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Pity that the last hustings in Oxford turned out to be the least well attended. It was organised in Oriel College by a group of students who support the Green Party (and was chaired by a Green Party City councillor for the area) to allow the parties to set out and discuss amongst themselves their various economic policies. Present were the LibDems, Labour, the Greens, TUSC and us.All the same it was revealing. The LibDems and Labour (representesd by another City councillor) droned out the usual boring stuff about what they plan to do to reduce the deficit, balance the budget, etc but they were able to put one over on the Green Party candidate when she tried (and failed) to explain her party's currency crank view that the banks presently create money out of thin air and should not be allowed to.TUSC is pathetic. Their basic position is just "NO CUTS" but they feel compelled to act as the other political parties and present a "fully costed" programme. Apparently the money is there, if you tax the rich and nationalise the banks , to invest in building a million new council houses, restore the cuts, and implement immediately a £10 an hour minumum wage. This, their candidate claimed, would "kickstart" the economy. They're basically Old Labour reformists. In fact he said that up until the 60s and 70s the Labour Party was the party of the workers.Naturally, our candidate Kevin explained that we don't have an economic policy as we don't want to manage the capitalist economy nor think that it can be managed and that the only way out was a socialist society based on common ownership, democratic control, production for use, and free access. The contrast with TUSC's reformism couldn't have been greater.For those who like such anecdotes, at one point the TUSC candidate said "We the Socialist Party will …" and immediately corrected himself.While in Oxford Kevin was interviewed for an article by one student newspaper and did a video interview with another. Meanwhile, the Oxford Communist Corresponding Society and other sympathisers are continuing to leaflet in the centre of Oxford today and tomorrow.
I think he's been got at by Owen Jones who's always interviewing him:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/04/russell-brand-endorsed-labour-tories-should-be-worriedHe's not in fact saying much different from the assorted Leftist groups, eg the SWP and "Elect Labour and Keep Kicking".That the Tories would be worse is based on the assumption that Labour can do what they promise in terms of making things better (or less worse) for people, but we know they can't because governments are not really in charge of how the economy works.A disapppointment and a blow to his credibility. Maybe he'll be able to restore it when in a few years time he admits that he made a mistake…
Carving election promises is stone still won't make them realisable if they go against the economic logic of capitalism nor enforceable by the courts. As Gary Slapper reminded us in an article in The Times Law section (30 April)
Quote:After an election when all is said and done, it is usually clear that much more has been said than will be done. But there is no legal remedy against politicians who fail to keep their promises. In a House of Lords decision in 1983, Lord Diplock declared that elected representatives should not "treat themselves as irrevocably bound to carry out pre-announced policies contained in election manifestos". So someone selling a used car is under tighter control than someone selling the future.Reasonable and fair report of a hustings last week in Botley (Oxford West) here:http://50for15.com/2015/04/29/in-a-tight-lib-dem-conservative-marginal-who-came-out-top-at-the-hustings/We can't really complain about the coverage we've received in these elections, at least not in Oxford.
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.
northern light wrote:Toward the end of the event, the Green Party candidate (pointing to Steve) said that he agreed with much of what he (Steve) said.He has since confirmed this by emailing Head Office in a personal capacity to say that he calls himself an ecosocialist and doesn't see why we can't work together.
Apologies. A bit of an in-joke. You need to know that Workers Fight is the name of the English supporter(s) of the French Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvrière. Their articles are mainly translations from French and read like that. For instance this. Having said that, I'm sure they make the same joke about our material in French.Meanwhile we were on BBC Radio Oxford again, last Friday. Mike gets a pre-recorded minute in edgeways 39 minutes in:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02qf5ksIncidentally this is the first time the disgraced UKIP candidate has appeared with the others. Cherwell, the student newspaper, in its coverage of the Oxford West & Abingdon constituency says:
Quote:It's certainly not clear, however, that Harris is the most extreme candidate in this election. That title might have to go to Mike Foster, of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. His party, he told me, "is in favour of abolishing the entire political system as we know it, and replacing it with a world of common ownership and free access". Anyone who's watched five minutes of Prime Minister's Questions might be inclined to agree with this, but Foster is a little unclear on how this will ultimately be achieved. He's certainly not hoping, he says, to be elected to Parliament, and instead is using the election as a platform to think about socialist ideas.Mayday in Oxford. We leafletted the starting point of the traditional trade union march at Manzil Way between 11.30 and 1pm and had a literature stall at the end in Bonn Square in the centre of Oxford from 1.30 to 3pm. Also there were the usual suspects: SWP, TUSC, CPB (Morning Star), CPGB (Weekly Worker), Socialist Resistence, RS21 (SWP fragment), Workers Fight, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), International Bolshevik Tendency.The Green Party candidate in Oxford East put in an appearance and one of their councillors, in his trade union capacity, was among the speakers. Their candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, out shopping, stopped at our stall to say hello before catching his bus. Today's Independent has an article on his brother, a US Senator, entitled "The socialist who could cause a real stir". He is the only Senator to call himself a "socialist" though he's seeking the Democratic Party