Local manifesto arrives

12,000 copies of our manifesto for the London borough elections on 6 May arrived yesterday. Distribution will begin this Sunday -- by delegates down for our Annual Conference this Friday and Saturday at 52 Clapham High Street (all welcome -- there are no secret sessions). Here's what the leaflet says:

Socialists are working for a different and better world

This is a message to those who are fed up –

• Fed up with the failures of this dreary system
• Fed up with leaders and the false promises of career politicians
• Fed up with poor hospitals, poor schools, poor housing and an unhealthy environment
• Fed up with having to live on a wage that struggles to pay the endless bills
• Fed up with serving the profit system and seeing poverty amidst luxury

What happens in any local council depends mainly on what happens in the country and even in the world. That is why socialists are working for a different world. But it can't happen unless you join us. The job of making a better world must be the work of all of us.

The world we want is a one where we all work together. We can all do this. Co-operation is in our own interests and this is how a socialist community would be organised – through democracy and through working with each other.

To co-operate we need democratic control not only in our own area but by people everywhere. This means that all places of industry and manufacture, all the land, transport, the shops and means of distribution, should be owned in common by the whole community. With common ownership we would not produce goods for profit. The profit system exploits us. Without it we could easily produce enough quality things for everyone. We could all enjoy free access to what we need without the barriers of buying and selling.

Most politicians blame our problems on lack of money, but this is not true. Money doesn't build hospitals, schools decent housing and a healthy environment. The things that make a good community can only be created by the work of the people. We have an abundance of skills and energy. If we were free from having to work for the profits of employers we would be able to work for the needs of everyone.

The profit system is oppressive; it dominates our lives. It plagues us with bills. The rent and mortgage payments, the food bills, the rates, gas, electricity, water and telephone bills. Money is used to screw us for the profits of business. If we don't pay, we don't get the goods. Without the capitalist system, a socialist community would easily provide for all of its members..

The challenge now is to build a world-wide movement whose job will be to break with the failures of the past. It won't be for power or money or careers. It will work for the things that matter to people everywhere – peace, material security and the enjoyment of life through cooperation.

This is the challenge that could link all people in a common cause without distinction of nationality, race or culture.

We in the Socialist Party reject the view that things will always stay the same. We can change the world. Nothing could stop a majority of socialists building a new society run for the benefit of everyone. We all have the ability to work together in each other's interests. All it takes is the right ideas and a willingness to make it happen.

If you agree with this you can show it by voting for our candidates in this ward.

The socialist candidates are:
Ferndale ward (Lambeth): Daniel Lambert, John Lee, Jacqueline Shodeke
Larkhill ward (Lambeth): Oliver Bond, Adam Buick, Stanley Parker
Kentish Town ward (Camden): William Martin

GENERAL ELECTION: The Socialist Party is also contesting the Vauxhall constituency (Lambeth) in this election. The candidate is: Daniel Lambert.

Follow our election campaign at: http://spgb.blogspot.com/

More information and offers of help: contact our offices at 52 Clapham High St, SW4 7UN or by email to socialistparty@btconnect.com or by phone to 0207 622 3811. Website: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb

Local election nomination papers handed in

This morning handed in the nomination papers for our 6 candidates in the local elections in Lambeth. They've been accepted. So our candidates (Bond, Buick and Parker for Larkhall and Lambert, Lee and Shodeke for Ferndale) are now officially candidates and are no longer allowed to buy drinks for electors. Apparently the Greens are expected to stand a full list so there could be at least 15 candidates for the 3 seats in both wards.

On the way back from Brixton Town Hall noticed the offices of the local government workers' union UNISON so dropped a leaflet through their letter box and looked at their noticeboard. There were three notices.

One was a call for volunteers to go canvassing for the Labour Party in Barking to stop the BNP. Apparently there's a chance they might win control of the council there. As if it wasn't the inevitable failure of the mainstream reformist parties to make capitalism work for the workers that hadn't created conditions for the rise of the BNP.

The other was from the Union's LGBT section (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender, for the uninitiated). Not quite sure what that's got to do with trade unionism which is about what unites workers not what divides them but maybe it's just concerned with combatting prejudices.

The third was from Youth Fight for Jobs, which is a front for Militant. The leaders of UNISON don't like Militant and have recently taken over a branch in Greenwich which Militant had captured. Don't know what this was all about but in general it's a bad thing for union branches to be hi-jacked by vanguardist parties (which specialise in this) or any political party for that matter. They ought to be controlled democratically by their members irrespective of their political views.

BNP bullshit

Last Monday Nick Griffin of the far-right BNP debated the "Reverend" George Hargreaves of the far-right Christian Party on a Christian TV station. According to a report in Surrey Comet this is what he argued:

"We believe that nations are ordained by God and that they will be there at the end of times, so logically from that all nations have the right to ensure they survive and are not simply swamped by an endless flood from elsewhere."

If this is the sort of nonsense he is spouting just put him on TV every night and he'll soon be a laughing stock.

When, at what point in history, for instance, did God ordain the "nations" of the world and which was to live where? The so-called "British nation" of which Griffin seeks to be the champion is a product of history, not the creation of some god. If you go back only 2000 or so years most of the inhabitants of this island off the north-west coast of Europe were Celts, speaking a language akin to modern Welsh. They were eventually conquered by the Romans who came from Italy (but whose troops and settlers came from all round the Mediterranean and beyond). When the Romans left there was a "endless flood" of Angles and other Germanic-speakers into "Britain" (a word of Celtic origin) who eventually drove the Celtic-speakers to the Celtic fringe of Cornwall, Wales and Cumberland. Then came the Danes from Norway and Denmark. Then England (or Angle-land, as it was now called) was conquered by the French-speaking Normans. And the English-language evolved, a basically Germanic language with a large French vocabulary. It didn't stop there, with later migrations of Flemings and Hugenots.

Daniel Defoe wrote a poem about this which is still a good reply to nationalist myth-makers like Griffin.

As we have always said, the best way to deal with Griffin and his followers is not to ban them or kick their heads in but to put them on a platform and expose the nonsense they spout for what it is. Easy.

A bit of gossip

The Workers' Power group supports TUSC and is running a candidate in Vauxhall. Jeremy Drinkall, the candidate, told me that he has asked for TUSC support, and been told officially that TUSC will not support him because the Labour MP he is challenging, Kate Hoey, is in the RMT parliamentary group. (This although RMT is not in TUSC).

Martin Thomas on the site of another Trotskyist group who are also standing alone, without TUSC endorsement, in Camberwell & Peckham, and also saying Vote Labour elsewhere.

Taxi Rank

OK, things are ticking over - I've been to Camden council and I've got hold of the nomination papers for standing in Kentish Town: I'll pick up the electoral roll on the 29th and so will be hitting the streets looking for nominations pretty much straight away.

Until then - the thing overlooked by the media. Polly Toynbee comes close regarding the Byers/Despatches affair:

If a fish rots from the head, Labour's contamination with money was smelled from those earliest days of being "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich". But Tony Blair's behaviour since 2007 defies the ravings of his worst enemies. No conspiracy theorist guessed he would take money for Iraqi oil from a South Korean company – to add to £1m from the Kuwaiti royal family, an estimated £20m from anyone anywhere, £4m for his book, plus properties fit for a Brunei prince. That all this mammon is collected in the name of God is worthy of the faith-based business school of L Ron Hubbard: God can make you very rich indeed. Did Blair go to war in Iraq to get rich quick? Almost certainly not, but the cashflow from American adulation ever since will leave the slur on his tombstone.

This is nearly there, the point is that the desperate, petty, piddling corruption of the type Byers has been engaged in isn't the end of it. There are lucrative and legal and "honourable" ways to get rich post politics. Those in the loop know that there is always the way out into business. The capitalists aren't offering bribes, directly, but capitalism and the prospect of riches does offer an incentive to tow the capital line.

The point the media have missed is this: you cannot have democracy in an unequal society. End of. The lure of riches and reward will always draw power and decision making towards the owners of the world. You can regulate, adjudicate and officiate to buggery and back, and you still won't stop the allure of lucre. Beat that home: in a world where money talks louder than votes, you cannot have democracy.

What "mass immigration"?

Came across a UKIP hoarding poster which read "5000 people settle here every week. Stop mass immigration -- vote UKIP".

Of course what UKIP is doing is playing on some people's dislike of already settled immigrants. But most immigrants are just workers who've moved here in search of work and finding it. In fact many of what the BNP, UKIP's cruder rival for the anti-immigrant vote, call the "indigenous" population will be the descendants of one-time immigrants. Everybody with an Irish name for instance, and that's a lot.

The Socialist attitude is that all workers, irrespective of their first language or where they were born, share a common interest in uniting, as long as capitalism lasts, to get the best terms they can for the sale of their working skills and, more importantly, in getting rid of capitalism and replacing it with a world community without frontiers based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's resources so that these can be usd for the benefit of the whole world population.

It's not clear whether UKIP will be standing in Vauxhall -- the poster was in neighbouring Battersea. Just checked who it is and it says:

From a military family, Christopher was brought up in this country and the middle east.

