Barnes result

Here it is, announced at 4.30 in the morning:

Brandreth (Con) 2017
Hodgkins (Con) 1919
Palmer (Con) 1985
Emerson (LD) 1539
McKee (LD) 1486
Albon (Green) 1058
Enright (Lab) 234
Patel (Lab) 185
Lever (Lab) 153
Buick (Soc) 28

Turnout was over 50%. This ward was exceptional in that it is the only ward in Richmond where the Tories won all 3 council seats. The LibDems won at least one seat in every other ward. The Greens' alliance with the LibDems (under which they stood aside in some wards in return for the LibDems only contesting 2 seats in others) gave them 4 seats.

Elsewhere, we know that in Borough & Bankside ward in Southwark the LibDems won all 3 seats and that our candidate got 27 votes. No further details yet. Islington's votes are being counted this morning.

With the farmers in Barnes

Two members at the stall in Barnes yesterday. We started early as the Tories and LibDem/Greens (with a joint stall) were already there when we arrived at 11.30. Finished early too, at 1pm, when the Farmers Market ended and they went.

Some passers-by told us they had already received our leaflet through their letterbox. A Tory backwoodsman told us to "go back to Russia". We suggested that they did as Russia was now capitalist even by their standards as opposed to the state capitalism it was with the USSR. Another, a rather more up-to-date, Tory remembered an active SPGB group at UCL in the 1980s. Met a couple of Labourites. They are standing here but are not running any sort of campaign and will only have put up candidates to give their supporters a chance to vote for what they want -- a quite legitimate reason, one of the reasons we are standing too. As Eugene Debs put it, it is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.

Afterwards, we distributed some of the surplus leaflets in another part of Barnes not in the ward.

Reconaissance

Visit to Guildford yesterday to see if anyone else was holding a stall at Tunsgate Arch. No party was but there were a couple of church people handing out a leaflet on healing which said they were there every Saturday 1-3 pm. They didn't have a stall, but there shouldn't be a problem in us having one (first, next Saturday).

Took the occasion to look at the constituency and distribute 400 or so general leaflets (our election manifesto is not being delivered till Monday). The Labour Party had been in the same streets earlier with their pathetic "Say NO to 4.99% Council Tax Increases" leaflet. Met the Tory candidate, Adrian Chandler, who was going from door to door canvassing for votes. He's already a local borough councillor but doesn't stand much of a chance of cumulating two mandates as in 2013 the Tory candidate finished fourth with only 16% of the vote (but there's no UKIP candidate this time). Part of constituency is on a hillside, which is going to be a bugger for door-to-door leafletting (wouldn't want to be a postman there).

The last minute

Had doubts abouts distributing the last couple of hundred leaflets on the last day before voting but found that the Tories had been there before me. This was on a council estate in Surbiton (yes, not everybody there leads the good life). The Tory leaflet was a nasty one headed Daily News 6 May 2016:

Breaking News: Success for Corbyn's Labour as Khan wins London ... Higher turnout among inner-London Corbyn supporters results in gains for Labour in the London Assembly. Your vote in Kingston & Surbiton can stop this. [Their emphasis in red].

I know it's irrational but I prefer distributing leaflets in areas where Labour leafletters had been before like in Hounslow whereas in Kingston and Richmond it was the LibDems though in Brentford (part of Hounslow) it was the Greens (don't know why nor what the Tories were doing on a council estate in Surbiton).

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be writing WORLD SOCIALISM across my mayor and party list ballot papers and voting for myself for a change in the constituency, as will our other two candidates (in North East and in Lambeth & Southwark) as, for the first time, all three of us live in the constituency where we are standing. Not that that really matters since, as we say, it's the case not the face that counts.

Who (in London) is afraid of the SNP?

Out yesterday delivering, to ensure we weren't left with too many, our leaflet for constituencies we're not standing in, I came across leaflets from the parties standing in Wandsworth and in Kingston. I hadn't realised that the Tories had such an obsession about the SNP.

