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The Socialist Party learned of election hustings to which its candidate in Lambeth had not been invited. The reason offered was that it was to be limited to those deemed by the organisers as "major parties". Naturally, this is unacceptable and we insisted upon being permitted to participate. To no avail.
Danny Lambert, the Socialist Party candidate in Clapham East ward, has now issued a statement that we fully expect to be read out at the commencement of the meeting.
"I make no apology for raising the nature of the present world economic system – capitalism – in a local election. Local councils have to run things inside the framework of capitalism and that restricts what they can do. They are also restricted in that most of their money comes from central government.
The priority under capitalism is profit-making. Having to respect this priority means that what the central government can make available for local social services and amenities takes second place. That’s why they are never as good as they should be, in spite of the efforts and promises of the other parties. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work for the benefit of all. Only a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources can do that.
If you like to know more about Socialism as the alternative to capitalism, call in at our Head Office in Clapham High Street or visit spgb.net.”
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More on the Lambeth hustings to which we were not invited. After being assured yesterday evening, concerning the statement we had submitted, that “I’ll make sure this is read out tomorrow” this morning we received the following email:
“A number of relevant questions have come through overnight from residents that we need to prioritise in the schedule for tonight, and so won’t be able to fit the statement in I’m afraid. Sorry about that. I hope the remainder of your campaign goes well.”
To this feeble excuse — it would only have taken a minute or so read out our 170-word statement — we replied:
“We note your undemocratic decision to no-platform us, even to the extent of not mentioning that we are standing. We would like to think that it wasn’t made behind closed doors by a small handful of selected insiders.”
We could have openly called the organisers hypocrites, as called “Lambeth Ref 2002” (www.lambethref.co.uk), they are campaigning for a referendum in Lambeth to end the present system under which a full-time cabinet runs the council and return to a previous system where committees of councillors make the decisions.
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