ALB
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ALB
KeymasterRelevant and surprisingly undogmatic article here from one of the Trotskyist groups within LU which reflects the arguments for reformism that Stuart and Jools seem to be putting forward:http://links.org.au/node/3858
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KeymasterSorry, Robbo, you got the wrong end of the stick. I wasn't saying that slump conditions are best for us. In fact I hold the opposite view (more workers turn to nasty nationalism as in the 30s and again now). What I was saying is that at the time many members did think this and dropped out when capitalism proved able to improve working class conditions, including their own, compared to the 30s.We also had our own "Revisionist" controversy which mirrored that started by Bernstein in the German Social Democratic Party at the turn of the century with some mermbers arguing that this development showed that a gradual evolution to socialism, e.g. more and more services becoming free, was possible (read the articles by Frank Evans in Forum and the arguments of Tony Turner). They and others left. We now know of course that it was the post-war boom that ended in the mid-70s that was exceptional not a standing pool of 5-6% unemployed that has existed since.
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KeymasterOne of the visitors to West London's public meeting last Tuesday on the Euroelections was the cartoonist who does the "Seen & Heard" political satire cartoon each week in Private Eye and will be doing one on these elections in next Wednesday's edition. It will be interesting to see if it contains any echo of our "EU in or out, it doesn't matter either way" position.
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Keymasterstuartw2112 wrote:To believe that socialist reforms are not possible due to the nature of capitalism, you'd have to believe that Marx's laws of capitalism are basically the same in nature as Newton's laws.No, you don't. You just have to face the fact that capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary workers and their dependants. The economic laws of capitalism (priority to profit-making) may not be as rigid as iron but they exist and do impose themselves on governments, even in the end of well-meaning reformist ones. Isn't that the lesson of the Labour Party's failure over the years?What do you and Jools think that "Marx's laws of capitalism" are? Just guidelines or a some code of practice that capitalist firms and government don't have to follow if they don't want to or can be forced not to follow by popular pressure?LU, Owen Jones, etc believe that the way out of the present slump and its accompanying austerity is government spending on housing, schools, etc., i.e a return to the failed and discredited doctrines of Keynes. Is this what EP Thompson meant? Perhaps I shouldn't have asked as he may well have done.
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KeymasterDJP wrote:Actually despite the media harping UKIPs percentage of the vote has actually fallen.http://www.libdemvoice.org/about-that-ukip-earthquake-farage-partys-national-voteshare-down-on-2013-40267.htmlAlso:http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11232555.Labour_retains_Hastings_council_as_Ukip_loses_only_member/%5D/Not so much Mugsborough after all. That passes to Basildon and other towns in Essex.
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KeymasterWhen the Oxford Mail published a full list of the candidates standing in the elections they mistakenly used Militant's logo instead of ours. Candidate Max Hess wrote asking for this to be corrected. The correction, with a barbed comment but reproducing one of our logos below, appeared here (scroll down).
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KeymasterThere was no post-war slump and with more or less full employment in the 50s working class conditions improved compared with pre-war days, with workers acquiring household goods and even cars.
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Keymasterstuartw2112 wrote:Left Unity has stood on a (currently) "unrealisable" set of socialist reforms, the SPGB stood on a platform of one big unrealisable socialist reform. I don't see the difference..The difference is that socialism is unrealisable at the moment because people don't want it but will be realisable when a sufficient majority do, while the wish list of attractive reforms to capitalism put forward by the likes of LU and TUSC are mostly inherently unrealisable because of the nature of capitalism and wouldn't become realisable even if a majority wanted them (in fact strict Trotskyist strategy is based on this being so).And of course it was the workings of capitalism itself that opened the way for heightened anti-capitalist criticism not Owen Jones or Caroline Lucas. Anyway, why should we thank them when what both of them are proposing (state capitalism in the one case, small-scale capitalism in the other) is not the way-out?
