Yay! Election! Which shade of shite will you choose?

- Not the BNP, who were yesterday confronted by Asian constituents in east London.  The BNP candidate, Bill Bailey, was whisked away and avoided arrest after PUNCHING an 18 year old to the ground, and then kicking the boy as he lay on the ground.
Nick Griffin spoke on the incident, saying that the fight was the result of a “campaign of hatred and dehumanisation against any group of people, in this case us”.
Riiight. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Nick.

 - Not UKIP, whose former leader Nigel Farrage was yesterday injured after his private jet crashed in Northhamptonshire. Wait, did I say private jet? It was actually an oldskool biplane. Which just goes to show how outdated and oldfashioned UKIP are. Maybe the gods of wind and weather and airplane pilots were tryin to tell you something, Nigel…

Keep checking throughout the day – SSY will be bringing you all the news and gossip about the good guys AND the wanks, all day and night!

This election, we are told, is an election of ‘change’. All parties want it. After thirteen years of New Labour, a change of Government seems likely. But will anything actually change? Yesterday, David Miliband in the Daily Telegraph said that the next parliament would see more New Labour MPs elected than in 1997. The Conservatives’ own candidates are increasingly being exposed as homophobic, with a significant number drawn from the newly unemployed class some refer to as  ’bankers’ (hold your tongue to say that one). The Liberals, after eighty years of doing nothing except damaging the climate through the hot gas they expel at regular intervals, think that by putting up a front-man who SSY recently exposed as a horsefly in disguise as a human, they may actually trick the electorate into thinking they are the REAL party of ‘change’.

Let us consider seriously the past thirteen years of New Labour: it is easy to take the piss, but some sobering thoughts before you vote are worth considering.

New Labour’s policies produced the rise of the ‘Welfare Benefit Class’. Harder to say than simply ‘the Poor’, this group has grown under New Labour, and remain below the poverty line on a multitude of ‘benefits’ which are so low, those on them are kept in poverty but unable to find a job which pays better than the benefits they are on.

New Labour have ceased to be the party of the working class. Instead, they are content to see people remain in poverty on benefits, and allow Capitalists and free-marketeers to continue their excellent job of exploiting us all.

During the same time as the unemployed and low-waged were kept down with measly benefits, the Rich were given the power to outsource their jobs around the world, use zero hour contracts to import cheap labour and cheat those workers out of all rights and benefits, paying less than the minimum wage.

Council house sell-offs continued, bankers speculated on future loses, and all this time the Government borrowed against our future with further privatisation and PFI projects, part-sell offs of Air traffic Control, attempts to privatise Royal Mail and demands to tender all government contracts from in-house, government employees to private companies in the name of ‘value for money’. These private companies, having underestimated their costs to win the job, then employed the same employees but on lower wages, poorer conditions and fewer hours to do the same job.

The minimum wage was introduced, but at such a ridiculously low level it was impossible to make ends meet with just one 40-hour a week job. And those under 22 didn’t even qualify, because their labour, was somehow not as valuable. And all the time, the number of working class people forced to survive on benefit handouts increased. Despite the fact that overwhelmingly they want a decent job and want to work. But it was easier to deal with the unemployed, those in poverty and those on low wages with tax credits than actually address the core problem: the working conditions and rights of the workers of the country, and provide jobs.

No matter how hard people work, how many jobs they get, under this system poverty and inequality will continue. And with the increasing number on benefits all the parties are now telling us that the ‘Poor’, or commonly, ‘benefit scroungers’ (easier to say for Tories than tell us who they are), don’t work hard enough and must be forced to get off benefits. Incapacity allowance, jobseeker’s allowance and other benefits are only for the ‘genuine’. The Rich, they say, have earned their wealth. (Interestingly, Paris Hilton is never used as a shining example of the ‘meritocracy’ in which we are supposed to live.) This is the country which New Labour has created.

Understandably for these reasons, and many others, people may be thinking as they cast their vote “anyone but New Labour”. With record youth unemployment, a disgraceful approach to human rights, civil liberties and a racist immigration policy makes this obvious. But the Conservatives or the LibDems aren’t the solution. Just remember: in the 1980s David Cameron looked at the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, and he saw mass unemployment, miners’ striking, racial tension, widespread privatisation, social unrest, anti-trade union laws, Section 28, the rich getting richer at the expense of the poorest in society, and thought ”This is my Party; I belong here.” Today, after a month of General Election campaigning, this is what David Cameron’s idea of ”change” boils down to, despite claims he’s just like us. The Conservative Party has not changed one bit. The Liberal Democrats’ idea of ”change” is no different: means-testing of universal benefits, widespread public service cuts, reneging on scraping tuition fees, and the continuation of a Trident-equivalent nuclear deterrent.

