Answering the questions

Brighton & Hove LGBT Community Safety Forum were holding a hustings ahead of this year’s elections and it was their chance to find out more about the candidates in the elections, why they are running and what they will do if they are elected. Our candidate for the Brighton Pavilion constituency, Howard Pilott, explained:

Good evening voters of Brighton and thanks to the organisers for arranging this event and inviting me, and thank you all for coming to listen to us here.

My name is Howard Pilott and I am the candidate for the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We are unique in that we are the only party standing at this election demanding an end to capitalism.  We believe the market driven system we suffer today is unjust and irrational, operating in the interests of a tiny minority who are doing very well thank you, while many others endure real hardship and deprivation.

All the other parties here tonight will offer you some variation of the current system – a bit more or less tax or spending here or there; more or fewer regulations on this that or the other – but they will not really change the balance of power: the system will still operate in the interests of the elite, whose wealth and influence will grow.

This highly dysfunctional society creates widespread alienation and emptiness as evidenced for example by the epidemic of young male suicides, running at around a hundred per week, by high levels of anti-depressant prescriptions, and wide spread alcohol and drug consumption. Large numbers of people are feeling empty in the world full of materialist stuff: you cannot shop your way out of society’s meaninglessness.

The relentless focus on competition and acquisition destroys the collectives and communities which we need to feel at home. This turbo capitalist consumerism, mostly fuelled by debt, is unsustainable for both us and the planet and it has to been stopped. Only by democratic control of our world will we be able to reverse this terrible slide into ruin.  We can envisage the end of the planet but somehow cannot imagine a change to the economic order: this is ridiculous.

 Vote socialist to show you value yourself, the planet and the future. Thank you.