Spoilt for choice...

Kelly Rebekah BEN-MAIMON	Conservative Party Candidate
Paul GADSBY	The Labour Party Candidate
Elizabeth Eirwen JONES	UK Independence Party (UKIP)
Danny LAMBERT	The Socialist Party (GB)
Rachel Anna LAURENCE	The Green Party
Steven Paul NALLY	Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts
Colette THOMAS	Liberal Democrats

So, seven candidates: six in proposing to work within capitalism (however reluctantly) and ONE proposing standing on a platform of revolution and nothing but. No tinkering, we need to turn the world upside down. C'mon Vassall Ward, do us proud.

And the candidates are...

And here are the opposition:

Amna Ahmed	Liberal Democrat
Mary Atkins	Labour
Bernard Atwell	Green
Timothy Briggs	Conservative
Adam Buick	Socialist Party
Elizabeth Jones	UKIP
Steve Nally	TUSC
Valentine Walker	Independent

Eight candidates for a by-election, political life in the Capital is interesting to say the least. Pleasing (though not unexpected) to not see the fash standing. It'll be interesting in the current terms of debate to see if the UKIP advance continues. Also, have to ask, are parties deliberately choosing people with names high up the Alphabet (including us)? 5 before we get past B. Who knows if that will have an effect for us.

Better late than never

The Islington Gazette's website has this morning published the names of all the candidates. This, apart from the official council communications, is the first time that any of the local media have published the names of all the candidates together. So, in most cases those going to vote will only discover who they can vote for when they get their ballot paper. It is unclear what a team of foreign election observors might make of this. A low turn-out seems inevitable.

No doubt, our candidate, who lives in the ward, will be reporting later today that he voted for himself for a change.

Our opponents

The full confirmed lists are out: Lambeth and Southwark

BARTLEY Jonathan Charles - Green Party

BLACKIE Rob - London Liberal Democrats

FLUSS James Gordon - Fresh Choice for London

LAMBERT Daniel Peter - The Socialist Party (GB)

MITCHELL Michael - The Conservative Party Candidate

SHAWCROSS Val - Labour Party Candidate

Merton and Wandsworth

COOPER Leonie - Labour Party Candidate

KULENDRAN Thamilini - Independent

MANZOOR Mazhar - Fresh Choice for London

MARTIN James William - The Socialist Party (GB)

SMART Lisa - London Liberal Democrats

TRACEY Richard Patrick - The Conservative Party Candidate

VICKERY Roy - Green Party

Apparently "Fresh Choice for London" is the UKIP tag line, though, given there is a UKIP list, I wonder if they are trying to maximise their chances by standing as two "parties" (i.e. if they win any constituency seats as Fresh Choice it won't count against the total for UKIP on the list). Either that, or they are just trying to tart up their image.

Drafting press releases is tough

We're sending out the below press release. I compiled a wee list of contact details (some news outlets make it quite hard to find contact details, tha knowest). I concentrated so hard on getting the content right, of course, a few typos slipped through: which is why I'm glad I sent it for checking before release.

Press release: for immediate use.

The Socialist Party today announced that it is contesting two seats at the Greater London Assembly elections, 3rd May this year.

Daniel Lambert will again be contesting the Lambeth and Southwark constituency.

Bill Martin will be contesting the the Merton and Wandsworth constituency.

Daniel Lambert says that they are standing to raise awareness of the possibility of democratically establishing common ownership of the means of living. He notes "Enough resources, know-how and skills exist already to provide comfortably for everyone. It’s the profit system that prevents this. We need to do away with it and instead produce and access goods for needs."

Bill Martin says "At a time when all other political parties are saying they have to make us all worse off in order to protect the wealth of the 1%, it's important that we each stand up to fight against this unnecessary impoverishment."

Adam Buick, their agent, says "Merton and Wandsworth constituency alone has more voters than Malta and Luxemburg, so this is an immense opportunity for us to get our message out to the wider public."

They are campaigning on a slogan of "It's up to you."

It's election time again

On 3 May electors in London will be voting for a new Mayor and also for the members of the Greater London Assembly. We're not standing for Mayor (even if we had the money) because we don't believe in mayors but we will be contesting two GLA constituencies: Lambeth & Southwark (as 4 years ago) and this time also Merton & Wandsworth.

One reason for contesting two constituencies is that, under the Boundary Commission's proposals for the 2015 General Election, 4 wards from Wandsworth will be joined with 4 wards from Lambeth to form a new Battersera & Wandsworth parliamentary constituency which we will probably contest.

The Socialist Party candidate in Lambeth & Southwark will be Danny Lambert and in Merton & Wandsworth Bill Martin

As always, we will be standing on a single platform: the need to establish socialism as a society based on common ownership and democratic control where goods and services are produced to meet people's needs instead of for profit. This has never been tried (and certainly not in Russia or China) and can only come about democratically when a majority want it.

Follow this blog for regular updates on the campaign.

The official list of candidates

The Returning Officer for the London Region, at Lewisham Town Hall, has published the full list of candidates on the council's website.
There are 14 lists and 5 independent candidates.
The 14 lists (in the order they will appear on the ballot paper) are:

British National Party -- Protecting British Jobs
Christian Party -- Proclaiming Christ's Lordship
Conservative Party
English Democrats -- Putting England First
Jury Team
Liberal Democrats
No2EU : Yes to Democracy
Pro Democracy : Libertas.eu
Socialist Labour Party (LEADER ARTHUR SCARGILL)
The Green Party
The Labour Party
The Socialist Party of Great Britain
United Kingdom Independence Party
Yes 2 Europe

Political comment follows separately.

