
When he was seeking to be elected Trump said he wouldn’t get America involved in wars like previous presidents. But his attempt to apply capitalist bully boy business tactics to relations between states has resulted in every single Arab state in Western Asia being bombed. He has set the whole area on fire.
I suspect the more intelligent members of the capitalist class will be happy to see his wings clipped in November and the back of him at the beginning of 2029. He’s been a disaster from their point of view.
To be fair, we record two measures the Burnham government has taken — he says to put money into people’s pockets but actually not to take so much out of them — to help people a “little bit” (his own words): the £2 cap on bus fares and removing VAT on electricity bills.
This, to see if and how long they last. After all, a previous Labour government in 1964 abolished prescription charges when first elected only to have to re-impose them a couple of years later when faced with a balance of payments crisis.
TM said his father had a passion for Rugby.
He was a founder member of the Grasshoppers rugby club in Twickenham. He made some SPGBers out of a few players there too.
Another comrade who was involved in this club:
But of course rugby is not the same as soccer.
As soon as I saw the hammer and sickle I switched off their website.
That was my reaction too. All Leninist groups are committed to socialism as classless, stateless, moneyless society (which they call communism) but only in some dim and distant future. In the meantime they concentrate on their “mimumum” programme of reforms as bait to try to attract a following.
New additions to the French language section of the WSM site:
Le monde dans lequel on vit
Aux écologistes
Sauver la Terre ou les profits?
Le mythe de la Russie « socialiste »
Comment le capitalisme d’Etat est arrivé en RussieLucky we didn’t decide to contest:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/record-number-candidates-sign-clacton-110207274.html
What a farce!
Mind you, the local council will be happy. They’ll recover £16,000 in lost deposits.
Five of us were at the count last night. It finished after midnight. Here’s the result:
Clapham Park:
Green – 842 (43.8%)
Labour – 799 (41.5%)
Lib Dem – 108 (5.6%)
Conservative – 85 (4.4%)
Reform UK – 71 (3.7%)
CPA – 12 (0.6%)
Socialist – 6 (0.3%)There was a low turnout. Down to 20 percent compared with the 33 percent at the full council elections in May. Only 1,952 of the 9,559 on the electoral registered bothered to vote.
The Greens held on to the seat but they lost the other Lambeth council by-election to the LibDems, a bit of a surprise but even by the standards of conventional politics it’s difficult to see the difference between the Labour, the Greens and the LibDems.
We can’t anyway in view of this 2006 Conference Resolution:
“That no more by-elections be contested as they appear to be a waste of money.”
The resolution mentions a waste of money but an additional reason was being beaten by what are now being called “novelty” candidates. In one case, by both Screaming Lord Sutch and Mr.Blobby:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Littleborough_and_Saddleworth_by-election
This by-election is known in party lore as the little and sad election.
According to this post on Urban75, we will have got a fleeting mention on the BBC’s live update about Burnham on 23 June:
“The original BBC live update named the Labour candidate Burnham was supposed to be campaigning alongside as well as all the other candidates standing. Next time I’ll remember to do a screenprint!”
Not bad for a council by-election.
Since then, the remaining election leaflets were distributed on Thursday and Saturday.
We have now only to wait to see what the Brixton Buzz will say about us. Four of us are going to count next Thursday. We are not expecting a spectacular result.
Leaflet distribution continues. Of the 3000 leaflets printed some 750 remain. Most of the immediately accessible letter boxes in four of the five polling districts have been covered. The remaining one will be on Thursday.
The Greens and Labourites are out canvassing every day. Not surprising as what’s at stake for them is which of them will have the most seats on the council. Whether the ordinary elector is that motivated remains to be seen. At the full council elections in May the turnout was only 33 percent.
The latest Green leaflet we saw being distributed on Saturday said the choice is between their “local champion” and “More of Starmer’s Labour”. Well, that’s no longer the case. It’s now between them and Labour led by a stage Northener. Not that either was a real choice.
We also came across a Green Party leaflet left over from May which promised that they would “cut bills and raise everyone’s wages”. Wages increases all round, that “eco-populism” for you!
