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The normal working of the law of supply and demand that regulates short-term market prices. Ironically, if the incoming Labour government succeeds in stimulating growth or, more likely, if growth happens spontaneously, then gas prices will go up again.
“The slump in Europe’s energy markets has already filtered through to homes. In the UK, the regulator Ofgem’s energy price cap, which sets the maximum price that suppliers can charge per unit of gas or electricity, fell by £238 to £1,690 for the typical annual dual-fuel bill earlier this week – its lowest for two years.
“But lower prices alone are not enough to articulate the end of the energy crisis,” according to Marzec-Manser. “There’s a wider economic picture to consider.”
The recent fall in market prices is in part due to the economic gloom caused by the energy crisis itself, he says. Rising energy bills have triggered inflation across major economies, leading to a cost of living crisis that has slowed consumer demand for new products.
This in turn has reduced economic activity across Europe’s industrial heartlands, and has kept a lid on gas demand from heavy industry. Marzec-Manser expects industrial gas demand to remain 20% below pre-pandemic levels this year.
“Even though gas is more affordable there is still a diminished demand for products due to the cost of living crisis, which means industrial gas demand has not yet recovered,” he says.
A rebound in industrial demand would prevent gas prices from falling to pre-pandemic lows and serve to underline Europe’s growing reliance on more expensive sources of gas.”The CPB’s position amounts to: Vote Labour except in the few constituencies where we are contesting which are all safe Labour seats where we won’t get enough votes to let the Tories in.
In a dig presumably at the Galloway Party and SPEW’s TUSC, Robert Griffiths, their General Secretary has written:
“Tory victories at the ballot box, while the left pursues ‘will o’ the wisp’ substitutes for the Labour Party outside the labour movement, offer no way forward” (Morning Star, 1 May 2024).
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/defeat-tories-priority-local-elections
They seem to see the way forward as a different will o’ the wisp — the CP becoming affiliated to the Labour Party.
Just realised that we have been labouring under a misapprehension. It is not 12.5 percent of the votes cast but 12.5 percent of the total electorate. Which means that it is very unlikely that more than 3 candidates can get through to the second round ( if they choose to). In fact it makes 3-way contests much less common.
It’s a genuine quote from something Marx wrote, the ending of this article from November 1848:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm
As can be seen, Marx was commenting on the suppression of the bourgeois revolution against feudal and dynastic rule in Austria following defeats elsewhere in Europe, all due in his opinion to the timidity, cowardice and betrayal of the bourgeoisie itself.
He was making the point that a successful bourgeois revolution to establish the rule of the capitalist class would have to do what a part of the bourgeoisie in France had done in 1793-4 under Robespierre and the others.
In other words, he was talking about the bourgeois revolution not the socialist revolution, the coming to power of the capitalist class not the working class. He was, however, in favour of a bourgeois revolution in Germany including Austria as clearing the way for a “proletarian revolution” which he expected to rapidly follow.
It didn’t of course and neither revolution occurred. Marx later recognised that he had grossly over-rated the prospects of a proletarian revolution in 1848.
In the event the capitalist class didn’t gain full control of the state in Germany and Austria until after the end, and as a consequence of the First World War. Which was a festival of bloody violence if ever there was.
Later, in the 1870s. Marx spoke of the possibility in certain countries of the working class winning control of political power via the ballot box, though he expected a “slaveholders’ revolt” against this democratic decision to end capitalism by a section of the capitalist class which would have to be suppressed.
Are you suggesting we place a bet on it? Will we get into trouble for insider trading? I don’t know what constituency you are in. Bournemouth? Christchurch? Both Bournemouth seats are predicted to go Labour. Christchurch should be one of the few Tory certainties, so you might be right about there. I see the Animal Welfare Party are standing.
I was in Tory territory this morning myself for a funeral near Guildford. The only posters I saw were for Jeremy Hunt. On checking I found I had been in Godalming and Ash, in deepest Surrey, but even he is considered at risk. It seems the forelock-tugging vote is not as strong as used to be.
Here is the reformist programme of the so-called “Communist” Party of Britain (the Morning Star lot):
Kent and Sussex branch report:
Our election address was delivered by Royal Mail today [Saturday].
The postal votes started to be returned on 20th June, by which time we had ourselves delivered about 4,000 copies of the secondary leaflet to letter boxes in Central and Harbour, our target wards.
Incidentally, the Folkestone Herald reported this week that Harbour is the second highest ward for a measurement of child poverty in Kent (34%).
This, the main paper in Folkestone, also failed to print our rebuttal to the article last week that labeled us (and Tusc) as “obscure” and a “far-left sect”.