Hold on a minute. Middle East? So it's alright from his family to have settled there in connection with their work but not for families from other parts of the world to settle here.

The baby and the bathwater

We have received by email a leaflet about the election from Past Tense Publications who have published some interesting short pamphlets about labour and popular history in South London. Headed "ALL ELECTIONS ARE A JOKE. LET'S TREAT THEM WITH THE CONTEMPT THEY DESERVE" it argues that "all elections are a waste of time". It starts off well enough:

Politicians of all parties fill their pockets, you couldn’t tell their policies apart without a microscope, the power of the rich, the global corporations and financiers continues merrily whoever is elected; well-meaning do-gooders get elected, then become sucked in or ground down by he weight of the system. While the meaningless circus at Westminster rattles on, our lives are at the mercy of their economic upturns and downturns, grinding away at work just to survive. While the rich and their parliamentary puppets wine and dine, whoever gets in next time will slash the NHS and other services many of us need to get by, to balance the national debt – at our expense, again.

They recall what they see as a historical precedent:

"How things don’t change…
In the 18th century, the vast majority of the population were excluded from power by a corrupt political elite, who had the parliamentary processes all sown up in the interests of the rich, ie themselves and their mates (sound familiar?). The poor could see the electoral circus meant nothing to them.
In response some set out to take the piss out of the whole charade. In the South London village of Garratt (in modern Wandsworth), from the 1740s to the 1790s, mock elections were held for the fictional office of “Mayor of Garratt”. Huge crowds flocked to a rowdy and fantastic parade and drinking spree, centred on a fake contest, featuring ridiculous candidates making grandiose speeches, promising the mpossible if elected, and swearing oaths filled with sexual innuendo…"

And conclude with practical proposals to "Turn the joke back on them":

It may not change the world: but why don’t we revive the Garratt tradition, with a vengeance this time, everywhere? We could hold mock elections, in the streets, parks, or even inside the polling stations on election day (till they chuck us out!), at work, school or on the bus, we could stir up a huge non-stop mickey-take of the meaningless parliamentary smokescreen, disrupting, engaging with others, having a laugh, but showing we aren’t taken in? Why not elect your ranty mates, or whoever; maybe they could all turn up at the House of Commons on opening day and claim to be an Honourable Member too? Would your pet gerbil make a good MP?
We could also revive other fun practices from our history: like the Suffragettes’ were fond of following candidates they opposed around and disrupting all their elections speeches; which would be a laugh too, especially with megaphones or sound systems.
These are just two ideas – there’s a million more ways to trash the dash for cash. Let’s use our imaginations, go for it, and not get nicked!
Having fun together is more real than parliamentary puppet shows… The more chaos and disorder, the more disruption, the more open rejection of the empty lie of democracy, the more fun we’ll have the more potential for real change.

Clearly anarchist influence is strong amongst some of those associated with Past Tense publications. The full text can in fact already be found on anarchist websites, for instance, here.

Mildly amusing perhaps (though, to tell the truth, the members at our offices who read it thought it pathetic) but theoretically and practically wrong. Mocking politicians is alright to a certain extent (we do it ourselves) but it can give rise to the mistaken idea that is because of corrupt and self-seeking politicians that we suffer from the social problems we do. It's not. It's the fault of capitalism. Even if all politicians were saints they still couldn't make capitalism work in our interest.

Nor is it true that "All elections are a joke". While what the professional politics who currently dominate politics get up to at Westminister and the antics they engage in to get votes do deserve to be mocked, especially as the media give them so much publicity, there is a serious side to elections.

Elections are ultimately about who controls the government and who gets to make the laws. Ever since most electors have been wage and salary workers the capitalist class has needed to persuade workers into voting for politicians who will support their system. This is what elections are about: tricking workers into voting for pro-capitalist politicians. Past Tense are right to expose this, but wrong to conclude that this means we should never have anything to do with elections. The response should be, as Marx once put it, to transform universal suffrage "from the instrument of fraud that it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation". Which is one of the points we are trying to make in contesting this and other elections.

Universal suffrage came into being partly as a result of pressure from below. Past Tense recognise this when they note that "from the 1760s the [Garratt] elections were associated with radical politics: demands for reform of the political system band protests against the economic hardships and lack of liberty for the labouring classes began to appear in the speeches". But what was "reform of the political system" if not the extension of the suffrage and its use to gain access to political power to try to improve the situation of "the labouring classes", such as the Chartists later campaigned for? And what did the Suffragettes want if not to extend the suffrage? Was this wrong? We say No, the extension of the vote to workers is a gain and is a crucial difference between today and the situation in 1700s. Certainly, at present the vote is not used wisely -- in fact it is used very unwisely -- but that doesn't mean that it can't be used when once workers have woken up to the fact that capitalism can never be made to work in their interests. To try to speed up this awareness is another reason why we contest elections.

The suggestion to take over "polling stations on election day", i.e. to try to disrupt the elections, is completely irresponsible but is probably just anarchist bombast. Our advice to them (since the Past Tense people seem a decent lot) is: don't be stupid, don't do it. If they really tried it, they'd be in dead trouble and would get nicked, ending up in prison to reflect on the refrain from the Crickets 1959 song "I fought the Law" ... "And the Law Won".

Another Vauxhall election blog

So that electors can be fully informed of the choice before them (and so they can see the difference between a real socialist and a Trotskyist reform-monger and would-be leader) here's the site of the candidate of the League for the Fifth International.

We were also out leafleting, for the local elections, yesterday but in the Stockwell Park area so didn't come across them (Oval is not one of the two wards we are contesting). Incindentally, if you take the wrong turning when you exit from the Oval tube station you end up in the nextdoor constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

Hope none of them did this and handed out their leaflets there as they are supposed to be telling people that side of Kennington Park Road to Vote Labour. In other words, their message to those living near the Oval tube would have been: if you live on one side of road Vote Labour, if you live on the other Don't Vote Labour. We'll try and get hold of one of their leaflets to see if this clears up the confusion.

Nul point

Our candidate for Vauxhall has been solicited for his views by yet another organisation. This time, not a single issue group but group which has 21 issues.

"Election candidates challenge!" read the email we got, "Endorse our pledges and we'll vote for you":

"The Instute of Ideas has published a list of '21 Pledges for Progress' ahead of the general election, and is challenging candidates of all parties to endorse them. The Institute of Ideas suggests voting for any candidate willing to back at least 15 of the pledges, whichever party they represent".

The 21 pledges can be found here. As can be seen, they are reform measures to be achieved within capitalism. Despite the fact that we could sympathise with some of the measures such as those concerning freedom of speech and association and the call for a more rational approach to nuclear power and GM crops (though we wouldn't trust them to be implemented properly under capitalism), and although feudal relics like the monarchy and the house of lords will diappear in socialism, we had to reply saying we couldn't endorse any of the "pledges" to gain votes.

This is because we are standing on a straight programme of socialism (the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, with production solely for use, not sale and profit and distribution on the principle of "from each their ability to each their needs") as the only framework within which existing social problems can be lastingly tackled and only want the votes of those who want socialism rather than just particular reforms of capitalism.

So, we had to report that our score was 0 out of 21.

We know the Institute of Ideas of old. This has been formed by ex-leading "cadres" of the now defunct Leninist organisation, the "Revolutionary Communist Party". In fact, in the 1989 by-election in Vauxhall (which we gave a miss) they put up a candidate who got 177 votes. That candidate, Don Milligan, who has now abandoned Leninism, has written a recent piece about what life was like for the members of the RCP and the illusions they held. It can be found here. We imagine that this is still what life is still like inside the extant Leninist/Trotskyist organisation, the League for the Fifth International, which is planning to stand here. Which confirms why we ourselves have always opposed Leninism and said that those who want socialism should organise as an open, democratic party without leaders or leadership pretensions.

Solidarity

The world we live in. The Tories attack Unite for seeking solidarity from the American Teamsters Union (according to the BBC). Now, the international solidarity of the workers is a principle of trade unionism, so it is in fact a good thing that workers are seeking one anothers' support. Just look, though, at the vitriol being poured on the BA workers for daring to stand up for themselves. Compare with the flood of stories about government cuts being needed to restore 'confidence' in the economy (e.g. here). What they mean by confidence is giving in to the overall policy demands of financiers, who will withhold their economic resources until their demands are met.

We are in the grip of a sustained capital strike, and yet the press turn vicious on any attempt by workers to mount a strike to defend their own interests.

As a note, the Tories are attacking the link between Labour and Unite, because Unite as the biggest union in the country is basically shouldering the cost of the Labour Party now. Labour loyalist Luke Akehurst rebuts the allegations.

The point, though, is that the link is hurting both parties, the interests of political parties and trade unions are not the same. Further, by linking themselves to a party that will form government under capitalism, the unions are signing a paycheque to those who will have to implement capitalism's attacks against the workers.

We support, fully and utterly, the BA workers and Unite and the Teamsters in their efforts to stand up to their employer, a struggle we all share an interest in. We share, though, an even greater interest in getting rid of the wages system all together, and Unite the Union would do better to try and raise their aims to Unite the Workers, for socialism. Unite members in Lambeth and Camden can do this by voting for our candidates.

