General Election Hustings and Soul Reversal

On Tuesday night Clare College politics society held a Question Time style hustings with five candidates for the Cambridge constituency at the general election, chaired by former Tory MP and Clare alumnus Matthew Parris. Present were the candidates of the three main parties, the Greens, and Martin Booth for the Cambridge Socialists, who are standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. Perhaps inevitably, questions were wide-ranging and candidates were not really given enough time to do them justice. It was clear that the Green and Socialist candidates were on the left, with the Tories and Labour on the right and a LibDem falling down the hole in the middle while trying to please everyone.

Tony Juniper for the Greens argued for a “different kind of economics.” This meant investment for the creation of green jobs, higher taxes on the wealthy and a Tobin Tax. Nothing there that a Socialist candidate would necessarily disagree with, but Martin went much further than Juniper when dealing with some key issues. Martin called for the meaningful nationalisation of the banks, to be run genuinely democratically as opposed to carrying on private sector practices as RBS are at the moment. He also argued that combating climate change necessitated a challenge to the capitalist system.

Implicit in this is the question that the Greens, as a party, need to face. If their “different kind of economics” is not socialism, is not aimed at giving decision-making power in society to the working class majority, then what is it? A nicer form of capitalism? If so, how will it work? How would the Greens challenge the power of big capital?

Martin very much stressed the need to mobilise people to achieve our goals, whether this be in the defence of public services or the fight against climate change. Juniper, an experienced lobbyist with Friends of the Earth, called for this or that law to be enacted. But he seemed to have no strategy for action in the (very likely) case that the political class lets us down.

Daniel Zeichner is Labour's candidate. His contributions were heavily critical of the “fantasy politics of opposition world.” I can well believe that Zeichner is not a New Labour hack right now, but he said nothing to indicate that he wouldn't become one if elected to Parliament. His answer on Afghanistan was particularly telling, as he came out with some crap about the threat of Al-Qaeda and the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into terrorist hands if Western troops left, that could have been a press release from the darkest days of the Bush Jr. White House.

Zeichner said that a few years ago he pushed for Labour conference to adopt a policy of building more council housing, and that doing so cost him dear in terms of progress within the party. That this perhaps tells us a lot about the state of the Labour Party itself, was apparently lost on him.

One question, “Do you think Britain is a broken society?”, indicates how difficult it can be to put a socialist message across in circumstances like these. The question reminds me of the Day Today sketch on “Tightening up the law” or “Soul Reversal.” Seeing as the question is centred around a meaningless phrase, any answer given is meaningless. "Society is broken." "180 degrees should be the average soul reversal for a football match." And so on. Martin did a good job in limited time of trying to explain how phrases like this are used implicitly or explicitly to blame the poor in society for their own problems.

“Broken Society” is, of course, a Tory-Tabloid chestnut. Nick Hillman, for the Conservatives, came out with a few more of these, most notably that “violent crime is going up,” without giving any real statistics. He also dismissed a recent poll showing that most Tory candidates don't care about global warming with the rather unconvincing pearl of wisdom that “every party has fringes.” He also reassured us that he hasn't taken any money from Lord Ashcroft, but defended the latter as a great contributor to the Cambridge community because he provides funding to ARU. This is worth looking into; maybe he owns it, along with Belize.

It remains to be seen how far the extent of the LibDem candidate to mark out territory distinct from the other two main parties is successful. He came out against tuition fees, which the LibDems were equivocal on before they realised that scrapping this pledge would gut their student vote. He seemed to be off message, saying that there would be no drastic spending cuts under the LibDems. presumably just “savage” ones, then. He also called for the quick withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which is something I've never heard from Clegg et al.

Despite this, there was little between the main parties' candidates. Juniper was impressive, but Martin was the only panel member to get across any ideas about a totally different political or economic system, and the need to involve people in grassroots political campaigning.

Read Martin's own take on the evening here.

TUSC takes shape

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition for the general election is beginning to take shape.

Let's have a look at a couple of newly confirmed candidacies.

