ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Interesting. I didn't know that. So it was Bob Crow and his crew who are the plagiarists. You live and learn. Meanwhile the other No2EU site (No2EU.com, which our friend here says the dot com means dot communist) has this on its home page:
Quote:The EU is turning human beings into commodities to be shunted around Europe while local workers are excluded from being able to provide for their families.Workers are commodities or, rather, their ability to work is, but this has nothing to do with the EU but is a basic feature of capitalism everywhere and would continue even if Britain gets outIt seems that No2EU.com want a situation where workers in Britain can only be shunted around the UK and in fact be deprived of the possibility of going to elsewhere in Europe to try to sell their ability to work on better terms. And they call themselves "communists" and "socialists". They are a disgrace to these terms and are just adding fuel to UKIP's fire..
Yesterday at 11.25 am we received the following pompous email from the president of the students union at Reading University:
Quote:Reading University Students' Union would like to hereby provide you with
notice that a European Debate shall be held on Friday 9th May 2014 at 7pm
in 3sixty, Reading University Students' Union, Whiteknights Campus,
Reading.We have spoken to the Electoral Commission regarding their advice for the
hosting of events involving election candidates. Whilst their advice for
'best practice' activity includes inviting all candidates to take part,
they acknowledge that there are good reasons why some host venues may
choose to take a different approach and are supportive of this. On this
occasion, due to space and timing restrictions, Reading University
Students' Union is able to offer panel spaces one representative from each
of the five parties that currently hold a European Parliamentary seat in
the South-East England region.However, we would be happy to reserve a prominent set of seats (for
practical reasons, I'm afraid these cannot be on stage) for all parties
who have candidates in the South East. Reading University Students' Union
will acknowledge all candidates present and will reference additional
parties represented in the election at the start of the debate. The Chair
will be taking questions from the floor during the Question Time-style
debate and this will allow parties the opportunity to partake in the
debate as members of the audience.We replied saying that we disagreed with the Electoral Commission interpretation of equal time but that one of our candidates would be there, adding that Southampton University students union had no problem inviting all the lists (sending them a link to their recording of their hustings).
Sean Deegan went and reported that he was not even called on to ask a question. He did hand out 200 leaflets (which some recognised as having received through the post earlier in the week). He made some contacts and was interviewed for the student radio station.
We will be taking up with the Electoral Commission their interpretation of equal time
Letter published in yesterday's Surrey Advertiser:
Quote:Can you publish Euro election lists?I agree with the suggestion by John Morris of the Peace Party (Surrey Advertiser, May 2) to give in your columns at least the websites of the various lists (there are 14) standing in the Euroelections in the South East Region on May 22.That will help ensure that voters know who is standing and what they stand for before they enter the polling station.Our list's election manifesto can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/m815ta3Adam Buick, Election Agent, The Socialist Party of Great Britain.Click here to go direct to what Danny says:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Qhjp3PbV8
The Wales Report has been in touch and will be interviewing one of our candidates, Howard Moss, tomorrow (Friday). According to their website, there's a special edition on the European Elections on Wednesday 14 May at 22.40 on BBC Wales, so it looks as if it will be shown then.Here is what Howard intends to say if they give him enough time:
Quote:In or out of Europe doesn’t matter. We’re looking for a real change. Not the kind of change that puts a different set of leaders in charge of the same old system. We’ve got a system which is ruled by money and the drive for profit and by its nature it causes insecurity, divisions and conflicts between people and grotesque inequality. It allows the world’s richest 85 people to own more wealth than half the world’s population put together. This obviously won’t do. The Socialist Party of Great Britain stands for the kind of change that in Wales, Europe and over the whole planet and calls upon people to vote for a free access society without money and wages, without borders, without leaders and led. It’s a society based on democratic co-operation in using the world’s resources rationally to feed, clothe, house and give a decent life to everyone. It’s not a utopia either, it’s a real tangible prospect and more and more people are seeing that. Social consciousness is the key to this common ownership society and that’s what we’re trying to achieve by asking people to vote for us on May 22nd.Can't someone turn Danny's 5-minute speech into a separate video clip that we can put on Youtube too as it's a good presentation of our case? More time than he/we are going to get on BBCTV South East Region or any other TV or radio programme during the election, longer even than our Party Election Broadcast
BBC TV South-East (covering Surrey, Sussex and Kent) have just let us know that a clip of a short interview which one of our candidates, Danny Lambert, did when he was at the hustings at Southampton University on 1 May will be broadcast either tomorrow (Friday) or on Tuesday in the local news at lunchtime and early evening (half six).
A visitor to Head Office has sent us a copy of his new party's manifesto which seems to be an amalgam of Rifkin's idea and our view:http://www.dirtybeach.tv/2014/04/the-beach-party/
We have been asked by the Carmarthen Journal to answer in up to 80 words three set questions for publication in their paper along with the replies of all the other lists. Here's the questions and answers:
Quote:1. What is the party’s stance on Britain’s future in the EU?Whether Britain should stay in or get out of the EU is irrelevant as, in or out, capitalism will continue and so the problems it causes as a system in which profits have to come before people. The answer is not to retreat into an impossible “independent Britain” but to go forward to world society. It is only on a global scale that problems such as climate change, world hunger and war can be tackled.2. What would be the party’s main aims if elected to the European Parliament?Use it as a platform from which to denounce the way the profit system works against the interest of the vast majority by imposing its logic of “no profit, no production” and “can’t pay, can’t have”. To argue instead for a world community without frontiers based on the planet’s resources being the common heritage of all humanity under democratic control and where the principle “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs” would apply.3. How can having a Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement MEP benefit the people of Carmarthenshire?They would have a voice expressing their interest in getting rid of the profit system, even though having a genuinely socialist MEP wouldn’t, and, because of the nature of the system, couldn’t, mean much in practical terms.For those unfamiliar with Wales, Llanelli is the biggest town in the county.
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
