First leaflets distributed

750 leaflets were distributed today in the western part of the constituency. Some other signs of political activity: one Labour poster and someone returned a leaflet saying he didn't want it as he was National Front (unless he was still living in the 1970s he probably was). This is definitely not part of the Stockbroker belt. Also, the LibDems had been distributing leaflets for their candidate, the outgoing councillor Fiona White. The usual it's a two-horse race stuff aimed a potential Labour voters, stating:

It is a clear choice between hardworking Fiona White and the Liberal Democrats or four more years of Conservative chaos

.
Anybody would think that they hadn't been in a coalition government with the Tories for 5 years.

Manifestos have arrived

3500 copies of our manifesto arrived today. Here's what it looks like:

It's the same wording as in the Party's manifesto for the 2014 Euroelections. We decided to use this as our appeal is aimed at those interested in ideas rather than in potholes, street lights or cycle lanes.

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).

All the Surrey candidates

Today's Surrey Advertiser has a full page with the names of all the candidates standing for the 81 electoral divisions of Surrey County Council. Apart from us, the only vaguely "radical" ones are TUSC in Staines and two Peace Party candidates in Guildford (one standing in the same division as us). But they are reformists of course.

Couldn't help noticing the name of one of the UKIP candidates in Surrey Heath -- Piotr Jerzy Farbiszewski -- and wonder which other camdidate there UKIP supporters will be voting for. Incidentally, no UKIP candidates at all standing in Guildford, so that must means they won't be at the Brexit hustings?

Brexit hustings

A bit surprising in a local election but we and all the other parties standing candidates in Guildford have been invited to a hustings organised by the pro-EU "Guildford in Europe" group. More on them here. It will be on Tuesday 25 April at the Guildford Institute, Ward Street, Guildford GU1 4LH, from 7.15 to 8.30. Each party will be allowed 5 minutes to put over their position. The local paper, the Surrey Advertiser, will be publicising and reporting the meeting. We've probably still got a few of our EU referendum leaflets somewhere.

By the way, we are not complaining about this issue being raised in a local election. Far from it, as we're raising the issue of world socialism. The obscene scandal of cutting back on care homes for the elderly and vulnerable and the turning off of street lights, planned and implemented by Surrey Council, do derive ultimately from the workings of the world capitalist economy. Capitalism in an economic downwturn, as following the Crash of 2008, requires governments to cut back on their spending to relieve the pressure on profits. As most local council money comes from the central government, so they have to cut back too. Profits before people, that's the way capitalism works and the only way it can.

Our opponents

The list of persons nominated for Guildford West has just been published. Apart from us there are 5 others:

Chandler (Tory), Dokimakis (Lab), Purvis (Green), Morris (Peace Party) and White (LibDem).

White is the outgoing councillor. The Peace Party is a christian-inspired pacificist party, based in Guildford, which regularly contests elections there, including the last General Election. They are on the ballot paper as "The Peace Party - Non-Violence, Justice, Environment". Last time in the Surrey County Council elections in 2013 they got 105 votes (5%). They are also standing in Guildford South West. There is no UKIP candidate (no point anyway, now they've won the referendum).

In the rest of Surrey, there is one other candidates using the word "socialist" on the ballot paper: TUSC in Staines. In a by-election for the ward last year they got 33 votes (1%).

Nomination accepted

The nomination papers for our candidate, Adam Buick, were handed in at Guildford Borough Council offices this afternoon and accepted. So we're on the ballot paper, with our emblem.

The artwork for the manifesto, with the same wording as the one for the 2014 Euroelections when we contested the South East Region, has arrived. We only need to change the colour from blue to orange.

Election Time Again

Not in London but over the border, in Surrey. The English County Council elections are taking place on Thursday 4 May and West London branch has decided to stand a candidate in Guildford, which is only about 20 miles from Kingston, chosen because it is a university town.

Activity so far:

Letter published in the Hounslow Chronicle (17 March )in response to one from someone in the ex-Militant Tendency signing himself "Staines and Surrey Socialist Party":

Socialists will have candidate
Paul Couchman (Your Say, March 3) says he wants to build "the Social­ist Party in Staines and Surrey" and hopes that there will be Socialist candidates in May's County Council elections.
The good news is that there will be. The bad news, for him, is that it will not be his party, ie the old Mili­tant Tendency under the usurped name of our party which has existed since 1904. We shall be standing on a straight socialist programme of the common ownership and demo­cratic control of the means of pro­duction, with production for use not profit, not for mere reforms to capi­talism as he wants.

