Merton & Wandsworth result

Thanks, Anomymous, you beat me to it. I was there when the result was proclaimed and have just got back.
Here it is:

Richard Tracey (Conservative) 65,197 43.1%
Leonie Cooper (Labour) 55,216 36.5%
Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat) 11,904 7.9%
Roy Vickery (Green Party) 11,307 7.5%
Mazhar Manzoor (UKIP) 3,717 2.5%
Thamilini Kulendran (IND) 2,424 1.6%
James Martin (Socialist Party) 1,343 0.9%

Total Ballot papers 153,785
Invalid or Blank 2,677
Valid 151,108
Turnout: 40.2%

For the record, when reading out the result the Returning Officer did refer to our candidate simply as "The Socialist Party".

Nothing else to report except that I did see a write-in vote in South West for the ISLP or "Independent Socialist Labour Party", a one-family breakaway from the Scargill Labour Party (I know who he must be: he stood for Kingston council last May). Also the Independent candidate told me that at the last council elections he had stood for the LibDems in Tooting.

The man in the blue turban

Yesterday was the last Saturday before the election. Unfortunately it rained all day so we didn't do our stall in Clapham High Street and our election meeting there had below average attendance (though there was still an interesting discussion). Some leaflets were distributed in nearby Larkhill ward (the ward we did best in last time).

We had received an invitation to a hustings at exactly the same time organised by the "British Organisation of People of Indian Sub-continental Origin" (BOPIO) in Tooting. Unfortunately Bill, our candidate for the area (Tooting is in Wandsworth) couldn't attend as he was out of London, but the organisers allowed us to be represented by his election agent. So I went. On my way I saw an SWP poster saying "Boot Out Tory Boris" and "Vote Ken Livingston for Mayor. Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Against Cuts for the Assembly." I took a photo of it for the record as another example of the SWP's policy of campaigning to vote Labour.

The meeting was introduced by BOPIO President, Sinna Mani. He told me before the meeting that he thought at first we were Militant but then realised who we were. He said he knew somebody whose father had been in the party. It turned out to be Baroness Joan Lestor. I told him that she'd been in the party too before defecting to Labour.

All the parties who sent speakers (Labour, Tory, Liberal, Green) sent someone "of Indian sub-continental origin" (however remote), the Tory (somebody from their list) wearing a magnificant blue turban but he sounded like any Young Tory. Also present was Siobhan Benita, the Independent candidate for Mayor and darling of the chattering classes. She revealed that her mother had also come from the Indian subcontinent. She came out with nonsense about things being better if they were run by an "independent" rather than representatives of a political party, as if that would make any difference to the way capitalism works.

Also present was a one-person list for the GLA, Rathy Alagaratnam, who also came out with the "independents" would be better nonsense. Surprisingly, the independent candidate for Merton & Wandsworth, Thamilini Kulendran, did not turn up.

Afterwards we were all photographed for the BOPIO website. The organiser said she would circulate their members with the views of the parties and candidates who had turned up. So our views should reach a wider audience than the 25 or so who were present.

Make Wandsworth be Bradford?

Here's the details of the hustings on Saturday 28 April from 4pm to 7pm in Tooting:

NAPS Samaj Hall, 26B Tooting High Street, London SW17 0RG (next to NatWest Bank)

The meeting has been organised by the British Organisation of People of Indian Sub-continental Origin (BOPIO) and is aimed mainly, but not exclusively, at people with connections with this part of the world.

Unfortunately our candidate for Merton & Wandsworth is not available and it also coincides with our own election meeting at 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN at exactly the same time. The organisers have, however, agreed to accept him to be represented by someone else. So we will be there. Unfortunately too, the only Indian language that we have leaflets in is Bengali (Bangla) while most of those present are likely to come from South India and Northern Sri Lanka. But we'll take some along anyway in case there's anyone from Bangladesh or West Bengal there.

They have also invited the candidates for Mayor but it's doubtful that Ken or Boris will turn up, but who knows?