We are told than in this election, that ‘change’ is coming. With the danger of a hung parliament, if we vote LibDem, we get Labour. Or if we vote LibDem, we get Tory. Before you cast your vote, remember this: New Labour were Thatcherites but more so. David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be New Labour but more so. It’s best to file all of this scum under “Tory”.

Vote Socialist on 6 May.

Nick Clegg was tonight hounded out of Glasgow by angry local socialists.

When SSY members in Maryhill heard that Nick Clegg was in our local community centre, we roared into action to try and ask him a few questions about his policies.

The entrances to the community centre were surrounded by cops and Nick Clegg’s personal body guards, and as soon as they caught a whiff of us walkietalkies were buzzing, as they planned his escape from the terrifying sight of people who don’t agree with him.

Despite only finding out about the Lib Dem Love In with half an hour to spare, we rounded up local activists to make our point… in contrast to the Lib Dems, who had clearly bussed in activists from across the country – and across the border!

Before Clegg was scheduled to leave the building, a flood of Liberal Democrat supporters crowded around us with placards in an attempt to stop Clegg or the press from seeing anyone question the Lib Dems, and Clegg’s messiah complex.

Lib Dems attempted to obscure our placards – when they failed, many of them attempted to forcibly remove our placards from us and were aggressive in attempts to hide them from view.

Clegg was ushered into a shiny James Bond car and didn’t bother to address our concerns, only giving us and our placards a disdainful look. I suppose he only cares about what local people think if they’re thinking that they’d like to kiss his arse. He was no doubt terrified of the massed placard waving hordes of Maryhill SSY.

When his car had sped off, we were surrounded by Lib Dem activists who didn’t seem to know their own policies as well as we did. None of them Lib Dems we spoke to knew that their party…

- wanted to stop public sector workers from being able to strike

- are in favour of Britain having weapons of mass destruction

- opposed the introduction of a national minimum wage, and wanted the minimum wage to be lower in poor regions

- want to impose savage cuts

- support fascists in Thailand, through their membership of the Liberal International

and that Nick Clegg is a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher!

Err… maybe you should research your party before you join it?

It’s great that so many people are looking to the Lib Dem for a left-wing alternative to the Tories or New Labour – but they’re looking in the wrong place.

This evening I was at a ‘question time’  hustings at Aberdeen College, with an audience of around 100 social science students and staff, as well as student representatives from Aberdeen’s universities and the NUS. It was only the second event of that kind that I had ever done, and it was the first time I really managed to take on the other parties and challenge them for the frauds I think they are in terms of claiming to represent ordinary people.

Present were the other candidates for Aberdeen North (bar the BNP): Frank Doran, the sitting Labour MP on a pretty decent majority; Stuart Whyte, the Tory who is also a history teacher; Joanna Strathdee, leader of the SNP opposition at Aberdeenshire Council (which is best known for colossaly mishandling the Trump affair); and Kristian Chapman, the 22 year old politics student at Aberdeen Uni who is smoothly trying to make a transition from student to Lib Dem career politician with as little a gap in between as possible, claiming to bring a “New Age of Politics” (I can hear the laughs of derison already). Anyway, of all of them, the one who I’d give least stick to is Joanna, who at least had some decent opinions, even if they weren’t carried very strongly.

The first question was on voter apathy and the expenses, which I made the obvious point that our representatives take a workers’ wage and don’t live at a much higher living standard than those who they claim to represent. However, I then made the point that people aren’t interested because they don’t actually have any real democratic choice in the election, as whichever of the main parties they vote for, they always get the same policies. I quoted John Pilger, who has written that Western democracies have descended into “indistinguishable parties competing for the management of a single ideology state”. Frank Doran disagreed with this, as had Anne Begg, the Aberdeen South Labour MP, when I mentioned this at the last hustings I was at. The reason that Labour representatives find this truth the hardest to accept is because it’s Labour’s sellout to neoliberalism that made this state of affairs the case, something they’d rather ignore. Anyway, Frank Doran made a throwaway comment that there are substantial differences between the parties, before the next hour and a half proceeded to show this to be complete bollocks.