Green austerity

In his blog on Saturday the Green Party candidate for Vauxhall, Joseph Healey, inadvertently reminded people that in Ireland the Green Party is part of the coalition government and so is responible for imposing the increased austerity on the workers there demanded by the current world economic crisis. Green parties have assumed responsibility for governing capitalism not just in Ireland but also, though not at the moment, in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy.

As we have always said, the Green Party is just as much a party of capitalism as Labour, the Tories and the Liberals. They only want to try to give it a green tinge. Not that this can work except on a miniscule scale since capitalism's priority of priorities always must be allowing profits to be made.

This means that any party which takes on responsibility for running capitalism must sooner or later end up acting against the interests of the majority wage and salary working class, as Healey's counterparts in Ireland have found out (and accepted).

More Conservative than Thou

Out yesterday to get the last two signatories for the nomination papers for the local elections we came across a Labourite distributing leaflets door to door. She wasn't very friendly quizzing us as to why we were contesting and where. We told her we were contesting to put over the case of for a socialist society of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use not profit and added that, as far as we're concerned, Labour, Liberals and the Tories were all the same. We could almost see her mind ticking thinking "they might take votes from us and let the Lib Dems in". She seemed relieved when we told her we were only standing in two wards.

Her leaflet was revealing as it was using all the arguments against the Lib Dems that the Tories use against Labour. One item headed "Labour costs you less -- the Lib Dems cost you more!" denounced the "tax-addicted Lib Dems". The claim was that the Labour council had been able to freeze council tax (as if all councils don't in election years) by eliminating waste while "at the same time, frontline services have been protected". By coincidence the front page headline of the March 11 issue of the local free paper, the Post, lying in people's recycling bins, was "SOLICITOR TO FIGHT HOUSING WARDEN CUTS":

Lambeth council could face a legal fight after slashing its number of sheltered housing wardens by almost 25 per cent to save money. The Labour-run council cut the number of wardens who look after more than 1,000 elderly and vulnerable people living in sheltered housing schemes from 28 to 22 late last year.

Apparently Labour doesn't regard wardens for people in sheltered housing as a "front line service". Having said this, this sort of thing is par for the course under capitalism whichever party runs the council. And, by all accounts, it's going to get worse as whatever government emerges from the general election starves councils of funds and gives priority to repaying those capitalists who have recently lent the government money.

Another item "Lib Dems soft on crime" said of the Lib Dems:

They voted against Labour's Safer Neighbourhood Police Teams, tried to legalise hard drugs, and launched a bid to decriminalise kerb crawling putting women at risk from abusers.

Time was when the Labour Party used to support such liberal reforms. Not any more. They're more Conservative these days.

Blood sports and the old ruling class

It's started. Single-issue campaigning groups contacting candidates about their single issue. Yesterday the League Against Cruel Sports asked us to reply to this question:

If elected to Parliament and the opportunity arose, would you vote in favour of repeal of the Hunting Act?

We sent the following reply:

The good old English sport of sending hungry hunting hounds to chase aristocrats through the woods, catch them and rip them to pieces, has been slow to take off as a popular pastime. Despite claims that these predatory parasites are a foul rural presence, serving only to infect the countryside with their conceited greed and indolence, it has been hard to find dogs with sufficient brutality to enjoy the so-called sport. Those who favour such hunts claim that it is nothing more than a healthy rural tradition, misunderstood by town dwellers, and that ripping duchesses and viscounts to shreds is the most human way to rid nature of those who have only survived historically by plundering and murdering others. The Royal Society for the Protection of Useless Aristocrats has been long split on the issue, with one section accepting that such blood sport is "just a bit of harmless fun", while others prefer the idea of culling – or permanent quarantine in the House of Lords.

This laboured account would be funnier were it not for the harsh reality that rich, privileged, barbaric bullies, most of whom are brutalised at birth by hereditary right and public-school conditioning, do indeed defend their right to chase around the countryside with packs of hounds in order to savage and tear apart defenceless animals. Their callous defence is mounted in the name of sport. And because it is traditional for these parasitical killers to dress up in the costumes of their class and indulge their pleasure in watching deer, foxes and other animals being ripped apart, they respond with well-rehearsed cries of arrogant immunity to human behaviour when their ritualised sadism is opposed.

Their protest for the right to hunt and murder animals for fun is no more worthy of support than a campaign to reintroduce slavery or to bring back the deportation of criminals.

Daniel Lambert, Socialist Party candidate, Vauxhall

We understand that the MP for Vauxhall, Kate Hoey, takes a rather different attitude. But a word of caution: we are standing on a straight socialist programme and nothing else and only want people to vote for us if they want a world of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use not sale and profit. So, if (like any decent human being) you are against killing animals for pleasure but don't want socialism, please don't vote for us.

Why we contest elections

For those, particularly anarchists, who say we should have nothing to with elections, the new pamphlet What's Wrong with Using Parliament? we are bringing out explains why we disagree.

Anti (some) capitalists but not anti-capitalism

It seems that the League for the Fifth International have not received the endorsement of Bob Crow, Militant and the SWP who run the "Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition" and so will not be standing in Vauxhall in the coming General Election under that title. They now say will they be standing as "the Anticapitalists".

Their manifesto, however, suggests that they are only against some capitalists (the bankers) and are not against the wages-prices-profits system that is capitalism but think that if you soak the rich (especially the bankers) it can be made to serve the interests of the majority.

This is what they say:

The Government gave £1 trillion to the banks. We want it back! Anticapitalists say take over the banks, who are making giant profits again, and raise taxes on the rich . . . Spend the money on a massive programme of public works -- creating three million jobs, a million affordable homes and a national repair and improve programme for council flats and houses.

So, the rich are still going to exist -- which means of course that capitalism is still going to exist -- but are to be taxed to pay for a massive public works programme. Either they believe that this is possible -- in which case they are not living on this planet. Or they know it's not possible but are just making promises they think will attract a following -- in which case they are no better than the career politicians in the main parties.

Their manifesto also says:

Labour has let ordinary people down, spending all our money on bankers and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now Labour wants to make us pay the price with cuts to jobs, pay and services.

Calling the money the government spends "our money" when we never had it in the first place is bit fanciful, but presiding over cuts is what Labour, being the current managers of British capitalism PLC, are obliged to do more or less helplessly (as would any party that takes on the job of running capitalism). But then we are told elsewhere:

In constituencies where there are no anticapitalist, socialist or trade unionist candidates, Workers Power is calling for a Labour vote.

Since this will apply to the vast majority of constituencies this is in effect a call to re-elect the outgoing Labour government . . . "which now wants to make us pay the price with cuts to jobs, pay and services". Their only argument is that Labour is "the lesser evil" as the Tories would be worse. An argument that is music to the ears of the professional politicians in the Labour Party anxious to continue enjoying the fruits of power and who don't care why people vote Labour as long as they do.

It's not a valid argument since the problems we face are not caused by which party is in office but by the capitalist system whose operation they have to preside over and go along with. That's why changing governments changes nothing. It's capitalism that's the "evil" not which group of professional politicians forms the government.

What’s wrong with politics?

With a general election coming up soon what exactly will be on offer from the main contenders? No doubt more of the same but couched in terms intended to give us confidence that this time promises will be kept, regulations will be tightened and adhered to, unemployment will be tackled and reduced (figures can be manipulated). A minor change here, a cosmetic tweak there, but the status quo will endure regardless.

When reading or listening to the pre-election promises and then thinking back rationally to other, similar pledges by previous candidates and recalling the reality of U-turns, excuses and failure to deliver over the years, how could anyone doubt the absolute imperative of addressing the question of what’s gone wrong with politics with the utmost seriousness? If we simply moan and complain from our armchairs what will change? A compliant, too passive electorate is repeatedly defrauded.

At this time of impending election madness if you think you've been cheated over the years, you're right; capitalism is nothing but a racket. The proof of the failure of the world capitalist system to meet the needs and aspirations of the majority of the population of every country of the world is there for all to see, clear and manifest, if only they will open their eyes wide and acknowledge the overwhelming evidence.

Politics, the activities associated with how a country or an area is run, is something which should engage the interest and activity of every citizen worldwide as it bears directly on all aspects of life. The reason for contempt or indifference towards politics comes from a history of being excluded, the expectation of being excluded and the acceptance of being excluded. To be heard, to be considered, to be represented honestly we need to be involved in the decision-making processes, not to be told what is in our best interest by self-serving professional politicians. We need a system that works for us all, of which we're all an integral part, a system we're prepared to work to attain. What we need is socialism.

-- one of the articles in a socialist newsletter currently being delivered door-to-door in the Larkhill and Ferndale wards.

Our candidates

For Vauxhall, at the General Election, the Socialist candidate will be Danny Lambert.

In the local elections, in Lambeth, the candidates will be:
Ferndale ward: Danny Lambert, John Lee and Jacqueline Shodeke.
Larkhill ward: Oliver Bond, Adam Buick, Stan Parker.

The Socialist Party will also be contesting Kentish Town ward of Camden council, where the candidate will be Bill Martin.

