Our election non-pledge

On 21 April the Guildford edition of the Surrey Advertiser published a list of candidates standing in Guildford town with statements from some of them. We were among a number who just had a mention of the candidate's name and party. This week's edition included belated statements from those left out, under the heading "County council election pledges". Ours stated:

I am standing to raise the issue of the need for the shared and democratic ownership of the Earth’s resources, with all goods and services produced for use, rather than for profit.
The current crisis in social care in Surrey is a pressing example of why this change is necessary. Its root cause is today’s outdated system where finance determines what can, and cannot happen.
Socialists suggest a better way. At a time when we can easily feed, house and care for every human on the planet, it no longer makes sense to use money to ration access to what we need, especially not to the needs of the most vulnerable.
I am standing to make the point that local problems arise from the economic system of production for profit that exists everywhere and that they cannot be solved unless this system is replaced by one based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, and access for all to what they need on the basis of 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

Of course this was not an "election pledge" since we don't do these. We are not promising to do anything for anyone, merely putting a proposition before electors. If they want the change from capitalism to socialism this is something they must do for themselves, not by trusting in leaders.
The candidates' statements from both 21 and 28 April can be found here on the site of Get Surrey, the paper's online version.

All the Surrey candidates

Today's Surrey Advertiser has a full page with the names of all the candidates standing for the 81 electoral divisions of Surrey County Council. Apart from us, the only vaguely "radical" ones are TUSC in Staines and two Peace Party candidates in Guildford (one standing in the same division as us). But they are reformists of course.

Couldn't help noticing the name of one of the UKIP candidates in Surrey Heath -- Piotr Jerzy Farbiszewski -- and wonder which other camdidate there UKIP supporters will be voting for. Incidentally, no UKIP candidates at all standing in Guildford, so that must means they won't be at the Brexit hustings?

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.