Brixton Hill local by-election
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"Three of us did a 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."http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/
ALB wrote:And here's what the Anti-Duhring Brigade thought of the husting. Pictures plus this comment:Quote:The SPGB candidate summed up his party's position and program in one perfect sentence, "There's nothing we can do." Well done comrade. That's a great message to give out to the working class. Marx & Engels and all the working class martyrs would be proud of you (not)There's a full report on the hustings up now on the Brixtonblog:http://www.brixtonblog.com/brixton-hill-by-election-hustings-round-up/9402It records what Danny actually said:
Quote:Socialist candidate Danny Lambert had a more radical suggestion: “In times of recession public services are the first thing that gets cut. This is the nature of capitalism and it’s time to wake up. We’re in a society that doesn’t work in our interests. There’s nothing we can do about it unless we dump the capitalist system.”And here's what he said about the George IV pub:
Quote:Danny Lambert said the pub’s closure was one of many symptoms of capitalist economics. “If this pub can’t be run at a profit it’ll get closed down and something else will open that can,” he said. “People come a poor second to profit. Until we get shot of capitalism we’ll have this problem over and over again.”And don't forget TUSC's (one of our opponents in this election) meeting tonight (14th)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/opponents-election-meeting-brixton-730pmhttp://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/events/98896122/
Don't know if in view of the weather any or us (or anybody for that matter) will be going to the TUSC meeting in the end, but in the meantime someone has put a link to one of the three leaflets we distrubuted in the area:http://i48.tinypic.com/34h9hs3.jpghttp://i48.tinypic.com/auz1g4.jpgIncidentally, the text of this leaflet doesn't seem to be anywhere on our site if some technical bod here can find a place for it.
ALB wrote:Don't know if in view of the weather any or us (or anybody for that matter) will be going to the TUSC meeting in the end,In the end 3 of us did go, helping to bring the total audience up to 12, heard an SWP speaker (Paul Holborow of Anti-Nazi League fame) urge a vote for TUSC and got denounced by the RMT London Regional Organiser, Steve Hedley, as "Mensheviks", apparently because we criticised the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917. We never mentioned this at the meeting, but he knew. At least this shows that we are well known in militant trade union circles. In fact, the other RMT person present told us that the first socialist paper he ever bought was the Socialist Standard.
Further, from our blog:"They must be disappointed. TUSC lined up an impressive top table: April Ashley, UNISON Executive Council member, Steve Hedley, RMT London Regional Organiser, Paul Holborow, of the SWP and a founder and leader of the Anti-Nazi League, and Steve Nally, one-time organiser of the Anti-Poll Tax Federation. All people more used to addressing mass meetings but faced last night with an audience of 12, 4 of whom we brought along. All the same it was an interesting and revealing meeting. Holborow, for the SWP, said he'd been out leafletting in the ward for TUSC but he chose to criticise trade union leaders for being cowardly and high-paid and to say that Len McCluskey of UNITE was just a talker (apparently there's a disagreement amongst leftwingers as to whether or not to back his re-election, the SWP being against, Militant being for). Steve Hedley, who spoke next, took him to task for this, saying that it was not the case that the working class was eager for a general strike and was being held back by cowardly trade union leaders; the working class did not (yet) want this as, he pointedly remarked, the attendance at this meeting showed. He criticised other unions for still giving money to the Labour Party which acted against the working class. He said that the unions needed to resist the cuts but in the end there would have to be political action to get rid of capitalism and replace it by a socialist society. We nodded in agreement. Nally, the TUSC candidate, didn't go that far but merely described the human consequences of the cuts without offering any alternative beyond "no cuts". In the discussion we said we agreed that socialism was the only way-out but that this was not what TUSC was advocating in this election whereas we were. This brought Hedley back on message. The Bolsheviks, he said, had not won power on the basis of advocating socialism but on the slogans of "Peace, Land and Bread". The SPGB, he said, agreed with the Mensheviks that the Bolsheviks should not have seized power but should have handed the keys of power back to the capitalists. He's probably more of a Stalinist than a Trotskyist (he actually looks like Bob Crow). Even so, he was the best speaker of the evening, making some valid points. Apparently, they think they are going to get 200 or so votes which, according to Holborow, would be enough to have the Labour Council shaking in their boots. We doubt that."http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/
Isn't Hedley's doubts on the wisdom of a general strike go against the view of his union leader, Bob Crow? In fact as London Region rep isn't Hedley going against RMT's London Regional Council support for a general strike against the cuts?http://www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/node/3343Anyways coincidental Socialist Courier blog has posted on the general strike that may be of interest.http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/01/all-out-or-all-for-socialism.html
I don't think that Hedley was doubting the wisdom of a general strike, but rather the state of preparedness for one. I got the impression that he was pissed off at being dragged across London on a freezing night to speak to 12 people and that this was his way of telling the organisers that they needed to put more work in.Actually, to tell the truth, I would think that, to the extent that austerity and the cuts can be mitigated, the only way that would have any chance of succeeding would be some kind of trade union action (as opposed to heroics by councillors, who are essentially elected civil servants who have to carry out central government policy mainly with central government money and who can be disciplined if they don't). But unfortunately the reality is, as Hedley observed, that not enough workers have the stomach for this.