The issue of climate change came up, and while the Tory candidate talked about reducing the domestic carbon footprint (i.e. ignoring the role of business and capitalism in driving ecological destruction) and vague talk of ‘green investment’ was made by the others, I got stuck into talking about (what is one of our best policies IMO) our free public transport policy, ripping into the shitty privatised transport system, especially First Bus, and talking about how we need to take them into public ownership making the service free, which drew enthusiastic clapping from the audience. I will never, ever, tire of explaining how indescribably shit the First Bus service in Aberdeen is, so be prepared in advance for that when any of you next see me! The picture below is from one of the strikes by First Bus drivers, as the company are constantly attacking the wages and conditions of their staff as well as ripping off Aberdonians with extortionate fares.

We also talked about nuclear weapons, with myself and the SNP opposed, Frank Doran opposed (but admitting his party wasn’t), the Tory doing the usual, ‘yes we need to disarm, but it must be multilateral’ i.e. we’ll still spend fucking billions renewing them, and Lib-Dem Chapman murmuring something about ‘reviewing policy’.

Finally we got to the heart of the debate: cuts and the economy. I talked about where the deficit had come from, and that we were different from all the other parties because we said there didn’t have to be cuts: we would scrap Trident, bring the troops home from Afghanistan, raise corporation tax and end tax havens, and the key point: tax the rich. I mentioned the obscene wealth of the richest 1000 people in Britain (who have £335 bn between them, just under half of the total debt of the British state), and the face that inequality has grown massively under the Tories and Labour. The cuts are a way of continuing to transfer wealth from poor to rich, and represent the biggest attack on living standards in a generation.

This led straight onto a question from a staff member (who said he had stood for the council for the SSP a few years back, name is Brian Dunn), on what the parties would do about poverty inequality in this country. Doran for Labour mentioned that they had created the minimum wage, Chapman for Lib-Dem how they would re-jig the benefits and tax system (i.e. a tax break for earnings under £10,000), Strathdee for SNP on what they had done in the Scottish parliament (i.e. bugger all to tackle poverty), and Whyte for Tories on how they would create (plenty of low paid) jobs.

I retorted that the largest growth in poverty was for people already in work but with shitty pay, so the Labour minimum wage was clearly inadequte, as you can see here. Then I said that all of these parties were just tinkering, that the root of the problem was the system of neoliberal capitalism (and capitalism more generally) that had been developed over the last 30 years. I said we would introduce a social living wage of say £10 an hour, redistribute wealth through taxing the rich, increase corporation tax, and take key sectors of the economy into public ownership, such as transport and fuel. I made the point that in Aberdeen, ‘oil capital of Europe’, people still struggle to heat their homes in the winter while private corporations increase there prices to make money off of higher fuel prices. For me this is inhumane and undoubtedly leads to deaths each winter: it is one of the clearest example of the inhuman nature of capitalism and underlines the importance of the “people not profit” slogan. I told people that it was values such as these which was why I was involved with the SSP

I went on to explain that  sovereignty lies with the people, that we should govern ourselves, and that we needed to abolish the House of Lords and the monarchy, if we were to live in a democratic socialist republic where we could share wealth more equally and offer everyone a decent standard of living. The gulf between myself and the other parties could not have been more clear. The member of staff who asked the question commented on how all the parties on the panel seemed just to want to tinker with poverty, not sort it. I asked whether he would put the SSP in that catergory, to which he replied “no”.

I did get one challenge on all of this from the Tory candidate who said I seemed to be “paranoid” about people being rich, to which I replied that it was nothing to do with paranoia, but with making the rich pay their fair share so that everyone can enjoy a decent standard of living. That was pretty much the last word of the hustings, bar me plugging the YouTube vidoes.

The hustings ended with a definite mood in the room, in my opinion, of people generally not swallowing the shit the other parties were trying to feed them. Several of the staff members in particular expressed their support for the SSP in the election, and one said he may join after the election. Certainly, by saying things that were so utterly different from the other parties, and rejecting the neoliberal politics the others were peddling, people were given a lot to think about, and the experience made me feel (even more) passionate about our politics. As as aside, in Aberdeen we’ve been having a really good experience  with this campaign, and I hope we can carry that on after the election.

Anyway, tomorrow night I have another hustings, this time organised by the CND, and plan to give the other candidates as much of a grilling as I can again over their abysmal offerings of cuts, privatisation, war, renewed Trident, and selling people out to capitalism, in this election.

