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I think someone mentioned this before but here's the Weekly Worker's full staterment:

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In the forthcoming general election we urge critical support for candidates according to the following priority order:Labour candidates who support the statement coordinated by Michael Meacher and signed by 15 Labour MPs in January 2015. Namely Diane Abbott, Dave Anderson, Katy Clark, Jeremy Corbyn, Fabian Hamilton, Kelvin Hopkins, Ian Lavery, John McDonnell, Michael Meacher, Ian Mearns, Grahame Morris, Linda Riordan, Steve Rotherham, Jim Sheridan and Chris Williamson.They oppose Labour’s current deficit reduction plans, call for the renationalisation of the railways and a return to collective bargaining and employment rights in the workplace. We want to emphasise that the Labour Party remains a bourgeois workers’ party and therefore a strategic site of struggle.Left Unity candidates. There are many weaknesses in LU’s manifesto, but despite that there is much that is positive. Eg, it stands against demands for British withdrawal from the EU; it supports open borders. We also note that, though LU has no agreed position on the Labour Party, it has declined to stand candidates against Labour lefts.Candidates standing under the banner of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. Those behind Tusc aim to establish a Labour Party mark II. As such this is a hopeless and utterly illusory project. It also bases itself on lowest-common-denominator unity. Nevertheless a half-decent showing by Tusc candidates, including those in Scotland, would undoubtedly be positive, given the suffocating austerity consensus reigning amongst mainstream parties.Other leftwing candidates: eg, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain, Socialist Party of Great Britain, etc.Where there is no supportable candidate, the CPGB urges voters to spoil their ballot papers with some suitable message: eg, ‘For socialism’.

If I've followed these convolutions correctly they are calling for a vote not for us in the following order: Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn),, Easington (Grahame Morris),  Vauxhall (Left Unity), Swansea West, Oxford East, Folkestone & Hythe (TUSC) and a vote for us (without illusions) in: Canterbury,  Oxford West & Abingdon,  Brighton Kemptown and even Brighton Pavilion (even against Caroline Lucas). Also, like us, in the vast majority of constituencies to write "Socialism" across the ballot paper.

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Report of a hustings in Oxford on Wednesday:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/elections_2015/12908109.NHS_and_concerns_about_care_top_agenda_for_OAPs_at_Age_UK_hustings/?ref=macAt least we were there and it was mentioned that we were.

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jondwhite wrote:

The Irish Question: A Socialist Analysis (1976) is not. S.P.G.B. – Utopian or Scientific? The Fallacy of the Overwhelming Minority (1949) has the same party status as The Irish Question: A Socialist Analysis (1976).

This is pedantry and also insulting. True, both have the same "status" as non-party publications but "The Irish Question" was written by a socialist and puts the party case (in fact a large part of it had previously been published in the Socialist Standard). The other one is anti-socialist crap not worth the paper is was printed on and certainly not at all a priority for reproducing on the internet.

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Nearly forgot but our half-page advertisement will be appearing in tomorrow's (Friday) Morning Star.

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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..

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

Looks like today is Republic day. 

Actually, it's the queen's real birthday. Here's what our candidates in Oxford replied:

Quote:

Yes, the socialist society  we envisage is incompatible with the existence of the monarchy as well as with all other aristocratic and capitalist privilege but equally with the existence of the capitalist state, whether republic or monarchy.

Meanwhile one of our candidates there, Mike Foster, in Oxdord West & Abingdon, is described in a letter in today's Oxford Mail as "an unreconstructed 'commimist'". Actually, he is but doubtless not in the sense the writer meant.

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Video of the hustings in Botley, near Oxford, last Friday from a local on-line newspaper:http://www.oxfordshireguardian.co.uk/hustings-text/Mike appears about 3.36 minutes in for a minute and a half. Only problem is that we're again called in the accompanying text the "Socialist Workers Party". It seems that in remotest Oxfordshire that's all they've heard about socialism. A correction has been asked for and will no doubt be made. This evening Mike ventures even deeper into remote Oxfordshire, to a hustings at Wooton and Dry Sandford Community Centre.

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The passage in bold comes from part 2 of the Communist Manifesto:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htmIt's near the end, introducing the (in)famous 10 points that Marx and Engels thought the proletariat should implement if it got control of political power in 1848 (though there was a fat chance of that).

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Our candidates get emails from all sorts of campaigning groups asking them to pledge support for particular measures they want. Here's the reply of Kevin Parkin, our standing in Oxford East, to a questionnaire from a local cyclists' group:http://www.cyclox.org/raising-the-profile-of-cycling-in-oxford/elections-2/may-2015-general-election/kevin-par

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I don't know what it's like in the other constituencies we're contesting (or in the rest of the country) but in Oxford there are a record number of hustings (one nearly every evening last week and one every evening next week)  with record turn-outs (200 in Abingdon and 150 last night in Botley, near Oxford). Maybe people like the Question Time formula. Not that have been much fireworks, at least not in Oxford West but then the UKIP candidate there has not turned up at any hustings since being exposed as a racist and homophobe. Their candidate in Oxford East, who has turned up, has been more circumspect emphasing the lack of accountability of politicians rather than the usual UKIP xenophobia.There's still a problem with selective hustings in Oxford East, this time involving the BBC:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/elections_2015/12896113.Hustings_chaos__one_abandoned_when__excluded__candidate_while_woman_talked_down_from_balcony_at_another/?ref=mac

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Only a couple of snags with the deliveryof our election leaflets by our printers to Royal Mail: Swansea went to the wrong address  (which Royal Mail gave us) and the ones for Islington were delivered too late. This means that these won't go out to suboffices for delivery to houses until Monday and so won't be in elector's hands till Tuesday.Everything went ok for the other 8 constituencies. Electors there should be getting our leaflet tomorrow.

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Now Andrew Neill jokes that SPGB stands for Special Patrol Group … You can't win on this name question !

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TUSC's own-produced Party Election Broadcast is also on today at these times:Friday April 17th….. BBC2: 5.55pm… ITV: 6.25pm… BBC1: 6.55pm… Channel4: 7.55pmif anybody wants to watch theirs as well as ours and contrast and compare (Revolution and Reform).

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Here's the result of a ballot yesterday by six formers at a school in Oxford West & Abingdon after hearing representatives of all the candidates (except UKIP, which got no votes anyway):https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FqpZmfbmJSz6bGkrYE-WZw65AcVa4CRk9aV31x8vYAI/edit(Now we are ex-Militant )I don't know if the result means anything but this was not in an area where you would expect Labour to come second, let alone first. Doesn't say much for the future of the Tories either (unless people get less radical as they get older). Our 2 votes had to be write-in votes as our party was not on the ballot papers given to the students.Report of the meeting in this morning's Oxford Mail:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/elections_2015/12893005.Candidates_go_back_to_school_to_debate_housing_and_uni_fees/

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Lambeth Council has invited all candidates in constituencies in the borough to present their case in a few hundred words. Here's that from our candidate in Vauxhall, Danny Lambert:http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/general-election-7-may-2015-vauxhall-candidates#danny-lambert—the-socialist-party-of-great-britain

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