XXXing the UK

On this day of days a funny picture from a good soul over at Facebook:

And just because I'm a lazy blogger these days . . . months . . . years decades that's no excuse for not me pointing you towards the 'Voting for Socialism' post over at the SPGB's election blog. The SPGB is standing in the Lambeth & Southwark and the Merton & Wandsworth GLA constituencies. My old friend Danny, who is the SPGB candidate in Lambeth & Southwark, is featured in a ten minute video over at The Big Smoke website.

Check it out.

First We Take Larkhall

Q: What do you get when you cross a left anorak with a psephologist

A: Someone who will click on this latest/final post from the SPGB's election blog, Vaux Populi.

The comrades over at VP give a breakdown of the votes for the SPGB candidate in the Lambeth and Southwark constituency. Turns out the Party's best ward vote - a whopping 71 votes - was in the Larkhall ward. I'm not knocking it. It's the first recorded victory of a Menshevik over a Bolshevik (71-50) since the Georgian Parliamentary Election of 1919.

Now we know where to concentrate comrades. Larkhall can be the Little Moscow Paris Commune for the 21st century.

PS

Q: What a good definition of 'reaching'?

A: When the comrade in the same post suggests that the SPGB's best result in Southwark - Faraday Ward - can be put down to the fact that the Party had an " . . . outdoor speaking station [that] we ran at East Street from the 1930s to the 1960s." [My emphasis.]

That comrade is now being head-hunted by Gordon Brown for the position of Chief Spindoctor for the forthcoming General Election.

Do They Mean Us? #15

Lazy bastard that I am, I've had this post in the draft section for the last ten days. Whatever . . .better late than never, I guess.

The following glowing testimonial is from the discussion board of Urban 75 and dates from a few weeks back when, during the course of a increasingly heated discussion on the post entitled '10 candidates for Lambeth and Southwark GLA constituency!', SPEW/CWI member, 'dennisr', thought he would try get into the Guinness Book of Records by seeing how many urban myths about the SPGB he could cram into one post:

"The socialist party you link to has feck all to do with the SPGB - either faction. They are not 'dissidants' - they are an organisation of thousands (which is not a lot in itself but - as opposed to 20 just or however many the ejets of the SPGB claim...). The SP are registered as the Socialist Party but not allowed to stand as the Socialist Party.

The Socialist party - which has sitting councillors in Lewisham and Coventry comes from the Militant. irt is forced to stand as Socialist Alternative because the two man + dog of the SPGB (now split inot 2 or 3 factions all with members possibly only just in double figures...) got their knickers in a twist about the name.

In Huddersfield the SP candidate stood under the Save Our NHS name because she was part of an alliance with non-SP members - she is also now a sitting councillor (she is also a doctor which may have something to do with her NHS concerns...).

Outside of the prolatarian stronhold of Clapham the SPGB don't exist." [Post dated 07-04-2008, 15:46.]

Fast forward three and a half weeks and my eye catches the results of Lambeth & Southwark and its neighbouring constiutency of Greenwich and Lewisham.

The SPGB candidate, Danny Lambert, receives 1588 votes (0.97%). Yep, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking William Morris and how it's hardly a case of " . . .a thousand and society begins to tremble . . ", but not too bad an effort in the circumstances from two men and their dog.

How did the artists formerly known as the Militant Tendency do in Greenwich and Lewisham? Must have done better than us sad sacks. According to 'dennisr', they've got thousands of members. The SP/CWI has been one franchise in the crowded Fourth Internationalist market who have been experiencing genuine growth in recent years (admittedly after a fallow couple of years), and in Chris Flood, a sitting local councillor, they had a popular candidate. A tribune of the people, no less, who has built upon the work of their other councillor in the Lewisham area, Ian Page.

Drum roll please:

1587 votes (1.08%). If I could capitalise that, I would. Wait up, I can: ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN VOTES. Thank christ for their own sake that the Millies don't indulge in the SWP-mantra of 'It's never been a better time to be a socialist.' If that was the case, 'dennisr' would be eating so much humble pie that he would be the SP/CWI's answer to John Molyneux in a matter of weeks. And by that, I don't mean that 'dennisr' would be submitting articles on Picasso to Socialism Today.

