Hustings (plural)

Last night three of us went to Herne Hill to the hustings there organised by the local forum. We were surprised to find the church hall full with about 70-80 people. The main questions were about transport (logically since that's about all the Mayor and Assembly control). Here the main concern seemed to be cyclists with the candidates (except of course Danny and the UKIP man who wasn't there) lining up to promise to make cycling safer and bash motorists. Addressing an audience of motorists they would of course (except the Greens) probably take a different approach (Mayor Boris calls 4x4s "large family cars" and reduced the congestion charge on them besides freeing Kensington and Chelsea, where these "Chelsea tractors", proliferate, from the congestion zone altogether). Given the many problems facing people in London you'd have thought that there were more urgent concerns (unemployment, housing, benefit cuts), but apparently not, at least not in Herne Hill which has Tory councillors including the Tory GLA candidate.

The riots did come up, with all the candidates, including the Tory, criticising the police for stopping-and-searching black youth too much -- a different approach, we seem to remember, from what was said at the time. Danny was able to point out that the riots were obviously related to poverty and only took place in poverty-stricken parts of London. This was parish pump stuff and Danny did his best to introduce a broader perspective: capitalism and its profit priority, particularly acute in a crisis as at present, which prevents basic amenities being adequate and in fact means they're being cut back. Maybe the candidates and audience subconsciously recognised this (the LibDEm candidate did admit that money doesn't grow on trees) and that was why they only wanted to discuss cycle lanes and lollipop ladies.

There is another hustings this evening, in St Mary's Church in Putney, the church where the Putney Debates of 1647 took place between Cromwell and the Levellers. In fact the BBC are making a history film about them and will be there to ask the candidates what they think of the relevance of these debates to today. This should allow our candidate -- this time Bill, in Merton & Wandsworth -- to talk about something other than cycle lanes.

Last night we discovered (the Tory candidate told us) that there's an Election Question Time at 2pm in Brixton organised by the Lambeth Forum for Older People in association with Lambeth Pensioners Action Group to which only 4 of the 6 candidates have been invited. Danny can't make it but if he could he would gatecrash it. Pity really because we got a good reception from the LPAG at the general election in 2010 and the question of cycle lanes won't come up (more likely to be questions about cyclists cycling on the pavement and knocking pensioners down as they sail through red lights ...) This question of only inviting some of the candidates to hustings needs to be addressed. A case could be made for saying that the expenses of organising such hustings should be included in the election expenses of the candidates invited. Maybe we should make a test case of one. Anyway, we are going to leaflet it.

News from the Hust

Right, so Danny couldn't make this hustings called by the Lambeth Cyclists Group last night, so I was asked to go in his stead. The chief concerns were thus transport based.

The speakers were Shane Collins (Green) ; Shirley Horton (Conservative) ; Raoul Patel (Left list, stand in for their candidate who couldn't make it) ; Caroline Pidgeon (Liberal) ; Val Shawcross (Labour) ; Janus Polencius (English Democrat - though the chair kept caling him James, I'm sure).

It was very short notice, but I remembered this gem of an article from our centenary publication Socialism or your money back an article from 1913 called The pace that kills. I was able to use it to point out that little has changed in the meantime (up to, and including, the humbuggery regarding trams).

I observed how private property in land and the labour market have created conditions of social concentration into cities, and mass transit on a daily basis, aggrevated by the fact that we work too long and too many days anyway.

I also noted that anti-congestion measures really are just for freeing up space which will be filled immediately by economic growth (this is the reality, traffic has risen despite the congestion charge, all it has done has been to clear some room for that growth). Cycle lanes, cycling, etc. are all just ways of clearing up space on busy roads to allow businesses to operate just-in-time operations and limit their expose buy keeping inventories to a minimum (I noted it was significant that the Tory had focused on circulating the traffic above all else, they know where the heart of business lies).

I managed to get in a dig saying that nationalisation is bunkum, chiefly at the Left List speaker, who revolutionary platform included more bus conductors (oh, how the milk of trotskyism curdles).

Overall the debate was good humoured, especially when the English Democrat spoke because he'd forgotten to bring his manifesto with him, but he was certain he liked cycling (except someone had nicked his wheels).

The only flare up was right near the end when the issue of Herne Hill Junction was broached, and possible encroaching of roads onto Brockwell Park to help encourage "modal shift". One man was called a fatty, and he when to square off against his insulter. But no violence occurred, and I took the opportunity to simply say that the Socialist Party exists solely to help bring about socialism, if people want their junctions altering, they can do it themselves - hopefully in a democratic and friendly way.

There were about 58 people there all told.

Update: Here is a review from the Southwark Cyclists.