nomination to stand for President in 2016.We took the opportunity to ask who they said workers should vote for on 7 May.The CPB were distributing a leaflet headed "Despite Its Flaws Labour Remains The Best Choice" but with the proviso that this does not mean giving "the Labour Party leadership a blank cheque" and "Still less does it mean voting Labour in every constituency across Britain". "The best vote in some constituencies may well be Communist, socialist or Green. But in most it has to be Labour". After all, they are putting up a dozen of their own candidates (in safe Labour seats).The CPGB is committed to supprting TUSC as their third preference and us as their fourth (after selected leftwing Labour candidates and Left Unity as their first and second preferences). Logically this means that in Oxford West & Abingdon they should be urging a vote for us, but we didn't press the matter as we are not in the game of vote cadging. Anyway, their lit seller lived in Oxford East. He criticised us for standing against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington.The SWP support TUSC in Oxford East though they haven't done much to work for the TUSC candidate there, a member of SPEW. They did have a few of his leaflets on their stall and will presumably vote for him. In Oxford West & Abingdon one of them indicated they might vote for us (on the grounds of voting for whatever "left" candidate is standing if there's only one).Socialist Resistence seemed to be split, with some saying they were going to vote Labour and others voting Green.The RS21 member we met said he was voting Green (not TUSC)The oddest was the RCP(M-L) which was calling for a vote for the National Health Action Party in Oxford West & Abingdon. As this seemed incredible for a Maoist sect I checked on the internet and the endorsement can be found here.Never got round to asking the International Bolshevik Tendency. Their leaflet was in American, about "labor action", while the one from Workers Fight was in Fringlish.The Oxford Communist Corresponding Society were distributing leaflets urging workers to vote for us on the grounds that we like them advocate "the abolition of capitalism, money and the state, and the creation of a free, classless, socialist society". They carried placards with a picture of Karl Marx, which contrasted with those sponsored by the SWP which proclaimed "Tax the Rich", i.e leave them (and so capitalist class-divided society) in existence but tax them. As Marx might have put iI: "Instead of the reformist slogan 'Tax the Rich' the workers ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword 'Abolish the Rich'".
Reaction from author Tim Di Muzio:
Quote:I wish I could say thank you for your review. But I can say thanks for bothering to read the book. So thanks.I'm sorry, however, that your are extremely misguided and it is people like you who fail to do proper research that keeps up the confusion around money and the problems faced by the working classes of this world.How we produce money in our society and how it is allocated is of incredible consequence for inequality and the future of the planet (e.g. what we invest in like energy/food/shelter etc).Your review gives me little hope that this one day might be addressed based on evidence rather than conjecture.Not only does Martin Wolf of the Financial Times recognize that banks create money out of thin air but so too does Positive Money (I wonder whether you even visited their site or read their literature) among many others who have bothered to actually do research rather than pontificate out of conjecture on the web.Moreover, I wrote my book in late 2013 early 2014, which Zed's production team did not get out until this year. What we have known for a while thanks to various statements, leaks and logic, has now been empirically confirmed and published in the peer reviewed journal: the International Review of Financial Analysis in late 2014 (when my book was already in press, hence it is not cited).It is written by Richard A. Werner from the London School of Economics which you may or may not be familiar with. As it turns out, banks do indeed create money out of thin air when they make a loan. It appears as an asset on their balance sheet and a (deposit) liability for the borrower. No reserves are checked with the central bank and money does not move from a saver to a borrower.I doubt you have seen or heard of the article or probably care given your penchant for Biblical Marxism and love of this 19th century economic religion.So Robert, given the evidence (of which you martial absolutely none) the bad news is that your review is bad…really bad.In an honest world, after you've actually considered the evidence you'd retract your review, or at least amend it. But following the Church of Marx and blind faith might be easier for you.I just wish you'd stop spreading confusion. Cheers mate,TimReport of ecohustings in Oxford last Tuesday here (with photos of candidates):https://oxfordecohustings.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/oxford-west-abingdon-hustings-report/Today's issue of The Oxford Student has an 8-page pull-out supplement on the election with statements from most of the candidates in Oxford, including our two. Also photos, except the one of Kevin is not of him (but then the face doesn't count). Not yet online.We're getting 200-300 audiences here in Oxford too as last night in Summertown.Number of recorded hits from Oxford on our website is only 83 compared with Brighton's 190+ but one conclusion of the election already is that we were right to target Brighton and Oxford.
Here's a recreation of one of our candidates in lego (this might mean we will need to change "it's the case not the face" to "it's the logo not the lego"):http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-england-32531812Incidentally, this shows what the ballot paper will look like with our name and (for the first time for us) an emblem. Presumably it will be the same in other 9 constituencies.
What's Mike going to reply to a similar letter from someone who says they're a supporter of Oxford United? Hardly in the same league as Man United.
I agree. He played the anti-Tory card so much that he was almost calling for an anti-Tory vote. Miliband must be quite pleased, though I suspect most of Brand's following will vote Green.. And he failed to challenge Miliband's pitch for gradualist refformism. And what this new word: Euphoria or is it Euforia or even Uforia?Anyway here it is for 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZm9_uKtyo