The 10 signatories for the nomination paper were collected yesterday in the chosen electoral division of Guildford West. The Labour Party had already leafletted the ward to introduce their candidate (George Dokimakis). It seems that Corbyn's takeover of the Leadership has made no difference whatsover at local level as the leaflet's slogan is "Say NO to 4.99% Council Tax increases". Very leftwing. UKIP and the LibDems will no doubt be using that one too.

Literature stalls planned in the centre of Guildford for Saturday 15 April, Saturday 22 April and Monday 1 May.

More psephology

The London Elects site has now published the results by borough (and ward). Here are our results by borough:

Lambeth 729 (0.74%)
Southwark 604 (0.69)
Hounslow 504 (0.65)
Waltham Forest 496 (0.64)
Hackney 464 (0.60)
Kingston 293 (0.50)
Islington 333 (0.45)
Richmond 268 (0.35)

This confirms past experience that we do better in Labour areas than elsewhere, though the rather surprising result in Islington (where we have contested many elections over the years) would seem go against this.

Results in detail

Lambeth and Southwark
Florence Eshalomi (Lab) 96946 (51.63) -1.18
Robert Flint (Con) 34703 (18.48) -0.89
Rashid Nix (Green) 25793 (13.74) + 2.23
Michael Bukola (LD) 21489 (11.4) -0.2
Idham Ramadi (UKIP) 6591 (3.51) +0.72
Kevin Parkin (Soc) 1333 (0.71) -1.15
Amadu Kanumansa (APP) 906 (0.48) n/a

North East
Jennette Arnold (Lab) 134307 (58.7) +5.63
Sam Malik (Con) 32565 (14.23) -4.37
Samir Jeraj (Green) 29401 (12.85) -2.61
Terry Stacy (LD) 14312 (6.26) -0.64
Freddy Vachha (UKIP) 11315 (4.95) +1.5
Tim Allen (Respect) 5068 (2.22) n/a
Bill Martin (Soc) 1293 (0.57) n/a
Jonathan Silberman(Trot) 536 (0.23) n/a

South West
Tony Arbour (Con) 84381 (39.47) -0.37
Martin Whelton (Lab) 62937 (29.4) + 0.7
Rosina Robson (LD) 30654 (14.34) -2.34
Andree Frieze (Green) 19745 (9.24) -0.6
Alexander Craig (UKIP) 14983 (7.01) +2.11
Adam Buick (Soc) 1065 (0.50) n/a

We don't contest elections to get the maximum number of votes but we do hope to avoid a really derisory score. On this last our unstated aim was to avoid getting less than a four-figure vote. Which was achieved. 0.5% means that out of every 200 people who voted 1 voted socialist or, since there was a 49% turnout in South West, one in every 400 people you pass in the streets there (or watch Brentford play). In the other places we contested you'll have an even better chance of crossing a socialist voter.

Our vote in Lambeth and Southwark was down. This will be due to the fact that we changed our candidate. We do say that it's the case not the face that counts and rightly but we can't control how even our sympathisers see things. Danny Lambert, who has stood as our candidate many times in the Lambeth area (and in this GLA constituency last time), was well known as the candidate for socialism but this will have been name recognition and association with us rather than a personal vote. There was also one more candidate than last time and the number of candidates standing also affects things. That candidate was from the All People's Party, a breakaway from the Labour Party in Southwark. They can't be very pleased.

We didn't finish bottom in North East either where, after "Workers Power", the "Communist League" was the second Trotskyist vanguard to suffer the indignity, for them, of being beaten by the SPGB despite them standing on a programme of attractive reforms and us standing only on the maximum programme of socialism and nothing else.

Two media interviews

For the record, two online interviews with our candidate in Lambeth & Southwark, Kevin Parkin, can be found here (Southwark News) and here (SW Londoner).

The count in the three constituencies we are contesting will be under way soon with results expected some time in the afternoon.

