Letter to the Guardian Editor

Letter to The Editor

Further to 'Mistaken identity could make folk Spew'

Thanks to Bob Allaway for spotting (Letters 13 August) that your earlier front page story may have caused readers to confuse The Socialist Party (GB) with the Trotskyite ‘Socialist’ party (SPEW).

At least you took the trouble to give their full name in a side bar. Better than BBC TV, who broadcast an interview with SPEW during the campaign for the May 2016 elections, with no explanation given of which “Socialist Party” was represented.  As we were standing in areas of well over 1 million voters (and hold the right to stand as The Socialist Party), we of course complained.

From their response, the BBC appears to expect that because an item is not directly related to an election, viewers will draw a distinction between the content of a political programme on that basis. We think it’s like expecting a casual viewer of ‘Crimewatch’ to observe the rules of a Juror after doing so. But maybe the BBC also thinks all their viewers read ‘The Guardian’?

Yours sincerely

Robert Cox

Media Dept, The Socialist Party of Great Britain

PS  Your editorial staff may wish to request an interview with the SPGB, to find out why no members of Britain’s second-oldest political Party will be seeking to ‘enter’ the Labour Party, and why we do not believe that either Jeremy Corbyn or any other ‘leader’ can deliver genuine change that can truly benefit the majority of people.