Ewan Robertson

The final leader’s debate is TONIGHT and we will once more be bringing you all the best bits LIVE.

Tonight’s debate is meant to be about economic affairs. It will probably just be deja vu all over again as we see the three stooges squabble amongst themselves over who can be the most right-wing and racist about immigration, whilst Nick and Dave try to simultaneously give Gordon a ticking off for being mean to an old lady (who is in reality only as bigoted as all three of them want her to be).

To the extent that it is about the economy, we all know how close their agenda is. Who can make the most turkeys vote for Christmas? Who can give you a box of shit in the nicest wrapping paper? Who can be the politest and smarmiest about the fact they’re planning to puke in your bed later on?

To understand what’s really going to happen with the economy after the election, just ask Simon Hayes of Barclays Capital, as mentioned here, who says that he’s not worried cos he knows whoever gets elected, he’ll get what he wants.

The only consolation is that Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, says that whoever wins will be out of power for a generation because the cuts they’ll have to make will be so bad. And it’s not a very good consolation, a bit like someone stealing your Big Mac and having a heart attack.

But let’s not think too much about all the pish the next government is going to pull (and all the demos and strikes we’ll have to have to try and stop them), and just sit back and watch who can lie most effectively about what an utter fuckwit they are. As ever, we’ve got an incisive team of political analysts on hand, consisting of me, Jack, and Neldo (who demanded we say “Analysts? Or Anal-ists?”, so be prepared for high quality anal-ysis.)

It’s the final countdown. . .

20.32: David Cameron: There’s no point in borrowing from China, cos I want to nuke it anyway.

20.35: Nick Clegg says the top 20% of people receiving tax credits shouldn’t be getting them, but the top 20% of earners are fine. Thanks Nick! Shows who you’re looking out for.

20.37: Dave Cameron says his ideas are not popular but they’re the right thing to do – freeze public sector wages, make everyone work a year longer before retirement. Blah blah. How come working people have to pay whilst all your rich pals are just lining their pockets?

20.40: Gordo says public sector pensions are being “reformed”?! Yeah, being reformed into a big fat zero!

20.40: They’re all calling cuts “savings” as if we’re going to get it back one day. Fuck’s sake.

20.41: David Cameron has mentioned Marks & Spencers in every Leaders’ Debate so far… what’s going on with that? Maybe he likes their lasagne.

20.42: Gordon Brown’s grin makes him look like a chimpanzee. Or maybe Lee Evans’ grandad.

20.43: They keep talking about the economy as if it’s a kid, that needs to be “supported” so it can “get moving and growing”. It’s not a kid, it’s a bunch of old rich banker bastards taking our money.

20:45: Cleggmania says let’s get everyone together in a capitalist unified dictatorship “Council on Financial Stability” which sounds pretty sinister.

20:46: Gordon forgot to mention that he also abolished the lowest rate of tax, therefore fucking over the poorest people.

20:47: Dave sees waste all around him. Like having his chaffeur follow him on a bike to carry his Muller Light.

20:48: Gordon keeps shaking his head, as if to say “Incorrect, you bigotted cunt.”

20:50: David says that owning your own home then passing it on to your kids is the most natural human instinct of all. No it’s not, shitting, pissing and eating are. And that’s what we’re doing to his fiscal policies. HA.

20:52: Bugger tax credits, can we just have decent pay please? Oh yeah, I forgot you promising to cut it, representative of “Labour”.

20:54: Clegg: Well these two are cunts, but I’m cool.

20:55: Nick Clegg: It’s sooo unfair. I’m going to my room. I hate you!

20:56: Clegg says there’s political point scoring. In a telly debate where they try and persuade us to vote for them? Surely not?

20:57 Cameron: “Hmm, we need to regulate the banks, who we gonna get to do it? Fuck it, the banks can just do it themselves.”

20:59 Brown says he’s never been as angry as when he spoke to the director of a bank. Apart from when he spoke to that old woman the other day.

21:01 Nick Clegg: “The main parties are too close to the city. That’s why we’re based inside a secret cave on the moon.”

21:03 Gordon Brown knows it isn’t the size of the banks that count, its how you use them.

21:04 David Cameron: “If we were in the Euro, your taxes and national insurance wouldn’t be going on schools and hospitals.” They’d be going on écoles et hôpitals.

21:05 Equipment for the future is one of Gordon Brown’s priorities for industry. Going by Back to the Future 2, we should all have hoverboards by 2015.