Keith - May Day

Well we went there! Clerkenwell Green: A vast whirling chaos of assorted Lefties. In front of the old Sessions House were the M-Ls. Damn lot of them, very noisy too. Maybe they hadn't heard that dear old Uncle Joe has been dead these sixty years (and buried up yonder in Green Lawn Sematary). A variety of Leagues (Communist, Spartacist, Justice) and Parties (Socialist Worker's, Namestealingnogoods). Some oddities for my collection: the Independent Socialist Labour Party (the bloke who fell out with Scargill); An Australian geezer harping on about banks - Eight years too late (we're on Eureferendum and TTIPs now dear) and the wrong continent. And bloody hell! The dancing fool. How I hate him! No idea why. The anarchists were there too - I met Nick Heath, who has a very nice hat. Everybody had brought along their table. Except the Marxist Study Centre, who were too posh to sit (they stood near the Nice Policeman, out of the way of the hoi polloi- Who are they? Why are they so well dressed?). And us. Why did we not have a table? Sorry, it was too much for my tiny biclycle. I already look like a circus elephant. The table would be too much man. If you do this sort of thing, you do need a table though. To lay out all your stuff on. Someone might buy something. T'other thing you need is gumption. You need to all but race around pressing jolly leaflets into unwilling hands. Leaflet sir? No thank you. Oh dear you already seem to have it in your sweaty. And I am long gone. Anyway that's about it. Election tomorrow. Remember folks: Vote early! Vote often!

KAZ

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.

Profile in the Hackney Citizien

Meet the North East Candidates

Bill Martin is a librarian and has been a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain for 20 years.

He explains that the Socialist Party stands to abolish the wages system and establish a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of wealth, recognising that this change can only be made by a mass movement dedicated to that purpose, and not by leaders.

Martin claims his name is on the ballot paper as a useful legal device to allow people to signal their support for this change.

The Hackney Citizen requested a photograph of Bill Martin from Socialist Party of Great Britain but none was forthcoming.

In fact, a photo was not 'no forthcoming' but we actively declined to provide one, on the grounds that it is the case, and the Party that is standing for election, not an individual person.

Saturday in KIngston

Two members and two sympathisers ran a street stall in the centre of Kingston for two hours on Saturday. Slow start but it picked up later with discussions on the EU referendum (the Leave and Remain leafletters were out again, amazing how people are concerned with the British capitalists' trading arrangements while the only thing they trade is is their labour-power) and Ken Livingstone's alleged anti-semitism rather than the GLA elections. Leaflets (both on the election and on the referendum) handed out. A couple of pamphlets sold and a couple taken without paying (the person chose carefully as he took How the Gods Were Made and Marxism and Darwinism). Contacted by a member of the Zeitgeist movement who had come from the other side of London to do this.

This will be the last of the election stalls. Next date: polling day, Thursday 5 May (also Marx's birthday).

News from the South Western Front

Today's Richmond and Twickenham Times has a full page on the six candidates standing in the South West constituency. Unfortunately it is about who I am rather than what the Party stands for. The information on our candidate was not supplied by us but was taken from wikipedia. The nearest it gets to saying what we stand for is where says I am a "speaker and writer about a moneyless and wageless society". We have agreed, though, to supply a photo for the online version despite that for us it's "the case not the face" that counts, on the grounds that a "face" will attract more people to read what's underneath it than just plain text. But don't worry, the chosen photo shows a Party banner in the background saying "Abolish the Wages System".

The same paper's online edition also carried a report on the hustings in Twickenham on 12 April (where the candidate's face can also be seen). It's here.

The Surrey Comet only has a page on 5 of the 12 candidates for mayor and nothing on who's standing for the GLA but we can't really complain as they had published two letters from us. The Liberal candidate will have more reason to as she's never been mentioned and the UKIP candidate might not have liked being reminded on the front page that he once denounced the "gaystapo" (on the other hand, maybe he accepts that any publicity is better than none).

We have now finished distributing our quota of one-third of the 30,000 election manifestos and only have an 1000 or so, found at Head Office, left to do. By chance they have been distributed more or less equally between the three boroughs of Kingston, Richmond and Hounslow. This was not the plan as the intention was to concentrate on Hounslow where the branch meets. 11-12000 is slightly more than a token coverage as it's only about 4% of the total number of postal drops in the constituency.

