More hustings

Southwark seems to be the place. Last Thursday our candidate, Kevin Parkin, attended a hustings organised by the Bankside Residents Forum. He reports that it was an acrimonious meeting with the Labourites and LibDems playing the blame game about housing. He was able to make the point that in a capitalist society houses are built for profit not social use, hence the problems. On Monday morning this week there was another hustings, organised by the Southwark Pensioners Action Group. Our candidates always get a good reception at such meetings; quite a few leaflets handed out.

Today's Southwark News has photos of all the candidates, including ours standing next to our logo (a compromise between competing points of view in our party between those who say we should supply a photo when asked and those who say we should only send a logo -- in Lambeth we used to provide a photo of Danny Lambert speaking off our platform with the website address showing). Also, a short statement of what we stand for: a society of common ownership, democratic control, production to satisfy people's needs not for profit, and the principle "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".

No report of hustings in Islington or Richmond. Leafletting has continued in both places. In fact whole of Barnes ward except for some mansions (and blocks of flats you can't get into) has now been leafletted. 400 of the 3000 ordered left over but branch members should be able to distribute more at the street stall in Barnes (Church Road) on Saturday from 12 noon to 2pm.

Hustings in Southwark

We have received one invitation to a hustings in Southwark and know of two others.

The invitation is from the Southwark Pensioners Action Group from 10am to noon on Monday 23 April in the Crypt at St. Peter's Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, SE17 2HH.

The other two are:

Saturday 14 April 3pm to 5pm at Christ Church Peckham, 676-680 Old Kent Road, SE15 1JF on Planning & Regeneration, organised by Southwark Planning Network.

Wednesday 18 April 7pm to 9pm at Bells Gardens Community Centre, 19 Buller Close, SE15 6UJ on Housing, organised by the Southwark Group of Tenants Organisations.

As a pensioner and member of a tenants organisation our candidate, Kevin Parkin, happens to be overqualified to attend the ones on 18 and 23 April but, as a football fan, may find the one this Saturday afternoon difficult to fit into his calendar but should be able to get back in time for the Big Match.

Undemocratic hustings

An attempt to hold an undemocratic hustings was made last Tuesday. Luckily it was cancelled due to the Manchester massacre:

http://www.klsettlement.org.uk/battersea-hustings-on-23rd-may-open-invitation/

The organisers have been sent the following email:

I see you had arranged a hustings for Tuesday 23 May to which you invited only 4 of the 7 candidates in Battersea. This is undemocratic. If the hustings is being rearranged simple democracy requires you to invite Danny Lambert, the Socialist Party candidate, the UKIP candidate, and the Independent candidate, Chris Coghlan. Otherwise electors are not being offered a full choice.

In any event, please let me know of any new date for the hustings.

Thanks.

Adam Buick, Election Agent for Danny Lambert, Socialist Party candidate
for Battersea.

Even if we are not invited we'll be there, to kick up a fuss.

Guildford hustings

Forty people at this, organised by Guildford in Europe, yesterday evening, one sympathiser from over the border in Hampshire. Report here. And what candidate said here. Got a copy of the Peace Party candidate's election manifesto, which is not being distributing generally. In fact the Greens don't seem to be doing that either. So only the Tories, LibDems, Labour and us are leafletting the whole electoral division.

We nearly ran out of our leaflet, even though we decided to give some streets with big houses, a long drive and two 4x4s parked on it a miss on the grounds that we would be casting pearls before swine. We should be able to complete leafletting by the weekend with 300 extra emergency leaflets based on this editorial from the February 2016 Socialist Standard.

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.

News from the South Western Front

Today's Richmond and Twickenham Times has a full page on the six candidates standing in the South West constituency. Unfortunately it is about who I am rather than what the Party stands for. The information on our candidate was not supplied by us but was taken from wikipedia. The nearest it gets to saying what we stand for is where says I am a "speaker and writer about a moneyless and wageless society". We have agreed, though, to supply a photo for the online version despite that for us it's "the case not the face" that counts, on the grounds that a "face" will attract more people to read what's underneath it than just plain text. But don't worry, the chosen photo shows a Party banner in the background saying "Abolish the Wages System".

The same paper's online edition also carried a report on the hustings in Twickenham on 12 April (where the candidate's face can also be seen). It's here.

The Surrey Comet only has a page on 5 of the 12 candidates for mayor and nothing on who's standing for the GLA but we can't really complain as they had published two letters from us. The Liberal candidate will have more reason to as she's never been mentioned and the UKIP candidate might not have liked being reminded on the front page that he once denounced the "gaystapo" (on the other hand, maybe he accepts that any publicity is better than none).

