Greater London Assembly Election Campaign
- This topic has 40 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
We will be contesting 3 of the 14 constituencies in this election on 5 May:
Lambeth & Southwark
North East (Islington, Hackney, Waltham Forest)
South West (Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond)
These are huge constituencies each with an electorate of over 300,000, so we will be putting the socialist case to over a million people again. Unfortunately there is no free postal distribution so we will have to distribute our leaflets ourselves or get it done commercially.
The London Election blog is being re-activated:
There'll be regular reports here too of course.
Name hasn't been decided by EC yet. Last time we contested (2012) it was "The Socialist Party (GB)". But we can now use "The Socialist Party (SP-GB)" if we want or of course "The Socialist Party of Great Britain". Personally, I like "The Socialist Party (SP-GB)".We will use our only registered emblem. It's different from what we used in the general election. I'm sure Gnome can post it here.
ALB wrote:We will use our only registered emblem. It's different from what we used in the general election. I'm sure Gnome can post it here.The London election blog has now been reactivated:http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/greater-london-assembly-elections.htmlAlso, the candidates are different. They are not as announced above but Bill Martin. Kevin Parkin and Adam Buick.The election campaigns are being organised locally. If you want to help out at street stalls and/or in distributing leaflets door-to-door or at tube or mainline stations contact the local branch (see page 8 of Socialist Standard here for details).London North East: North London branch.London South West: West London branch.Lambeth & Southwark: Head Office.
ALB wrote:We will use our only registered emblem.For the sake of some consistency could we please use the registered emblem on the London Election blog instead of the present outmoded Edwardian one…
Sorry but I can't resist this. On Saturday a leaflet for the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London came through the letter box. Her name is Berry. Yesterday one from the Liberal candidate came through. Her name is Pidgeon.
That we are contesting and the names of our candidates are announced here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Assembly_election,_2016
As part of the GLA election campaign an Election Question time is taking place in Richmond (London South West) this Thursday, 17 March at The Theatre, Richmond Adult Community College (Parkshot) – Parkshot, Richmond TW9 2RE which is about two minutes walk from Richmond rail station. Starts at 6.30pm.Confirmed candidates attending are:Merlene Emerson, Liberal Democrats London List CandidateAndrée Frieze, Green Candidate for SW LondonMartin Whelton, Labour Candidate for SW LondonAlan Craig, UKIP Candidate for SW LondonAdam Buick, Socialist Party of GB Candidate for SW London
The latest SOYMB contribution to the campaignhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/03/london-assembly-elections-and-socialist.html
Education for competitivenessTwenty or so people turned up for the Education Question Time meeting in Richmond last night. Our candidate got equal time with the others. The discussion was mainly, but not entirely, on education. In answer to the last question, the other candidates confirmed our candidate's assertion that under capitalism the education system's main role was to turn out for employers workers of required types in the required numbers. They, and NUT Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney, spoke in terms of the need for a better education system in Britain to improve Britain's competitive position on the world market. Only the UKIP candidate, Alan Craig, dissented a little, saying he agreed with the socialist candidate that this was not what education should be about. A bit embarrasing but then he is a christian and so probably has a pre-capitalist view of education. He had in fact been the leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance until 2013 when he defected to UKIP. He wasn't heckled, so Richmond NUT can't have any SWP members as the SWP pursue a no-platform policy towards UKIP. He spoke last and got in a plug for the Vote Leave EU campaign. Speaking to him afterwards, he was surprised to learn that we weren't in favour of this but were neither for nor against as he expected a socialist to be against "the capitalist EU". The Labour candidate, Martin Whelton, is the Merton Council's Cabinet Member for Education, i.e a full-time professional politician. He used up most of his 5-minute introduction urging people to vote for Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London. Incidentally, there's a full-page ad for him in this week's London local papers painting him as "The Council Estate Boy who will fix the Tory Housing Crisis". Oh yes? So he's going to buck the law of supply and demand? The Liberal spokesperson (not a candidate for the constituency but on the LibDems all-London list), Merlene Emerson, said she was from Singapore and is the founder of the Chinese Liberal Democrats. Which may explain the presence of a reporter/photographer from a free English-language paper available in Soho. So, if anyone's there next week, pick up a copy to see if we get a mention.
It looks like we will be opposed in Lambeth and Southwark by a candidate of the All People's Party:http://allpeoplesparty.co.uk/gla-election-2016-candidates/It's not too clear what they stand for (except capitalism) but their basic slogan "Fight for Equality at the Top" suggests that they are a caricature of "identity politics", i.e just want the top positions in capitalist society to be shared equally by their particular "identity group" (in this case, seemingly, people from West Africa). As if an even sharing of capitalist privileges amongst various groups would make any difference to most people, not even those in the groups concerned. It would just be a case of top jobs for some of them.
More on this new party here. It seems it was set up by a disaffected Labourite (and rich businessman) when he was not selected to stand for Parliament against LibDem Simon Hughes in Southwarkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_People's_Party_%28UK%29http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP2137
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.