Las Falklands

The recent drilling for oil near the Falklands has re-ignited the dispute between British capitalism and Argentine capitalism over which has legitimate sovereignty over the islands, a dispute which led to war in 1982.

At that time Michael Foot was the Leader of the Labour Party. He wholeheartedly support the war. This was how the May 1982 Socialist Standard reported the pro-war speech he delivered in the House of Commons on 30 March:

Of course the real star of the Labour benches was Michael Foot. Belying his reputation as a doddering, ineffectual bungler, the Labour leader lashed the government for their "betrayal of those who looked to it for protection" (he was not talking about workers struggling to live on social security). "We should not," he raged, "see foul, brutal aggression successful in our world." (He was not attacking the record of past Labour governments on Korea, Malaysia, Biafra, Vietnam . ..) Foot's speech was applauded by the MPs as a flag-waving, drum banging demand for war in which, of course, he would not personally be in the front line. It was, we remember, only a few months ago that he won an affectionate ovation at a Labour Party gathering by describing himself as "as inveterate peacemonger".

The League for the Fifth International (along with the other Trotskyist groups) also supported the war, but the other side. They, as they recall in a press statement issued today, supported General Galtieri sending thousands of Argentine conscripts to their death:

In 1982 Workers Power opposed Thatcher’s bloody war, and on the streets of London took a clear and unequivocal position for the defeat of Britain and the victory of Argentina.

They weren't personally going to be in the front line either.

We in the Socialist Party adopted the traditional socialist position:

THE FALKLANDS CRISIS
In face of the imminent threat of war over the potential wealth of the Falkland Islands the Socialist Party of Great Britain affirms:
1 That despite the wave of jingoistic hysteria in the press and its endorsement by Labour and Tory politicians alike, no working class interests in Britain, Argentina or the Falklands themselves can be served by war.
2 That neither the military junta in Buenos Aires nor the elected representatives of British capitalism, least of all the business interests of Coalite-Charringtons, can justify the shedding of a single drop of working class blood.
3 That the new-found outrage at the undemocratic and oppressive nature of the Argentine regime rings false coming from a government which was arming that regime until the eve of hostilities.
4 That the crucial role of Argentine capitalism in profitably making-up the notorious shortfall of agricultural production within the Russian Empire goes far to explain the support given to the junta by the local "Communist Party" and the muted criticism of it by the same circles who so vociferously denounce the similar dictatorship in Chile and its parallel suppression of trade unionism anc free speech.
We therefore reiterate that having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow-workers of all lands the expression of goodwill and socialist fraternity and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism in all its guises and the establishment of socialism throughout the world, the only way to end war.
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 13 April 1982

We don't like inequality...

...and by we, I mean all of us, according to researchers: "In the experiment, people who started out rich had a stronger reaction to other people getting money than to themselves getting money," Camerer explains. "In other words, their brains liked it when others got money more than they liked it when they themselves got money." that is, we appear to be 'hardwired' for equality and fairness. Of course, the next lot of researchers might cotnradict this, but it does show a trend in research that suggests that inequality is injurious to all, not jut those on the sharp end of the stick.

So, how about working towards an equal society? Start with helping our election campaigns - it's in your own interest.

Standing alone

For the record, here's a letter we had published in last week's Weekly Worker (25 February):

The Socialist Party will be standing a candidate in Vauxhall, London, in the coming general election, just as we did in 2005. We are standing on a straight socialist ticket, opposed to all the other candidates, including 'Workers Power' (or the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, if they get the endorsement).

We do not support the idea of a 'new workers' party' - ie, a Labour Party mark two. That's been tried in the last century and failed, and would fail again because it is built not on support for socialism, but on leadership and reforms of capitalism.

Further information is available at http://spgb.blogspot.com.

It seems that the Fifth Internationalites are having difficulty getting endorsement from Bob Crow and the others in TUSC. At least this is what this passage in an article about a more recent breakaway from the SWP suggests:

In the coming general election, let’s break resolutely with the Respect tradition of cross-class politics and mount an independent working class challenge. Workers Power is standing Jeremy Drinkall in Vauxhall on a clear and uncompromising Anticapitalist ticket. The Left Platform could do the same in other areas, and fight to get the endorsement of the Trade Unionist and Socialist coalition, without agreeing to limit your programme to what Bob Crow is prepared to allow.

Potholes and socialism

OK, lo and behold, I talk about potholes, and they become a national issue: from today's Today programme, '£8.5bn needed for road resurfacing.'

See, the problem is that big infrastructural budgets are the first casualty of any budget cutting - the accountability scale is longer than most politicians terms of office. Underfunding of roads will only begin revealing defects ten years down the line, and persistent underfunding, will simply lead to a long slow decline. This decline will be very expensive to reverse, so the relative underfunding will continue because the political rewards of such repairs will be slow in coming. It’s hard to point to something not being broken.

Depreciation, or amortisation, of capital stock is dealt with separately from current accounts. Essentially, the roads are paid for up front, normally through public debts. Local authorities take out 60 year mortgages to pay for infrastructure, so over that period, they have to pay the initial capital back plus interest. So, while it's depreciating, it's still being paid for in the first place.

Of course, if the debt lives longer than the time scale required to completely replace/renew the roads, then more debt will have to be piled on to carry out that work.

Socialism can't promise infinite riches, or that choices of priorities won't have to be made, but we can say that socialism would end the requirement to turn loans back into money - essentially ending the distinction between the current and capital accounts. All activity would have to be accounted for out of real currently available resources, rather than notional capitalisations.

Further, there won't be the option for externalities - at present councils are not required to take account of the cost of the damage poorly maintained roads do to vehicle stock, but in a system of common ownership, we would have to balance the impact on inventories of vehicle repair versus road maintenance.

Saocialism isn't a magic wand, but it does offer the prospect of accountability and the mechanisms by which we can take proper control of our own communities and our social environment.

Capitalism: A Dirty Word

Three of us went last night to see Michael Moore's latest film Capitalism: A Love Story at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. It was less than half full with only 30 others there.

The film does contribute to helping make "capitalism" a dirty word, but that's about it. Capitalism is defined, as by its supporters, are "free enterprise", "profit" and "competition" and the worst excesses of the unregulated competitive pursuit of profits by private corporations are exposed. But the analysis is weak : that things weren't going too badly -- workers had steady jobs and were able to adopt a "middle class" lifestyle -- until Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980 and financial deregulation was introduced and started a feeding frenzy by financial institutions that eventually led to the crash of 2008. It's basically an attack on Wall Street and the New York banks on behalf of blue-collar workers. Moore denounces "capitalism" as being against both the "American value" of democracy and the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. As a solution he offers worker-run co-operatives and a Europe-style "Welfare State" (which the film naively claims would have been introduced in America if Roosevelt hadn't died in 1945).

Still we mustn't be too churlish and it can't be a bad thing that capitalism is becoming a dirty word even in America. It deserves to be. Let's hope that the film encourages people to look further into what capitalism is and find out how it can never work, or be made to work, in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary workers. And that socialism, not welfare capitalism, is the way out. Hopefully the leaflet we handed out and left lying around will help towards this.

Glum Councillors

One of my favourite blogs is Glum Councillors a collection of stock photos of local councillors posed, pointing at graffitti, vandalism or potholes in the road. Much like the one here.

Now, this phenomena relates to a style of boss politics - vote for me and "I'll get things done for you." A kind of gift relation, we give our votes, they give us public service. Of course, really, fixing the roads is a technical matter for the highways officers, councillors are there to be political - to decide priorities, direction and style of a council. Most of the time they are simply there to oversee moneybeing handed down to them from Whitehall to spend on non-discretionary matters.

Once, I'm sure I've written about it here, when out campaigning, someone asked us 'What are you going to do about the potholes in the roads?' the comrade who was with me suggested giving the guy a shovel. That's not far off our attitude, not necessarilly dig it yourself, but you can organise yourselves, and if you have a problem, get it sorted, without asking the boss man to do it for you.

Doubtless I could (and probably will) write about roads, road transport and its condition, but the point I want to make here is anyone can go around saying 'I'll do my best for you' and promise to nag officials to do their jobs (Fib-Dems are very good at that) but we're not contesting elections for that reason - we think there is a political decision to be made about the type of society we are living in, and that is the platform we stand on.

Lies, Damned Lies and Lib Dems

Went down to Brixton Town Hall today to pick up the nomination papers and electoral registers for the two wards we'll be contesting in the local elections. Somebody gave me a leaflet. As it was in blue I assumed it was a Tory one but when you opened it it turned out to be a from the Liberals. Obviously aimed at Tories, it proclaimed "The Conservatives can't beat Labour here. Only the Lib Dems can".

What, the Liberals think they can win Vauxhall? If they did then the Cameron clone who is their Leader would be Prime Minister and Vince Cable (the only Liberal politician anyone knows) would be Chancellor and have to put his money were his mouth is. Vauxhall is one of the safest Labour seats in London where the Alternative Vote isn't needed as the Labour candidate got nearly 53% of the vote at the last general election. Then I realised that I'd strayed over the border into the neighbouring constituency of Streatham.

