ALB
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One of the questions about which our candidates have been asked from hundreds of members of the 38 Degrees campaigning group is to sign Greenpeace's anti-fracking pledge. None have, not necessarily because they or we are in favour of fracking, but because in elections we don't make any pledges or promises on any subject. Greenpeace say that 780 had signed up by 1 April:
Quote:The Frack Free Promise, an online platform launched by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, has already seen 780 candidates pledge to oppose fracking in their constituencies or help block it across Britain if their areas have not been licensed.Click here to see which candidates have made the Frack Free PromiseAt last check, 402 Green Party, 104 Lib Dem, 100 Labour, 23 Plaid Cymru, 7 SNP, and 7 Ukip candidates had taken the pledge. No Tory election hopefuls have signed up so far.At least one of our candidates has replied direct to Greenpeace itself but he is recorded as not having replied. There appears to be no provision on their interactive page for candidates who have replied without signing the pledge. We are taking this up with them.
Nomination accepted and deposit paid, in Abingdon, for Oxford West & Abingdon. This tile saw a Tory poster too.Today's Oxford Mail has the front page headline: FACEBOOK TIRADE BY UKIP MAN IS PROBED. Page 9 carries a report on the hustings on civil liberties organised by 38 Degrees on Tuesday:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/12867739.Candidates_hit_out_at_rise_in_state_control_under_coalition/The print version has a photo of the other candidates too, but Kevin can be seen in the online photo, at the end on the right.
More news from Oxford:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/04/01/ukip-candidate-alan-harris-accused-of-racist-and-homophobic-facebook-posts_n_6984154.htmlDon't know if it's true, but what is it about the UKIP candidates standing against us?. First, their candidate in Swansea West brings out an unofficial leaflet that they had to reudiate, then their candidate in Folkestone & Hythe is sacked for trying to fiddle her expenses to "repatriate" money from the EU, and now this.
Here's a reply to a reply we sent to somebody who asked, via 38 Degrees, our candidate in Oxford East to do pledge to do something about tax-dodging by rich corporations and individuals.
We Wrote wrote:To be quite honest, the Socialist Party is not particularly concerned that the super-rich dodge paying their taxes. We are more concerned with
the very existence of a class of super-rich within society.Their income and wealth derives from the exploitation of the rest of us who, by our work, produce all the wealth of society. Socialism will put an
end to this by making the means of wealth production common property under the democratic control of the community. There will be no rich or
super-rich nor poor or super-poor, just a classless society of free and equal men and women cooperating to produce and distribute what they need
in accordance with the socialist principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".We are standing in this election to promote this idea.
He replied:
Quote:I take your point, which is fair enough I guess.But I am 73 years old and I'm tired of waiting for the revolution to happen. I guess
it won't be in my lifetime!!In the meantime, any way we can get the bastards is better than none in my book!!
Good to see that basic class consciousness is alive and kicking.
The nomination papers for our candidate in Oxford East, Kevin Parkin, were accepted yesterday. They are not accepting nominations for Oxford West & Abingdon till Thursday. Still, the visit to Abingdon, a historic country town that was in Berkshire for most of its history, wasn't entirely wasted. Pleased to see that the local paper, the Abingdon Herald, listed our candidate, Mike Foster, as among those standing. Also, local shops had posters for a couple of the hustings he'll be attending. It's the only place so far that I've seen posters for the election, all three for the LibDem candidate (they are hoping to regain the seat after losing it last time by a few hundred votes).In the evening, Kevin represented us at a hustings organised by local members of 38 Degrees, the internet campaigning group that has been sending candidates all over the country emails asking them to support various, generally leftwing causes. There were 40 or so people present. The theme of this hustings was civil liberties. Six of the (now) ten declared candidates were present. Absent were the Tories (refusal), UKIP (other engagement), the Raving Looney and one of the declared Independents. The other, a local personality and campaigner, Artwell, was and expressed views similar to the Greens. In the absence of the Tories and UKIP, the LibDems became the whipping boy but their representative was able to hold his own by pointing out that his party's record on the issue was better than Labour's (as it was the last Labour government that tried to introduce identity cards and did arm the police with tasers).TUSC and the Greens vied with each other in making wild, unrealistic promises (often the same) as to what they would do if they were the government under capitalism. Kevin explained that the problems in the fields of housing, education and health care were caused by capitalism and could not be solved under capitalism and that was why he was advocating socialism as the solution.There's an EDL demonstration in Oxford on Saturday and also a counter-demonstration. This came up, with only us, Artwell and the LibDems defending the right of the EDL (and anyone else) to express their views, however obnoxious, as well as of those opposed to the EDL to protest.
