General Election – Campaign News
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MONDAY, 9TH MARCH IN SWANSEADEBATE BETWEEN THE GREEN PARTY & THE SOCIALIST PARTY – DOORS OPEN 7.00pm – STARTS AT 7.30pm AT THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, HIGH STREET, SWANSEA SA1 1NZAshley WakelingSwansea Green Party & Young Greens Co-ConvenerGreen Party General Election Candidate for Swansea WestandBrian JohnsonSwansea Socialist PartySocialist Party General Election Candidate for Swansea WestEach candidate/speaker will have 10 minutes to present their case, followed by 30 minutes of questions from the audience, ending with a 5 minutes summing up from each of the speakers.Free admissionhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/which-way-forward-britain
Here's the debate that got away. Since our candidate in Oxford West & Abingdon had just given a talk at Head Office on "Health and Homelessness" and since we learned that the National Health Action Party was also standing we wrote to their Oxford branch suggesting a debate on some such topic as "Which Way to a Lasting Free Health Service?" They have replied:
Quote:I'm not sure whether a debate between just our 2 parties would be a good use of either your candidate's time or ours – there's very unlikely to be much difference on either NHS nor the vital necessity of challenging the neoliberal consensus of the past 30 years! If you can persuade Nicola Blackwood and Layla Moran to agree to an debate where they can be asked publicly to defend their support for Lansley's dismantling and privatisation of the the NHS, alongside Sally Copley to provide answers about the disastrous PFIs and embedding of the market (not to mention Alan PwC Milburn's and Patricia BUPA Hewitt's contribution to Labour party health policy), by all means come back to us. If, as I strongly suspect, the other PPCs are reluctant to defend their parties' record on the NHS beside a working GP, I suggest both Helen and Mike take every opportunity to challenge them rather than arrange a meeting where we all agree on getting the market out and reversing HSCA. Helen is already being backed publicly by large swathes of the most eminent medics and academics in Oxford – including Iain Chalmers, Profs Danny Dorling and David Stuckler ("Why Austerity Kills") as well as authors Mark Haddon and Philip Pullman. If Mike and his supporters are sincere in wanting to replace our Tory MP and call for a publicly owned, publicly accountable NHS in this highly marginal seat, the most effective action would be to come behind the NHA party campaign and vote for Dr Helen Salisbury. Best wishes, Penny Ormerod, Scretary Oxford NHA party(Nicola Blackwood and Layla Moran are respectively the Tory and LibDem candidates while Sally Copley is the Labour one.) We are of course sincere in wanting to replace the current Tory MP but equally sincere in not wanting her to be replaced by someone from some other party that supports capitalism, the real cause of why people's needs are neglected in the field of health care but in all other fields too. Because capitalism is a profit-driven system in which profits have to come first, an economic law which in the end all governments, whatever party or parties form them, have to comply with and apply.
Just a note that the London election blog is up and running, mostly with letters to the press.http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/A sample:
Quote:Another letter has been published today:Dear Friend, an election must be coming. Jeremy Corbyn has been appearing in print around the shop calling for rent controls as a means of curbing the housing crisis. Rent controls, though, have never worked, and never will. They are an attempt to fix the market, and market rates will out, with landlords either letting their stock go to wreck or withdrawing from the market to protect their profit rates. The only solution to the housing crisis is to build enough homes for all; but the market is patently failing to do this, and never will. If there were enough homes for all, how could a landlord collect rent? No one can help taking up space, or needing shelter, and no-one should have it denied them because of market whims. Just as no-one can help falling ill, and should not have health care denied them because of market whims. We need housing free at the point of use. The only way we can get this is through the common ownership of the wealth of the world. Anything less will always see profit (and rents) put before people's need. Bill Martin Socialist Party Parliamentary Candidate for Islington North.In the Islington Gazette no online letters page, but there is an e-edition here.Aren't there already enough homes for all?Should housing be free without qualifying it as 'free at the point of use'?
There are empty homes (whether they are fit for use is another question), but the market isn't providing them. "Free at the point of use" has a recognisable resonance with the NHS, and homes will have to be "paid for" in effort come what may. The NHS makes a good 'wedge' for socialist ideas that otherwise are hard to crowbar into debate.
There was a protest meeting outside the Oxford Union building in central Oxford yesterday evening against the leader of the French Front National, Marine Le Pen, being invited to speak in a debate there.http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11775436.Protesters_turn_out_ahead_of_Marine_Le_Pen_talk_at_Oxford_Union/We were there distributing our leaflets, the one saying we're standing in Oxford East and Oxford West and the one on "Identity" which denounces nationalism (text here)Meanwhile here's the publicity on the website of St. Margaret's Institute, in Polstead Road, Oxford, where Mike Foster, our candidate in Oxford West & Abingdon, has been invited to speak this Sunday evening:http://www.smi-oxford.org.uk/news/events/index.php
Young Master Smeet wrote:The NHS makes a good 'wedge' for socialist ideas that otherwise are hard to crowbar into debate.True, and we've used it in Oxford with a letter in this week's Oxford Times:http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/forum/letters/11770223.Revolution_needed/
Some way off but an invitation has been secured for our candidate in Canterbury, Rob Cox, to participate in a hustings scheduled for Friday, 24th April at Christchurch College, Canterbury.More details in due course.
