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.

Reconnaissance

Visited Barnes today to find a spot to set up a literature stall (the branch is planning one there on Saturday 28 April from noon till 2pm). Found one, where the Tories had one today. Spoke to them, said we were standing and gave them a leaflet. It turned out that one of them was Paul Hodgins, who is standing in Barnes ward and is the current Leader of the Council.

Plenty of Tory placards in gardens saying "I'm voting to keep weekly rubbish collections" (talk about parish pump politics !). Only one Liberal one. According to a leaflet found in a rubbish box, the LibDems have formed a coalition here with the Greens, presenting a joint list and leaflet of 2 LibDems and 1 Green for the 3 council seats up for grabs. No doubt payback to the Greens for not standing in the December 2016 parliamentary by-election and so helping the LibDems to unseat the Tory MP, Zac Goldsmith (he got back in, just, at last year's general election).

No Tory posters in the northern part of the ward near Hammersmith Bridge, where the residents are less well off. Crossed the bridge into Hammersmith to find a spot for a stall there (planned for next Saturday 14 April at noon). Plenty of room in King Street. In fact, the main reason for contesting Barnes is its proximity to Hammersmith where the branch has to decided to concentrate its activity.

First leaflets distributed

750 leaflets were distributed today in the western part of the constituency. Some other signs of political activity: one Labour poster and someone returned a leaflet saying he didn't want it as he was National Front (unless he was still living in the 1970s he probably was). This is definitely not part of the Stockbroker belt. Also, the LibDems had been distributing leaflets for their candidate, the outgoing councillor Fiona White. The usual it's a two-horse race stuff aimed a potential Labour voters, stating:

It is a clear choice between hardworking Fiona White and the Liberal Democrats or four more years of Conservative chaos

.
Anybody would think that they hadn't been in a coalition government with the Tories for 5 years.

Who (in London) is afraid of the SNP?

Out yesterday delivering, to ensure we weren't left with too many, our leaflet for constituencies we're not standing in, I came across leaflets from the parties standing in Wandsworth and in Kingston. I hadn't realised that the Tories had such an obsession about the SNP.

Here's what a leaflet, for just a local council by-election, in Wandsworth says: either we have a Conservative government

Or we have a Labour/Scottish Nationalist Government, taxing London and harming Britain.

But the prize for this sort of thing goes to Tory leaflet for Kingston & Surbiton. Headed "SNP puts Miliband in Downing Street. Your vote can stop this", it is entirely devoted to the subject and says:

A Vote for the Lib Dems will help Ed Miliband and the SNP take us back to square one.

I suppose they think this will get them votes from people who don't like the Scots.

Anyway, the SNP is just another capitalist party, whose aim is not so much independence, but to gain some strength to bargain for a bigger grant for the Scottish regional administration from the central givernment. Just the same as the Democratic Unionist Party is trying to do for Northern Ireland. Come to think of it, you could just as (il)logically argue that a vote for the Tories will be help the Paisleyites get their way -- though they might decide to support a minority Labour government instead if it offer more money. Who knows?

Clapham results

Three of us attended the count this afternoon in the Recreation Centre besides Brixton railway station. The results for the three wards we contested can be found here:

Clapham Town

Ferndale

Larkhall

The results in the two wards we contested both times (Ferndale and Larkhall) are almost exactly the same as last time in 2010.

The new council will be completely dominated by Labour with 50 seats to 3 for the Tories and 1 for the Greens.The Liberals have been excluded from being a serious contender for council seats in the future, with the Greens taking their place as the main opposition to Labour. UKIP got nowhere (look at their result in Ferndale) and, although TUSC got more votes than us in the two wards we both stood in, in the other wards they contested they didn't do much better than we would have done.

Nearly done

Five of us finished off covering the ward today. Some 4000 of the 5000 have now been distributed. Only 500 or so needed for what's left, so we'll have some over for handing out in the street or if we do a stall. The remaining 500 letter boxes should be covered before the deadline we set ourselves of 13 November when the ballot papers will be sent to postal voters (some 10 percent of those on the electoral roll).

We had planned to meet at lunchtime in a cafe in Mostyn Road called "Revolution" which sounded suitable and which we hoped might give us a free coffee for the free advertisement we'd been handing out for them entitled "Revolution the only solution". But it was closed.

Came across more Labour and LibDem leaflets, also one Tory one on glossy paper (in the posh part of the ward between Brixton Road and Clapham Road). It too said it was a two-horse race claiming "Only the Conservatives can beat Labour here". Very doubtful if anyone can, though the Labour candidate must think he has something to fear from the LibDems as he has started a scare campaign pledging to stop LibDem attacks on council housing. It's a dirty business, conventional politics.