Here's what a leaflet, for just a local council by-election, in Wandsworth says: either we have a Conservative government

Or we have a Labour/Scottish Nationalist Government, taxing London and harming Britain.

But the prize for this sort of thing goes to Tory leaflet for Kingston & Surbiton. Headed "SNP puts Miliband in Downing Street. Your vote can stop this", it is entirely devoted to the subject and says:

A Vote for the Lib Dems will help Ed Miliband and the SNP take us back to square one.

I suppose they think this will get them votes from people who don't like the Scots.

Anyway, the SNP is just another capitalist party, whose aim is not so much independence, but to gain some strength to bargain for a bigger grant for the Scottish regional administration from the central givernment. Just the same as the Democratic Unionist Party is trying to do for Northern Ireland. Come to think of it, you could just as (il)logically argue that a vote for the Tories will be help the Paisleyites get their way -- though they might decide to support a minority Labour government instead if it offer more money. Who knows?

Leafletting begins

Leafletting has begun in the Prince's ward by-election (up to now we've been concentrating on the general election: there's another stall in Clapham High Stteet tomorrow from 12 noon). The Tories have produced a glossy A3 leaflet for the by-election despite not having a chance. The other discarded leaflets found were general election ones for Labour, the Tories and Left Unity as well as one of ours (for our archives). There's going to be a local by-election hustings on Friday 1 May, in St Anselm's Church in Kennington,but what a few for the general election?

Redistributing misery

Lively hustings meeting last night with all the candidates (but with the Tory arriving half way through) and much heckling. Ninety people present (which is more that you usually get at a hustings for an election to parliament). Maybe it's this part of Brixton or maybe a local election generates more interest amongst a minority. In any event, the Brixtonblog is to be congratulated for organising it.

The Labour candidate was in a hopeless position, trying to blame the ConDem government for the cuts but defending the way Labour-run Lambeth Council were implementing them. The LibDem candidate was also in a hopeless position because she was unable to criticise what the government was doing and the effect this was having locally and was reduced to extolling her own virtues. No wonder the Tory turned up late as what could he say (beyond, as he did, that they hadn't done much leafletting or canvassing as Tulse Hill was not an area where they were strong on the ground)?. The Green Party candidate didn't really follow through his strong case that "right across Lambeth Labour is pursuing a programme of evictions in order to sell housing to developers and profit from high property prices" (he didn't even switch his mobile phone off).

The UKIP candidate was more prepared than last time (she was also their candidate in the Brixton Hill local by-election in January), specifically targetting Labour rather than Tory voters, presumably in pursuit of some UKIP national strategy for inner London and Northern cities; interesting display of populism, though. The TUSC candidate put across their single-issue "No cuts" campaign and got denounced by UKIP as "Bob Crow's fan club". The Independent candidate explained his case against the Labout council's plan to move him and his fellow residents from their sheltered housing and sell off the land to developers. Our candidate said that it was capitalism, not the government or the local council (or the EU), that was responsible for the problems facing people in Tulse Hill (and elsewhere) and that the other parties' claims to be able to solve them were just empty promises worth nothing as many non-voters already understood.

What the Green Party had called "Labour's programme of evictions" turned out to be one of the main issues of the meeting. It really is the case that the Labour Council has decided that, to raise money to try to compensate for the cut in grants from central government, it will sell off part of its land and housing stock to private developers. This of course involves removals and evictions. This was not popular with the audience which gave the poor Labour candidate a hard time (she'll probably still win, though).

Local councils do have a choice, not to not make any cuts, but to decide how to apply them. It's as if the central government (which is responding to the current economic crisis by cutting its spending so as to give profits, the life-blood of the system, a chance to recover) has said to local councils: "you've got to make cuts, but you choose where to make them". Lambeth Council has decided to sell off some of its housing assets. It may well be true that this will provide them with some money to avoid cuts elsewhere but at the cost of bringing misery to those affected. They could have chosen not to do this, but they would then have had to make more cuts than otherwise and impose the misery on someone else.