Much the same as the Socialist Courier blog concluded…"The strike would be seen by many as simply another day’s pay lost. The government would have little to fear from a 24-hour stoppage and it would just be a matter of "business as usual" the next day…An ill-prepared or poorly supported general strike could be an enormous self-inflicted defeat for the working class. Empty sloganeering gets us nowhere. If we are to build towards a general strike, we need to lay foundations in every workplace and every community and we need to ensure that no one is under any illusions that this will be an easy fight… it should be noted that 24 hour general strike would be evidence of the potential power and organisation of the working class and the level of organisation beforehand that would be required to make it a carrying it off a success would indicate a rise in political consciousness to independently organise…But after 24 hours everyone would have to go back to work and the question would be "What now?" An indefinite general strike to challenge for political power in one form or another? Who really believes the working class is currently in a position to issue such a challenge and prevail?…"http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/01/all-out-or-all-for-socialism.html
“Yesterday 3 of us did a tour of the ward to distribute 900 or so leaflets to housing estates we hadn’t done before.”
ELECTION RESULT Lab 1593 (62.6%) +20.0% Green 344 (13.5%) -3.4% LD 274 (10.8%) -17.6% Con 164 (6.5%) -5.6% TUSC 72 (2.8%) UKIP 63 (2.5%) SPGB 34 (1.3%) Turnout: 22.8%
Congrats on a good fight, and a not too bad result, 1.3% is our trend result. I suspect if TUSC hadn't have been there we'd have attracted some of their voters, so it's interesting to see the effect of a head-to-head like this (at the GLA election they didn't contest the seats, that may be why we did slightly better last year). Albeit in Labour heartlands, that is a thumping swing to them, a a body blow for Lib-Dems.According to die-hard Labour loyalist Luke Akehursthttp://labourlist.org/2013/01/a-gesture-of-great-political-and-organisational-self-confidence/Labour are looking to retake Bermondsey, and the sort of people who've abandoned the Liberals in Brixton are the same sort as will abandon them there.
Over three-quarters of the electorate didn't bother to vote. That's where we should be targetting our campaign message. How? Well, I'll delegate that to the elections committee
Our vote corresponded to what members had speculated it might be — between 20 and 50. But we didn't contest primarily for the vote (except to avoid a derisory score, which we did) but to publicise the case for socialism. Here we exceded our expectations, thanks to a lively and very fair local on-line newspaper, the Brixtonblog (which we hadn't known about before). Here is a list of the internet publicity we got, not just for the fact that we were standing but also discussion of our ideas:http://www.brixtonblog.com/brixton-hill-by-election-danny-lambert-socialist-party-of-great-britain/9198http://www.brixtonblog.com/brixton-hill-by-election-hustings-round-up/9402http://www.brixtonblog.com/hustings-video-what-would-you-do-about-unemployment-in-brixton-hill/9336http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/brixton-hill-council-by-election.304465/http://vote-2012.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=byelection&thread=1240&page=1#46349We also leafletted the ward three times. 9 people (6 members and 3 sympathisers) took part in this. For the record, we got 1 reply.We will probably contest this ward again in the full council elections in May 2014, especially because it is covered by a lively on-line paper. In the meantime we'll add Brixton Hill to the areas we regularly leaflet with a newsletter.
There were also two local council by-elections yesterday in the Wirrall which TUSC contested:http://www.wirral.gov.uk/election/results/2013-01-17/all.shtmThings must be different up North if TUSC can get 31 votes and beat both the Liberals and the Greens ! Perhaps we should have a go there.(but then we'd have to persuade our Northern branches to take up local election activity).
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