No sign of UKIP, the Greens or TUSC as yet.

We spoke too soon

Out leafletting today we can across another LibDem leaflet and what did it say? "It's Labour or Lib Dems here. Tories out of the race here!". The usual it's a two-horse race stuff, in this case to try to cadge Tory votes. In other parts, it's used to get Labour voters to vote LibDem to keep the Tories out. Anything to get votes.

Other leaflets we picked up were the Autumn 2013 issue of Lambeth Labour Rose and a copy of Lambeth Housing Activists. This is sponsored by "Unite Community" which is a section of the Unite trade union for "people who aren't in regular paid work and community activists", an interesting union initiative. It has some harsh things to say about Labour-run Lambeth Council. For instance, on the council's eviction of 'shortlife' tenants:

Lambeth has proven itself to be a cynical and ruthless Authority, showing little regard or concern for some of its most vulnerable inhabitants.

and

Wat the ... ? So, in reponse to austerity caused by a global crash caused by rich bankers and property speculators, the council has brutalised these communities to give some lovely buildings at knock down prices to ... rich bankers and property speculators.

Strong stuff (we'll let pass the fact that the crisis was caused by the operation of capitalism not "rich bankers").

We must have distributed 1500 of the 5000 leaflets so far. More this weekend and next week.

We're off

The 5000 election leaflets duly arrived this morning. A couple of hundred have already been distributed in the north of the ward opposite Kennington Park. We thought we'd be the first, but the Liberals had been before. Unusually their leaflet didn't claim that "it's a two-horse race", probably because no-one would believe it as it's a one-horse race which Labour can't lose.

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.

UKIP misses the point

More of our newsletters were distributed in the ward yesterday. More evidence this time of political activity. In fact some streets would have received our leaflet and UKIP's at the same time. A LibDem leaflet carried the same "It's a two-horse race" bar chart that they all do, even though the figures they gave showed that it's really only a one-horse race (as everyone knows)since even if all the Tory voters switched to the LibDems that would only be get them to 35% compared to Labour's 51%. The Labour leaflet was a tribute to their councillor whose untimely death provoked the by-election.

UKIP is an opportunist, populist party but don't seem to have yet learnt (as all vote-catching parties must if they are going to get anywhere) how to adapt what they say to those whose votes they are chasing. Asking people to help them "End mass immigration" wouldn't seem to find much of an echo in this part of the world. They need to take some advice from the LibDems on how to be all things to all people (bringing back smoking in pubs and abolishing parking meters might not be enough). UKIP suffered a blow this week when their flagship policy of withdawing from the EU but still having access to the Single European Market as a non-member like Norway was rejected by the employers organisation, the CBI. They want Britain to stay in, so UKIP are on the own on this one as far as the major British capitalist corporations are concerned.

In any event, whether Britain is in or out of the EU makes no fundamental difference to the majority class of wage and salary workers and their dependents. It's not the EU that is the cause of our problems, but capitalism. So the way out is not to withdraw from the EU (the problems would still continue) but to establish socialism based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production so that production can be geared to satisfying people's needs instead of to making a profit. If there's ever a referendum on the EU (what a waste of time) we'll be writing "WORLD SOCIALISM" across the ballot paper.

What they printed

Here's what they printed:

In contrast, Bill Martin, the Socialist party candidate in Junction, highlighted their lack of focus on his election. “My colleagues out and about have run into someone from the Labour party, but it has been a very low key,” he said.

“I haven’t had any leaflets through my door, put it that way. I haven’t seen anything that looks overtly Liberal or Labour in the area, which you do get in other campaigns. I think it’s treading water. I’ve only seen one or two election posters in windows; one was Green and was I think the other was maybe Labour, but that could have been from five years ago.”

The grammar is all wrong as Bill was talking about the Labour campaign not ours. At least people will know we're standing.

The post mortem

Three of us went to the count yesterday evening from 10.30 to midnight and, like everyone else there, were victims of the cuts, as the Returning Officer and Chief Executive explained that there was no money to provide for the usual tea and coffee and sandwiches, not even for the counters (a bit surprising UNISON put up with that).

Here's the official result from the Lambeth Council website (they round to the nearest whole figure).

This is the sort of vote that Labour used to get in the mining valleys of South Wales and the North East, as LibDem voters deserted to Labour rather than to the Greens (as the Greens had expected). The UKIP vote confirms once again that xenophobic parties do badly in this sort of area where people whose parents and grandparents came from different parts of the world have lived together and mixed for a couple of generations. "Fascism" is not the threat some people like to claim it to be. TUSC did not do as well as they had expected. Their campaign was based on trying to blame the cuts on the local council, but Labour were more successful in getting people to blame the government. But at least TUSC, as the combined forces of Militant and the SWP, will be satisfied that they avoided the indignity of being beaten by the SPGB, though they are still in the same league as us. Our vote corresponded to what members speculated it might be -- between 20 and 50.