A hundred were distributed in Oxford as on a visit there for a William Morris event (saw the room in University College where Morris gave his first talk as a socialist entitled "Art under Plutocracy", part of which we first republished in 1907 as Art, Labour and Socialism) I noticed that nearly all the streets near where I was saying had houses displaying "Vote Green" or "Vote Labour" posters in their windows. They all got the only leaflet I had with me (our GLA manifesto). Assuming that those displaying posters are among the 5% of the population said to follow politics this is a self-selected target and 100 delivered to them should be the equivalent of 2000 delivered to all doors. It will also serve here as a reminder that, after contesting both the Euroelections in 2014 and the General Election last year in Oxford, we are still around. More of the leaflets will be distributed at the Mayday trade union event in Oxford on Saturday.

Tomorrow we will be having a street stall in Kingston but not in Brentford as announced.

A voice from the back...

Rather than my usual ramblings, one of our members sent in a report from the Friends fo the Earth Hustings for the North East Constituency

I attended the hustings meeting yesterday, eventually! I turned up at St. Mark's church just before the advertised time, but there was nothing happening there apart from a Thai wedding. Ciamak turned up shortly after me, and we stood around wondering what to do, when a young fellow came along who was also looking for the meeting. To cut a long story sort, he phoned around and eventually found out that the meeting had been moved to a hall around the corner. We entered the hall to find it well-filled and the meeting in progress. It seems we were the only ones who weren't told about the change. Unfortunately, the acoustics were poor and I was having trouble hearing what some of the candidates were saying even though they spoke into microphones. Bill was OK in this respect, as were the UKIP, Labour and Green candidates. Some of the other candidates were fairly sympathetic to what Bill was saying about dealing with the root causes of environmental damage being down to the seeking of profits. I suspect that they thought socialism was a good idea, but way off in the future, and we have to deal with major problems here and now. The UKIP candidate, Freddy Vachha said the problems of environmental damage in London was caused by too many people living there (which is probably partly true), but offered no solution, other than "pulling up the drawbridge". He didn't address the reasons why so many workers are coming to London, e.g. for economic and political reasons, which would have led him to the conclusion that the solution lies in a worldwide approach, rather than a parochial one. However, he was an impressive speaker who disabused some of the other candidates of their pipe-dreams and solutions which they wouldn't be able to deliver on. The format of the meeting--asking what the candidates would do for them--didn't lend itself to developing the discussion along broader lines. This meant that certain subjects, which didn't necessarily require a political solution weren't discussed, e.g. The use of bottled water and the consequent recycling millions of bottles; The leaving on of lights in large buildings overnight etc. Bill caused a bit of an uproar when he said that if you don't want a classless world of common ownership then he doesn't want your vote! Because I arrived late, I missed the introduction, and wasn't sure who all the candidates were representing--they had their names only on hand-written name-plates. The was a conspicuous lack of black faces in the audience, apart from a colleague of Labour candidate Jeannette Arnold.

Much better than I could have put it. (from here.

Leafletting yesterday

West London members were out again yesterday running street stalls in two different parts of the South West constituency.

In Feltham 3 members, helped for a while by a bored balloon seller, handed out leaflets outside the Shopping Centre. At first we set up stall inside the Centre but were requested to move on by security staff who said we required permission True as the Centre is private property (an increasing trend with these places), so we moved just outside on to the pavement of the High Street.

Some political discussion. With a UKIP member and a Kurdish leftwinger who spoke about the collapse of state capitalism in Russia and told us how the Kurdish militias were defeating ISIS. Someone else told us she never voted as politicians were all the same and never did anything for ordinary people. We said we agreed and that it was because they were running capitalism whose economic laws forced them to put profits before people. She asked us what we would do for people. When we replied "nothing" and that people had to do things for themselves she took our leaflet. A skinhead draped in a flag of St George, it being his day, sang "You are the left wing, We are the right wing" as he passed by. We told him we could see that, but we couldn't identify which football club he supported.

Chiswick was quieter than a fortnight ago with people more interested in the EU referendum than the London elections. A sympathiser who went to Kingston thinking it was this Saturday we'd be there (it was last Saturday) reported that the Leave and Remain leafletters were out again. So, when we are there next Saturday we'll come armed with a good supply of our "EU Referendum - An Irrelevant Sideshow" leaflet.