The Liberal leaflet contained the claim they use everywhere -- it's a two-horse race and we're in it with a good chance of winning. Here in central London they're appealing to Tories to vote Liberal to keep Labour out. Further out, to the South West, where there are three Liberal MPs (including Vince Cable) they're appealing to Labour supporters to vote Liberal to keep the Tories out. The leaflet had a bar graph showing Labour and Liberal neck and neck with the Tories trailing in third place with well under half the Liberal support. The caption said "The results from the last elections here, in 2009". The last elections, in 2009, were those for the European Parliament. Here are the actual figures for the whole of Lambeth (not just Streatham): Labour 15990 Liberal 11340 Tory 10537 Green 10394 Others 9339.

The lesson of this? Don't believe any statistics you read on Liberal leaflets. The chances are they are falsified.

There was a political point on the leaflet that needs taking up. It claimed "Everyone knows someone who's lost their job because of the way Labour have run the country". We hold no brief for Labour (obviously not) but this is not true. The government is not to blame. Everybody will know someone who's lost their job but it's because of the way capitalism works and would have worked whichever party was in power. Rival politicians would have us believe that if only their party had been in power things would have been different. Not true. What is responsible for the social ills we face is not which party is in office but the profit system we live under. The way out is not to change the politicians who form the government but to replace capitalism with socialism. To make this point is why we are contesting the elections.

Weapons of class war

My attention has just be drawn to this: Commander's Guide to Money as a Weapons System Handbook seemingly a genuine US military guide that says what we have been saying for years - money is a weapon.

At home and abroad it is a weapon in warfare, particularly class warfare by the rich against the poor. Looking through, some of the funds are for 'entertainment' and raising the prestige of the military.

So, as the strapline goes "Money is my most important ammunition in this war."
-MG David Petraeus, 101st Airborne Division Air Assault.

Focus on Vauxhall

OK, so that was the national stats, lets throw in what we know about London:

For October to December 2009:

The employment rate was 68.7 per cent and there were 3.71 million employed people.

The unemployment rate was 9.1 per cent and there were 373,000 unemployed people.

The inactivity rate was 24.2 per cent and there were 1,253,000 working age inactive people.

According to this constituency profile (which I will add to the sidebar) back in June 2009 Vauxhall had a nearly 4% greater unemployment rate than London (which was about 2% over the national average), so we could reasonably infer that Vauxhall will have greater than 12% unemployment, around 9 to 10 thousand unemployed.

What emerges from even these scant glances through the official statistics is the shocking normality of these conditions, that such widespread unemployment (and as we have seen from previous posts) poverty should nt be a burning priority, but an after thought to servicing the wishes of the insanely wealthy.

The Tories like to beat Labour with the "class war" stick. We, though, are calling for class war, for a struggle for the thousands and millions abused and held down by the wages working to organise themselves to abolish that condition.

The statistics speak

According to National Statistics' Labour Market Statistics Statistical Bulletin - February 2010 (PDF) there is an interesting employment picture in the UK.

The number of people in full-time employment fell by 37,000 on the quarter to reach 21.22 million, the smallest quarterly fall since the three months to July 2008. The number of people in part-time employment increased by 25,000 on the quarter to reach 7.67 million. There were 1.04 million employees and self-employed people working part-time because they could not find a full-time job. This is the highest figure since records for this series began in 1992 and it is up 37,000 on the quarter.

That is, on top of the 2.46 million actually without jobs, 663,000 of whom have been out of work for over a year. they are included in

The inactivity rate for October to December 2009 was 21.3 per cent, up 0.2 on the quarter but below the record high of 23.3 per cent recorded in 1983. The number of inactive people of working age increased by 72,000 over the quarter to reach a record high of 8.08 million. This increase in inactivity was largely driven by the number of students not in the labour market which has increased by 62,000 on the quarter to reach 2.26 million, the highest since comparable records began in 1993.

3.5 million people comprise the make-up of the reserve army of labour that is essential to capitalism, our system of society could not exist without thse 3.5 million. A great many more re hunkering down and taking themselves out of the jobs market as long as they can until things clear over.

Of course, these figures are dwrfed by the 21.22 million who are actually in full-time employment. But for every seven people who have a proper job, one person is un-or-underemployed. That would be true, if unemployment were scattered around, but we all know it concentrates, in communities like Lambeth, which have high levels of unemployment and low pay generally.

Last time

Here's a reminder of how we did last time we stood candidates for Lambeth Council, four years ago in May 2006.

The results for the two wards we are planning to contest this time can be found here for Ferndale and here for Larkhall.

Mute inglorious Milton.

According to the BBC, poverty is linked to poor language acquisitiion among poor children.

Children from the poorest homes are almost a year behind middle class pupils in language skills by the time they start school, research suggests.

Now, as of 2008, according to the Lambeth State of the Borough report:

The proportion of children and young people living in poverty is higher than average, as is infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, childhood obesity, primary and secondary school permanent exclusion levels and the proportion of 16-18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training.

Lets put this into perspective with some detail

Two in five (41%) London children live in poverty compared to 28% nationwide. This rises to 51% in Inner London. Borough level figures are not available, but Lambeth can be expected to exceed the Inner London figure. Just over a third (33.8%) of children in Lambeth live in families on key benefits compared to 24% in London; Lambeth ranks as the 11th highest in Great Britain and more children live ‘in care’ in Lambeth than across the capital and the rest of the country (110 per 10,000 children under 18 were looked after, compared to 70 in London and 55 in England).

Over half of children in Lambeth are living in poverty. That's half who will be robbed of their potential to achive by the cumulative drag on life chances created by poverty. So much for Labour's pledge to end child poverty. They've barely dented it.

Local elections too

Even if the general election isn't on Thursday 6 May, there will be elections that day. In London all the borough councils will be elected, including Lambeth. The Socialist Party will be contesting two wards here: Ferndale ward and Larkhill ward. We have already leafleted the wards twice and will be doing so again in the near future.

Here is an article from one of our leaflets:

The Brixton Pound – What for?

In September a group of enthusiasts, supported by the Council, launched the Brixton Pound. These are vouchers that can be used, instead of pound coins and £5 and £10 notes, to buy from shops in Brixton – provided, that is, that the shop is prepared to accept them.

But what's the point (apart from helping local shopkeepers)? What difference does it make what coloured pieces of paper we have to use to get the things we need to live? The real problem is that in present-day, capitalist society we have to use money at all to obtain these, and that the amount of money we have will always be rationed by what we get as wages or as benefits. That restricts and distorts our lives.

But it doesn't have to be like this. If the waste and artificial shortages of capitalism were eliminated we could easily produce enough to go over to getting what we need on the basis of the principle from each according to our abilities to each according to our needs. In other words, free access to what we need without having to hand over coloured pieces of paper or to use cards or vouchers of any kind.

Maybe you think that this wouldn't work because (other) people would take too much. Soledad Brother George Jackson answered that one in one of his prison letters:

"Consider the people's store, after full automation, the implementation of the theory of economic advantage. You dig, no waste makers, no harnesses on production. There is no intermediary, no money. The store, it stocks everything that the body or home could possibly use. Why won't the people hoard, how is an operation like that possible, how could the storing place keep its stores if its stock (merchandise) is free?
Men hoard against want, need, don't they? Aren’t they taught that tomorrow holds terror, pile up a surplus against this terror, be greedy and possessive if you want to succeed in this insecure world? Nuts hidden away for tomorrow's winter.
Change the environment, educate the man, he'll change. The people's store will work as long as people know that it will be there, and have in abundance the things they need and want (really want); when they are positive that the common effort has and will always produce an abundance, they won’t bother to take home more than they need.
Water is free, do people drink more than they need?"

The person whose face appears on the Brixton ten-pound note – CLR James – also saw free access and "from each according to ability, to each according to need" as the ultimate goal. We see it as the immediate goal if we are ever going to get off the treadmill of having to work for money to buy the things we need to be able to go on working for money.

All Socialists Now?

It looks as if there will be two other candidates in Vauxhall claiming to be socialist.
1. Joseph Healey, "Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall at the next general election - the green, socialist alternative". We met at hustings for last year's European Parliament elections when he was on the Green Party's list. The Green Party as a party stands for small-scale capitalism.

2. Jeremy Drinkall, of Workers Power, "the British section of the League for the Fifth International", a Trotskyist grouping (what else with a name like that?). They are trying to get the endorsement of the "Trade Unionists and Socialists Coalition" set up by Militant (falsely calling themselves us) and the SWP, but are by no means certain to get it. What this ridiculously named Trotskyist sect stands for is of course state capitalism under a vanguard party (them)

Naturally we've challenged the both of them to debate.

Watch this space for the outcome.

Murder by poverty

Well, lefty blogs are awash with rumours today. But let's leave them to one side, and look at somethign much more improtant.

Something, noticeably, the BBC doesn't seem to find all that important, as they report on a study by Sir Michael Marmot. This report isn't on their websites front page (as write), nor on their politics page.