But we didn't contest primarily to get votes, but to publicise the case for socialism and, from this point of view, can be quite satisfied. We leafletted the ward three times, given equal time on the Brixtblog (which reproduced the Big Smoke video interview), and had our views discussed seriously on various blogs:

Statement on Brixton blog (including Big Smoke video)

Hustings report

Candidates 30 seconds on unemployment

Urban 75

Vote UK discussion forum

We should be back again, here and in some other wards, in the local council elections. in May 2014. In the meantime, we will extend our four-monthly newsletter distributed from Larkhall and Ferndale wards to Brixton Hill.

The candidates state their case

While we were out leafletting yesterday the local online newspaper, the Brixtonblog, put up statements from the other candidates. They are all there now except the UKIP one, including the one from our delegate/candidate together with a photo of him speaking from the Party's platform at Hyde Park and the video interview he did for the Big Smoke during the GLA elections in May.

In her statement the LibDem candidate states:

“Lambeth under Labour has cut funding for school crossing patrols, Brixton Library and home care services for vulnerable elderly people."

This is true but, as others have pointed out, this is because all councils have been forced to do this sort of thing by the central government which is a Tory-LibDem Coalition -- which, we add, has itself been forced to do this because they are administering capitalism in one of its economic crises. A Labour government or a Lib-Lab coalition would have had to do the same. It's the only policy a government can pursue when capitalism is in a crisis. That's the way the system works and the only way it can work.

Our election manifestos are due to arrive from the printers this morning. When they do we'll start delivering them door-to-door, at the hustings meeting tomorrow and at a stall we will be having in Brixton on Saturday. TUSC is organising a meeting on Monday evening. We'll be there too.

SLP letter

No, not Socialist Labour Party (neither Scargillite nor Deleonist) but the South London Press. Here 's what they published in today's edition under (their) title of "Capitalism is not the only way":

Simon Hughes uses his column as a local MP to publicise his party's candidates for Mayor and London Assembly ("Good cop for the top job", South London Press, April 6). Fair enough, but they are not the only candidates. The Socialist party is contesting both Lambeth & Southwark and Merton & Wandsworth. Mr. Hughes makes the usual empty promises (particularly empty is the one about bringing rents down) but we say no politician can make capitalism work in the interest of all.
Adam Buick, Election agent, The Socialist Party, Clapham High Street.

So, people in South London at least now know we are standing, even if not -- yet -- too much of what we are standing for. That will come in an edition nearer the election day of 3 May, i.e. on either 20 or 27 April.

Progress report

The nomination papers for Lambeth & Southwark have all been signed. Those for Merton and Wandsworth will be signed tomorrow. The intention is to hand them in to the Returning Officers as soon as possible after the date for this opens on Tuesday 20 March.

The election manifestos are at the printers and will be delivered to us (20,000 of them) on Friday or Monday. Meanwhile we are distributing other leaflets, mainly in outlying parts of the constituencies which we are not planning to cover with the main leaflet. Today was Raynes Park, which is part of Merton.

Leafletted the Raynes Park Conservative Club and found a LibDem leaflet which revealed the name of our LibDem opponent -- Lisa Smart. A householder handed one of our leaflets back saying he didn't want "junk mail". I said it wasn't junk mail but an election leaflet but he insisted.

The ironic thing is that if you go to stopjunkmail.org.uk, which some householders give on their letter boxes and which campaigns to limit and ideally ban junk mail such as pizza menus, you find a petition to sign. It calls for a change in the Data Protection Act. This of course is a political demand which could only be achieved by political action and so by candidates standing for election and distributing their programme including door-to-door. So you'd think that people who want to ban junk mail wouldn't mind political leaflets.

South London branch will be handing out the manifestos and running a literature stall outside 52 Clapham High Street on Saturdays 14, 21 and 28 of April from about 11 am.

"No politician can help you"

As it was sunny again today I decided to drive 5 miles to the border between Kingston and Merton to deliver a few leaflets. As I discovered from a poster in a window saying "Keep West Barnes Library Open", that's what the area was called.

This time I did come across some political material -- a leaflet issued by the Liberals for their candidate for Mayor, "former top-cop Brian Paddick" as they described him (he was a police commander in Brixton who was hounded out for, amongst other things, his liberal approach to cannabis and stood for Mayor in 2008 as well).

