Before the snow

Three of us did at stall in Brixton for an hour or so. We were outnumbered two to one as there were two other stalls (SWP and Militant) handing out "Vote for TUSC" leaflets. Then we went leafletting door-to-door to get as many of the manifestos as possible distributed before the snow threatened for Monday. We chose the Roupell Estate in the south of the ward, near the South Circular Road.

We met Labour canvassers delivering personally addressed "vote for me" letters for their candidate and a card saying "Your Labour candidate for Brixton Hill called on you today". We didn't see him and don't suppose he did, but that's the sort of thing politicians have to pretend to do to catch votes.

Halfway through we stopped for a coffee. A client in the cafe in Upper Tulse Hill recognised our candidate from a video on the internet and we had a long chat with him. He had his baby daughter with him, but we don't do kissing babies to gain votes -- that's for vote-catching politicians. He might vote for us anyway as he understood what we are advocating.

We distributed some 500, so only about 600 remain for distributing on Monday or Tuesday depending on the weather. That shouldn't take 3 or 4 of us more than an hour even if it is snowing. Then we're done.

30 seconds of fame

Here's the video of the candidates speaking for 30 seconds on unemployment:

http://www.brixtonblog.com/hustings-video-what-would-you-do-about-unemployment-in-brixton-hill/9336

When we call for equal time at elections for all candidates we didn't quite have in mind reducing this to what we usually get but increasing what we get to what the media grant to the candidates they designate as worth hearing.

But, fair dos, the Brixtonblog have scrupulously given equal time and space to all 7 candidates. The South London Press has also been even-handed : all the candidates have had zero time.

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.

UKIP's no brains

We started distributing the election manifestos yesterday and came across something from UKIP. Not published by their candidate but a back issue of UKIP London News from the time of the Olympics. It had an intriguing headline: THE DEPRESSION: ONLY UKIP CAN GET BRITAIN OUT IT. And what is their miracle solution?

"We are in sore need of an injection of NEW money which does not involve borrowing (...) There is such an action which could be taken -- tomorrow -- which would have the effect of saving Britain around £100 bn a year -- free money ! (...) This is an obvious 'no-brainer'."

In other words, finance government spending not by borrowing (and having to pay £ 100 bn a year in interest payments) but simply by printing the money. A bit like in Zimbabwe. This would of course cause runaway inflation and make the depression worse. The trouble is that the UKIP candidate doesn't have to do anything and can put forward any crazy policy (there are others) as UKIP is currently the media flavour of the month.

But at least UKIP is to be commended on raising a more important issue than where the candidates live, as in another, Labour leaflet we found. In it, apart from emphasising that he lived "right here in Brixton Hill" while the Tory and LibDem candidates didn't, the Labour candidate made the rather rash promise: "I'LL ALWAYS PUT PEOPLE FIRST".

Always? But as part of the Labour majority on the council he will, if elected, have to implement further cuts in council spending on services and amenities, as a result of the government's policy of putting profits first to try to get out of the depression. If he does chose to "put people first" by not voting for the cuts he'll be suspended and have to sit as an independent (the fate of one Lambeth Labour councillor who dared to do this). And of course, at national level when in office, Labour has always put Profit before People as any government of capitalism is forced to. That's the only way capitalism can work. It can't be reformed to "put people first". How many times has that been tried, and failed?

The candidates state their case

While we were out leafletting yesterday the local online newspaper, the Brixtonblog, put up statements from the other candidates. They are all there now except the UKIP one, including the one from our delegate/candidate together with a photo of him speaking from the Party's platform at Hyde Park and the video interview he did for the Big Smoke during the GLA elections in May.

In her statement the LibDem candidate states:

“Lambeth under Labour has cut funding for school crossing patrols, Brixton Library and home care services for vulnerable elderly people."

This is true but, as others have pointed out, this is because all councils have been forced to do this sort of thing by the central government which is a Tory-LibDem Coalition -- which, we add, has itself been forced to do this because they are administering capitalism in one of its economic crises. A Labour government or a Lib-Lab coalition would have had to do the same. It's the only policy a government can pursue when capitalism is in a crisis. That's the way the system works and the only way it can work.