Nearly 30 people at the meeting in Oxford last night. Mike began by explaining why he wouldn't make a good MP:
Quote:Thank you all for taking the time to come along this evening to hear why I wouldn’t make a very good MP. Definitely don’t put a cross in the box for the Socialist Party of Great Britain if you somehow come to the conclusion that I would play the Westminster game for the benefit of everyone. Because I couldn’t, even if I tried. No-one can. The state, and the very way that our society is put together, can’t be made to work in the interests of the vast majority of people. MPs who start out with good intentions about reforms and representing their constituents soon get stifled by the cumbersome bureaucracy and made to follow vested interests or the dictates of the elite. MPs who don’t start out with good intentions probably have an easier job.If you vote for the Socialist Party, you wouldn’t be voting to put me in that position, thankfully. Instead, you’d be making the point that the whole system which we live under has to be replaced.He then put the case against the class-based, profit-driven system that is capitalism and for a socialist society where the means of production would be owned by everyone and no one but subject to democratic control and where work would be unpaid and people have free access to what they needed without money. This elicited the usual questions (about human nature, the incentive to work, has it been tried anywhere).The NHA party candidate was there but didn't say anything. As was the Green Party candidate in the constituency at 2010 general election (but has since left them). In fact he organised the meeting. Last week it was the NHA party. Next week it will be the Green Party and the week after that UKIP.
Our candidates in Oxford have already received a further two invitations to speak at meetings, one on 16 March, the other in April, as well as an invitation to contribute 200-250 words to a rural magazine.Who says contesting elections is a waste of time and money?
A hustings has been arranged in Canterbury tomorrow (12 February) to which our candidate has not been invited.http://englandevents.co.uk/canterbury-current-affairs-and-politics-society-may-2015/126364When the organisers were contacted to ask why the party's prospective candidate, Rob Cox, had not been invited, we were told it's because "we're not a major party".A subsequent email was sent to the organisers and a similar version posted on the related Evensi site:https://www.evensi.com/current-affairs-and-politics-society-may-2015-general/140260521
Quote:Rob Cox is the prospective candidate for The Socialist Party in the Canterbury Constituency in the General Election and is the only one out of the six declared candidates who has not been invited to this hustings. Why is that? Of the six declared candidates for this seat, the SPGB is the only one that is calling for a genuine alternative to the current economic and political system (capitalism) and its replacement with a system of society (socialism) where production will take place just for use and goods and services are provided to meet people's needs, not for sale on a market or for profit. By not inviting Rob Cox your audience is being denied an opportunity to hear why the other candidates support for a market system means their promises to solve our problems are impossible to keep, and how an alternative system can be brought about. The SPGB contested two regions of the UK in last year's Euro-elections and has been standing in UK parliamentary elections since 1945.Looks like the parties who were invited to the Canterbury debate were Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green Party and UKIP. Seems a bit silly to invite all but one.
jondwhite wrote:Looks like the parties who were invited to the Canterbury debate were Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green Party and UKIP. Seems a bit silly to invite all but one.I'm glad to say that the omission has now been remedied.
Quote:Dear Mr.Cox, My name is Jules Landrieu and I am the president of the University of Kent Current Affairs and Politics Society, organiser and host of the General Elections Hustings tomorrow. Please accept my apologies for not having received an invitation, it was (of course) unintended… No decision was made to exclude you in regard to the hustings. Therefore, (and in accordance with the Lobbying Act) we are happy to invite you as the candidate of your party. The hustings will take place at 7:00pm in the Rutherford Lecture Theatre 1 in the University of Kent Canterbury campus. With that, I hope to see you tomorrow. Best regards, Jules LandrieuAnyone who can get along tomorrow evening to give Rob some support will be most welcome.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/canterbury-hustings-7pm
I'm glad it was resolved but their apology appears to be a little mealy-mouthed disingenious …of course, it was intended as the orginally informed us…we were not a "major" party. No decision was made to exclude us…we were simply ignored totally and no invite sent. As for their reference to the Lobbying Act, perhaps someone more in the know can tell me the reference. A quick google left me the impression that it is totally irrelevant to husting but is a financial regulation on payments to support political party campaigns. http://www.bond.org.uk/data/files/campaigns/Bond_-_Lobbying_Act_-_10_key_things_to_know.pdfPerhaps Rob will make an opportunity to remind the hustings that most of them were minor parties at one time …I look forward to the report of the hustings
alanjjohnstone wrote:I'm glad it was resolved but their apology appears to be a little mealy-mouthed disingenious …of course, it was intended as the orginally informed us…we were not a "major" party. No decision was made to exclude us…we were simply ignored totally and no invite sent. As for their reference to the Lobbying Act, perhaps someone more in the know can tell me the reference. A quick google left me the impression that it is totally irrelevant to husting but is a financial regulation on payments to support political party campaigns. http://www.bond.org.uk/data/files/campaigns/Bond_-_Lobbying_Act_-_10_key_things_to_know.pdfPerhaps Rob will make an opportunity to remind the hustings that most of them were minor parties at one time …I look forward to the report of the hustingsSee here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/169480/sp-hustings-npc-ukpge.pdfIts the difference between holding a 'Selective Hustings' which are regulated and a 'Non-selective Hustings' which are non-regulated plus the declaration of expenses. All candidates must be invited to non-selective hustings and do not have to declare it as election expenses. Whereas with selective hustings the candidates attending have to share the cost of holding the event and advertising and declare them as their election expenses. At the local level attending a selective hustings has been found through experience too complex and argumentive between candidates on the share of the costs. Resulting in post election papers being presented too late for scrutiny, etc. Also the organisation which organises the selective husting, especially if they are a charity, will come under careful scrutiny from the Charity Commisioner and the Electoral Commisioner.Resulting in most hustings are non-selective and in order to qualify as such they must invite all candidates because it causes less trouble in paperwork, etc.
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