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Hatchet job in today's London Evening Standard on one of those standing to become Bon Crow's successor as RMT General Secretary:http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/the-wouldbe-next-bob-crow-who-revels-in-bringing-london-to-a-standstill-9325940.htmlAt a TUSC meeting for the Greater London elections in 2012 Steve Hedley called us "Mensheviks". I got the impression he doesn't think much of "Trotskyites" either.
Interesting that it should be getting a more favourable reception on RevLeft (except for a couple of bigots with a bee in their bonnet) than on Libcom, but then Libcommers are prejudiced against anything electoral.
We've now got a precise time for this evening's showing on ITV Wales: It's 22.53 after the regional news:http://theguardiandev.tvgenius.net/text-only/?c=itv-1-wales
A statement of the case for socialism from another of the candidates on our list, for circulation amongst his neighbours in Burgess Hill in Sussex and also hopefully for publication in the local paper there:
Quote:Dear Fellow CitizenI have been nominated to stand in the European election by the Kent and Sussex branch of the Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement. My/our understanding is that our Earth is part of the universal offshoot of the Sun and has evolved over the vast period of time. Subsequently life developed and evolved and human society itself arose and developed with the changing ecology. It has been a wonderful evolution.The Socialist Party considers that our present 20/21st century society has now passed its zenith of useful development – “past its sell-by date” – as did past societies, the Hunter Gatherers, Greeks, Romans, Middle Europeans, etc. Now we are increasingly “global”, we recognise and understand. Today we have not only local and national elections, but, also, European Elections.We think that it is now time to take the next step. To replace the narrow, competitive, divisive, private ownership of the means of production with an open community of those means and true democratic control by all. To make this change, we have to understand and want it. Yes, we have to think about it – despite the constant control of the news. Yes, it is now possible. It is a basic society change for the better where all the human family give freely of their ability and in true democracy, having freely of their needs as produced. True Socialism.Collectively, we have marvellous scientific and intellectual abilities, but the present system has inbuilt unbalances and conflicts and is inherently flawed and cannot act in the interest of the vast majority of men, women and children – to say nothing of the natural world ! E. g. to recruit, train and arm our “heroes” to fight and kill other “heroes”, as in the Blair/Brown Iraq Oil. Still there are those to defend and perpetuate the system – the reformists, the pseudo-socialists, the Communists with their “state capitalism”, the billionaires.In the last war we sang “It’s a lovely tomorrow” – yes, always tomorrow! Let’s make it today, every day. Let us rise to our true civilisation human nature and make our world a better place for us and all to come. The alternative confronts us. Think about it!Best wishes and thank you for your attention.Leslie CourtneyInteresting article in last week's Independent speculating on who his successor as RMT General Secretary might be:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/tube-strikes-could-the-new-bob-crow-bring-rmt-in-from-the-cold-9318570.htmlIf the current acting general secretary Mick Cash wins this could mean the end of TUSC as well as No2EU. He is a member and supporter of the Labour Party , even a former member of its national executive.SPEW must be facing the prospect of the collapse of their current strategy of using RMT money and support to try to build up a Labour Party Mark 2. And if they back someone else for RMT general sectretary and Cash still wins that will make it even more likely that RMT money for TUSC will dry up.
There's also this written exchange between us and the man himself:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2006/no-1220-april-2006/parecon-or-socialismParecon is a utopian blueprint for the oxymoronic concept of a "market socialism".
Email received from the Oxford branch of the Communist Corresponding Society:
Quote:Dear comrades,The Oxford branch of the Communist Corresponding Society is advocating that people
should vote for the SPGB in the European elections, and we would like to
offer to distribute your election materials in Oxford. Please let us know what we
can do to help.Yours,
Jonny Kennedy
Oxford Communist Corresponding Society
Some of our election leaflets are being sent them.
The UKIP election address for the South East Region (where the man-in-the-pub himself is standing) has been distributed by Royal Mail. Its message can be summed up as "Immigration. Immigration. Immigration" but it is also full of illogical arguments and conclusions that don't follow. For instance:
Quote:Outside the EU, our economy could grow faster, creating more jobs.Yes, it could (= theoretically possible) but it "could" equally do so inside the EU. Who knows?