The updated list of candidates on the TUSC website includes some of the seats the SWP are intending to stand in. Maxine Bowler will be standing in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, against David Blunkett. Importantly, the BNP's Mark Collett, subject of the Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud, will be standing in the same area. Collett openly expressed admiration for the Nazis and virulently homophobic and racist views. There's no doubt that, in Brightside, one of the most working class constituencies in the country, the BNP will be trying to promote itself as pro-worker, a sort of 'Old Labour' for white workers. The need to directly combat this propaganda and prevent the BNP from gaining a foothold in working class communities is one of the most important reasons for TUSC to stand.

The Hazel Must Go! Campaign in Salford and Eccles has voted to affiliate to TUSC, and their candidate David Henry also has the backing of the Green Party. It appears that David has had to resign from the Greens as a technicality, in order to stand under a different name, but they are still backing his candidacy. This is an example of a broad campaign to get rid of a particularly hated MP, but of course it is not just motivated by personality. The campaign's affiliation to TUSC gives it a clear left-wing, pro-working class orientation.

It is not yet clear whether candidates in local elections will be using the TUSC name, or keeping the name of the constituent organisations.

More details on TUSC campaigns as and when!

Junk Mail

Recently we've received through our door a couple of election leaflets from the Lib Dems and Labour. You know the type. The ones that have titles like newspapers, and dates on them, to make it look like they're put out regularly rather than just appearing whenever the parties want your vote.

Nothing from the Tories yet. But then, as the Lib Dems' Cambridge Herald reminds us several thousand times, it's a “two horse race” between themselves and Labour in Cambridge, with the Tories a distant third. They include the obligatory bar charts in case we can't work out what this means. The Lib Dems always do this. In Sheffield Graves Park ward, where they have a comfortable majority, they constantly tell us that “only the Liberal Democrats can beat Labour here.”

Well, yes. You already have. Well done. What have you done for us lately?

Amidst the uninspring localist waffle, the Lib Dems do take the time to remind us, what with this being a town with a few students in it, that they have “reaffirmed” their commitment to scrapping tuition fees. Good to know it was only the leader of the party who wanted the pledge scrapped last Autumn, then.

Moving on from the Yellow Tories, the Cambridge Rose is keen to show what a dynamic, campaigning organising the Labour Party is. Of course, to do this they have to distance themselves from the government. Gordon Brown is mentioned a grand total of once, as the candidate praises his plan for a pathetically low tax on financial transactions. “While the bankers got rich,” local Labour candidate Daniel Zeichner teaches us, “We suffered.”

Yes indeed. And of course, placing the financially sector at the centre of the economy, or rather placing the economy at the mercy of the financial sector, has been Labour Party policy for a long time. But let's not dwell on that, Zeichner pleads. Or even mention it. Labour's “top priority” is fighting the unemployment that their policies created in the first place.

I'm convinced.

And what does Zeichner have to say about a Parliamentary system mired in scandals?

“I don't agree that politics in Britain is broken. Where else in the world do senior politicians attend local meetings, come knocking on your door or sit in your kitchen to talk through the issues?”

I feel a warm glow inside.

A glow of rage.

Both parties are playing the we're-the-best-ones-to-beat-the-Tories game, and neither of them are telling us anything new. Just more bland platitudes about how they're working hard for us. Of course this sot of political language is designed to keep people's expectations incredibly low, so when whoever wins inevitably fucks us over, we're not too disappointed about it.

Fortunately there will be a Socialist candidate in Cambridge, putting forward a genuine alternative.

TUSC website launched

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition has launched its website for the general election.

The site includes the Coalition's policies and an initial list of election candidates.

Check it out here.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition: We are where we are

So at long last the formation of a new left-wing coalition has been announced to stand candidates in the general election. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is backed by the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers' Party and a handful of prominent trade unionists, most notably Bob Crow of the RMT. It is a progression from last year's No2Eu, in both name and programme. But there are undoubtedly problems.