We have now finished distributing our quota of one-third of the 30,000 election manifestos and only have an 1000 or so, found at Head Office, left to do. By chance they have been distributed more or less equally between the three boroughs of Kingston, Richmond and Hounslow. This was not the plan as the intention was to concentrate on Hounslow where the branch meets. 11-12000 is slightly more than a token coverage as it's only about 4% of the total number of postal drops in the constituency.

A hundred were distributed in Oxford as on a visit there for a William Morris event (saw the room in University College where Morris gave his first talk as a socialist entitled "Art under Plutocracy", part of which we first republished in 1907 as Art, Labour and Socialism) I noticed that nearly all the streets near where I was saying had houses displaying "Vote Green" or "Vote Labour" posters in their windows. They all got the only leaflet I had with me (our GLA manifesto). Assuming that those displaying posters are among the 5% of the population said to follow politics this is a self-selected target and 100 delivered to them should be the equivalent of 2000 delivered to all doors. It will also serve here as a reminder that, after contesting both the Euroelections in 2014 and the General Election last year in Oxford, we are still around. More of the leaflets will be distributed at the Mayday trade union event in Oxford on Saturday.

Tomorrow we will be having a street stall in Kingston but not in Brentford as announced.

A voice from the back...

Rather than my usual ramblings, one of our members sent in a report from the Friends fo the Earth Hustings for the North East Constituency

I attended the hustings meeting yesterday, eventually! I turned up at St. Mark's church just before the advertised time, but there was nothing happening there apart from a Thai wedding. Ciamak turned up shortly after me, and we stood around wondering what to do, when a young fellow came along who was also looking for the meeting. To cut a long story sort, he phoned around and eventually found out that the meeting had been moved to a hall around the corner. We entered the hall to find it well-filled and the meeting in progress. It seems we were the only ones who weren't told about the change. Unfortunately, the acoustics were poor and I was having trouble hearing what some of the candidates were saying even though they spoke into microphones. Bill was OK in this respect, as were the UKIP, Labour and Green candidates. Some of the other candidates were fairly sympathetic to what Bill was saying about dealing with the root causes of environmental damage being down to the seeking of profits. I suspect that they thought socialism was a good idea, but way off in the future, and we have to deal with major problems here and now. The UKIP candidate, Freddy Vachha said the problems of environmental damage in London was caused by too many people living there (which is probably partly true), but offered no solution, other than "pulling up the drawbridge". He didn't address the reasons why so many workers are coming to London, e.g. for economic and political reasons, which would have led him to the conclusion that the solution lies in a worldwide approach, rather than a parochial one. However, he was an impressive speaker who disabused some of the other candidates of their pipe-dreams and solutions which they wouldn't be able to deliver on. The format of the meeting--asking what the candidates would do for them--didn't lend itself to developing the discussion along broader lines. This meant that certain subjects, which didn't necessarily require a political solution weren't discussed, e.g. The use of bottled water and the consequent recycling millions of bottles; The leaving on of lights in large buildings overnight etc. Bill caused a bit of an uproar when he said that if you don't want a classless world of common ownership then he doesn't want your vote! Because I arrived late, I missed the introduction, and wasn't sure who all the candidates were representing--they had their names only on hand-written name-plates. The was a conspicuous lack of black faces in the audience, apart from a colleague of Labour candidate Jeannette Arnold.

Much better than I could have put it. (from here.

Hustings in Twickenham

Our candidate in South West has been invited to a hustings next Tuesday 12 April in Twickenham. It's being held in United Reformed Church, First Cross Road, Twickenham TW2 5QA from 7.30 to 9.30. Appropriately named venue perhaps as it will be us against the United Reformists of Tory, Labour, LibDems, Greens and UKIP (sorry, but couldn't resist the pun).

This evening, after the public meeting on "Does it matter who's the Mayor of London" (8pm in the Comnmittee Room, Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace, W4 4JN), West London branch will be fixing the times and places of the street stalls we plan to hold in two places in the constituency from now on on every Saturday in April. Places under consideration are Chiswick, Kingston, Hounslow, Feltham, Brentford.

Time to get loud

Sorry I've been quiet: the plague that never ends has been chipping away at me for weeks, so it was with some difficulty that I managed to travel across Norf Lahndon to Waltham Forest Town Hall (truly, a building fit for a national Parliament, a 1930's Art-Deco Palace set in vast grounds). So, my nomination papers are in, and I begin leafletting shortly (as soon as this cough closes). I already have one hustings invite: Date: Saturday 23rd April, 5pm – 7:30pm Venue: St Mark’s Church Hall (Lower Hall) in Dalston St Mark Dalston, Dalston Organised by Friends of the Earth. So, we're off! *cough* *hack* *wheeze*

Prince's ward hustings

This now confirmed but for Thursday 30 April (not Friday 1 May as originally enisaged).

