ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Out leafletting this morning in Isleworth in West London I came across two leaflets promoting Sadiq Khan as the Labour candidate for mayor of London.In one of them he promises to be
Quote:The most pro-business Mayor ever.He said the same thing in last Friday's Evening Standard which reported it under the headline:
Quote:100 business leaders back Mayor contender Khan to be their 'friend at City Hall'.. He was reported as saying:
Quote:I will be the most pro-business Mayor London has ever had. I am delighted to receive the backing today of some of our city's most influential business figures. Before entering politics I helped to manage my own business, so I understand the challenges that our business leaders face.By which he presumably means the "challenge" of how to make a profit.And this is the party and candidate that the Left have bitten their tongue to support, and some of them to go out canvassing for.In case you're wondering what business he ran this is revealed in the other leaflet:
Quote:Sadiq knows what it's like to run a small business. He helped run a law firm employing 50 people, before he became an MP.A lawyers' firm. Hardly what most people would regard as a business, though his experience here should allow him to give his business friends a few tips on how to fleece people.
I expect that London comrades will be too busy leafletting for the GLA elections to hobnob with anti-election anarchists.
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.
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.
Quote:So I kindly ask you to take the publication down as it cases offense to socialists and Buddhists alike.What a whinger and what a cheek. Poor sensitive soul offended by a criticism of his view, so offended that he wants it taken down, i.e suppressed. He sounds like one of those safe-spacers who want to restrict freedom of speech, especially criticism of religion, in universities.
Yes it's a very good quote and it is something we can ram down the throats of those who stand for state capitalism. Talking of which I see that Eric Heffer could only comment on Thatcher's correct statement:
Quote:That is absolute nonsense.Well, a leftwing Labourite would say that, wouldn't he.
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.
Governments have to see to the overall general interests of their country's capitalist class as a whole and as there are conflicting interests they have to arbitrate between these. Steel producers don't like cheap steel imports but steel consumers, such as the car industry, do. The BBC has been reporting this morning that the UK has been opposing the EU imposing higher tariffs on imported Chinese steel:
Quote:The European Steel Association said the UK had been blocking an EU measure which would have tackled the "dumping" of cheap Chinese steel in Europe, which is partly being blamed for the crisis. (….) The UK has argued against higher tariffs, saying they would hit other sectors such as the car industry, which import a lot of foreign steel.I imagine the outcome will be that the government will continue to side with the car rather than the steel industry. Bit of a dilemma too for Len McCloskey and UNITE (but he'll want to have his cake and eat it).
Here's an example from today's papers of junk science in this field of research into "personality" based on assuming that this is inherited (and, as usual with sociobiologists, without putting forward any biological process as to how this could happen, just assuming it):http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4725656.eceThe full paper can be read here:http://www.academia.edu/21585300/An_evolutionary_account_of_the_prevalence_of_personality_traits_that_impair_intimate_relationshipsIt contradicts another famous assumption of the sociobiologists that originally sexual partners were chosen by individuals and which they use to advance theories about all sorts of things.
The fact is that there is no general UK capitalist interest in Leaving.Companies like Tate & Lyle producing cane sugar rather than sugar beet would gain. So would a few hedge funds and other vukture capitalists. But the host of small businesses producing for the home market that are following them are deluding themselves if they think production for the home market is what drives a capitalist economy. They might be relieved of some regulations (perhaps) but if exports are affected and an economic downturn results (as is likely in the case of withdrawal) the home market will shrink too. From a general UK capitalist point of view Remaing In is a no-brainer.I've noticed on the BBC that, when a Remainer makes a valid point (from a capitalist point of view) like this, in the interests of equal time they interview a Leaver who can only say that it's not true. But it still is.
I don't know what you are trying to get me to agree to here. Obviously, the brain is part of the physical body and so its development and what it is capable of doing is genetic. That's what genes do. And not everybody's genes are exactly the same. The mind (what a brain actually does as opposed to what it is capable of doing, if you like) is not genetic but depends on the circumstances in which the brain operates and has operated since birth, the early years being particularly important for a person's "personality". There are "mental conditions" and "mental conditions", some caused by the way a person was brought up, others by some genetic defect. Specialists in the field are arguing over which are which. Some, however, seem to be confusing "brain" and "mind".
alanjjohnstone wrote:As an aside, I am intriqued by ALB's caveat "(and that the writer has not acquired notoriety over something we wouldn't want to be associated with)"Who does he have in mind, i wondered?I don't know. I was thinking of someone who had been expelled from another organisation for an act we wouldn't endorse, e.g from a union for strikebreaking or stealing branch funds. Or, for that matter, had been expelled by us. Or, what about having called for a vote for some capitalist party? So, that's Chomsky out. An interview is a different matter of course.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:we are proposing to give space in our Journal to writers who are not members of our Party.No "we" are not. One member has proposed this for discussion here on our non-decision-making "discussion forum". The current policy on this is that we can and have published articles by non-members on condition that the view expressed is one we agree with (and that the writer has not acquired notoriety over something we wouldn't want to be associated with). Not the same thing as giving non-members free rein in a regular column to express their views.
Someone has sent us this. Apparently John Pilger sees Trump as the lesser evil — because of his isolationist position on foreign policy:
Quote:Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted “exceptionalism” is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.The same might be said of Farage and UKIP in this country as they too are opposed to overeseas military adventures.
