Husting in Southwark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The candidates' manifestos

The official booklet, sent to all electors, listing all the candidates for Mayor and their programme (if they pay £10,000) has arrived. Fairly democratic actually, except of course for the £10,000 which one candidate apparently couldn't afford.

It makes informative and amusing reading.

We learn that, like Ken, the BNP is going for the Irish vote. A young student is featured saying "I'm voting BNP because I'm Irish and the BNP are the only party that cares about the indigenous peoples of these islands" and a builder says "We should celebrate things like St. George's Day and other Christian festivals like St. Patrick's Day instead of other festivals such as Ramadan and Eid".

The candidate of the English Democrats disagrees. His campaign slogan is "Save London from Labour's Tartan Taxes" and he complains that "currently £100,000 is spent on a festival such as St Patrick's Day whereas St George's Day is mocked with a screening of 'The Life of Brian' in Trafalgar Square". He ends up sloganising "Vote for England. Vote for Matt . . . O'Connor".

The Christian Party candidate isn't very charitable either. "Stop the mega-mosque at West Ham", he proclaims.

Apart from that, the BNP and Ken agree that pensioners should have 24-hour free travel passes and the Left List (aka SWP) and the Greens agree that the London "living wage" of £7.20 an hour should be forced on employers. The Left List candidate claims in passing to be a "socialist" even though she wants to keep gap between rich and poor but to make it smaller. UKIP wants to subsidise tube fares and reduce taxes both at the same time. Ken does his best to disguise the fact that he's the Labour Party candidate.

The candidates on the lists are also all listed as are those standing in the 14 constituencies. We are down as "The Socialist Party". This s-word only occurs in two other places. In the name of the "Communist" Party's "Unity for Peace and Socialism" list and of the Militant Tendency candidate in Greenwich and Lewisham who is standing as "Socialist Alternative" (not that he is).

The Revolutionary Programme for Surbiton

Today's Surrey Comet has some interesting stuff on two of our opponents' parties. (Before you ask what Surrey has to do with Lambeth & Streatham don't forget which cricket club plays at the Oval.) It interviews the ten candidates standing for the Assembly in South West London constituency (comprising Kingston, Surbiton, Richmond, Twickenham, Hounslow, Brentford, Chiswick, etc).
The English Democrats candidate's programme is described as follows:
"The party wants to see an English Parliament with a Bill of Rights for citizens. He said: 'We are a non-racist English nationalist party. We feel Ken Livingstone represents minorities quite well. As soon as you mention white English, people immediately think you are racist".
We wonder why.
The SWP "Left List" candidate, Tansy Hoskins, gets this write-up:
"Ms Hoskins wants to see one price for all train fares across London paid for by taxing the air fuel of aviation companies. She said: 'If you are living in zone 6, a travel card costs £160 a month. We are campaigning for a flat rate so people who live in the outskirts of the city aren't penalised for living there compared with those who live in the centre'."
It seems she is trying to steal the programmne of the local lib-dems who have put out a leaflet with a picture of DI Paddick, Councillor Knight, their candidate, and the local Liberal MP, the three of them holding a placard saying "Re-Zone Surbiton to Zone 5".
Maybe she can persuade Tom and Barbara Good to vote for her, but she'll have to be much less radical to persuade Jerry and Margot Ledbetter to.
The SWP as a revolutionary socialist party? You must be joking.

Cheese and chalk

Following up on the mistake by the journalist on the Streatham Guardian saying we were not the same as the Socialist Party (whereas we are, of course) a look at the Militant Tendency's website (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ -- we forgot to register that one) is revealing. Nobody is really likely to confuse them with us. They think that nationalisation is socialism and as would-be Leninist professional revolutionaries offer themselves as a vanguard to lead various trade union and reformist campaigns. They also want to put the clock back a hundred years and start up a new trade-union based Labour Party so as to have a "mass party of the working class" for them to "enter" and bore from within again as the Militant Tendency. At the moment they are clearly feeling like parasites without a host.