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KeymasterWe promised to scrutinise Left Unity's local election results. They stood 7 for Wigan Council, 2 in Norwich, 1 in Exeter and 1 in the London Borough of Barnet. Here are the results:Wigan: 85, 88, 252, 85, 78, 79, 129Norwich: 52, 44Exeter: 39Barnet: 107Their best results were in Wigan where one of their candidates got 8.8%, with the others averaging 3-4%. Elsewhere it was the same as us.For comparison (and the comparison can only be rough as the wards outside London are smaller and elect a single rather than 3 councillors) our results were:Lambeth: 81, 49, 46Islington: 90.Clearly LU are not a new force making a breakthrough but yet another small party in the bottom league, alongside us and TUSC. And of course they canvassed votes on the basis of a wish list of unrealisable reforms while we stood just for socialism.
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KeymasterThe results for the three wards we contested in Lambeth can be found here:Clapham Town: http://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=112&RPID=24614579Ferndale: http://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=114&RPID=24615788Larkhall: http://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=118&RPID=24616396As it happens, the results in the two wards we contested both times (Ferndale and Larkhall) are almost exactly the same as last time in 2010.More later.
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KeymasterLetter from Rob Cox, another of our candidates, published in yesterday's East Kent Mercury (somewhat belatedly as yesterday was polling day):
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KeymasterAs the Regional Returning Officer had supplied me with a document authorising me, as election agent, to visit any polling station in the South East Region I decided to exercise this right by visiting one in Long Ditton, Surrey. It was in a school annexed to a Liberal Jewish Synagogue (a change from the usual Christian Church halls). The polling clerks had never had such a visit before. There were no voters there. I chatted to them and then to the representatives of the Tories, Liberals and UKIP outside and gave each of these one of our leaflets though they were there for the local borough elections.As I was leaving two policemen entered the polling station. I wouldn't have thought they have the right to unless called. I hope not anyway as in some countries this would be regarded as intimidatory. I didn't challenge them as my car was partly parked on double yellow lines, but I will check with the Returning Officer.Earlier I had voted in London where the ballot paper was over 2 foot long. The one in the South East will be shorter as there are only 14 lists there compared with 17 in London.
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Keymasterrobbo203 wrote:I know this might sound a little pedantic but I slightly winced at the sentence in the statement as follows"By producing what's needed and wanted, not just what can be sold"That seems to imply that production for sale will continue in socialism and will operate alongside production for what's needed and wanted, does it not?I see what you mean, but it's word for word what Gwynn says in the Party Election Broadcast and, grammatically, it doesn't have to be interpreted the way you suggest.
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KeymasterEarly on in the election we were asked by the Powys County Times, published in Welshpool, Mid-Wales, to submit three 250-word statements for publication, with those of the other lists, in their issues of 2 May, 9 May and 16 May. We have managed to obtain copies of the paper for these three dates. Here is what they published on 9 May (based on the script of our election broadcast). Also added, for contrast, is the statement of the Scargill Labour Party blaiming the EU not capitalism for the problems workers face.It can be found in larger print size here:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0ILt2hoSvBU/U33zpOjnYdI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/Kv2zqNnGw8M/s1600/PCT0905SPSLP.jpgWhat was published from us on 2 May and 17 May will follow in due course.
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KeymasterALB wrote:Even though we are not standing a list in the London Region we have been invited by Lewisham People before Profit to this European elections hustings this eveningThis turned out to be an introduction to Lewisham local politics for the two of us who went. Lewisham is a Labour stronghold with three other parties vying to take them on: Lewisham People before Profit, a sort of radical residents association who organised the hustings, the Greens and SPEW as TUSC. Although they may have informal agreements not to compete in certain wards, as Lewisham has an elected mayor these have to oppose each other in mayoral election. With Labour members present too the first part of the meeting was not always a polite exchange of viewsThe European election hustings took place after. Represented were the Greens, No2EU (by a SPEW member), the Animal Welfare Party, the National Health Action Party, us and UKIP. The local SWP turned up to protest about UKIP being invited and a scuffle broke out. What's wrong with these idiots?The UKIP representative, Paul Oakley, was a smooth operator who was not intimidated by the SWP disrupters. In fact, ironically in view of UKIP's political pitch, he was the only career politician there, dressed in a suit and tie (though the leader of the Animal Welfare Party, Vanessa Hudson, was also dressed like a professional politician even though she isn't). A former chairman of the Greater London Tories, he is No2 on the UKIP list for London and stands a good chance of getting elected a MEP and so moving further up the greasy pole.Anyway, we got a chance to put our case to an audience of 40 or more, talk to politically interested people and to give out our leaflets and advertise our election broadcast.
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