After the count

Was at the count in Wandsworth Town Hall last night where the votes for Putney and Tooting as well as Battersea were being counted. Saw Labour take Battersea from the Tories and nearly taking even Putney. Labour held Tooting, though a Green we met as their candidate in Wandsworth & Merton in the 2012 Greater London elections pointed out that the first thing she did after winning the by-election to replace Sadiq Khan (he was there) when he became Mayor of London was to vote for Trident.

Anyway, here are the results (not good) for the two London constituencies we contested:

Battersea:

Labour 25,292

Tory 22,876

LD 4,401

Ind 1234

Green 866

UKIP 357

Socialist 32 (0.06 %)

Islington North:

Labour (Corbyn) 40,086 (73 percent)

Tory 6871

LD 4946

Green 2229

UKIP 413

Ind 208

Monster Raving Loony 106

Ind 41

Socialist 21 (0.04%)

Communist League 7

Turnout: 73.3 percent

Last time we got 112 votes, so it seems that some who voted Socialist last time have been carried away by Corbymania.

Went to Wandsworth

Finally got to the Wandsworth end of the constituency and leafletted commuters at Wandsworth Town station. We found that people leaving work --and presumably going home to somewhere outside the constituency -- accepted leaflets more readily than those coming out and going home. But, then, it's the message that counts more, much more, than votes. Earlier in the day Clapham South (which, believe it or not, is in the Battersea constituency) was covered. The Labour Party was there too. Nearby streets down the road, in the Streatham constituency, were leafletted with what we thought was the general leaflet. It turned out to have been the one for Islington North. But, again, it's the message that counts.

The last weekend

We ran a stall outside our premises in Clapham High Street from 11am to 5pm today and a second in Clapham Junction in the afternoon. We had to be careful which leaflets we handed out where as, our offices not being in Battersea but in Vauxhall constituency, the leaflets for there had to be the ones advising those who wanted socialism to write "World Socialism" across the ballot paper. Which wouldn't be appropriate for Battersea where we have a candidate.

The Tories were also handing out leaflets in Clapham High Street while supporters of the Independent candidate in Battersea, Chris Coghlan, "Opposing Brexit. Standing for a new centrist movement.", were at Clapham Junction. No sign of anyone else.

We had intended the second stall to be in Wandsworth but there are road works there. There's a street party in Old York Road, near Wandsworth Town station, tomorrow. Maybe we'll look in. Otherwise we'll leaflet the station exit on Monday.

Free distribution begins tomorrow

No, not socialism but our Election Communications to be distributed by Royal Mail in Battersea and Islington North.

As from tomorrow, Royal Mail will begin to distribute 60,000 to households in Battersea and 57,000 to households in Islington North.

Just another politician

We now know more about the Independent candidate we are up against in Battersea. He's standing on an anti-Brexit platform:

https://www.coghlanstopbrexit.com/

He also has delusions of grandeur:

http://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/15301500.The_new_Macron__Independent_hopeful_for_Battersea_calls_for_new_centrist_party/

Nothing very interesting, then. Just another would-be conventional politician.

The runners

We now know the list of candidates in Islington North and Battersea.

There are 10 candidates in Islington North:

Keith Angus (Lib Dem), Susanne Cameron-Blackie (Independent), James Clark (Conservative), Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Michael Foster (Independent), Keith Fraser (Ukip), Knigel Knapp (Monster Raving Loony), Bill Martin (Socialist), Andres Mendoza (Communist League) and Caroline Russell (Green).

In Battersea there 7 (not 6 as we stated):

Chris Coughlan (Independent), Lois Davis (Green), Richard Davis (Lib Dem), Marsha De Cordova (Labour), Jane Ellison (Conservative), Danny Lambert (Socialist), Eugene Power (Ukip)

You can also follow the Islington campaign on twitter:

https://twitter.com/SPGBNLB

Here we go again

No sooner are the local elections over and a general election is on us. In London, we'll be contesting Islington North, as last time, where Jeremy Corbyn is also standing, and Battersea, south of the river. We have chosen Battersea rather than our usual Vauxhall as there are plans, for the next election (now postponed till 2022), to merge half of Vauxhall and half of Battersea into a single constituency into which our Head Office on the north side of Clapham High Street will fall. So, we want to introduce ourselves to the electors there, though we have already stood in the area in the 2012 Greater London elections but there's no free postal distribution for those. We also stood in the council elections there in 1906.