Critisticuffs may be anti-parliamentarists but they are not anarchists. They are much better than that and have produced some useful "Marxist" stuff:https://critisticuffs.org/links/I imagine they will be saying that elections are a way of legitimising capitalist rule. They are but of course can also be used to delegitimise it
Somebody else who didn't agree with Chomsky's approach to language:http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/obits/obituaries/11880077.Obituary__Academic_formed_a_linguistics_theory_that_jettisoned_the_rules/?ref=rss
We were out in Oxford too today, basically testing spots for a regular stall for the rest of the campaign but, as in Folkestone, the weather wasn't on our side. All the same, 4 of us gave away leaflets at two different places, one in Oxford East in the morning, the other in Oxford West in the afternoon as well as investigating the pitch at Cowley Centre where TUSC hold a regular weekly stall. They seem to want to live off Bob Crow's reputation as both of the leaflets they were handing out carried his photo.Passing through the main street in the centre (Cornmarket) from our first pitch to the other we were surprised to come across some members of the EDL handing out leaflets for their planned protest next Saturday against "Muslim grooming gangs in Oxford" proclaiming "Contol immigration from Islamic countries for a start". Nobody was objecting, though there was a discreet police presence not too far away presumably in case they did. Instead of trying to kick their heads in we gave them a socialist leaflet. The only political discussion we had in Oxford West was with someone who said they were going to vote tacticaly LibDem to keep the Tories out. Work that one out if you can.Next stall is planned for Thursday 9 April at 5pm in the city centre.
ALB wrote:After confirming that we are standing 10 candidates, we have been invited to appear on BBC2's Daily Politics Show again:The date has now been fixed as Friday 17 April between 12.00 and 13.00. Our representative is going to be Howard Pilott, our candidate for Brighton Pavilion.
Quote:I can confirm 17th April. The programme goes out live between 12.00-13.00 – Howard's interview is likely to
take place during the second half of the programme (I'll be able to confirm this
closer to the date of the interview). The interview will be live, and will be with
either Jo Coburn or Andrew Neil – both are presenting throughout the election
period.Good turnout of 50 yesterday evening for the "Keep Our NHS Public" campaign meeting in Oxford Town Hall. The platform speakers were all trade unionists and, in their opening speeches, detailed the union struggles against some of the private companies that had won contracts to do work for the NHS. Some such as Balfour Beatty and Carillion were big companies from the construction industry with a long record of anti-trade unionism. The speakers described some succesful union actions to stand up to them and convincingly argued that "privatisation" in the NHS was also a way of reducing pay and conditions in the health service.This was not a hustings meeting but any candidates present were allowed 3 minutes to put their case. First off was James Morbin, the TUSC candidate, (his first appearance). He said "No cuts", "Nationalise the drugs companies". Dr Helen Salisbury, of the National Health Action Party, said "Vote for Me as I'm standing on this single issue". County Councillor David Williamson, speaking on behalf of the Green Party candidate (who was present but didn't say anything), said he'd once been a Labour parliamentary candidate but had left to join the Greens which was now the party of the Left. He reminded the meeting that it was the last Labour government that had introduced PFI into the NHS. Our candidate, Kevin Parkin, said that there could only be a secure free health service in a socialist society and that an isolated one within a production-for-profit economy would always be under the threat of being undermined, as it was being.In summing up, the three speakers took off their trade union hats and put on their Labour Party ones. Which meant that the case for voting Labour got much more time than given to other candidates present all together. One of the speakers was Andy Newman, the ex-Trotskyist who runs the "Socialist Unity" blog and is now the Labour candidate for Chippenham. He claimed that it was the election of a Labour government in 1997 that had saved the NHS, forgetting to add that in the 2005 general election he had stood against Labour as a "Socialist Unity" candidate in Swindon North (and got 208 votes).Next activity in Oxford: a literature stall this Saturday at 12 noon in Manzil Way, off Cowley Road.
After confirming that we are standing 10 candidates, we have been invited to appear on BBC2's Daily Politics Show again:
Quote:As part of the BBC Daily Politics election coverage we'll be featuring a different political party for every day of the election campaign – and we would like to interview the Socialist Party of GB as part of this. The format will be a one-to-one with either Andrew Neil or Jo Coburn (both are jointly presenting all of our election campaign programmes – I'll be able to confirm who it will be closer to the date) and will last approx. 5 minutes.Of course I accept that there's global warming and that it has been mainly caused by the past and present human activity of burning fossil fuels. But it is not proceeding at a rate that will lead to the Earth becoming uninhabitable for humans by the end of this century, as some non-scientists have been suggesting.Besides, the exact relationship between the release of CO2 into the atmsosphere and the rise in average global temperature is not known exactly, so scenarios as to what might happen are based on assumptions that might not turn out to be the case. Also, in the past the Earth has been considerably warmer than it is now and was still able to sustain life, so we can assume that humans, given our present technology and knowledge, should be able to adapt to a warmer world.I'm not saying that there is not a problem but I don't see anything to be gained by exaggerating and trying to scare people into becoming socialists, especially as if you exaggerate you risk ending up with egg on your face.
Understood literally, that's an exaggeration. The planet will survive a long time, a very long time (until the Sun explodes) whether or not human race does. I would think that humans too will survive a long tome too even a nuclear war, but the question is in what conditions. I don't think even capitalist governments would allow a runaway greenhouse effect turning Earth into a second Venus to develop, so that's not a realistic bogey.So, I'd rephrase the essay title to something like "The survival on the human race on the planet in decent conditions depends, etc."