21:11 To all the candidates: I don’t want a loan from a bank, I want to own a bank…seeing as I’ve paid for it.

21:14 Gordon Brown shows off his technical lingo with his desire to see 100% super fast broadband over the whole country. Just make sure you don’t use it to download music or you’ll get 0% internet.

21:16 David Cameron shows off the Tories’ new clone technology: “We’ve had 9 different energy ministers, two of them were the same person.”

21:19 They all seem to have statistics on the level of immigration but no information on why they are so opposed to it. So lots of people come to Britain but no-one seems to have any statistics to say this is a bad thing.

21:20 Gordon Brown wants to protect people in jobs by giving them Tax Credits. Doesn’t help if you’re only on 11 grand a year anyway.

21:25 The only reason I can think of why people would come here illegally is because they’re lawless rulebreakers. No-one comes here because they’re in desperate poverty at home, can’t afford the hundreds of pounds for a visa, don’t meet the strict rules regarding skills you need, have health problems or can’t afford legitimate transport to the UK. Don’t forget, anyone who can’t afford to be here legally deserves to starve at home!

21:31 David Cameron wants to build more houses. Guess he doesn’t mean the hundreds of empty luxury flats found in all the major cities in Britain. We have thousands of empty flats and thousands of homeless people. Hmmm….nope….can’t think of any solution to the problem.

21.36: My interest rate in what he’s saying is rapidly shrinking.

21.37: Nick Clegg believes in work. I don’t. I think it’s a myth.

21.38: Gordon wants to force people on the dole to work for tuppence for six months before going back on the dole. Great plan!

21:45: Woah woah woah, cutting benefit for UP TO 3 YEARS?! That’s well longer than the amount of time it takes to starve to death!

21:46: Clegg: I have a plan, I will save you, come and suckle Daddy’s tax tits.

21:48: Gordon Brown is interested in social mobility, cos for the love of god you wouldn’t want to be working class. Mind you, I’d like to see David Cameron move downwards.

21:51: GONNA SHUT UP ABOUT TAX CREDITS?!

21:52: David Cameron had an argument on the pavement about special education, and whether he should be in it.

21:55: Dave says teachers are getting 4000 pages of information a year. Teachers? Reading stuff? Wtf?

21:57: He also thinks what matters most is how we look after the poorest and most vulnerable. That’s why he’s going to shit all over them with his big tax arse.

21:59: Nick says we should choose the future we want in the election next year. I want a future full of aliens, space colonisation and mad future drugs, but I don’t think anyone is standing on that platform. (Jack wrote that bit.)

22:00: Sounded a whole lot like GB just said “Conservative tax cuts would go to the richest cunts in the country.” Let’s just say that he did. He ended with his freaky idiot grin.

So, that’s that. Yet again, they’ve shown us that whichever of the big 3 parties you go with you’ll get shafted*. No matter how much they want to sugar coat their policies, they’re all going to be taking care of the rich and no-one else.

That’s why everyone should join the SSP lol!!!!!!1

*Literally. By Gordon Brown’s tax cock. It’s not how big it is, it’s the way it’s run that counts.

Catastrofuck in the government! Today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a huge cock up when he, after being filmed talking to an OAP about her concerns (her pension, her grandkid’s uni debt, the Eastern Europeans..) was then caught on microphone in his car calling her a “bigoted woman”.

This issue is a bit delicate. Undoubtedly what she was saying, which basically amounted to ‘Eastern Europeans come here to scrounge off benefits’, WAS bigoted. This is the basic level of racism that is on display throughout the whole of society, you come across it all the time. Does that mean it’s her fault, or that she is a nasty person? Not really. These views are supported and perpetuated by the government and the main opposition parties all the time, and it plays into the hands of far right parties like the BNP and UKIP. Just look at the way our own government treats asylum seekers in this country, and the language that has been used to discuss immigration throughout the election debates -- the system isn’t trying to challenge racist ideas, it’s trying to pander to them and perpetuate them. If someone holds a bigoted view, does that make them a bigot? Not really -- if your only reference point for what is going on in your country is the media, particularly the tabloids, then you’re having that view pumped into you day after day. I’m certain that this woman isn’t a hateful person, just misinformed.