The candidates are, respectively, Bill Martin and Danny Lambert.

The nominations papers (and the £500 deposit) for Battersea were handed in at Wandsworth Town Hall this afternoon. It appears there will only be 6 candidates, the usual suspects (Tories, Labourites, Liberals, Greens and UKippers) and us. So a straight fight with them.

By parliamentary constituency

The two GLA constituencies we contested covered 10 parliamentary constituencies (which would have cost us £5000 in deposits to contest as opposed to the £2000 we paid). Here are the number of votes our candidate obtained in these, excluding postal votes. As we got 220 postal votes in Lambeth (to be divided between 2 1/2 constituencies), 196 in Southwark (ditto), 159 in Wandsworth (3 constituencies) and 66 in Merton (2 constituencies), 641 in all, the full figures will be higher.

Anyway, here are the postal-voteless figures:

Vauxhall (Lab held) 593 (2.5%)
Streatham (Lab) 510 (2.1%)
Dulwich & West Norwood (Lab) 511 (2.0%)
Camberwell $ Peckham (Lab) 508 (1.9%)
Bermondsey & Old Southwark (LD) 400 (1.7%)
Mitcham & Morden (Lab) 293 (1.3%)
Battersea (Con) 232 (1.0%)
Tooting 228 (Lab) (0.9%)
Wimbledon (Con) 219 (0.9%)
Putney (Con) 146 (0.8%)

What these figures show is that we do better in Labour-held constituencies and in fact the better the safer the Labour seat is. When you think of it, this it what is to be expected in view both of the nature of our case and of the language in which we express it. More people in these places will have some degree of class consciousness.

Here is how all the parties did in Vauxhall:

Labour 12878 (53.7%)
Conservative 4763 (19.9%)
Green 2704 (11.3%)
Liberal Democrat 2515 (10.4%)
Socialist 593 (2.5%)
UKIP 538 (2.2%).

This is how they did in the 8 wards that would make up the proposed new constituency of Brixton:

Labour 15398 (58.5%)
Conservative 3894 (14.8%)
Green 3720 (14.1%)
Liberal Democrat 2117 (8.0%)
Socialist 719 (2.7%)
UKIP 486 (1.9%)

As to the 8 wards in the proposed new Battersea & Vauxhall constituency which we have been considering contesting instead of Vauxhall if it disappears, 4 of the wards are in Wandsworth and 4 in Lanbeth making comparisons difficult as there were 7 candidates in the first 4 and only 6 in the second. The Socialist candidates between them polled (not including postal votes) 428 votes (1.7%).

A word of caution: people tend to vote differently in elections which they consider don't matter (and which in fact don't matter) such as those for the GLA and the European Parliament than they do in parliamentary elections. It would be nice if these results could be reproduced in a parliamentary election but it won't necessarily be the case.

Analysis -- Merton & Wandsworth

A little examination of the breakdown by ward (available here). Some breakdowns are very interesting. We got 578 votes in Merton, as opposed to 765 in Wandsworth (averages of 28 and 36, respectively). Postal votes complicate the picture a little, as they aren't grouped by ward, and we got 66 in Merton and 159 in Wandsworth. Our highest vote in Merton was 38 in Merton Park and St. Helier wards. In Wandsworth it was 54 in Latchmere (1.8% of votes cast) -- this appears to be one of the few Labour wards in Wandsworth. Of the Merton wards, St. Helier is Labour, while Merton Park is Independent. Both are down in Morden, so we have votes at the end of the Northern Line.

