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?

Our opponents

The list of persons nominated for Guildford West has just been published. Apart from us there are 5 others:

Chandler (Tory), Dokimakis (Lab), Purvis (Green), Morris (Peace Party) and White (LibDem).

White is the outgoing councillor. The Peace Party is a christian-inspired pacificist party, based in Guildford, which regularly contests elections there, including the last General Election. They are on the ballot paper as "The Peace Party - Non-Violence, Justice, Environment". Last time in the Surrey County Council elections in 2013 they got 105 votes (5%). They are also standing in Guildford South West. There is no UKIP candidate (no point anyway, now they've won the referendum).

In the rest of Surrey, there is one other candidates using the word "socialist" on the ballot paper: TUSC in Staines. In a by-election for the ward last year they got 33 votes (1%).

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.

Leafletting yesterday

West London members were out again yesterday running street stalls in two different parts of the South West constituency.

In Feltham 3 members, helped for a while by a bored balloon seller, handed out leaflets outside the Shopping Centre. At first we set up stall inside the Centre but were requested to move on by security staff who said we required permission True as the Centre is private property (an increasing trend with these places), so we moved just outside on to the pavement of the High Street.

Some political discussion. With a UKIP member and a Kurdish leftwinger who spoke about the collapse of state capitalism in Russia and told us how the Kurdish militias were defeating ISIS. Someone else told us she never voted as politicians were all the same and never did anything for ordinary people. We said we agreed and that it was because they were running capitalism whose economic laws forced them to put profits before people. She asked us what we would do for people. When we replied "nothing" and that people had to do things for themselves she took our leaflet. A skinhead draped in a flag of St George, it being his day, sang "You are the left wing, We are the right wing" as he passed by. We told him we could see that, but we couldn't identify which football club he supported.

Chiswick was quieter than a fortnight ago with people more interested in the EU referendum than the London elections. A sympathiser who went to Kingston thinking it was this Saturday we'd be there (it was last Saturday) reported that the Leave and Remain leafletters were out again. So, when we are there next Saturday we'll come armed with a good supply of our "EU Referendum - An Irrelevant Sideshow" leaflet.

Husting in Twickenham

Over 70 people present at the hustings for South West constituency candidates organised by the Friends of Twickenham Green last night. As with hustings, the vast majority will have been politically committed, but in answer to questions they heard the socialist case on the EU, housing, academies, crime and polllution and were given our leaflet when leaving. A member living locally took a box of leaflets to distribute in the area including St Mary's University. So that's Twickenham covered.

For those interested in such things, the Tory, Tony Arbour, said he was a Brexiter while the Ukipper, Alan Craig (who himself stood for Mayor in 2008 for the Christian Peoples Alliance), didn't say who he would be giving his second preference vote for Mayor to: Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan.. I don't know if this is the official UKIP line.

South West constituency: Nomination accepted

The nomination papers and election deposit for our candidate in the South West constituency (Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond), Adam Buick, were handed in and accepted this morning at Hounslow Civic Centre.

This means that we will be on the ballot paper. There are 432,000 electors in the constituency. If it's the same as last time only about 40% will turn out to vote, but every elector there and in fact everywhere in London will receive a booklet with the manifestos of the candidates for mayor but also a list of all those standing for the Greater London Assembly. So even some of those who won't be bothering to vote will still be able to know we're standing.

As we arrived in Hounslow early we distributed a few of the election leaflets. A bit premature but we did see some evidence of other political activity -- a glossy leaflet from the Stay in the EU campaign headed "More Jobs. Lower Prices. Your family is better off with Britain in Europe". Rather misleading as more probably staying in will make no difference either to jobs or prices. We also spotted a sticker on a lamppost saying "Refugees, Fuck Off Back Home". So UKIP will be able to count on at least one vote here.

Education for competitiveness

Twenty or so people turned up for the Education Question Times meeting in Richmond last night. Our candidate got equal time with the others.