That's the sort of choice of redistribution of misery you have to make if you assume responsibility for running capitalism at local level. Not even the TUSC policy of the council refusing to make any cuts and acting illegally would work. The central government would just send in a commissioner and impose the misery anyway. Quite simply, there is no way under capitalism in an economic crisis of avoiding cuts and the misery they bring; one way or another, in one form or another, they will be imposed. It is good that people don't like this but discontent and protest is not enough. The only way out is to get rid of the capitalist system and replace its minority ownership and control and its production for profit by common ownership and democratic control and production to meet people's needs. As one persistent heckler, a socialist, put it, get rid of the system.

The hustings

About 70 people (including the local MP, Chuka Umanna) attended the hustings organised by the Brixtonblog last night. All 7 candidates were present and were given more or less equal time. The questions were not confined to purely local issues but also included the cuts.

A leaflet by Lambeth Save Our Services listed some of the cuts made by the local council (playgroups, library services, housing co-operatives, etc). The would-be Labour councillor justified these on the grounds that, given government policy, some cuts had to made and it was better that the local council choose where the cuts were to fall rather than (the only alternative) have the central government in the form of Tory Minister Eric Pickles come in and decide this. The Tory candidate said that the cuts were inevitable and that we had to grin and bear them. Our candidate said that, given that capitalism was in an economic crisis, cuts were inevitable but rather than grinning and bearing it we should work to get rid of capitalism. The Trotskyist candidate, who is standing on an anti-cuts platform, argued that they were not inevitable as the money was there in the City; this should be taxed and used to maintain services. The UKIP lady (the only way to describe her) argued that the money could be found by stopping the war in Afghanistan (I hadn't realised till then that UKIP was against both the Iraq and the Afghan wars) as well of course as withdrawing from the EU. The Green candidate was against the cuts too but didn't say where the money to stop them was to come from, though he did float the idea of raising council tax.

The main local issue was the closure of a local pub, the George IV, which is now boarded up and whose site Tesco wants for one of its supermarkets. The first question was from the person who used to run the pub. He pointed out that it had been running at a loss and that it could be re-opened as a community pub if the same amount of money could be raised as Tesco were prepared to pay for the site. This was a gift for our candidate who was able to make the point that this was how capitalism worked: if a business did not make a profit it went under and that land for sale went to the highest bidder. The Tory candidate made the same point. The Green man said he had launched the campaign to keep the building as a pub and community centre and had even invited the Green Party Leader, Natalie Bennett, down the other day to support the campaign. In fact, in all his replies, the Green candidate presented himself as the defender of local businesses, thus confirming what we have said about the Green Party: that it is the party of petty (as opposed to big, corporate) capitalism.

The Tory candidate revealed, when he spoke immediately after Danny, that when he was a student he had been a Marxist anti-capitalist (I meant to ask him afterwards which group he had been in but forgot). In his answers the TUSC candidate demonstrated his reformism by saying, in answer to the various questions, that money should be spent on affordable housing, apprenticeships, community pubs, etc, etc. as if capitalism could be reformed to put "people before profit". He never once mentioned any alternative to capitalism (not even the state capitalism misnamed "socialism" his party is committed to on paper). UKIP got slapped down by everybody when they raised the question of immigration and "overpopulation" (apparently, under EU regulations, 30 million Rumanians and Bulgarians are coming to live in Britain next year).

Before the meeting, the candidates were filmed for 30 seconds answering a question about what to do about unemployment in the ward. Their answers will be shown on the Brixtblog today. As will various questions posed by email, to which the candidates were invited to respond. Naturally we will. Watch that space.

Leafletting and leaflets

Five of us went leafletting yesterday, 3 in the north and 2 in the south of the ward. Pending the arrival of the manifesto on Wednesday, we were distributing a general leaflet about Socialism and the Socialist Party. As a couple of thousand of these had already been distributed we must have distributed another thousand or so. So that's the ward leafletted twice.