Look at the headline: "Poorest in England live 7 years less on average" It says it all, really. We are being robbed of years on Earth. Simple as that. The poor, and there are many of them in Lambeth, simply do not get the basic right to live as long as the wealthy. Look back on your last seven years, all that happened in it, all that happened to your familly. That is what they are robbing from you.

In typically capitalist money concern way, we get: "Professor Mike Kelly, of the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said: "Public health interventions are extremely good value when compared with the costs of clinical interventions." It would be cheaper, it seems to pay us better.

The BBC won't bang the drum, so we have to. Get out there, blog about this. This is the story of the year. The story of last year. The story of all years to come until we get rid of this unequal society.

Your vote counts

Well, electoral reform is back on the agenda.

Our view? In a nutshell: so long as the mechanics are in place so that a majority of workers can organise to effect socialism, then it doesn't matter precisely how you count the votes. So far as we're concerned, it is the movement of the vast majority in the interest of the vast majority that matters. Getting a technical victory by counting one more nose than the rest isn't what we're about.

What we remain more concerned about is the rights of minorities to try and become majorities, which are hampered by the mainstream media focusing on the existing parties and making it difficult for candidates to be heard on the stages where they need to be in order to make their case.

Where we stand

Well, I was going to kick off our campaign by, well, kicking off and giving some of our opponents a good slagging off. That is to come, though. Instead, let me try and tell you about Lambeth.

In the sidebar, you can see a link to Lambeth Statistics.

Here are some interesting facts about Lambeth (the borough where the Vauxhall Parliamentary Constituency lies).

Only 67% of Lambeth's working age residents were classified as employed in 2006/2007, compared with 69% across London and 74% nationally and in May 2007 17% were benefit claimants.

In 2007, there were around 10,000 businesses in Lambeth; but more than three-quarters of these had fewer than five employees (ABI 2007). In fact according to the 2007 Lambeth Economic Digest 99.65% of businesses in the borough are Small or Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Conversely, in the north of the borough there is a cluster of large firms, 48 of which employ more than 200 employees; among these are the national headquarters of IBM, Shell, and the ITV network. Nearly all employees employed in the borough work in the service industry (94%), with roles in public sector, education and health particularly prevalent.

There are around 270,000 people who live in Lambeth. There are 117,000 jobs (obviously, not everyone employed in the borough lives in the borough, and vice versa). Of the residents, 122,000 are in employment. 19,000 are self employed. 7% are retired. 13,000 are unemployed.

Median gross annual income is £32,000 - and they calculate that added value across the borough is £25,000. So, in this overwhelmingly working class borough, if (in an imaginary land) the workers secured the fruits of their labours by hand or by brain, they'd be living on an income of about £50K each. Of course, such a thing couldn't be achieved within the market system, but it is that base inequality of all that hardwork, and the massive gap between the efforts and the fruits that forms the ground we stand on. We hope the workers of Vauxhall will look at their situation, and decide enough is enough, and signal to their fellow workers the world over that they are prepared to do a something about it.

2010 Vauxhall Manifesto

Here we go again, kids, another year, another election. Our Executive Committee (which is directly elected from our membership), are charged by our rules to agree our election addresses.

They did this on Saturday just gone. Below is the platform on which we will be contesting the General Election:

Capitalism Must Go

These elections are taking place in the middle of the biggest economic and financial crisis since the 1930s. In a world that has the potential to produce enough food, clothes, housing and the other amenities of life for all, factories are closing down, workers are being laid off, unemployment is growing, houses are being repossessed and people are having to tighten their belts. And for once the main parties are being honest in offering more of the same, competing with each other as to which of them is going to impose the most “savage cuts”.

Capitalism in relatively "good" times is bad enough, but capitalism in an economic crisis makes it plain for all to see that it is not a system geared to meeting people's needs. It’s a system based on the pursuit of profits, where the harsh economic law of "no profit, no production" prevails. The headlong pursuit of profits has led to a situation where the owners can't make profits at the same rate as before. The class who own and control the places where wealth is produced have gone on strike – refusing to allow these workplaces to be used to produce what people need, some desperately. So, as in the 1930s, it’s poverty in the midst of potential plenty again. Cutbacks in production and services alongside unmet needs. Why should we put up with this? There is an alternative.

But that's the way capitalism works, and must work. The politicians in charge of the governments don't really know what to do, not that they can do much to change the situation anyway. They are just hoping that the panic measures they have taken will work. But the slump won’t end until conditions for profitable production have come about again, and that requires real wages to fall and unprofitable firms to go out of business. So, there's no way that bankruptcies, cut-backs and lay-offs are going to be avoided, whatever governments do or whichever party is in power.

What can be done? Nothing within the profit system. It can‘t be mended, so it must be ended. But this is something we must do ourselves.

The career politicians, with their empty promises and futile measures, can do nothing for us. We need to organise to bring in a new system where goods and services are produced to meet people's needs. But we can only produce what we need if we own and control the places where this is carried out. So these must be taken out of the hands of the rich individuals, private companies and states that now control them and become the common heritage of all, under our democratic control. In short, socialism in its original sense. This has nothing to do with the failed state capitalism that used to exist in Russia or with what still exists in China and Cuba.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY is putting up a candidate, here in Vauxhall, to give you a chance to show that you don't want capitalism but want instead a society of common ownership, democratic control and production just for use not profit, with goods and services available on the basis of "from each according to ability, to each according to needs".

If you agree, you can show this by voting for us. But more importantly get in touch with us to help working towards such a society after the election is over.

Stay tuned, as ever, for incisive comment and discussion of the ins and outs of an election campaign.

Alter Egos

Yesterday at a book fair in Oxford got chatting with someone on the Communist Party of Britain/Morning Star stall who explained that the Scargill Labour Party had been prepared to join the petty nationalist No2EU list but that there was a last minute hitch. Scargill demanded that he be No 1 on the list in London. Unfortunately, this had already been reserved for his Alter Ego, Bob Crow. They offered King Arthur the No 1 place on the list in Yorkshire (where presumably he could be expected to be better known and more popular) but he refused -- perhaps he had got wind of the fact that a number of ex-miners were planning to switch to the BNP. So the deal fell through. Don't know if there's any truth in this bit of gossip but here seemed the best place to record it for posterity.

In the event Crow beat Scargill in London, but Scargill's list beat Crow's in 7 of the 9 other regions. At least they settled the argument through elections. Which wouldn't have been the case in the state-capitalist ex-USSR the both of them so admired.

What's Left?

Bought a copy of Socialist Worker on Saturday as they happened to have a stall (or rather their front organisation Stop the War did) at the same Peace Fair in West London that we did. It was interesting to read the following in a piece headed "What about the radical left?":

Five years ago Respect polled 4.84 percent across London, beating the BNP. The combined left vote in London was down this year to 2.1 percent.

The No2EU (Communist Party/Militant list) got 17,758, or 1.02%. The Scargill Labour Party got 15,036, or 0.88%. That only makes 1.9%. So where does the other 0.2% come from. You've guessed. It must be our 4050, or 0.23%.

We should be flattered I suppose but because of the association of the "Left" with what went on in Russia and with Labour-style reformism we don't like to be classified as part of the Left (though we know what people mean when they do this). We certainly don't like being classified with these two lists, both led by ex-members of the Communist Party who still haven't broken with its ideology and still think the former USSR was socialist (and Militant too thought that the USSR was some sort of "Workers State"). In any event, we're no part of this State Capitalist Left.

But let's run with this for a moment. The total "radical Left" vote was 37,114. Our "contribution" was 4050, or 10.9%. So one in 10 of the "radical left" would be people prepared to vote for the SPGB, ie real socialism as opposed to the state capitalism favoured by most of the rest. Though this is probably more a reflection of their weakness rather than our strength. Still.

The same issue of Socialist Worker commits the SWP to convening a "conference of all those committed to presenting candidates representing working class interests at the next election". Be interesting to see if they send us an invitation as that's what we'll be doing. If they did, we could tell the gathering that the only way to pursue working class interests is to advocate a worldwide society of common ownership, democratic control, production solely for use not profit, and distribution on the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs", and nothing but. But, being realistic, we don't think they'd accept this.

More statistics

All the London boroughs have now published the results of the election in their area (to see them in full, type in the name of the borough followed by .gov.uk). These allow us to calculate the percentage of the vote obtained by the Socialist list, more significant than the actual number. Here they are, divided into above and below the overall average vote of 0.23% (4050 votes):

0.45 219 Haringey
0.43 227 Lewisham
0.32 149 Islington
0.31 164 Waltham Forest
0.30 150 Hounslow
0.30 146 Newham
0.29 135 Camden (*)
0.28 127 Tower Hamlets (*)
0.28 103 Westminster
0.28 99 Barking and Dagenham
0.27 158 Lambeth (*)
0.27 120 Hackney
0.26 138 Southwark
0.24 160 Enfield
0.24 114 Greenwich
0.23 163 Ealing (*)
0.23 93 Hammersmith and Fulham

BELOW AVERAGE
0.22 137 Harrow
0.22 137 Havering
0.20 136 Wandsworth
0.19 151 Barnet
0.19 113 Brent
0.18 111 Bexley
0.18 111 Redbridge
0.17 149 Bromley
0.16 138 Croydon
0.16 98 Hillingdon
0.15 81 Richmond
0.15 74 Merton
0.14 66 Sutton
0.14 3 City of London
0.12 52 Kingston
0.11 32 Kensington and Chelsea

(*) = borough where the post office delivered our manifesto to parts.