Our election manifestos are due to arrive from the printers this morning. When they do we'll start delivering them door-to-door, at the hustings meeting tomorrow and at a stall we will be having in Brixton on Saturday. TUSC is organising a meeting on Monday evening. We'll be there too.

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.

Our election manifesto

This was adopted yesterday and will be sent to the printers on Monday to be ready by Wednesday or Thursday:

Vote for yourself for a change?

Why, when the resources exist to provide a decent standard of living for everyone, are we going through “austerity”?

It’s because the present system is not geared to meeting our needs but to making profits for businesses and the rich people who own and control them. At the moment this capitalist system is in an economic crisis where profits have fallen The only way out for the system is to restore profits at our expense.

That’s why what our wages can buy has shrunk. It’s why benefits are being slashed. And it’s why Lambeth council has been cutting local services.

It’s not just Lambeth. It’s councils everywhere, whichever party is in control. Councils get most of their money from the government, but market forces have obliged the government to reduce this. National and local politicians are just running the system in the only way it can be – as a profit system where priority has to be given to profit-making over meeting our needs.

It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference. As the saying goes, “changing governments changes nothing”. It will be like this as long as the profit system lasts. So there is no point in voting for parties that accept this system.

The alternative is to change to a new system based on satisfying our needs, where the places where wealth is produced will no longer be owned by profit-seeking businesses but will be owned and democratically controlled by us all. That’s what the Socialist Party stands for. We are contesting this by-election to raise this issue, and to give those of you who agree a chance to be counted.

You can do this by voting for the Socialist candidate, Danny Lambert.
And then get in touch to help bring an end to the system that can never be made to work in your interest.

Update

A couple of interesting items in today's South London Press.

On page 8 there's a feature article entitled "Lack of job opportunities sees dole queue lengthen". According to this,

Over the past four years the number of people claiming Jobseeker's allowance in Coldharbour ward has almost doubled from 661 to 1,078. The numbers have also risen in Ferndale ward with 406 unemployed people four years ago compared to 594 today. In Brixton Hill there are considerably more people out of work, from 384 four years ago to 611 today.

By coincidence (or not) these were the three wards where, relatively speaking, we did best in the GLA elections in May.

On page 18 Streatham MP Chuka Umunna has a column headed "Bright pupils let down by the coalition". It is illustrated by a photo of a students' demonstration against the cuts in which can be clearly seen someone selling ... Socialist Worker. I don't suppose he's too pleased but, then, the SWP probably voted for him at the last General Election.

In the meantime Lambeth Council has put up the list of candidates for Brixton Hill together with their photos.

Tomorrow the Executive Committee will be adopting the election manifesto. On Monday we'll be leafletting the ward again. Meet at 52 Clapham High Street at 12 noon.

Two hundred words

Here's the 200-word reply that the Brixtonblog has asked the candidates to submit in answer to the question of "what they would do specifically for Brixton Hill":

Parties promising to do things for others is not my idea of politics, so I’m not making any promises to do anything for anyone. The Socialist Party is standing to give people the chance to show they reject the capitalist system where making profits always comes first.

Capitalism is going through one of its economic crises and the only way out for it is to restore profits by cutting the living standard of working people and their dependants.

That’s why what our wages can buy has shrunk. It’s why benefits are being slashed. And it’s why Lambeth council has been cutting local services.

It’s not just Lambeth. It’s councils everywhere, whichever party is in control. Politicians, local and national, are just running the system in the only way it can be. It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference.

Instead of trusting in politicians we’ve have got to change the system ourselves, to one where the places where wealth is produced are no longer run as profit-seeking businesses but owned and democratically controlled by the community and used to provide a decent life for all.

In the meantime a political newsfeed has picked up a statement on the by-election from our other blog.

The10 January hustings

The online Brixton newspaper, the Brixtonblog, has just announced the details of this hustings they are hosting:

So, it's 7pm on Thursday 10 January at the Catholic Church, 11 Trent Road, SW2 5JB.

We'll be there.

They've also asked for 150-200 word statement from candidates "on what they would do specifically for Brixton Hill". We'll have to say that it's not possible to isolate Brixton Hill from the effects of capitalism ...