In some ways these figures confound my expectations, I thought we'd do better in Labour held Merton (which also returns Labour MP's), as compared to squarely Tory Wandsworth. Then again, Battersea Parliamentary constituency used to be Labour, and that's the area we leafletted. Further, Latchmere appears to have been squarely in the area we leafletted, so maybe that sort of thing pays off (it might also account for the higher postal vote).

The main thing it emphasises, that although in aggregate it sounds an impressive number, by ward it is our usual fare at council elections. The trick will be to tap into this latent vote and turn it into something bigger.

Just by way of comparison, TUSC averaged 15 votes per ward (308 in total) in Merton on the list election, and 28 (596) on the list election, which is pretty consistently behind us. The question to ask, is where a lot of our voters as confused as the BBC? If, however, you take our vote and replicate it across all 627 wards in London, it means we would achieve about 18,000 votes, which is close to the TUSC vote anyway.

Update: A more statistically minded comrade has pointed me in the direction of our average percentage. By that measure we did do better in Merton (average 1.1% of the vote) than in Wandsworth (0.9%). It's also been suggested we did well in St. Mary's Park ward (Wandsworth) thanks to the work of a mysterious comrade there. By percentage, then, our best overall result was St. Hellier (Merton), with 1.76%.

Up the Junction

So, today I have been with a few comrades up in Clapham Junction leafletting. Me and on other set up a stall on the high street to leaflet passers by: we were lucky to make eye contact with most passers by, never mind give them a leaflet. There was little competition: a sandwich store, an Ahmadi muslim group and a nice lady from the Seventh Day Adventists. As is traditional, I proposed a leaflet swap.

Other comrades went and leafletted nearby streets, and the wonderfully name Winstanley estate; though apparently, contrary to its name, our comrades couldn't access it due to all the gates and locked doors. Apparently hard working members have been putting me to shame, and have already leafletted large chunks of Battersea: we're down to a few hundred leaflets.

Next week: Tooting, and doubtless another obvious post title. In the meanwhile, our invites to hustings are finally coming in, and I've been asked to one in Putney. Very exciting.

Back to Battersea

The election manifestos arrived yesterday, earlier than expected. Already 1,000 have been distributed in Battersea (that leaves 19,000). The area leafletted included the John Burns Primary School, named of course after John Burns, the Man with the Red Flag in the London Dock Strike of 1889 when he was a member of the Social Democratic Federation. Later he was elected MP for Battersea and became a Cabinet Minister in the 1905 Liberal Government. He was in fact the first "working man" to be a member of the Cabinet, not that that made any difference.

The Battersea branch of the SDF was very active and a substantial proportion of them joined the SPGB when it was founded in 1904. In fact the meeting in May that year at which it was decided to form in the near future a new party on sound, anti-reformist and democratic lines was held in Battersea. So this is a bit of a return to our roots.

The last time we contested elections in this area were those for Battersea Borough Council in November 1906 when we put up 9 candidates in three wards. The following extract from the manifesto for those elections still applies:

The candidates of the S.P.G.B. therefore, whilst quite prepared to use the local powers for such small temporary benefits as may be forced from the capitalists' hands for the workers in those districts, nevertheless do not seek suffrages for this, which can only be a secondary business of the political party of the workers. The fact, pointed out above, must be strongly reiterated, that the powers of the local bodies are strictly limited and are controlled by the Government.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters into municipal contests as a step in the work of capturing the whole political machinery. Fully realising, and pointing out to the workers, the strict limitations of the power of local bodies, making no promises that are beyond our power to fulfil, we ask the members of our class, when (but not before) they have studied these facts and realised their correctness, to cast their votes for the candidates of the S.P.G.B. who alone stand on the above basis.

Like them our candidates today are standing on a straight programme of socialism and nothing else and have "no programme of ear-tickling, side-tracking, vote-catching 'palliatives'" and have "not climbed into prominence on the backs of the working class, by posing as 'leaders' of unemployed deputations, 'right to live' councils, and similar confusionist conglomerations." We leave that to others.