Quote:If we leave the EU, we can also withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights.True, but, since the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU, Britain could withdraw from it even if it didn't leave the EU.But of course you don't expect to get an informed argument from someone propping up the bar in a pub.Our election address is due to be distributed by the Royal Mail on 7 May (next Wednesday) in the 20 selected areas within the region. So, if you live in one of these (Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, Slough, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Crawley, Hastings, Dover, Canterbury, Dartford, Gravesend, Chatham, Maidstone and various other towns in central Kent and the Medway) look out for it and let us know that it has been distributed.
For the record, from yesterday's Weekly Worker in an article entitled "EU elections: Trying to vote internationalist"
Quote:The CPGB, therefore, recommends no vote for either No2EU or the SLP. Comrades in Wales should cast a critical vote for the Socialist Party of Great Britain ….The CPGB is not to be confused with the former party of this name which we vied with over the years and which is now represented by the CPB (whose leader is heading the No2EU list in Wales).Not sure what a "critical vote" is but at least somebody else rejects the petty and divisive nationalism of No2EU and the Scargill Labour Party.
Yes, what Claudia said (in answer to a specific question on this put to all candidates) was that we are in favour of open borders, that we are an internationalist party so don't discriminate between members of the working class, and that if a worker from another country came to Britain to work we wouldn't support British workers who saw it as being in their interest to favour discrimination.
We know from our experience of the Greater London elections in 2012 that leftwingers did vote for us and say they did. Others, though, including one prominent SWPer and someone who chaired a TUSC meeting, said they had voted for the Green Party. Someone on Urban75 has said that SPGB or Green is the only real choice in the South East Region.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Did anyone catch this? (What time in the programme was it?)According to someone on our facebook page it's 2:42:40 (or a little earlier for some of the other candidates) into this:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01xbfd7
Another personal statement of the socialist case by one of our candidates, Howard Pilott, for sending to the local papers in his area (Lewes, Mid-Sussex):
Quote:Bored of elections? Try voting for a change.Euro elections are here and your ballot paper offers you a dozen versions of the same old stew. But wait: there’s something a bit more tasty: you can vote for the abolition of capitalism…The Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement is contesting the euro elections in the South East. This time you can say yes to forever scrapping this cockeyed system that takes from the poor and gives to the rich; that preaches austerity for the 95% whilst the elite get yet richer; where millionaire leaders shed crocodile tears over poverty as they live in luxury. Somehow it has been sold to us that this is usual – moreover it is the only way to organise society, and it is good and healthy. You could not make it up.I am a candidate for the Socialist Party but it could be anyone. I am not important, you are. It’s not about me, or my group of cronies, it’s about all of us: we could share all the world. Scrap capitalism, abolish the monetary system and suddenly the playing field is not so uneven. We will not have achieved salvation but many of the idiocies of the current system will have gone: life will not be quite so problematic. No longer would the accountant who finds havens for the rich to hide their wealth to avoid tax earn a thousand times more than the carers looking after the health of your old aunt – because there would no longer be wages. No more wages slavery, just imagine. You’d be able to do what you do and be able to take what you need.You will no doubt be told it’s mad and totally unachievable. But think what would have been said about the internet or triple heart bypass surgery 50 years ago. Human beings are incredibly intelligent – just look at how much and how quickly we can achieve things when we set our minds to it – and we in the Socialist Party are simply saying the world can be organised in a more intelligent way. It cannot be seen as either intelligent or necessary that most of the wealth of the world is given to so few.All the other parties offer you some variant of what we have already – possibly a few more checks and balances. Sadly history shows that, whatever the government, the rich come out on top. We are here to say it need not be like this. Join in this election and vote for a change.Another comrade on our list, Brian Johnson, was interviewed by BBC Wales TV this afternoon. A soundbite from it will be broadcast on Sunday 4 May in the "Sunday Politics Wales" show on BBC1 Wales which starts at 11am. The soundbite is likely to be on after 11.30 together with those from representatives of the other lists.
You read it first here !http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/euroelections-2014-south-east-region?page=5#comment-12927And they are not just standing in the South West but in all the English regions. It is not clear who's behind it but it must be the Tories or maybe some group of capitalists who are worried that UKIP might win a proper general election and take Britain out of the EU so harming their economic interests.