The discussion was mainly, but not entirely, on education. In answer to the last question, the other candidates confirmed our candidate's assertion that under capitalism the education system's main role was to turn out for employers workers of required types in the required numbers. They, and NUT Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney, spoke in terms of the need for a better education system in Britain to improve Britain's competitive position on the world market.

Only the UKIP candidate, Alan Caaig, dissented a little, saying he agreed with the socialist candidate that this was not what education should be about. A bit embarrasing but then he is a christian and so probably has a pre-capitalist view of education. He had in fact been the leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance until 2013 when he defected to UKIP. He wasn't heckled, so Richmond NUT can't have any SWP members as the SWP pursue a no-platform policy towards UKIP. He spoke last and got in a plug for the Vote Leave EU campaign. Speaking to him afterwards, he was surprised to learn that we weren't in favour of this but were neither for nor against as he expected a socialist to be against "the capitalist EU".

The Labour candidate, Martin Whetton, is the Merton Council's Cabinet Member for Education, i.e a full-time professional politician. He used up most of his 5-minute introduction urging people to vote for Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London. Incidentally, there's a full-page ad for him in this week's London local papers painting him as "The Council Estate Boy who will fix the Tory Housing Crisis". Oh yes? So he's going to buck the law of supply and demand?

The Liberal spokesperson (not a candidate for the constituency but on the LibDems all-London list), Merlene Emerson, said she was from Singapore and is the founder of the Chinese Liberal Democrats. Which may explain the presence of a reporter/photographer from a free English-language paper available in Soho. So, if anyone's there next week, pick up a copy to see if we get a mention.

Percentages

It needs to be pointed out, and has been, that the percentages that the Lambeth Council website gives for each candidate are percentages of the total votes cast but as each voter has three votes it is not a measure of how many individuals support each party. This method underestimates the number supporting parties which put up only one candidate (in our words, us, TUSC and UKIP), but it is unclear how this could be worked out. Anyway, TUSC, UKIP and us will have more support than the Lambeth website figures suggest, perhaps twice as much.

This means that UKIP has the support of about 5% of those who bothered to vote in the two wards they stood in (Ferndale and Clapham Town). Not much compared with elsewhere. Commentators have been noting that UKIP is not doing so well in London. In fact, when you look at the composition of the population in London, especially central London, you wonder why UKIP thinks it has any chance in the inner London boroughs. Here for instance are the 2011 census statistics for Ferndale ward:

38.7% White British
20.9% Other White
10.8% Black African
9.9% Black caribbean
5.0% Black other

Of course these are unscientific categories and measure only what people classify themselves as when given a limited number of choices and told they must choose one, but, given that most "Other White" will be EU migrants, UKIP's on to a hiding in places like this, just as their parent group, the Tories, have been.

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.

What happened at the Brixton hustings

60 Lambeth residents or political activists attended the Brixton Blog hustings in a room upstair of the pub 'Prince of Wales' in Brixton on tuesday evening. The most surprising thing of the evening was the appearance as the Labour Party repesentative, of Lib Peck, the Leader of Lambeth Council. The Lib Dem rep was also a councillor from Streatham.

The increasingly 'notorious' Elizabeth Jones was there representing UKIP. Her appearance there and her statements drew lots of boos, hisses, haranguing and cries of racism from the assorted Trotskyites (SWP, SPEW) and Leftists (Left Unity were there but not standing candidates in the elections) in the room. She mentioned Alan Bennett but there were no protests... but when she mentioned 'Saint' Bob Crow and the 'No2EU' campaign that was too much for TUSC/RMT/SPEW activists!

The venom in the room was directed mainly at Lib Peck and Lambeth Labour Council with UKIP coming in second. The questions were about cuts to libraries, the poor performance of Lambeth Council's 'arms length' housing organisation 'Lambeth Living', pavements, car pollution in Brixton, social exclusion, immigration, Lambeth College lecturers strike. It was dealing with the symptoms and not the cause which is capitalism. The hustings saw the debut of the Pirate Party who advocated libertarianism and also transparency of council meetings.