And, for the record, we in the SPGB camp shouldn't be too gleeful about the comparable results. As a comrade pointed out in the comments section of the SPGB election blog, Vaux Populi, after the London results came in:

"Of course we shouldn't get carried away. What's happened is that they've been relegated to our league (Third Division South?) rather than us promoted to the league they thought they were in."

Very wise and insightful words from the comrade and, by way of a reward, for his (and other comrades) hard work during the election campaign, the Party should have a whip round and buy him a Rothmans Football Yearbook that's been published in the last 15 years.

I don't care if he has read (and understood) the footnotes in volume three of Capital. He should be brought up to speed as soon as possible with regards to the football pyramid system currently applying to clubs in England and Wales.

Dick Wigginton

Please take into account that I'm 3,470 miles away from London and sometimes it takes a while for a joke to travel. And to sink in.

Funny pic via newsbiscuit. Also check out their 'Brown comforted by Labour gains in ‘made up places’' post.

Caught between an episode of 30 rock and harry's place

Caught between wondering what my one American reader makes of all the posts about Hibs, Hearts and Parkhead heartaches and what my two British readers make of all the posts about Midwood, Midtown and Lucky Louie marathons.

But that's enough waffle to justify the post title. (Like this blog has three readers.)

Here's a couple of links: One from a Socialist in Chicago about Barack Obama and the continuing Reverend Wright fallout and one from London about a couple of SPGBers taking time out from their Hyde Park armchairs to attend Friday's London Assembly count:

From the WSPUS website: Obama, the Rev. Wright and hesitation

From the SPGB election blog, Vaux Populi: A day at the count

Lambeth and Southwark

The result is in for the constituency where the SPGB stood a candidate for the London Assembly elections

I'm not really surprised that much by the percentage. If anything, I was expecting a lower vote for the Party but then they do say that the definition of a pessimistic SPGB member is someone who has been active on a previous Party election campaign. [Need to work on that line.]

Bill over at Vaux Populi promises anecdotes and analysis tomorrow morning. That's your time. Not mine.

Come tomorrow, will Rees's be in pieces?

Popping along to Union Square this afternoon for the May Day rally, to show my solidarity, dish out some leaflets and flash the Socialist Standard and the World Socialist Review at indifferent punters and surly hot dog vendors.

I was heartened to see that a couple of activists from Break The Chains were interviewed on the local TV station, New York One, this morning in anticipation of the march, and that the station's reporter, Roger Clarke, was prepared to give them both the time and space to make their case.

I was impressed by the contributions from both Mika Nagasaki and Tosh Anderson of Break The Chains, who both stated that the explicit purpose of today's march was to make the case of working class solidarity between undocumented immigrant workers and American workers. They also made noise about the need to recognise our common cause and, in Mika Nagasaki's case, she made reference to the historical roots of May Day and its importance to the Labour Movement.

Hopefully their appearance this morning will ensure a few more people attending the marches and demonstrations in both Chinatown and Union Square this afternoon.

But of course, I've also got one eye focused on what's going on back in Britain, and I've especially curious about what will be the outcome of the Mayoral and London Assembly Elections.

Will it be Red Ken or Clownish Boris? Who between Galloway's Respect or John Rees's Left List will get to claim the bald man's comb? Will the fragrant Sian Berry win a seat? Will the impossible happen and the noxious and fascistic BNP fail to win a seat? The heightened sense of excitement (and accompanying dread for the latter) is really too much and, depending on which blogger you pick for your version of truth, it's still up for grabs as to who will be smiling come May 2nd.

Of course, it's a given that the SPGB is never smiling the day after an election but I do have to give a shout out for the SPGB comrades in London who have contested the seat of Lambeth and Southwark. The Party's candidate is Danny Lambert, and from what I understand twenty members and sympathisers have been involved in the election campaign. (no doubt, some more than others.)

Friendly critics of the SPGB have been known to scratch their collective heads in bemusement when it comes to the matter of revolutionaries contesting elections in the here and now and I'll put my hands up to the fact that I share some of those misgivings but I do like what Bill has written over at the Vaux Populi blog, which goes some way in answering the grumbles of the 'cold water brigade':

"What matters for us is not the nose count (although we're always happier with more votes) but the number of people reading, discussing and agreeing with us. We don't want passive voters, but people to join us, or at least join the debate. Politics should be a two way process, not the passive spectator sport of the professionals in the mass media.