At the hustings last week in Putney we met the Independent candidate for Merton & Wandsworth, Thamilini Kulendran and he gave us a copy of his election address. His slogan is "MAKE MERTON AND WANDSWORTH BE ANOTHER BRADFORD !" Turning Merton and Wandsworth into a decaying ex-industrial mill town doesn't seem a vote-winner on the face of it, but he wants to emulate George Galloway, emphasing that he too is against the War in Afghanistan. His address says:

"Electing Kulendran wasn't about choosing the next government, but sending a powerful message to the government and main opposition parties. They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars and leaving the vulnerable British citizens who served for this country to starve. The public don't believe that they have atoned for their role in the invasion and illegal occupation of other people's countries. Downing Street should not drown of those countries in blood!
Please consider this and act to save this country!
Will you be able to give a green signal to Kulendran?
Thamilini Kulendran hails from Sri Lanka and a Tamil. He is totally against the war in other countries. If you feel you are also against the war, please support him."

As we are more interested in debating this sort of issue than cycle lanes and lollipop ladies we invited him to debate the way to get rid of war at our election meeting. But he's more likely to be at the Tooting meeting. Which will give us a chance to discuss the matter there.

The Putney Debate

Last night, our Wandsworth & Merton hustings in St. Mary's church Putney, scene of the historic Putney debates during the English revolution.

It was a fairly standard affair, the candidates were nice and chatty to each other before hand, and the chairing was a bit disorganised (people these days are generally out of the practise). A bit too much time/deference was given to the incubent Tory and his Labour challenger, perhaps partly explained by the fact that, as usual, most of the audience were partisans who lobbed brickbats at each of those sides.

We'd been informed that the debate was being filmed by documentary makers doing a series on the history of England. We decided I should cunningly use the quote from Colonel Rich previously mentioned here, to perhaps maximise our chances of getting onto the screen later (plus it is such a good line).

Of course, l'espirit d'escalier dominated the evening, I should have kicked comments about people keeping warm by wearing jumpers rather than turning the heating into touch. The risk for the elderly of getting respiratory illness remains if the air is cold. Every year tens of thousands of excess winter deaths can be accounted to the cold.

Elsewhere, it was hard to crow bar our case in to some of the debates. On cycling I noted that if we could feed clothe and house every man woman and child on Earth for two days work a week each (which we can) then our roads could be much less busy, and we could spread out a bit and make our communities the focus of our lives rather than living for business. Bit of a stretch, but at least I got to make the point. I also noted that our roads are socialist, we own them in common and have free access.

On the other candidates, Thamilini Kulendran turned up: his case seemed to be that he is independent (and he's a bit anti-war). I suspect, looking at his leaflet, his main purpose is to promote the Tamil case. Either that, or he had a thousand pounds going spare he fancied wasting. The UKIP candidate was hopeless, and he stuck to his talking point that UKIP are third in the polls. "Vote for me, I'm third". The Green was a real puritan (he was the one who brought up wearing jumpers instead of heating, with which the Tory agreed).

Update

The Socialist Party held its Conference over Easter. After the session ended on the Saturday some of the delegates retired to the Bread and Roses pub (owned by the Workers Beer Company) in Clapham Manor Street. They found that TUSC and the Labour Party had been there before and left election material (including a promise by Livingstone that if he hadn't cut fares by 7 October he'd resign). With the agreement of the manager, socialist election material was immediately added.

This Thursday our candidate for Lambeth and Southwark will be interviewed by the on-line London magazine, the Big Smoke. He has also received invitations to speak at hustings in Herne Hill (Wednesday 18 April) and Norwood (Wednesday 25 April).

Our candidate in Merton and Wandsworth has not yet received any such invitations, but we have learned a bit more about the mysterious Independent candidate there from her desperate appeals on the internet to translate her message into other languages. We might contact her to invite her to explain at our election meeting on Saturday 28 April.

We said in a previous posting that we probably wouldn't be doing much leafletting in the borough of Southwark. This has proved to be wrong as last week we did leaflet parts of Peckham. The number of "Vote Livingstone" posters we saw confirms that this is solid Labour territory.