Danny Lambert, the Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate for the Prince's Ward by-election will be attending the election hustings that will take place at St Anselm's Church, Kennington Cross, 286 Kennington Road, Lambeth SE11 5DU at 6pm on Thursday 30th April 2015

The running order will be drawn by a lot. All candidates will be given 2 minutes for opening statements. Questions will then be taken and at the end and all will have 2 minutes for a closing statement.

Chair: The Revd Angus Aagaard, Team Rector of North Lambeth Parish

Brixton hustings report

The Brixtonblog have now published their own report of the hustings last Tuesday. It's a good report that accurately records what our representative said when he gave the socialist position on the various issues raised (housing, lecturers' strike, democracy, immigration and cuts).

Brixton hustings

I can't post the flyer, but I can link to the blog:Vote Brixton: Your chance to quiz council candidates

Candidates from all political parties will be grilled by the public at a Brixton Blog hustings event next week.

Ahead of this month’s local elections, councillors and would-be councillors from across the political spectrum will sit on a Brixton Blog panel to face questions about what they would do if they were elected.

The event is free to attend and you’ll be able to meet the people vying for your vote.

The event will be held upstairs at the POW (Prince of Wales) on the corner of Coldharbour Lane and Brixton Road, at 7pm on Tuesday 13th May.

Our candidate Danny lambert will be there.

Memories of Tulse Hill

Elizabeth Jones of UKIP has sent us this photo taken after the hustings in the Tulse Hill local council by-election last year. Also in the photo are the chair (Kaye Wiggins of the Brixtonblog), Steve Nally of TUSC, Adam Buick of us and the LibDem candidate:

In the olden days this would never have happened as Party speakers used to refuse even to shake hands with opponents.

Elizabeth Jones is standing against us again in the current elections in Ferndale ward. Earlier this year she represented UKIP in a debate with us, the opening speeches of which can be found here. She is also No3 on the UKIP list for the European Parliament in the London Region.

Hustings in Lambeth next Tuesday

The lively local online paper, the Brixtonblog, is organising a hustings next Tuesday 13 May of all the parties putting up candidates for Lambeth council. Details can be found here.

They have also offered parties standing in the 5 Brixton wards (Brixton Hill, Tulse Hill, Herne Hill, Coldharbour Lane, and Ferndale) space on their blog for a 300 word statement. We have already sent ours off.

Batting for socialism at the Oval

The premature hustings duly took place this morning. The LibDems and Labour were out in force with all their candidates for Oval ward present as this is a marginal ward split 2 Labour 1 LibDem. Other parties represented, though not by any of their candidates, were the Tories and TUSC. Embarrassingly, we had to share a table with the Tories. No sign of the Greens or UKIP. We are not contesting Oval but, as we are contesting Larkhall down the road, were allowed a couple of minutes to answer questions, along with the other parties, put by an audience of 50 outside and explain why we were standing. There was not much we could say about uncollected rubbish bins or broken park railings but were able to point out that what a LibDem leaflet called "luxury flats for absentee billionaires" that the Labour Council were allowing to be built on the riverside rather than houses or flats for ordinary people was what happens under capitalism where production is for profit not to satisfy people's needs.

Afterwards a Labour Party member came up and said he used to read the Socialist Standard but said that he was in the Labour Party because it was "the mass party of the working class" and which was therefore where socialists ought to be. Recognising this as the classic Trotskyist case for "entryism", I introduced him to the TUSC representative (James who is standing for them in Ferndale, so are we) and listened to a member of Militant putting across the same sort of arguments for not being in the Labour Party as we used to put to them in the 1980s when they were in it. Actually the Labour member turned out not to be a Trotskyist but a member of the revived Labour Representation Committee, a left Labour pressure group which, according to wikipedia, includes John McDonnell MP, Owen Jones and former Lambeth Council Labour leader Ted Knight.

A premature hustings

Although nominations are not even open let alone closed, a sort of hustings is being organised at the Oval tomorrow, Saturday.

We are not standing there but are in not-so-far-away Larkhall and the organisers say we can be there with other non-Oval candidates. So we will be. We still have some leaflets left over from the Vassall ward by-election last year and part of the Oval is in Vassall ward.