Here's something I wrote on this topic a while ago:

It's no wonder that people feel no pragmatic connection between their voting preferences and the outcomes; and no wonder that people feel so little connection with any of the parties. All these become are technocratic career structures for advancing politicians, a platform from which to project policy ideas to be reflected off the undifferentiated mass, which has no control over what is projected, beyond passive reflection.

This process of “mass culture” has, of course, been assisted by the spread of the mass media. The social relationship is the same, a few technocratic broadcasters/media barons, projecting images and ideas to be passively reflected by a land mass of consumers. Indeed, representative politics follows the same course. Instead of abstractedly measuring response in terms of money, it reads response in terms of flat votes, formally equal but failing to register differences in value or quality.

Hence why I'm happy to sprey leaflets around the place, and on new streets, to try and see if we can reach a new person and light the spark that sets them arguing." [The Last Leg]

At first glance, it appears to be such a minor political ambition but, in truth, it's asking far more of people than the current 4 year merry-go-round that passes for political democracy. As the old election slogan goes, we should vote for ourselves for a change . . . and then some.

Courtesy of Red Ken's Dirty Tricks Dept

There's me mulling over the minor matter of the bandwidth limit of my fileden account exceeding past bursting point when, in the real world of grown up politics, Harry's Place has become a victim of its own success.

A week before the Mayoral Elections, and HP can’t run well researched and even handed stories on Livingstone, Galloway and the SWP? Oh, that’s a sore one. Some of its regular posters and commentators must be tearing their hair out. No wonder Wardytron always wears a hat in his pictures.

I suggest that some of the HP regulars put ‘Mikey’ on suicide watch in the meantime. What with him not being in a position to exhibit his ongoing expertise on the politics of the left he’ll be kicking his little green football in frustration.

On second thoughts, leave him be.*

*Yep, a variation on this joke first appeared over at Socialist Unity blog. I'm nothing if not repetitive.

5ive at 2:05 3:05

Still too emotionally spent from this morning's game to spout and spiel, so some blog post links in the meantime:

From Marx and Coca-Cola blog: Atheists in Foxholes

From the SPGB's election blog, Vaux Populi: The SPGB meets its natural constituency (and Lindsay German) at hustings in Southwark

Gutted that Mike Leigh's 'Happy-Go-Lucky' isn't being released in the States until the end of September. So, in the meantime, I'll just have to catch up on the reviews from the other side.
Dreaming Neon Black blog carries a review which makes it sound like the cinematic equivalent of Style Council's 'Headstart For Happiness'. I love 'Headstart For Happiness' (both versions), whereas I'm guessing that Adam from DNB won't be selecting either version for his future appearance on Desert Island Discs.

From Ian Bone's blog (and his back cupboard/archive), THE POINTY HEADS…………; a celebrity anarchist death match between the Aufheben MPhils in the red corner and the Class War Wallahs from Bash Street Community College in the black corner

Nope, I don't understand the article either but I'm hoping to draft in the FDTW mob to cut it up into digestable morsels for me.

I briefly mentioned JM's Marx and Coca-Cola blog above but that's only because I knew that I'd be linking to another one of his posts later on. I better promote his blog into the 'Friends and (Political) Family' sidebar before I get accused of being his East Coast stalker.
'Randbots' is short hand for Libertarian Party members in the United States and, apparently, some of them have been known to say the darndest things. To misquote David Bowie, Scary fucking monsters (and super bastard creeps).

Quip of the Day

From Terry Sanderson 'Comment is Free post', 'Who would Jesus vote for?', in Saturday's Guardian:

"He [Boris Johnson] was at least honest about his lack of adherence, when he said: "I suppose my own faith is a bit like trying to get Virgin Radio when you're driving through the Chilterns; it sort of comes and goes."

Come on. Admit it! That's funny.

Still wouldn't piss on the bloke if he was on fire, but he's got a nice line in humour.

And they're off

The SPGB election blog, Vaux Populi, has kicked into life.

Hope they're going to do some Mayoral election stuff between now and May 1st. Sticking the proverbial boot into the SWP/Left List is all very fine and dandy, but can we also have Boris Johnson on a polemical skewer please?