Activity yesterday

Five, including a comrade visiting from New Zealand, were out in King Street, Hammersmith (just over the bridge from Barnes ward of Richmond where we are standing) running a street stall for a couple of hours. Nearby was a rival stall from the European Movement handing out anti-Brexit leaflets calling for another referendum.

As our election leaflets won't be arriving until Monday we handed out the one "The problem is not the Tories ... it's capitalism" which also has a tear-off freepost reply coupon. Must have given out 200-300. Two responses that day to Head Office by phone and email (well above par for the course). Also sold a couple of Socialist Standards and a couple of pamphlets. We don't know how many of the passers-by were from Barnes (not that it really matters), but we met a Green Party candidate standing in Chelsea & Kensington.

Meanwhile in Peckham on the other side of London our candidate in Borough & Bankside ward of Southwark, Kevin Parkin, told a hustings on planning and regeneration there that the problem of houses left empty to speculate on rising prices existed in his area of the borough too and was a consequence of housing, like everything else under capitalism, being produced for profit not for use.

Line-up for Brexit hustings

The organisers, Guildford in Europe, have finalised the speakers. They list them as (Dokimakis is our Labour opponent in Guildford West):


Conservatives: Bob Hughes

Greens: Mark Bray-Parry

Labour: George Dokimakis

LibDems: George Potter

Peace: John Morris

SPGB: Adam Buick

Guildford in Europe County Council Election Hustings

Guildford Institute, Ward Street Guildford

Tuesday 25 April 7.15 – 8.30pm

Also in the on-line newspaper, The Guildford Dragon, here.

Brexit hustings

A bit surprising in a local election but we and all the other parties standing candidates in Guildford have been invited to a hustings organised by the pro-EU "Guildford in Europe" group. More on them here. It will be on Tuesday 25 April at the Guildford Institute, Ward Street, Guildford GU1 4LH, from 7.15 to 8.30. Each party will be allowed 5 minutes to put over their position. The local paper, the Surrey Advertiser, will be publicising and reporting the meeting. We've probably still got a few of our EU referendum leaflets somewhere.

By the way, we are not complaining about this issue being raised in a local election. Far from it, as we're raising the issue of world socialism. The obscene scandal of cutting back on care homes for the elderly and vulnerable and the turning off of street lights, planned and implemented by Surrey Council, do derive ultimately from the workings of the world capitalist economy. Capitalism in an economic downwturn, as following the Crash of 2008, requires governments to cut back on their spending to relieve the pressure on profits. As most local council money comes from the central government, so they have to cut back too. Profits before people, that's the way capitalism works and the only way it can.