Disappointing is the apparent decision of the Alliance for Green Socialism not to participate, supposedly because the name lacked the words 'Green' or 'Environmentalist.' If this is true, I find it difficult to understand, because they participated in No2EU last year, which had a much worse name and much less environmentalist content to its programme. Perhaps there is another reason for AGS's non-involvement, but it would be sad to lose them.

The Communist Party of Britain's executive committee have stated that they won't be participating. Again I find this hard to fathom. They are sticking to their normal 'Vote Labour' line but also imply they will be standing candidates under their own name. Well, there was nothing stopping them standing as part of TUSC and advocating a Labour vote in constituencies where TUSC wasn't standing.

As for Respect, the leadership around Galloway has declared itself against any alliance with the 'far left' in favour of the Green Party (which has already backfired on them). There seems to be a sizeable minority in Respect in favour of something like TUSC though. I'm not sure how the organisation functions, and whether local branches would be able to canvas for TUSC without getting into trouble with the leadership.

Some people may well argue that the CPB, with their soft-Stalinism, and Galloway, with his unpredictable ego and sometimes deplorable political behaviour (cup of tea, Mr Saddam?) are no big loss to a left unity project. I wouldn't go that far. There are decent people in both groups. And the CPB's Morning Star is, for all its faults, a daily newspaper.

On a more positive note it seems that the SWP are on board, and want to stand 6 candidates under the TUSC banner. This will probably include Cambridge so if I can wrench myself away from the academic hell of my final year around April time, there will be some electioneering for me to do down here.

I'm not sure on the position of locally based parties like the Wigan, Leigh and Makersfield People's Alliance that was set up a while back. They may want to keep their name and work with the coalition. The WLMPA includes members of Respect so if they did decide to back TUSC, that would be interesting.

The RMT as a national union is not backing the coalition, but individual branches can. This seems to have already occurred in Portsmouth. This will test the desire for a political alternative within the ran-and-file of the RMT in a way that No2EU did not, and will hopefully push the leadership towards more political action in the future.

As yet there is no website for the Coalition, and so nowhere to really direct interested people to apart from the Facebook group. This should be rectified as quickly as possible, preferably with details of local campaigns in places where we know TUSC candidates will definitely be standing, for example Dave Nellist in Coventry.

The main problem with TUSC is that its development hasn't come sooner. There should have been local left unity groups forming ages back, around the time the WLMPA got going. Waiting for the backing of national groups before putting anything on the ground wasn't, I think, the best way of going about it, especially seeing as some of these groups seem to have pulled out anyway. The British Left seems to suffer from a 'bullet point' syndrome. Groups get together to agree a list of demands they can unite around, and if they disagree with some of the end result they tend to walk away rather than staying and fighting their position at a future meeting, and working together in the meantime. This is, in my experience, particularly common in the student movement. TUSC has to an extent tried to overcome this by advocating the freedom of affiliated groups to put out their own material over and above the agreed common platform. So minor programmatic disagreements shouldn't, in theory, result in groups walking away at the first sign of disagreement. But, as I've said, we're not off to a great start in that respect.

Local TUSC groups should have been ready to hit he ground running, because unity discussions shouldn't have been held only at a national level. The best way of building trust and co-operation on the Left is for comrades to be working together on the ground. TUSC supporters in different towns and cities should get together, invite other interested groups and community activists, and begin selecting their candidates and planning their campaigns. After all, we don't have much time.

I'd like to see some sort of conference after the election, when TUSC has hopefully attracted a new layer of activists and 'independents'. This would be a big step forward from the national committees of interested groups meeting. No-one would be talking about founding a new party just now, but at least we could ready local TUSC groups to fight against the vicious social cuts programme to be unleashed by whoever wins the election. Hopefully supporters will canvass for comrades in organisations other than their own, and the appearance of unity will be given some substance.

Obviously we're not looking at big votes. Media coverage will be slim (we can and should blame the bourgeois biased media, but I think the Left can do better to try getting the attention of the press). Some candidates will get respectable votes. Success will be judged more, I think, on how well we sink roots into working class communities to prepare for the storms ahead.

It's been a long frustrating road to this point, but we are where we are.

Viva TUSC!

More thoughts at AVPS and Though Cowards Flinch