Redistributing misery

Lively hustings meeting last night with all the candidates (but with the Tory arriving half way through) and much heckling. Ninety people present (which is more that you usually get at a hustings for an election to parliament). Maybe it's this part of Brixton or maybe a local election generates more interest amongst a minority. In any event, the Brixtonblog is to be congratulated for organising it.

The Labour candidate was in a hopeless position, trying to blame the ConDem government for the cuts but defending the way Labour-run Lambeth Council were implementing them. The LibDem candidate was also in a hopeless position because she was unable to criticise what the government was doing and the effect this was having locally and was reduced to extolling her own virtues. No wonder the Tory turned up late as what could he say (beyond, as he did, that they hadn't done much leafletting or canvassing as Tulse Hill was not an area where they were strong on the ground)?. The Green Party candidate didn't really follow through his strong case that "right across Lambeth Labour is pursuing a programme of evictions in order to sell housing to developers and profit from high property prices" (he didn't even switch his mobile phone off).

The UKIP candidate was more prepared than last time (she was also their candidate in the Brixton Hill local by-election in January), specifically targetting Labour rather than Tory voters, presumably in pursuit of some UKIP national strategy for inner London and Northern cities; interesting display of populism, though. The TUSC candidate put across their single-issue "No cuts" campaign and got denounced by UKIP as "Bob Crow's fan club". The Independent candidate explained his case against the Labout council's plan to move him and his fellow residents from their sheltered housing and sell off the land to developers. Our candidate said that it was capitalism, not the government or the local council (or the EU), that was responsible for the problems facing people in Tulse Hill (and elsewhere) and that the other parties' claims to be able to solve them were just empty promises worth nothing as many non-voters already understood.

What the Green Party had called "Labour's programme of evictions" turned out to be one of the main issues of the meeting. It really is the case that the Labour Council has decided that, to raise money to try to compensate for the cut in grants from central government, it will sell off part of its land and housing stock to private developers. This of course involves removals and evictions. This was not popular with the audience which gave the poor Labour candidate a hard time (she'll probably still win, though).

Local councils do have a choice, not to not make any cuts, but to decide how to apply them. It's as if the central government (which is responding to the current economic crisis by cutting its spending so as to give profits, the life-blood of the system, a chance to recover) has said to local councils: "you've got to make cuts, but you choose where to make them". Lambeth Council has decided to sell off some of its housing assets. It may well be true that this will provide them with some money to avoid cuts elsewhere but at the cost of bringing misery to those affected. They could have chosen not to do this, but they would then have had to make more cuts than otherwise and impose the misery on someone else.

That's the sort of choice of redistribution of misery you have to make if you assume responsibility for running capitalism at local level. Not even the TUSC policy of the council refusing to make any cuts and acting illegally would work. The central government would just send in a commissioner and impose the misery anyway. Quite simply, there is no way under capitalism in an economic crisis of avoiding cuts and the misery they bring; one way or another, in one form or another, they will be imposed. It is good that people don't like this but discontent and protest is not enough. The only way out is to get rid of the capitalist system and replace its minority ownership and control and its production for profit by common ownership and democratic control and production to meet people's needs. As one persistent heckler, a socialist, put it, get rid of the system.

He'll hust and He'll hust...

Well, while we wait for the various write ups of the Hustings, lets make do with the Twitter feed. Strangest one being the Green Party's "Socialist Party says system to blame for Labour Party's misdeeds. How about taking some responsibility?#tulsehillhustings" The personal responsibility when faced with a rotten system is to get rid of it, not try and run it differently (because you can't).

Ah, go on then...

Some rotten buggers seem to have found footage of a previous time I stood as a candidate, when I attended the GLA Hustings at the famous location of the Putney debates...

Obviously (very obviously) it's the case not the face that counts, and the clip does give (very briefly) the case.

What we said at the hustings

We were out again yesterday in the southern part of the ward. Our leafletter there reports that she saw Green canvassers going from door to door. Apparently they think they can win. We have received one reply to an ealier leaflet we distributed here (this particular part of the ward has been leafletted three times).

In the meantime the Brixtonblog has published a report of the hustings here.

Here's a couple of quotes from our candidate:

In times of recession public services are the first thing that gets cut. This is the nature of capitalism and it’s time to wake up. We’re in a society that doesn’t work in our interests. There’s nothing we can do about it unless we dump the capitalist system.”

Danny Lambert said the pub’s closure was one of many symptoms of capitalist economics. “If this pub can’t be run at a profit it’ll get closed down and something else will open that can,” he said. “People come a poor second to profit. Until we get shot of capitalism we’ll have this problem over and over again.”