On the London elections, they say that workers should vote for the SWP candidate for mayor (standing under the disguise of "Left List"), though they are not at all happy that the SWP has put up a candidate against theirs in Greenwich and Lewisham. They also say that the workers should give their second preference vote for Mayor to Livingstone while "holding their noses" (variation on "without illusions") as if Livingstone cares whether they hold their noses or not as long as they vote for him, especially as he might need all the second preference votes he can rake in.

As far as the party list vote is concerned, they give workers a free hand to choose between the Left List, George Galloway's Respect (apparently he wants to draw a second salary as a councillor as well as his one as an MP) and the "Communist" Party (wheeled out of the museum of antiquities and disguised as "Unity for Peace & Socialism", ie for the old state-capitalist USSR). Incidentally, that's a stupid policy as, if the "left of Labour" votes are dispersed among three lists, none of them may reach the threshold to get a councillor; it would make more sense to plump for the one most likely to do best (probably Galloway's list) but then we're not Leninist tacticians and don't aspire to be.

Outside Greenwich and Lewisham they say vote for "anti-cuts, anti-privatisation candidates", ie mainly their SWP rivals, we imagine.

According to the Electoral Commision's site, they are registered as "Socialist Alternative", with the following variations:

Socialist Alternative
Socialist Alternative (Ian Page Team)
Socialist Alternative (Nellist)
Socialist Alternative - Defend Our Health Service
Socialist Alternative - Save Local Health Services
Socialist Alternative - Save Our Baby Unit
Socialist Alternative - Save Our Health Service
Socialist Alternative - Save Our Schools
Socialist Alternative - Save Our Services
Socialist Alternative - Save Our Special Schools
Socialist Alternative Candidate [The]

So, they've got their slogans all prepared even before the campaigns have started! That shows they're a real party of professional . . . reformists.

Left Opportunists

Bought the "South London Press" yesterday to see if any mention of the election. There wasn't but on page 3 there was an item about a protest meeting against the threatened closure of wards and units in a hospital in Lewisham (actually, outside the constituency). The accompanying picture showed a woman with a loud hailer and behind her 3 people carrying placards saying "NO CUTS. NO A&E CLOSURES. DEFEND THE NHS. DEFEND OUR PUBLIC SERVICES". Popular sentiments these days but the top of the placard read "LEFT LIST. www.respectcoalition.org" and on the bottom something like "Vote Against War and Privatisaion 1st May". A change from "SOCIALIST WORKER", but only a formal one since the Left List is an SWP front. Demonstrators will now have to get used to tearing off "LEFT LIST" rather than "SOCIALIST WORKER" from the top of the free placards the SWP hand out on any popular protest demonstration.
But the SWP weren't the only vote-gatherers trying to exploit the situation. According to the news report so were "Mayor hopefuls Brian Paddick and Sian Berry" (of the Liberals and Greens respectively).
The SWP are always accusing us of "parliamentary cretinism" for saying that the workers can use the vote to get power to establish socialism. True, we do, but we always make it clear that what is important is not the vote as such but the socialist understanding behind it. We never go in for voting catching and never make any promises: we just advocate socialism and ask only people who want it to vote for us. But look how they behave when they contest elections: just like any other gang of vote-catching politicians. You wouldn't know that they are really a bunch of Citizen Smiths who in private dream of an armed uprising in Britain (Tooting is just outside the constituency too)..

Who are the "Left List"?

In case people are wondering who they are, they're a new front organisation for the SWP formed after they lost the name RESPECT to George Galloway and his followers. Their programme can be expected be the same list of reformist demands as before when they were Respect. Incidentally, they are still calling themselves this but can't do so on the ballot paper. So there's going to be 2 rival Respect lists, ensuring that as in the Scottish Parliament elections following the split in the SSP neither of them will get anywhere -- though Galloway's list should do better than the SWP's.