Surveying the field

Well, since our nomination papers are in, we know who we are, and from the list on Wikipedia, a fair idea of who our rivals will be. Ten lists so far.

Of which four are nationalists of some stripe (UKIP, Libertas, BNP, English Democrats). So far, only Labour and the Green Party represent anything that can be called "the left" with the nationalists, plus the Tories being mainly on the right, and Jury Team and the Lib Dems bringing up the centre.

Anyway, I'll move one in future posts to examining party's manifestos...

To begin with, Labour. Although Labour will bring out their own manifesto, as part of the Party of European Socialists [sic] (PES) they will be committed to enacting this manifesto with their Parliamentary group. It makes for some interesting reading:

almost 17 million people in Europe [are] already out of work and many more in precarious jobs who are among the first to be hit by slow growth; the ever-present risk of home repossessions; and social inequalities, with some 78 million people – many of them children – living below the poverty line or at risk of poverty.

As ever, reformists are good at diagnosing the ills, but fail with their prescription. Their proposal? Regulate the markets. That's going to work. Honest. Of course, wing nut free marketeers nowadays try and blame market regulation for the crisis. After all, the markets are already regulated, it just didn't work.

We'd argue, though, that it can't work, that any system based on the market will eventually fall over. That issue, though, is going to be at the real centre of European politics though, regulation versus deregulation, for some time to come. The stale battle between capitalist parties.

Capitalist Parties? Oh, yes, that the piece of analysis I forgot, all but one of the parties standing is a faction of the capitalist party, there are ten lists, but only two parties. Go on, make the choice between capitalism or socialism, not what flavour capitalism you get.

Presenting our candidates

Our executive committee approved a list of candidates and, in keeping with party tradition of "it's the case, not the face", decided that the order on the ballot paper would be decided randomly.

The criterion for being a Socialist Party candidate is demonstrably understanding the party's case. The EC had to choose from a list of people who have managed to prove that they can do that. All our candidates are equals within the party, and the listing reflects no more than the order their names came out of the hat.

They are:

Dannny Lambert
Tristan Miller
Janet Carter
Bill Martin
Adam Buick
Simon Wigley
Frederick Allen
Patricia Deutz

You can come hear that case at the following meetings:

Sunday 17 May, 6pm
YOUR CHANCE TO VOTE FOR WORLD SOCIALISM
Speakers: Danny Lambert, Tristan Miller
Socialist Party Head Office, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North).

And:

Every Sunday between now and election time Hyde Park Speakers' Corner, Danny Lambert, Bill Martin & Adam Buick will be speaking from around 10 in the morning till mid afternoon.

More of the field

Page Six of this week's Streatham Guardian (10 April) has an article with photos on 5 of the 10 candidates standing in Lambeth and Southwark, among them "Danny Lambert Socialist Party of Great Britain". His photo shows him speaking in Hyde Park. Fortunately, we always say that it's the case not the face that counts.

Journalist Carla Lee writes of us:

Mr Lambert was a candidate for the party representing the Vauxhall constituency at the last General Election. He believes in socialism -- a system based on common ownership and democratic control, where goods and services are produced to meet people's needs instead of for profit, and one that can only come about democratically when a majority want it. The party is different to the Socialist Party and is based in Clapham.

Accurate enough except from the last sentence. Could she be implementing Lord Beaverbrook's old instruction to Daily Express journalists to always refer to the Labour Party as the "Socialist Party"? Not very likely since nobody any more thinks the Labour Party is socialist. More likely she is referring to the Militant Tendency which has attempted to steal this name from us. Without success since we'll be on the ballot paper as "The Socialist Party (GB)" while when they stand they have to call themselves "Socialist Alternative". Our anonymous friend in Lewisham can perhaps confirm that that's the label they're standing under there.

The next candidate featured is Jasmijn De Boo, of "Animals Count". Apparently she's the leader of this party which stands for an NHS system for animals and is reported to be backed by "Supermodel Twiggy and rock star Brian May".

Then follow the candidates of three nasty parties. The Reverend Geoffrey Macharia of the "Christian People's Alliance and Christian Party" (which wants to impose Christian values on the rest of us, including on ex and non Christians), Jens Winton of the UK Independence Party (who "wants a firmer line on immigration and for Britain to withdraw from the EU") and Janus Polenceus of the English Democrats (who wants a firmer line on immigration and for England to withdraw from the UK).

[To be read very rapidly and in small print:] Also standing are : Conservative, Green, Labour, Left List, Liberal.

Back on the campaign trail

OK, we're back again, here is the list of official candidates for the Lambeth and Southwark constituency in the GLA elections:

Lambeth and Southwark

Candidate name	Party name
Shane Collins	Green Party
Jasmijn De Boo	Animals Count
Shirley Houghton	Conservative Party
Daniel Lambert	The Socialist Party
Geoffrey Macharia	Christian Peoples Alliance
Caroline Pidgeon	Liberal Democrats
Janus Polenceus	The English Democrats Party
Valerie Shawcross	The Labour Party
Jens Winton	UK Independence Party
Katt Young	Left List

London Elects for the full listings.

It'll be interesting to see where we come. Be nice to beat Polenceus again. It would also be good to come in above the Left List. 1,000 votes? Why not.