The Liberals are in a difficult position. They can criticise Boris Johnson for making cuts but not the cuts made by the government in which they are partners. But since local councils, including the Greater London Assembly, get most of their income from the central government, local councils (whether Tory, Liberal or Labour) are just passing on cuts decided by central government, itself acting as a transmission belt for the economic laws of capitalism.

If the opinion polls are anything to go by, people are seeing through this Liberal hypocrisy. Paddick is credited with only 6% of the vote. If he falls below 5% he'll suffer the indignity of losing his £10,000 deposit.

Capitalism being what it is, the government is trying to find ways to save money that they can then use to reduce taxes on profits and so help restore the profitability needed before any recovery can have a chance of beginning. Any government, whether Tory, Labour, Liberal or any combination of the three, that takes on the job of running the general affairs of capitalism has to act this way in the circumstances. They have to accept, and do accept, that that's the way the capitalist system works and put profits before people.

As we say in our election manifesto:

"No politician can help you. They all say they are going to have to make you worse off because of the crisis."

So why vote for them (unless you're a mug)?

Star opponents

Well, one of my Kentish Town opponents gets a bit of a leg up, by being given a guest posting on Alastair Campbell's blog. Georgia Gould writes of the perfidy of the Lib-Dems in office in Camden, ever since they seized power last election in a coalition with the other Tory party. She makes a telling point: "At the moment the Liberal Democrats are providing a home for the collective frustrations of a country understandably disappointed in politics. However we can't let Nick Clegg get away with playing the role of outsider. The fact remains his party is in power across the country and time and time again his councils don't quite live up to Clegg's shiny rhetoric."

True enough. But we recall the turn around in Lambeth as well, when Labour retook the council last election. The similarities are striking, battles to save local baths, to refurbish council homes, to protect services, to freeze council tax (yes, the strategy of freezing council taxes Labour members oppose in Cmaden is proud policy in Lambeth).

The reality is that local representatives are actors playing their parts on a stage set by central government in a Capitalist Class Production. The Producers pay the piper and call the tune.

Husting in Southwark

Yesterday morning the Socialist candidate ventured into Southwark to speak at a hustings meeting organised by the Southwark Pensioners Action Group at their offices in Camberwell Road. On approaching the office we could see someone handing out leaflets. We were surprised to find that it was someone from the Left List since we hadn't come across them before in the constituency. We were even more surprised on entering to see that their representative was their mayoral candidate herself, Lindsey German.

Also present were the outgoing Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark (Val Shawcross), Southwark Councillor Caroline Pidgeon (the Liberal candidate), Southwark Councillor Kim Humphries (standing in for the Tory candidate) and Shane Collins for the Greens. Apologies were received from the animal rights candidate, the Eng-dems and the Respect George Galloway party.

The Socialist candidate, because he was sitting at one end, spoke first. Danny explained that the problems discussed at these and other elections were caused by the existing system of the private ownership of the means of production by rich people and their use to produce things for profit. There was no use tinkering about with this system as, despite the promises and pledges of the politicians, it could never work, or be made to work, in the interest of the vast majority of people, who depended on having to work for a wage or salary to live. The alternative was socialism, a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production where things would no longer be produced for profit but directly to satisfy people's needs and where the principle "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" would apply. Danny's 2 minutes were up while he was in the middle of explaining the waste capitalism's need for a money system involved.

Assemblywoman Shawcross spoke next. She outlined what the GLA under Ken had done. She also appeared to say that CCTV cameras on buses allowed bus drivers who behaved badly to be disciplined. Maybe this was a slip of the tongue but it's the sort of thing Labour politicians say these days.

Councillor Pidgeon said that one of the advantages of extending the tram system into Southwark and across the Thames would be that there would be public toilets at the stations.

Councillor Humphries was surprisingly honest. He was against having a quota of "affordable housing" in all new housing developments as this could sabotage such schemes. In other words, would reduce the profits of the developers who would take their money and invest it somewhere else where they could make a bigger profit.

SWP Central Committee member German was pathetic. She talked just like the other three, tacitly accepting the present system and proposing minor changes to it.

Green candidate Shane Collins introduced the big picture again saying that with global warming the site of the 2012 Olympics would be flooded (not then but a decade or so later). He was not afraid to offer unpopular reforms such as a 20 mph speed limit on side roads and the legalisation of heroin. (He is a legalise cannabis campaigner and was once caught with 19 plants in his house. It turned out that Danny and him had in fact met each other a few years back at Glastonbury.)