All the speakers apart from Danny Lambert, our party representative, were clearly mesmerised with capitalism and could not see beyond its existence and all believed if they were in power they could tweak it and it would be a positive and good thing for people. Steve Nally for TUSC, sponsored by Trots SPEW and SWP and RMT trade union, would oppose all cuts and declare 'illegal' budgets, the usual activist reformist nonsense with no mention that the working class have the power to emancipate themselves, abolish capitalism and transform society to a socialist society of production to meet human needs and democratic control.

Danny put forward the Socialist case, he was on good form, and got a good reception from the assorted Leftists in the room although they would probably still vote TUSC or Green. Afterwards a man came up to Danny to say how much he enjoyed what Danny had to say but it turned out he was a Green Party candidate from another part of London...
Steve

Online socialist statement for Brixton

The Brixtonblog has published statements from the various parties contesting wards in Brixton. You can see them here.

Scroll down to see Danny Lambert's (our candidate in Ferndale} on our behalf (also the UKIP candidate there dancing with Nigel Farage). Anyway, here's what it says:

These borough elections are an opportunity for people to register their rejection of austerity, capitalism and the whole profit system.

The Socialist Party makes no apology for raising the issue of socialism in local elections. Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs, they are produced to make a profit and that’s the cause of the problems people in Lambeth as everywhere else face.

It’s not what local councils or even national governments do that shapes how we live. It’s the economic system which requires that profits be put before people. That’s what has to be changed to make things better.

Lambeth Council are under economic pressure, transmitted via the government, to balance their books both by cutting spending and increasing their income through selling off assets such as sheltered accommodation.

This year the Council plans to cut £4 million from helping disabled, vulnerable and older residents, also £3.9 million from children and young people services. They are evicting tenants from the short-life housing co-operatives where they have lived for 30 years. Some residents have even had to seek charity handouts from Food Banks.

It’s profits before people. That’s how capitalism works.

The only alternative is socialism, to replace the profit system with one based on common ownership and democratic control so that there can be production to satisfy people’s needs instead of for profit. Socialism, as a society of common ownership, will apply the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”

People in Clapham Town and Larkhall wards as well as Ferndale ward can register their rejection of the profit system and the need for a socialist alternative by putting an X next to the name of the Socialist Party candidate 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.

Outer London (just)

Leaflet distribution in Clapham had to start a day earlier because of the tube strike (good luck to them). A 1000 or so (out of 9500) have been distributed so far, but the strike meant distributing instead the leaflet for the Euroelections in the South East Region. just across the Great London border in Surrey (the only county where the post office won't be distributing our manifestos free), but still in the KT6 (Surbiton) post code area. Met Liberal and Tory canvassers, but for the local elections (the Liberals were both councillors) which are also been held there as well as London. They didn't appear to know much about the Euroelections, perhaps because Elmbridge Borough Council has more powers than the European Parliament. Managed to find a council estate amongst the big houses, but that was the only place I saw an election poster. It said "I'm voting for UKIP". A sign of the times?

Statement of persons nominated

These for Lambeth can be found here. We're standing in Clapham Town, Ferndale and Larkhall wards. As you'll see, it's us and the usual suspects (Labour, Tory, Liberal, Greens and newcomers UKIP) plus, in Ferndale and Larhall, TUSC.

Those for Junction ward in Islington can be found here. Same usual suspects except without UKIP (perhaps because they consider it too Irish, but one of the Tory candidates is called Michael Collins). No BNP either as there was in the by-election last year.

Non-Brits welcome

Still continuing to get the 10 signatures for Ferndale ward. We've got 6 but there's no hurry or worry. We'll get them all by the weekend.