Votes for prisoners' (guards)

Brixton Prison is in the ward as is the accommodation of some of the warders. At the GLA elections in May one of those on the TUSC list was Joe Simpson, the Assistant General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association.

Here is his election speech and statement

He says he has joined the Socialist Party but he hasn't. He's joined the ex-Militant Tendency which has tried to usurp this name that we've been using since 1904 and which is the main political group behind TUSC. Naturally we object to this, but it could be counter-productive for them in this election since the party name next to our candidate will be "The Socialist Party (GB)". If so, serve them right.

OK, prison warders like the police are "workers in uniform". It is odd, though, that someone calling themself a socialist should take a job guarding other workers who have been imprisoned, most of them for crimes against property. But the fact that some "workers in uniform" are prepared to call themselves "socialist", together with the Mitchell affair, refute one of the arguments (put forward, amongst others, by Trotskyists) that it wouldn't be possible for a socialist-minded working class to take power peaceably via the ballot box because the ruling class would not accept this and would set the "workers in uniform" at their service against the socialist movement. These show that workers in the police force, prison service and the armed forces are still workers with minds of their own who don't always think or do what the ruling class tell them, and would be highly unlikely to do this in the event of a socialist victory at the polls.

Online publicity

We haven't contested a council by-election for a number of years. (The last was in 1996 in Clapham Town ward of Lambeth when we got 20, or 0.7%, the equivalent of 200 in a parliment election). But that was before the internet took off.

This time we've been invited to a hustings on Thursday 10 January organised by an online Brixton newspaper, the Brixton Blog. More details (time, venue) later.

Also, the Council have asked for a photo of our candidate to put on their website, as a means of publicising the election (they probably expect a low turn-out), which they will tweet to those who follow them.

Who would have thought that a local by-election would provide such opportunities to publicise socialism?

It's a 7-horse race

Nominations closed today. There are seven candidates (in alphabetical order):

Briggs (Conservative)
Child (Green)
Jones (UKIP)
Lambert (Socialist)
Maffei (LibDem)
Nally (TUSC)
Tiedemann (Labour & Coop)

"Why We Are Against Capitalism"

Letter published in last Friday's South London Press in reply to Trotskyist Steve McNally's in the previous week's issue :

Why we are against capitalism

Steve Nally (Letters, South London Press, December 8) is right. Local services and amenities are being cut and people shouldn't put up with this, but this is the fault of the capitalist profit system as it goes through one of its economic crises. So, it is misleading to blame those who administer this system at local level, as he does, rather than the system itself. In calling on Lambeth council to adopt an alternative budget without cuts, he is encouraging the illusion that things could be different under capitalism if only there were militant leftwingers in charge. But the only way capitalism can get out of a crisis is by cutting living standards.

This is why Socialists should be campaigning for the abolition of capitalism, not for a change in the people running it or trying to make it work in a way it just cannot. We, too, will be standing in some wards in the Lambeth council elections in 2014, just as we did in 2010.
Adam Buick The Socialist Party, Clapham High Street

They chose the title (which is not bad). The only change they made was to replace "Militant" (with a capital M) by "militant" (without one). Perhaps the capital M was too subtle -- or too unsubtle.

Nomination accepted

The nomination papers were handed in this morning and accepted. So we'll be on the ballot paper, as LAMBERT Daniel Peter, THE SOCIALIST PARTY (GB)

The other news is that there will also almost certainly be a Trotskyist candidate from TUSC.

Greens fancy their chances

It looks as if the Greens consider this by-election to be (as the Liberals would say) a "two-horse race" between them and Labour:

http://lambethgreennews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/lambeth-labours-deception-in-brixton.html

They're right about the dishonest table in the Labour leaflet (which we saw too and availed ourselves of their Freepost address to point this out). The result (without postal votes) for the ward in the GLA elections in the constituency vote was:

Labour 1898
Greens 541
Tories 482
LibDems 303
Socialist 101
UKIP 72

Nomination papers

Collected the nomination papers from the Town Hall in the morning. There is no deposit to stand in local elections but the candidate needs to have a proposer, seconder and 8 assentors, all 10 on the electoral roll for the ward. Danny Lambert (our candidate)and me got the 8 assentors to the nomination in the afternoon in one street in less than two hours. We explained that we weren't asking them to support us but only to allow us to stand. Those who signed understood the difference and were prepared to let us exercise our democratic right to stand. One knew of us and had seen and liked the Marx "I told you so" poster in our Head Office window. Fixed 12.30 on Thursday as the time to formally hand them in.

