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First the good news. The BBC1 TV programme "Sunday Politics South" contacted one of the candidates on our list, Sean Deegan, for a short interview. He was contacted because he lives in Basingstoke which, being in Hampshire, is in the catchment area of the BBC's South. He will be interviewed next week so presumably the programme will be broadcast on the following Sunday, 18 May. More details later.Four members and sympathisers ventured into Surrey, the only county where none of our leaflets are being distributed by Royal Mail. Well over a thousand were distributed in Hersham and Molesey. We came across other leaflet distributors, but for the local elections, a Tory who told us that the Monster Raving Loony Party was also contesting the local elections and a Ratepayer who wouldn't give us a copy of their leaflet even though we gave her one of ours. Neither of them were interested in the European elections although they did know that they are taking place too. Ratepayers verus Monster Raving Loonies sounds like an interesting local political scene.The Sevenoaks Chronicle contacted the Kent & Sussex branch to ask for one hundred words on what a Socialist MEP would be able to do for Sevenoaks. A difficult one that.Now for the bad news, or at least partially bad news. All of our 984,000 leaflets for the South East Region were delivered to the six Royal Mail Centres concerned (Gatwick, Maidstone, Swindon, Southampton, Greenford and Leicester). Most seem to have been distributed today but those for Slough didn't arrive at Greenford on time and so won't be distributed until Friday. Boxes containing 142,600 for the two Southampton constituencies and Portsmouth North did arrive on time but were not distributed because of a technicality and also won't be distributed until Friday. Not the end of the world, but sort of hitch that always happens.
A sympathiser in France has done an equivalent in French:http://bataillesocialiste.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/spgb2.pdfThere should of course be a link to it from the World Socialist Movement site but who is dealing with this now?Can it also be read on kindle, etc and, if so, advertised that it can be?
The lively local online paper, the Brixtonblog, is organising a hustings next Tuesday 13 May of all the parties putting up candidates for Lambeth council. Details can be found here:http://www.brixtonblog.com/vote-brixton-your-chance-to-quiz-council-candidates/22274 They have also offered parties standing in the 5 Brixton wards (Brixton Hill, Tulse Hill, Herne Hill, Coldharbour Lane, and Ferndale) space on their blog for a 300 word statement. We have already sent ours off.Meanwhile leafletting of the three wards we are contesting is continuing. So far we must have distributed some 3000 of the 9500 allocated for this (the other 2500 of the 12,000 printed has been allocated for Islington Junction ward).
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
