Eastleigh by-election?

December 2024 Forums World Socialist Movement Eastleigh by-election?

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  • #81776
    Ed
    Participant

    The seat vacated by Chris Huhne on the 4th of this month (last Monday) is to be a hotly contested seat seeing the lib dems and torys square off for the first time since the coalition government began. Would it be possible/is it too late for us to get a candidate on the list for propaganda purposes. The election will be held on the 28th of this month. We have members in nearby Southampton who could stand. The election will generate a lot of interest and could be a great opportunity to be seen and heard.

    After the propaganda successes of Brixton Hill it seems I've become a by-election convert cheeky

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastleigh_by-election,_2013

    #92142
    Anonymous
    Inactive

     

    #92143
    Ed
    Participant

    Doh! oh well that seems like a bit of a blanket resolution that wasn't really needed. I don't know what the situation was before, whether every by-election was contested? But to ban them rather than just limit the amount that they are used seems a bit extreme and ultimately restricting.

    #92144
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Here's another reason why members will have voted to stop contesting parliamentary by-elections:http://www.englishelections.org.uk/england/wby/eastleigh.php14 candidates, 3 of them obvious loonies. We wouldn't get any favourable publicity in a case like this and would risk the ignomy of getting less than one of these loonies, a fate we suffered in the Littleborough & Saddleworth by-election in 1996  (known amongst members as the Little and Sad by-election) when we got beaten by Mr Blobby (though we didn't finish last, but 8th out of 10). TUSC is taking an enormous risk in standing.In any event, any pretence of all candidates getting equal time has been dropped for ages. The TV and radio stations get away with referring viewers and listeners to a website while even the Electoral Commission advises that hustings can be organised without all the candidates.

    #92145
    ALB
    Keymaster

    http://www.englishelections.org.uk/england/wby/eastleigh.phpLucky we didn't contest. Or perhaps not, as we could probably have beaten TUSC. Everybody else did except the Wessex Nationalists but including the 3 loony candidatesThis must surely be the worst result they will ever get, but it will probably take them longer than us to realise that contesting parliamentary by-elections can be counter-productive. It's actually worse than we got at the Little and Sad by-election.How long before serious trade union officials (the TUSC candidate was an RMT full-timer) agree to make fools of themselves in this way? When will Bob Crow pull the plug?

    #92146
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Are you sure the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet candidate  Ray Hall who received almost 4 times the TUSC vote wasn't another trot with a new transitional demand programme?

    #92147
    ALB
    Keymaster

    You could be right, but his programme was more like UKIP's:http://vote-2012.proboards.com/post/59368TUSC might have got more votes if they stood under their other namehttp://www.tusc.co.uk/

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