Once thing that's noticeable from the electoral register is the number of electors with a G against their name. This means they are EU Citizens who can vote in local (but not parliamentary) elections. A couple have signed our papers. They make up over 10 percent of the electorate in this part of London. In Larkhall ward, for instance, there are 1541 out of a total electorate of 12333, or 12.5%, which is 1 in 8. No wonder UKIP don't do well in these parts. UKIP would of course disenfranchise them. Our inclination would be in the opposite direction: that all workers, wherever they come from, should have the vote ...

Collecting the signatures to stand

The electoral register which will be used for the elections (European and local) on 22 May became available yesterday. We picked up copies for the three wards we will be contesting in Lambeth and began collecting the signatures of local electors to be able to stand (ten per ward). We got them for one ward (Larkhall), started on another (Ferndale) and will get them for Clapham Town on Friday. The nominations papers can't be handed in till after 14 April but it's as well to get this chore over as soon as possible.

One street seemed to have a high level of political understanding. On being told that we were socialists the person understood straighaway that we were not the Labour Party. So did the next person who replied "no thanks, I'm a Labourist". It is true that this particular street is one of those we have leafletted regularly since the last local elections in 2010.

Another person referred to Farage as "Forage", not that UKIP is not going to find many votes in this area. We don't know whether they will be contesting this ward (Larkhall) but they will be contesting Ferndale where their candidate will be Elizabeth Jones who we debated against last Wednesday at our premises in 52 Clapham High Street and who lives in the ward.

Landslide victory for abstentionists

Here's the official result (for the 19% who bothered to vote):

Paul Gadsby Labour 1319 60%
Colette Thomas LibDem 468 21%
Kelly Ben-Maimon Con 153 7%
Rachel Laurence Green 113 5%
Elizabeth Eirwen Jones UKIP 87 4%
Steve Nally TUSC 44 2%
Daniel Lambert Soc 22 1%

There were 11618 electors, of whom 2206 voted, i.e a mere 19% or less than 1 in 5. In other words, a massive 81% abstained. This must represent a feeling (justified) that it doesn't make much difference who you vote for or which party runs the council things will be the same.

As predicted Labour won easily. Of the three council by-elections in Lambeth over the last year, this represents the best result for UKIP and the worst for TUSC. It confirms (for what it's worth, which is probably not much) that the "left of Labour" vote in Lambeth divides 2 to 1 between TUSC and us. Which puts them in the same league as us rather than as any sort of challenger to the Labour Party. The new Left Party that is to be founded tomorrow in Bloomsbury should also bear this in mind. They are unlikely to do much better if that. In any event, we'll carry on putting the straight case for socialism without making any election promises or proposals to try to reform capitalism.

Three of us went to the count (which was over by 11.30). The Tories told us that their canvassers came across 8 people who said they were going to vote for us. Most of them may well not have gone to vote in the end but at least, after reading our "Revolution the only solution" leaflet, they were prepared to tell canvassers that they wanted to get rid of the whole present system.

The next local elections will be the full borough elections on 22 May next year. We'll probably have a couple of candidates in Lambeth.

Higher pretensions

According to this, one of the candidates has higher ambitions: she wants, even expects, to become an MEP. Must look out, after our stall in Brixton High Road this morning from 11.30 to 1pm, for her Vassall ward election address to see if it says "Vote for Elitism". We can confirm, from her performances at the Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill by-elections, that she is being honest.

Don't understand how workers can even think of voting for UKIP, the external faction of the Tory party.

Just seen this tweet from the UKIP candidate: "Delightful Autumn day canvassing for Vassall by election passing Van Gogh's Lambeth home." That'll be Van Gogh, the European immigrant's home then... Fnar.

Nominations close

Nominations have just closed today at 12 noon. We don't know who the others are but can guess. It's rumoured that one of them is also called Lambert. Certainly, there's a Robin Lambert who has stood for UKIP in Lambeth elections before (as well in Hendon at the last general election). We won't know till the official list is published next Tuesday (5 November).

Meanwhile we've given the "OK to print" for the 5000 election manifestos. Here's the front page:

They are due to be delivered to our office on Wednesday.