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North London comrades report competition outside Camden Tube station from religious revivalists and street performers but still gave out leaflets and had some conversations with interested passers-by.
Street stalls held this afternoon outside Camden Town tube station in north London and outside our premises in Clapham in south London.
In Clapham we met someone who had already voted for us by post. We saw 6 vans from the Territorial Support Unit, the Met’s paramilitary wing, speeding up Clapham High Street lights flashing. We went to investigate and, as far as we could see, it must have been an event organised on Clapham Common by the anti-vaxx group, StandUpX (www.standupx.info). Anyway, they got leafleted too.
They are inveterate conspiracy-mongers must have some interest in the election as their site advertises a rally in Trafalgar Square next Saturday to “Get Khan Out” for bringing in Ulez.
Actually it costs £10,000 to get into that booklet — £5000 (which you don’t get back unless you get 5% of the vote) plus another £5000 to get your address in the booklet. In addition you need to get 10 signatories from each of the ten districts which make up Greater Manchester (Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, etc), 100 in all. Doable but a lot of work.
In London it’s £10,000 + £10,000 + 330 signatories. There, we are doing the next best thing (or even the better thing) — contesting the elections to the Greater London Assembly which is elected at the same time as the Mayor. That gets us into the booklet, even if only that we are standing without what we are standing for. There is a deposit of £1000 to stand in a constituency. We are contesting two, so that’s £2000. It costs us nothing extra to get a mention in the booklet.
Here’s the London booklet. We’re on pages 37 and 39:
https://www.londonelects.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-04/Election%20booklet%20final%202024_1.pdf
Apparently there is a political party advocating independence for “Northumbria”:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Independence_Party
They say they stand for “socialism with a northern accent”. So if you say “Newcarsle” rather than “Newcassle” you can’t join but presumably are spared the fate on those in the bible who said “sibboleth” instead of “shibboleth”.
800 distributed today in Herne Hill, some in the Lambeth part but most in Southwark.
We passed the Baptist Church in Half Moon Lane where there is supposed to be a hustings next Wednesday. More details to follow.
We are running two stalls this Saturday.
One outside Camden Town tube station from 12 to 2pm, and
One outside our premises in Clapham High street from 1pm to 3pm.
If you want to help campaign for socialism come and help at one of these.
I knew about whippets, flat caps and woodbines but not about mud huts. But it wasn’t the area but the office that I was querying was “high”. It applies equally to the Mayor of Bristol in the South where everybody owns their own house and two cars and has a Filipino maid.
Is the elected mayor of some region an important person in the UK capitalist state or just an elected civil servant with some power of decision about how money from the central government can be spent?
More on Jamie Driscoll here who has been described as the last Corbynista in high office (if being mayor of north of Tyne can be described as a “high” office).
The left-of-Labour left are rooting for him as an anti-Starmer champion:
Jamie Driscoll should stand. And the left-led unions should back him.
But he’s just a common or garden left reformist.
600 distributed today mainly in the Herne Hill and East Dulwich parts of Southwark. Could have been more but rain (or, more exactly, thunder, lightning and hail) stopped play.
Talking of play, we weren’t that far from Dulwich Hamlet FC ground at Champion Hill. Its supporters have a reputation for being progressive. Maybe we should leaflet their next home game if there are any volunteers. Anybody know when it is?
Electors in Greater London have begun to receive the booklet for the elections which lists the candidates for mayor and their manifestos but also which parties are presenting a list and who are the candidates in each of the 14 constituencies.
Barnet & Camden figures in page 37 and Lambeth & Southwark on page 39. This means that anyone in these constituencies who checks who is standing will be able to see that we are. This won’t tell them what we stand for but at least that we are an active party that contests elections.
Those here who are not in London can see the booklet here:
https://www.londonelects.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-04/Election%20booklet%20final%202024_1.pdf
500 distributed this afternoon in Childs Hill and the part of Cricklewood in Barnet. 400 more left with a local for distribution later.
Looks as if Iran has responded to the SWP’s call to “Smash Israel”.
But, seriously, the real conflict of economic interests in the Middle East — over who shall control the oil and the trade routes there — may be breaking out into real war, to which Israel’s war of savage revenge on Hamas and the population of Gaza has only been a horrific side-show. This even as far as the US is concerned as Israel’s actions there threatened to undermine the real reason it defends Israel — as its boots on the grounds and planes in the air to defend its economic interests in the region.
It’s an application of the Carter Doctrine proclaimed by President Carter in 1980 (and implemented on a number of previous occasions since):
“Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
Five were out yesterday to run a street stall outside our premises in Clapham High Street from 11am to 3pm. The usual conversations with refugees from places which claimed to be socialist — in this instance Albania and Venezuela — and who thought that’s what we wanted. We tried to put them right. Also with a former member of the Workers Revolutionary Party (whose premises were further up the High Street) who had already voted Labour by post.
Perhaps a couple of hundred leaflets distributed but we are going to meet well before polling day our target of 15,000.
The Communist Party of Britain which is contesting the party list part of the election has published its manifesto :
https://londoncommunists.carrd.co/
Ed Griffiths has tweeted above saying that workers in the two constituencies we are contesting should vote for us for the constituency and for the CPB for the list. We don’t agree. How can someone who wants socialism vote for the hodgepodge of mostly unimplementable reforms they are proposing? We say just vote for us. If you are into reformism by all means vote for them but don’t be an oxymoron and vote for both us and them.
Starmer says next Labour government will further develop weapons of mass destruction:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68790435.amp
Why is this not a surprise? After the Party of NATO, the Party of Business, why not the Party of the Bomb?
What is perhaps surprising is his description of the development of the British A-bomb as one of the “towering achievements” of the post-war Labour government. They didn’t used to boast about it in the past.