A Trotskyist candidate?

Friday's South London Press carries a letter from a Steve Nally signing himself "Lambeth Socialist Party". Needless to say, it's not from us but from the Trotskyist Militant Tendency. So that people can see the reformist crap they are putting out in our name (as it there wasn't a shop front in Clapham High St, in Lambeth, with a fascia saying "The Socialist Party") here's the letter in full:

Voting to keep public services

Our public services are under massive attack. This Government is savaging jobs, public services and benefits. Around Britain, four out of five councils have cut library services and nearly 200 Sure Start children's centres have closed. Since 2010, Lambeth Labour council has cut 1,000 council jobs, closed down the park ranger service and privatised council call centres and adventure playgrounds. Yet the money is there in Britain today to keep all these services going. Between 2011 and 2012, £13billion was paid out in City bonuses. Just half of this would have been enough to avoid all the council cuts made that year.

All we hear from our councillors is that they have no alternative but to pass on the cuts. But they can fight for an alternative budget that would defend jobs and services. Lambeth council could, in the first instance, use its reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid passing on these cuts while arguing that the best way to mobilise a mass campaign that is necessary to defeat the cuts is to set a budget that meets the need of the local community and demands that the Government makes up the shortfall. As part of the battle against the cuts, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC )in Lambeth will be standing anti-cuts candidates in the 2014 elections and in any by-elections. We appeal to local trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners to stand as candidates in 2014. Anyone interested in this can contact TUSC on www.tusc.org.uk or call 020 7702 8667 Steve Nally Lambeth Socialist Party.

Of course there's enough money around to avoid the cuts but to use it for this would run counter to the way capitalism works, and can only work. Capitalism runs on profits and currently it's not profitable to invest to the same extent as before (one definition of a "slump"). The only way that capitalism is going to get out of this is by cutting living standards and encouraging profits (which is why Osborne announced last week yet another cut in corporation tax, a tax on profits).

Militant probably know this but are pursuing the dishonest and condescending Trotskyist policy of trying to lead the working class down a cul de sac in the hope that when they reach the brick wall they'll turn to them for "leadership". It's the same with their advice to local councillors to fix a budget without cuts and send the bill to the government (which planet are they living on?). They know perfectly well the result. The councillors would be surchanged and banned from public office (as happened to Ted Knight and his fellow Lambeth councillors who tried this in the 1980s)and the central government would take over the running of the council and impose the cuts anyway. Which of course is what Militant wants to happen. It would be another brick wall.

The last paragraph of Nally's letter suggests that may be contesting the Brixton Hill by-election. Fair enough. We're prepared to take on all opponents of socialism

The result last time

The result in the ward at the local elections in May 2010 can be found here.

In other words:

Labour 43%
Liberals 29%
Greens 15%
Tories 13%

Brixton Hill council by-election

Following the move up the greasy pole from Local Councillor to Member of Parliament by Steve Reed, the Leader of Lambeth Council, he has resigned as a councillor and a by-election will be held in the ward he represented. This happens to be Brixton Hill, which is within 10-15 minutes walking distance from our office at 52 Clapham High Street and also one of the wards where in the Greater London Assembly elecions in May we got 3 percent or more of the vote. It is just outside the parliamentary constituency of Vauxhall which we normally contest.

We will be contesting this by-election whih will take place on Thursday 17 January. Nomination papers have to be in by Tuesday 18 December, so next week we'll be going round collecting to 10 signatories by electors in the ward needed to stand.

As there was no chance of Steve Reed not being elected as Labour MP for North Croydon we had anticipated the by-election and have already leafletted the ward. On the basis of this we reckon that 3000 leaflets can cover this. With this relatively small number we should be able to leaflet it twice before the election.

You'll be able to follow our campaign on this blog.