These confirms that, as could have been anticipated, we did better in the inner London area than in the outer suburbs to the South. For those who don't know London, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Merton, Sutton, Kingston and Richmond form a continuous swathe of territory that has more in common with neigbouring Kent and Surrey than with the rest of London.

Why Haringey should be our best result is unclear though a lot of work has been put in there over the years including contesting the parliamentary seat of Hornsey on a number of occasions. With regard to Lewisham, it is tempting to speculate again that this is due to Militant, which has a couple of councillors there who say they are from the "Socialist Party" (though not on the ballot paper), being hoist by their own petard for usurping our name.

Kensington and Chelsea is where the knobs live.

The Lambeth Talk

On Sunday 6 members went to the count in the Assembly Hall next to Lambeth (ex-Brixton) Town Hall, before 2 of us moved on to the count at Southwark. We were met by the Deputy Returning Officer who knows us from previous elections we've contested in the area over the years.

The election agent was allowed to see the rejected ballot papers. Most had voted for more than one candidate, though the combination was not always comprehensible like the voter who voted UKIP and Yes to Europe. A number of others voted Labour or Liberal and Yes to Europe, presumably thinking that the Yes to Europe box near the bottom of the ballot paper was some sort of referendum on the issue. Others wrote rude things or drew rude drawings on the paper. Others wrote None of the Above. Somebody cast a write-in vote for Kylie Minogue. Curiously all these went into a pile marked "Uncertain" despite the intention of all of them being quite certain.

When the two of us went on to the Southwark count we, as candidates, were greeted as honoured guests by the Returning Officer who had not expected any candidates to turn up. However, Simon soon disagraced us by touching a ballot paper, which is absolutely banned. Also present was a tall young man with a beard and a badge saying "agent". I asked him for who and he replied, apologetically as if I might hit him, "BNP". I quipped you can't be as you've got a beard. It obviously takes all sorts.

Anyway, back to Lambeth. Here's the result:

Labour 15,990
Lib Dems 11,340
Con 10,537
Green.10,394
UKIP 3,111
Christian 2,154
BNP 1,174 (2.04%)
SLP 653 (1.13%)
Eng Dem 488
No2EU 478 (0.83%)
Libertas 281
Jury Team 194 4%
Cheung (Ind) 187
Jananayagam (Ind) 176
Socialist Party 158 (0.27%)
Yes 2 Europe 155
Saad (Ind) 48
Alcanatara (Ind) 46
Rahman (Ind)36

There were 558 rejected ballot papers.

We have to confess that this was a bit of a disappointment as, in the same area last year, there'd been 917 votes cast for the Socialist candidate. So what happened to the "missing" 759 votes? The poll was lower by about a quarter this time, so that might account for 200 or so of them. And the rest? One possible explanation is that some of them were people who considered themselves socialists and who are prepared to vote for any party or candidate calling themselves "socialist" and who voted for Arthur Scargill's SLP, either because it appeared on the ballot paper before us or because they thought him or his party better than us.

Having said this, we have received a number of interesting replies to the manifesto which the post office delivered to two-fifths of the households in the borough which we'll be following up individually. Plans to contest the general election in Vauxhall, and two wards in the borough elections next May, are going ahead.

Breakdown by borough

Here it is, but the absolute figures can be misleading in that some boroughs are larger than others and there was a higher turnout in some. Not all the boroughs have yet produced full results so the percentages are only given for those who have.

Barking & Dagenham 99
Barnet 151 (0.19%)
Bexley 111
Brent 113
Bromley 149 (0.17%)
Camden 135 (0.29%)
City of London 3
Croydon 138
Ealing 163 (0.23%)
Enfield 160 (0.24%)
Greenwich 114 (0.24%)
Hackney 120 (0.27%)
Hammersmith & Fulham 93
Haringey 219 (0.45%)
Harrow 137
Havering 133
Hillingdon 98
Hounslow 150 (0.30%)
Islington 149
Kensington & Clelsea 32 (0.11%)
Kingston 52
Lambeth 158
Lewisham 227
Merton 74 (0.15%)
Newham 146 (0.30%)
Redbridge 111
Richmond 81 (0.15%)
Southwark 138 (0.26%)
Sutton 66
Tower Hamlets 127 (0.28%)
Waltham Forest 164
Wandsworth 136
Westminster 103
TOTAL 4,050 (0.23%)

This is more or less what you'd expect. We were above our average in the inner London boroughs and traditional Labour areas and below our average in the leafy suburbs.

It's a pity we've not got the full results yet for Lambeth. And it's tempting to speculate that our highest absolute number (227 in Lewisham) may have been due to some Militant supporters thinking we were them, but Lewisham is the sort of area where we'd have been expected to get a higher than average vote.

The best result was in Haringey. Which was also rather untypical for the rest of London and the country. What with the Tories and UKIP in 4th and 5th place and the BNP in 7th. And us beating the Jury Team and Libertas.

Elections for the European Parliament 2009

Votes cast in Haringey were as follows:

The Labour Party 14,093
Liberal Democrats 11,550
The Green Party 8,528
Conservative Party 7,396
United Kingdom Independence Party 2,164
Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” 1,408
British National Party 981
Socialist Labour Party (Leader Arthur Scargill) 683
No2EUYestoDemocracy 618
English Democrats Party 339
Jan Jananayagam – Independent 297
The Socialist Party of Great Britain 219
Jury Team 202
Steven Cheung – Independent 131
Yes 2 Europe 111
Pro-Democracy:Libertas.eu 96
Gene Alcantara – Independent 69
Sohale Rahman – Independent 51
Haroon Saad 23

Rejected ballot papers
Voting for more than one candidate 255
Writing or mark by which the voter could be identified 6
Being unmarked or wholly void for uncertainty 129
Total 390

Turnout: 32.35 %

The result

Party	Total vote	% votes
Conservative	479,037	27.4
Labour	372,590	21.3
Liberal Democrats	240,156	13.7
Green Party	190,589	10.9
UK Independence Party	188,440	10.8
British National Party	86,420	4.9
Christian Party-Christian Peoples Alliance	51,336	2.9
Independent - Jan Jananayagam	50,014	2.9
English Democrat	24,477	1.4
No2EU	17,758	1.0
Socialist Labour Party	15,306	0.9
Libertas	8,444	0.5
Jury Team	7,284	0.4
Independent - Steven Cheung	4,918	0.3
Socialist Party of Great Britain	4,050	0.2
Yes 2 Europe	3,384	0.2
Independent - Sohale Rahman	3,248	0.2
Independent - Gene Alcantara	1,972	0.1
Independent - Haroon Saad	1,603	0.1

From The BBC

Discussion of the counts and various ruminations to follow.

The turnout

It's 33.53%, with 1,763,025 votes out of an electorate of 5,257,624. See here. Just under 4 percentage points lower than last time (2004) but over 10 percentage points higher than in 1999.

8 of us are off to various counts this afternoon and evening (the counting is being done in each of the 32 London boroughs).

As a quick guide to our and other minority party candidates (well, more minority parties than others since, with 66.5% abstaining all parties are minority parties), and in case anyone wants to organise a sweepstake on how many votes we'll get, here's some figures:

2,5% 44,076 (to save deposit)
1% 17,630
0.9% 15,867
0.8% 14,104
0.7% 12,341
0.6% 10,578
0.5% 8,815
0.4% 7,052
0.3% 5,289
0.2% 3,526
0.1% 1,763

The only forecast I'm prepared to risk is that we'll get more than the 846 obtained by the candidate of the Weekly Worker in 1999. This time, incidentally, they are saying Vote Labour. I'm sure Labour will be grateful for any extra votes on offer.

Less low turnout?

We've received the following email from the person in charge of the count in Camden:

Following advice from the Regional Returning Officer in the light of the higher than anticipated turnout and also taking account of the ballot paper size, the Local Returning Officer has decided that the start time for the count of votes for Camden is to be put back to 4.30 pm on Sunday 7th June at the Camden Centre.

Higher than anticipated turnout? What does he know that the media speculators don't? Presumably a lot, as they started to "verify" the votes (ie check the number of ballot papers against the number issued) yesterday.

It is not clear whether this applies just to Camden or to the whole of London.

Waiting

Because the last countries to vote in this EU-wide election will not be doing so till Sunday, the votes in the UK won't be counted till then. The votes in London are being counted by London borough, so we'll get an interesting and maybe useful breakdown of our votes. We'll have representatives at the counts in Camden, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets and Southwark and also at City Hall where the votes from the boroughs will be collated and the complicated D’Hondt Rule applied to decide who’s elected.