(The wording of the “secondary leaflet” can be found here:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FolkestoneGE2024-LEA2-V1.pdf )I see the media and the other parties are giving Farage stick over his pointing out the obvious fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not unprovoked as they maintain. Even the Pope has recognised that. No doubt they are hoping that this will lose him votes but it won’t make any difference since people don’t vote on foreign policy issues. It is just more publicity for him. To give him his due he’s a good demagogue.
In a link given by ZJW on the general election thread there is mention of this — the arrest of a Trotskyist in Ukraine and the banning of the Trotskyist website WSWS:
https://www.racket.news/p/ukraine-detains-socialist-writer
OK, an organisation called “Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists” doesn’t sound appealing. At all. But it seems they have fallen foul of a law that makes it a crime to advocate negotiations with Russia
In any event, it just shows how repressive is the Ukrainian regime.
Here’s a link to the leaflet of our TUSC opponent in Folkestone and Hythe:
“For many international diplomats, the path towards a ceasefire is clear. ‘It’s devastatingly obvious how this war will end,’ says one former western senior statesman who travels frequently to Kyiv. ‘Ceasefire along the line of control, plus security guarantees for Kyiv short of full Nato membership. No formal ceding of territory. Ukraine becomes like Cyprus – an EU member which does not recognise that it’s been partitioned.’”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/zelenskys-peace-summit-flop/
South Wales branch’s display advert is appearing today in the two main regional dailies circulating in Wales — the Cardiff-based Western Mail and the Liverpool-based Daily Post. The branch had been intending to contest a seat in Swansea but in the end decided to do this.
The text reads:
No money, no wages, no politics. What does that sound like?
In the coming General Election, you’re being asked to vote for parties who all have the same basic way of looking at things. They all support the continuation of the present system of money and wages, buying and selling and production for the market and for profit rather than for human need. There are marginal differences between them as to how this system should be run, for example with more or less control or ownership by government rather than by private companies or individuals.
But whichever of them comes to power, the same thing always results – crises of one kind or the other, damage to the environment, wars causing death and
suffering in various parts of the world, and even in the UK many people going without the basics of food and housing. This is in a country – and a world – that could produce abundance for everyone and easily satisfy everyone’s desire for a secure and comfortable life for themselves and their families.
But this is not possible – and never will be possible – in a world where a tiny minority of people possess the vast majority of the wealth and the vast majority of people have to be satisfied – if they are lucky – with just getting by.
Voting for any of the established parties in the forthcoming election will just mean more of the same. But you do have the opportunity to register your opposition to the existing system of society by voting for none of the candidates or parties who are standing but by writing ‘Socialism – a world of free access’ across your ballot paper and doing this in your thousands. When enough of us are prepared to do this and take democratic action to bring that kind of world about, there already exists, with modern communications and technology, the means to give everyone on the planet a comfortable life in a society of voluntary cooperation and planned abundance. This will be a society of free access to all goods and services, without buying and selling, without markets, without leaders and without frontiers – a society where people co-operate freely and produce what is necessary to satisfy everyone’s needs.
To findout more, visit the website of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on http://www.spgb.net or use the QR code https://tinyurl.com/4tdz4sdb This will also allow you to request a free 3-month subscription to our monthly journal, the Socialist Standard.
Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain at
52 Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UN.I didn’t know about this but someone mentioned somewhere that Galloway has put up as many candidates as he could in order to get more “Short money”. So I looked this up and:
“Short Money is made available to all opposition parties in the House of Commons that secured either two seats, or one seat and more than 150,000 votes, at the previous General Election.”
So if he can get elected and he and the ragbag of other WPB candidates can garner at least 150,000 votes in total between them his party will qualify for:
“General funding for Opposition Parties – the amount payable to qualifying parties is £21,438.33 for every seat won at the last General Election plus £42.82 for every 200 votes gained by the party.”
I can’t see them garnering that many but they might have done if there were 500 of them.
Incidentally, this explains why the parties put up candidates in seats they know they have no chance at all of winning —- they get a couple of bob for every 200 votes these no-chance candidates get.
If this applied to all parties contesting (as happens in some countries but not hereb) if we can get at least 200 votes we could get £43.82.
Strangely we are still getting people using the QR from our GLA emection campaign leaflet. 30 in fact since the election day of 2 May. Which compares with the 42 up to that date.
Taken together that’s about 1 for every 200 leaflets distributed (14,500).
For the record, they are still discussing in the letters column of the Weekly Worker the question of whether or not a socialist party should have a programme of immediate demands which we raised after the GLA elections, with our approach still being mentioned.
