piers
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Leaflet delivery in Stroud Central Division for the Gloucestershire County Council election on May 1st is complete with around 4700 delivered.
The Greens have delivered their 4th leaflet (a rather cheesy fake postcard-from-a-friend implying that everyone else is on the bandwagon and we should be too). Labour are on one leaflet; Tories, TUSC and Liberals don’t seem to have bothered.
I met the Reform UK candidate and his election agent whilst out delivering at the weekend, not sure if they have leafleted everywhere.
I’ve had some interesting conversations on the street, by email and phone calls and the leaflet has led a quite few people to this website.
Leaflet delivery for the campaign in Stroud is continuing in small batches before the final push this weekend.
The Greens are on their third leaflet drop and I’ve only seen a Labour leaflet otherwise. All the Green material says is that only they have a chance of beating Labour and that the candidate will work really hard for the community – what they will work hard at is not specified.
Reports on a local forum are that in a neighbouring electoral division Reform UK have been active. Someone who tried to reject the Reform leaflet on the doorstep was told by the deliverer to shove it up their arse.
I’ve only encountered a couple people who have said they don’t want the leaflet, and my approach has been to turn up the charm to 11. In fact one guy changed his mind when I told him what it was and said “go on stick through the letter box, I’ll read it later”.
The Internet Committee is working on a new website theme, and to be honest, the background is also white.
Offering a Dark Mode is a good suggestion though and I will look into that.
More leaflets distributed in Gloucestershire today. This time in the area around the former Stroud Workhouse, a large building on top of a hill. It was built to house 500 persons in what was early-stage capitalism’s version of “social care”.
This was the very place Laurie Lee described in Cider With Rosie: “grey shadow falling on the close of life, most feared by the old, abhorred more than debt, or prison, or beggary, or even the stain of madness”.
One of the Party’s early members grew up in a nearby village in full view of the imposing Stroud Workhouse: Ted Ford.
Another batch of leaflets (~450) delivered in Stroud today. And all the Newsquest-owned local papers have reproduced the same article listing all the candidates in the county – so lots more people can see we are standing than just those in one ward.
The leaflet for the Gloucestershire County Council Election arrived yesterday and the first delivery took place this morning (~350). The text reads:
This might be the last Gloucestershire County Council Election. The government seems intent on reorganising the County and District Councils. This will result in fewer representatives and a concentration of strategic power in the hands of a regional Mayor.
This is democracy in the capitalist system: a choice between candidates for office with only marginally different sets of policies. Once elected those in office can tinker with the system but not the rules of capitalism: those without wealth are beholden to those who do, profit comes first not human needs, and can’t pay – can’t have.
But what can we do? Unlike the architects of local government devolution, Socialists believe not that there is too much democracy, but that there isn’t enough. The rules of capitalism have not been in place for all of human history and we don’t need them in future. Getting rid of the rules of capitalism and creating a real democratic future can’t be brought about from above. It has to come from a majority of people.
You can show support for real democracy, socialism, by voting for the Socialist Party of Great Britain on May 1st.
Socialism is a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society or, a democracy in which free and socially equal men and women co-operate to produce the things they need to live and enjoy life, to which they have free access: ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’.
The Socialist Party is like no other political party in Britain. It is made up of people who have joined together because we want to get rid of the profit system and establish real socialism.
Our aim is to encourage others to become socialist and act for themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring about the kind of society that we advocate.
We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not a reformist party with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.
If elected, Piers Hobson will work for socialism at every opportunity, vote on issues according to the democratic decisions of his branch of the Socialist Party and always be for socialism and nothing else.
Promoted by Piers Hobson of 63 Ben Grazebrooks Well, Stroud, GL5 1DL.
One video, which I was the first person to watch.
Watch on TikTok
council mismanagement … hold them to account … housing issues, not political … unjustified rent increases … repair bills … waste of public funds …
Doesn’t mention the SPGB at all! – or any other candidates to be fair.
This morning in my town centre, in addition to a protest against cold homes outside the Labour Party office, in the usual spot occupied by SPEW the Labour Party were protesting against the government!
I was approached with the question along the lines of “What do you think about what Keir Starmer is doing to this country?”
It was the local Labour Party wanting to hold Free Gear Kier to his election promises – collecting feedback by asking people to put a mark against a list of reforms as our top priority. None of which were abolishing capitalism.
The lady I spoke to said “perhaps abolishing capitalism is a long term goal” – “Is it?” I asked, “no”, she admitted.
Well done, huge amount of work. There are currently 19,921 Socialist Standard articles on this site, so not far off parity.
Piers
I also voted already – did a sticker-in vote, rather than a write-in vote – and the only poll counter outside was Labour.
The ID check wasn’t too fastidious, whereas for the Local I remember the lady looking at my picture, looking at me, looking at my picture, looking at me, looking at my picture and looking at me before I was allowed to proceed – slightly uncomfortable.
Apologies, we have been experiencing an denial-of-service attack from a single source. We are mostly winning, but a couple of times a service has been knocked over.
If anybody heard the World at One today, they almost had two commentators having a capitalism vs socialism debate – a aristocrat trotting out the usual rubbish and an academic who said something along the lines of fulfilling work was only possible with a fundamental change to “our economy”.
Hi Dave,
To contact a forum admin you can use this page:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/contact-forum-admin/