As we only had a blanket distribution by the post office of all households of our election manifesto in 4 Westminster parliament seats, we will be able to see if this makes any difference to the number of those who register a vote for socialism in the boroughts concerned. These are:

Camden 75,000
Lambeth 55,000
Ealing 51,000
Tower Hamlets 56,000

Members and sympathisers delivered a further 29,000 by hand in the other boroughs but these will probably have been in such small numbers as to make little difference to the overall outcome, except perhaps in Wandsworth and Kingston where 9000 and 5000 respectively were distributed.

Only in 5 of the 32 borough were no leaflets distributed (Brent, Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge, and Kensington & Chelsea).

We'll see. The turnout should be available later today.

Just Voted

Just voted for myself for a change. You're not supposed to canvass within a certain distance of the polling station but the Lib Dums (as Danny calls them) get round this by sticking their posters in the windows of nearby houses. But the Christian Party was better served. The polling station is a Christian centre and above the polling booths is a banner proclaiming "Christ is King" which fits in nicely with their slogan on the ballot paper about "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship". It's as if the polling station was in the Miners Institute in Barnsley with a banner proclaiming "Leader Arthur Scargill" which is the SLP's ballot paper slogan. This has happened before, though this time they've at least taken down the banner proclaiming their economic policy: "Jesus Saves". Naturally, I complained again about this but the staff said they couldn't do anything about it. Maybe an official complaint from a candidate and election agent will carry more weight. Watch this space. On my way back came across a Lib Dum canvaser delivering leaflets on polling day. They must be desperate.

The day before yesterday in Parliament

Danny Lambert reports:

The Party was invited to have a candidate attend a hustings meeting organised by the Public and Commercial Services Union on Tuesday evening at the Houses of Parliament and delegated me to attend. I turned up in good time, found my way to the entrance passing half a dozen well tooled up members of London’s finest, where I was asked to stand on the foot marks, had my photo taken, given a pass with it on to hang round my neck, then through airport like security and I was in.

What struck me immediately as I entered the Great Hall, which is huge, was the amazing level of craftsmanship embodied in the walls and floor and in the oak roof. All that skill was employed solely to aggrandise rulers and to intimidate the ruled.

The meeting was held in one of the many committee rooms that line the corridors. I counted 45 in the cheap seats, the panel of candidates represented No2 EU, Libertas, the Green Party, the Jury team, the Tories and some Baroness who wasn’t a candidate but was standing in for the Lib Dum. The UKIP and the Labour candidates didn’t turn up and I assume the BNP weren’t invited.

We were all given three minuets to give an outline of what we proposed and then it was questions from the floor which could be directed at a specific candidate but we were all able to comment. Most of the assembled were members of the PCS and their questions were all about whether we supported this reform or that one? What we would do about the corruption in the EU? What was our opinion on the Lisbon Treaty? And so on.

During the meeting which was very poorly chaired, members of the audience were allowed to ramble on and repeat themselves, The NO2EU lefty and the Baroness had a long pointless argument with no intervention from the Chair. I thought I gave a decent précis of the Party Case in my three minuets, however no one asked me to expand on or explain what I had put forward, so when it was my turn on a question I gave variations on the stock socialist position on reform and then threw in some of what they should acknowledge about capitalism and what real socialism was all about, and although the applause wasn’t as thunderous as I was anticipating, I did notice some nodding and smiling of recognition. The star of the show was the NO2EU lefty who gave them exactly what they wanted to hear.

The meeting lasted a little over two hours, and at the end I handed out leaflets and every one approached took one.

Just one regret. It's a pity other that some Party members didn't turn up and attend this meeting and put some difficult questions to the various representatives of the Capitalist Party sitting beside me.

The local press

We have to confess that coverage of our list in the local press has been disappointing. We had counted on them to help get across, in areas where the post office wasn't distributing our leaflets, the fact that we were standing and something of what we stood for.

Unfortunately, most of the local papers did not go much beyond giving a "public service" announcement of the list of all the parties and individuals standing. Some did not even do this.

Particularly disappointing were the two independent (of the big chains) papers, the Camden New Journal and Southwark News. In the first, we put in a paid ad putting our case but there was no editorial coverage. In the second (which had given us equal time in last year's GLA elections), we were only mentioned amongst the "also standing" while Labour, Tory, Liberals, Greens, UKIP and BNP got interviewed. We had understood that if we answered the same questions this would be in the following week's issue along with the replies of the other left-out parties. But nothing was published. So as not to waste the work that went into drafting the replies to their questions, here they are.

1. Should further enlargement of the EU be supported for countries such as Turkey and Croatia?

What intergovernmental arrangements those in charge of trying to manage capitalism make is irrelevant as far as the majority of us, who work for a wage or salary or exist on benefits, are concerned. What the Socialist Party advocates is a world without frontiers where the resources of the whole world will have become the common heritage of all humanity.

2. As the pound is currently weak, should the UK consider joining the Euro?
It makes no difference what the money we are paid in is called. As long as the capitalist system of production for profit exists there will always be economic crises, whether we are governed from London or from Brussels, or whether we are paid in pounds or euros. In socialism, the principle “from each their ability, to each their needs” would apply, making money redundant.

3. Is it fair that the UK pays more into Europe than it gets back, with funds being redistributed to eastern Europe countries?
It’s up to the big capitalist corporations and their political representatives to judge whether or not they get value for money out of their membership of the EU. These funds, like profits, originally come from the difference between the value of what we produce and what we are paid as wages and salaries. That’s what’s not fair.

4. What would you do for London as an MEP?
If elected I would be the mandated delegate of those in London who wanted to replace capitalism with socialism. Pending the emergence of the majority desire for socialism required to establish it democratically, I would use the European Parliament as a platform from which to broadcast the need for a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit.

The dying embers

Last night I went out on the leaflet run. I tried handing one to a dustman:

"Is it voting? Coz I don't vote." - he refused the leaflet.

Ringing a buzzer on a council block (see my rants about this passim) I said:
"I'm delivery European election leaflets."
"I'm not interested." *click* was the reply - one persons uninterest denying an entire block of people from receiving leaflets.

One woman refused the leaflet because she'd already voted by post. She hadn't voted for us.

People stormed out of their Islington homes to demand "what're you putting through my door", but I had already moved away, and was only just in ear shiot.

Uninterest rules the roost. So, I'll try and end with a bit more baiting of the Christian party.

Apparently, well, OK, let me let them tell their own story, from the last Welsh Assembly elections:
The [Welsh Christian Party's] leader, the Rev George Hargreaves, said, "We will not allow this evil symbol of the devil to reign over Wales for another moment.

"Wales is the only country in history to have a red dragon on its national flag.

"This is the very symbol of the devil described in The Book of Revelation 12:3.

"This is nothing less than the sign of Satan, the devil, Lucifer that ancient serpent who deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

"No other nation has had this red dragon as its ruling symbol.

"Wales has been under demonic oppression and under many curses because of this unwise choice.

This is what we're up against.

20 seconds of fame

BBC London phoned yesterday to say that extracts of the radio interview would also be broadcast on their breakfast programme this morning between 6am and 9am, but said that two minutes would be devoted to comments from 6 parties, ie 20 seconds a party. I just spent over two hours listening to two non-entities twittering about nothing (the CIA should consider forcing people to listen to this programme as a substitute for water boarding) while waiting for this. It didn't come till ten minutes from the end, at 8.50. We were included with Libertas, No2EU, the Greens, the Christians and the BNP. The subject chosen was whether the minor parties would benefit from the sleaze allegations against the parliamentary parties. They just quoted me as saying that we'd been contacted by a couple of ex-Labour voters to say they were going to vote socialist, nothing from the rest of the interview about socialism, the economic crises, etc. After the 2 minutes were up some other non-entity called Vanessa came on to talk for well over 2 minutes about how she was going to interview the Liberal Democratic leader (called Clegg, I think, or some name like that) for a whole hour. The BBC's idea of equal time for all parties, it appears.

Asked to leave

A comrade who attended this event in Haringey on Saturday was asked to leave for handing out "political" literature. Another example of anarchist intolerance and inconsistency (see the list of stallholders there, propaganda, eg, for the Chavez government in Venezuela is apparently not political). Meanwhile on Dave Osler's blog we're accused of being anarchists. We're not of course but it seems we're damned if we are and damned if we're not.

The trade union front

This evening we will be present at two hustings meetings, organised by local trade unions:

(1) Council Chamber, Stratford Town Hall, 29 The Broadway, E15 at 6.30 pm.

(2) Phoenix Cinema, 52 High Road, East Finchley, N2 at 6.30.

These are public meetings if anyone wants to come.

The first has been organised by the Public and Commercial Services union, the second by Barnet Trades Union Council.

The PCS has also organised a Make Your Vote Count campaign amongst its members. Its London region has put a series of questions to candidates. The answers have been published on their website. Ours can be found here.

One PCS member has emailed us that he will be voting Socialist. Not sure that the PCS President, Janice Godrich, will be too pleased with this as she's also speaking this evening -- at a rally in central London in support of Bob Crow's narrow nationalist, petty reformist list. In any event we're not too pleased that posters have been stuck up round Euston claiming that the "Socialist Party" is supporting this rally. So this blog can serve as an official disclaimer that we are not.