One More Letter

Letter published in today's Surrey Comet (but sent to its sister, free paper, the Kingston Guardian) under their heading "Profits first":

MP Siobhan McDonagh is right to point to the loopholes in the government's 'Living Wage' law (Surrey Comet, April 8). Employers aim to make a profit and the more they have to pay in wages the less there is for profits. So they can be expected to try to get round any law that increases their wages bill, either by cutting other payments as you report B&Q have done or by not employing so many low-paid workers. This is how capitalism works and why it needs to be replaced by a system based on common ownership and democratic control where people would no longer depend for a living on being paid by an employer.
Adam Buick, Socialist Party candidate GLA South West constituency.

Jacqueline: Door to Door in Streatham area

Sunday 3 April 2016 (4.00-8.00) Palace Road, Lupin Close, Probyn Road, Lanercost Road, Lanercost Close, Kinfauns Road, Kingsmead Road, Northstead Road (350 leaflets): Excellent feedback, good leafletting

Monday 4 April 2016 (6.30-9.00) Amesbury Avenue, Barcombe Avenue, Hillside Avenue, Hillside Road, Elmsworth Street (800): Very long roads, usual bullshit of "I'm a socialist don't want a leaflet".

Tuesday 5 April 2016 (4.30-7.15) Cricklade Avenue, Downton Avenue, Nuthurst Avenue, Normanhurst Road, Wyatt Park Road, Daysbrook Road (500)

Wednesday 6 April 2016 (6.00-7.30) Wavertree Road, Barstow Crescent, Palace Road (125): Disappointing few leaflets, few houses, locked tower blocks

Thursday 7 April 2016 (6.30) North London Branch at Tufnell Park: 6 members in all, designated areas, 2 members leafletted election leaflets (100+) and advertising talk NLB (100+)

Friday 8 April 2016 (6.00-8.30) Weir Road, Radbourne Road, Hydethorne Road, Haverhill Road, Burnbury Road (400): leafletters dream roads, 4 doors/ 4 letterboxes per entrance, very long roads, encouraging sounds from area, usual Labour nonsense - poster in window "Labour fighting for Britain" or something similar, todays leafletting made up for Wednesday's disappointing leafletting

Going to concentrate on roads in/ around this area, all roads since started leafletting have posted 1 leaflet per door, rarely 2, leafletted 2,000+ leaflets, have precisely 500 leaflets left

Tuesday 12 April 2016 (2.30-5.00) Cambray Road, Midmoor Road, Telferscot Road, Fieldhouse Road, Glenfield Road (500): very fast leafletting, mainly 4 doors/ 4 letterboxes per entrance, no leaflets left

Thursday 14 April 2016 (morning) Hazelbourne Road, Englewood Road (200)

Friday 15 April 2016 Gaskarth Road, Honeybrook Road, Rudloe Road (250)

Sunday 17 April 2016 Cathles Road, Dagnan Road, Yukon Road, Cubitt House (325) loads of accessible flats

Monday 18 April 2016 (5.30-7.30) Clarence Crescent, Thorncliffe Raod, Kingswood Raod, Felsberg Road, Dumbarton Road, Doverfield Road, Lyham Road, Thornbury Road, Valentine House (400+)

Tuesday 19 April 2016 (morning) Bonneville Gardens, Cautley Avenue, Lessar Avenue, Lynette Avenue (200+) (afternoon) Leppoc Road, Caldervale Road, Franconia Road, Elms Road (200+)

Wednesday 20 April 2016 (1.00-4.30) Abbeyville Road (142 silly Labour Poster vote Labour, leafletted 2 Q&A leaflet), Crescent Lane, Tableer Avenue, Allnutt Way - Flats and Notre Dame Estate (crap low letterboxes/brushes, due to severe backpain/ sciatica had to abandon rest of Notre Dame Estate - large estate accessible), Park Hill, Dryden Close, Briarwood Road (poster vote Sadiq Khan shite, 2 x Q&A leaflet) (400)

Total leaflettting 4,500+: Have finished my leafletting have approx 800 leaflets left which I will leaflet when I can, need time for self, just got my cycle back after repairs

Fraternally Jacqueline