As yesterday was rubbish collection day, we were able to recover leaflets issued by the other parties: Labour, Tories, Greens and TUSC (yes, we know, some of our leaflets are going to end up like this too).

Ok, this is a local election but the leaflets were pathetic. Labour's was about a "Back Our Bobbies campaign to keep police on the streets". The Tory's about the Council's licencing policy encouraging "booze-fuelled idiots". The Green man concentrated on stopping Tesco converting a closed pub into a supermarket. Only the TUSC leaflet raised wider issues.

The Tory leaflet criticised "the Loony-Left Council" (only a loony could describe New Labour as this) for taking out "a poster campaign claiming that the government was 'forcing' them to make cuts". As it happens, this is the case. But, according to the TUSC leaflet:

But Councillors have a choice! They don't have to make these cuts. In the 1980s, Lambeth and Liverpool Councils made a stand against Tory Thatcher's demands for cuts.

But neither Derek Hatton nor Ted Knight stopped the cuts, did they? Councillors could in theory do what TUSC asks them to do, but they would have to pay for it -- literally, by being surcharged. And the cuts would go through anyway.

As our manifesto points out, while the government has forced councils to make cuts it's because they have themselves been forced by the workings of capitalism to do this. That's the way capitalism works and a good reason to get rid of it. TUSC, however, think there is a solution within capitalism:

People before Profit. Make the bosses pay for their crisis. Tax the rich.

So, they envisage the continued existence of profit, bosses and the rich ! And think that this system can be reformed to work in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary workers and their dependants. This, despite the weight of evidence and experience which disproves this.

Meanwhile the Brixtonblog has started publishing the statements of the candidates. So far they've only done the Labour and Greens ones. Our turn should come towards the end of the week.

The party of the Rich

On our way to leaflet the Springfield estate (where one of us got bitten by a dog) we noticed that the Tories had been leafletting Clapham Town ward. Their leaflet contained a photo of one of their candidates squatting and pointing to a pothole which somebody should sent to glum councillors. Also amusing to see that it contained a version of the Liberals' it's-a-two-horse-race bar chart but with the Liberals trailing in third place.

We also found evidence that the Tories had been leafletting Clapham North tube station on behalf of their parliamentary candidate in Vauxhall, a young whizz-kid. He doesn't stand a chance but it's obligatory for would-be professional politicians to first contest a no-hope seat on behalf of their party in the hope of being given a better chance next time. According to his leaflet:

A Conservative Government will build economic recovery on investment and exports, not consumer borrowing and government debt.

As if governments can control the way capitalism works rather than having to react to what capitalism throws at them. Another empty promise not worth the paper it was printed on that deserved to end up where we found it: in the gutter.

Meanwhile the Tories' shadow chancellor Boy George has been sending personal letters to individuals in marginal constituencies in which he promises to "protect those on modest incomes", including by re-linking the state pension to inceases in average earnings (rather than consumer prices as now which has been rising more slowly). We'll see. Breaking this link was one of the cuts made by Thatcher in 1980 . . . and all three main parties are promising that the cuts they will introduce if elected will be worse than under Thatcher. Or maybe they are anticipating that prices will start rising more than earnings.

The Tories are only professing concern for those on modest incomes because they can't win unless they can gain votes outside their natural constituency of the rich. And they are, and always have been, the party of the rich. As comes through from time to time, as when Cameron calls on BA workers to cross picket lines and with employers currently lining up to support his (and their) party's promise to reduce a modest Labour tax that will hit their profits.

Not only are they the party of the rich. They are rich themselves. As Cameron re-assured a "gathering of top financiers" last December:

"My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker, my great-grandfather was a stockbroker".

And he's married to an aristocrat. And of course he, like many in his shadow cabinet, is an Old Etonian. What the "new", "modern" Tory Party stands for is not simply government by politicians for the rich but government for the rich by the rich.

Any person on a "modest income", i.e most people, who even thinks of voting Tory is a mug.