Question time proved interesting. We noticed that Councillor Pidgeon (Liberal) and Councillor Humphries (Tory) refrained from criticising each other and in fact put on a double act when Southwark Council was criticised. This struck us as strange but then the penny dropped. As in Bill's Camden Southwark Council is run by a Liberal-Tory coalition. The shape of things to come perhaps after the next election? Though the Liberals would also be prepared to do a deal with Labour if they get a better offer. Not that it would make a difference either way.

You wouldn't know that Lindsey German is a leading theoretician of the SWP, the author of articles and pamphlets on feminism, war, etc including one entitled Why We Need a Revolutionary Party. There was nothing revolutionary about what she said. Even on reforms she came across as less radical than the Green candidate. The one thing she got really passionate about was bendy buses. They should be taken out of service and replaced by new Routemaster buses (the ones you can fall off) with a conductor; that, she said, would stop the fare-dodging that now goes on on the overcrowded bendy buses. The Tory representative immediately jumped up to say "yes, that's what Boris wants too". That about sums it up.

Actually, the clue to her behaviour is to be found in that pamphlet of hers. It's pure Leninism. The workers are so thick that they can't understand the case for socialism if put to them directly (as we do and as Danny was doing at the meeting). They are only capable of developing a trade union consciousness:

"That is why building a principled revolutionary party is important today. It is also why the Socialist Workers Party takes so much of its theory of the party from the experience of Lenin and the Bolsheviks".
"That is why all those who want fundamental change in society have to be part of a Leninist organisation".
"Socialism in the 1990s means rebuilding the real Leninist tradition".

So it's all a front. She's only pretending that reforms of capitalism are possible, offering them as bait to get workers to follow her and the rest of the vanguard in the SWP. She doesn't really believe that bendy buses should be replaced by Routemasters. That's just a ploy to get a working class following. Or is it? We got the impression that opposition to bendy buses was really what got her going. In any event, it was the only thing she spoke about with passion at the meeting.

Sorry about this digression. Back to the surprisingly honest Tory representative. He made it clear that the problem for local councillors was money. What they were doing was allocating a finite amount of money which was never enough to allow them to do what they'd like to. Danny jumped in to explain why: under capitalism the priority is profit and any money given to local councillors to spend on the public services for which they have responsibilty (most comes from the central government which also regulates how much they can raise through the rates) has to come in the end from profits. There's no way out. That's the way the system works and must work and why the politicians can never deliver on their promises. Profits must come first and always will as long as capitalism lasts.

Danny's exposition of the case for socialism brought him two direct questions from the 20 or so assembled pensioners. "Why do you want to go back to barter?" and "What about human nature?" And the basement of the Southwark Pensioners Action Group was transformed for a few minutes into Hyde Park Speakers Corner.

In closing the meeting the chairman said that he too was a socialist but felt that something could be done now. He was probably an old CPer.

We had planned to leaflet the surrounding area in Southwark after the meeting but the place was full of high-rise flats you can't get into. So we got a 35 (non bendy) bus back to Clapham. On the way who should we pass going the other way down Brixton Road but George Galloway atop his campaign bus. It was festooned with red and green balloons -- green for Islam not the environment. We couldn't hear what he was saying through his loadspeaker but it sounded like "Vote for Me".

Yellow Tories

aka Booting Brian

Ah, the Liberal Democrats, the cuddly party that is the genuine alternative to the tired old two party system. Put another way, the party for people who can't be honest enough with themselves to admit they're a Tory. See, they're not really Tories, when they cut taxes they do it with Muesli, or something like that.

Having seen what the rapacious Lib-Dems can do in office, in Lambeth and in Camden, with their Tory bed fellows - slashing funding to soft targets (community groups, meals on wheels, day care, advice services) we know whose side they feel their bread is buttered on.

So, when Brian Paddick offers the moon on a stick - lower crime, better policing, better environment - lower taxes we know just how it will be achieved. After all, he wants to end the housing problem, but look, Yellow Tories in Camden have begun selling off council houses to the private sector to pay for rennovations to stock (in Camden, it should be explained, tennants have voted against an Arms Length Management Organisation that is the Red Tories in government's prerequisite to release rennovation funding - we can thank John Prescott for that privatisation scheme).

But, look, they want to build trams - trams everywhere I tell you! as far as the eye can see, from Marble Arch to Stratford (£32 million) from Camden to Sarf London (£Millions and millions) - oh, and all Tram stops with have toilets and electronic information (strangely, the Lib dems in Camden only seem keen to open toilets in wards they control...hmmm), oh, and little green pixies who will grant your every wish...

Of course, the Fib-dems know they aren't winning here, but it doesn't hurt to use the mayoral electiions as an advertising spring board for their reign of cuddles.