So on one level it’s a good sign that our Prime Minister recognises that this sort of view is wrong -- you can bet your last cigarette that David Cameron would never be caught on tape making a blunder like this, because he more than likely agrees with the view of this woman. On one hand that makes him a man of principle. On the other hand, it makes him completely full of shit. He doesn’t agree (at least to an extent, as far as we’re now aware) with this sort of casual racism, he knows what the word bigoted means, yet he’s still willing to push this ‘we must be tough on immigration/benefit scroungers/whatevs’ line that we as socialists know amounts to racist horseshit. Desperate, is what I’d call him, especially after seeing his snivelling apology. How we deal with racism in society is both more nuanced and more simple than hiding in your car and calling people bigots -- we have to recognise that there are deep seated societal issues, mostly led by the fucked up control that the media has over our political experiences, which lead to people coming to hold these views. But also, for the government the solution is simple -- stop telling fucking lies to support and pander to this shite. You’d think not lying would be a pre-requisite for huge fucking governmental responsibility.

What bothers me about this whole ‘blunder’, is how everyone is so concerned about haranguing GB for not being polite to an old lady, but none of the media seem to be bothered that what this really exposes is the extent to which elections and the government in general aren’t about principles -- it’s solely about stage management. It only takes a gaffe like this to show you how fragile the whole thing really is. Let’s recap for you here: Prime Minister is ambushed by TV cameras just waiting for him to fuck up, Prime Minister says a few things that are either excruciatingly vague or he doesn’t really agree with, Prime Minister forgets to take microphone off in car, Prime Minister says what he really thinks (and undoubtedly wasn’t even smiling in the car behind the scenes, the fucker), media goes apeshit and handily happens to still be near the wronged pensioner at the time, Prime Minister grovels.

It confirms what we’ve long known: that The Thick of It actually is just a documentary.

Here we see what happened when Peter Mandelson found out about the catastrofuck:

In fact, this whole thing just reminds me of a certain factory visit undertaken by our good friend Hugh Abbott.

The other night I was invited to a hustings debate by the PCS, the trade union for civil servants (e.g. passport office workers, jobcentre staff, tax collectors).

It’s a union with a fairly interesting recent history, as it’s gone from being quite conservative – more like a staff association – in the 60s and 70s, to now being one of the most active and militant unions in the UK, with a socialist General Secretary, Mark Serwotka. They were the guys who were on strike on Budget Day, with parliamentary staff forming picket lines outside Westminster and Holyrood.

Their members are really concerned about massive cuts taking place, potentially decimating wages, job security and pension rights, and massively reducing the quality of service for the public.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, who breezed past the budget day pickets – in complete defiance of the labour movement’s principle of never crossing a picket line – has already boasted “we will make cuts deeper than Thatcher’s”. And it’s not so long since Gordon Brown threatened to sack 104,000 of ‘em.

His plans (and the Tories’ AND the LibDems’) are to reduce public sector spending by 10-20% in the next few years. Now, considering that over 90% of public sector costs are human (i.e. on pensions, salaries, redindancy payments etc.), it’s clear that there are big disputes ahead – and we can guarantee that SSY will be with the workers, on the picket lines, against all cuts.

So anyways, with all this in the background I was well looking forward to getting stuck into the Labour candidate over his party’s record of undermining redundancy payments and ruining good services. However, he had the cheek not to bother showing up or sending a substitute. For me, the chance to speak to PCS members was a privilege, apparently not so for him. There were many in the audience looking forward to grilling him as well. Perhaps he was running scared.

The debate was useful for getting to know the concerns of people in attendance, but also for showing how in practice the mainstream parties have little to offer the working class. People asking questions raised valid points, including:

• the consensus of Tories, New Labour and Liberals on the ‘need’ for cuts (we say there is no need btw)
• how ridiculous it is that the government sacks 20,000 tax collectors while the rich make tax avoidance of over £120 BILLION per year. Each collector bring in an average of  £650,000+ in extra tax revenue
• the failure of the current electoral system to provide proper representation of people’s views
• how ludicrous it is that the Government spends billions per year on consultants – who then consult that there’s no money for wage rises
• that anti-union legislation was introduced by Thatcher and maintained by Blair and Brown, violating workers’ human rights and limiting our ability to protect wur sels

The candidates’ responses to that last point was interesting. Fair play tae the Greens, they says they would repeal the ban on ’secondary action’ (when workers strike in solidarity with workers somewhere else). But both the SNP and LibDems were absolutely woeful. The two of them came out with some “I will look into it and if an issue arose I would listen to both sides” schtick.

Osama Saeed’s meek response was that he is “not an expert on the laws”, i.e. he didnae huv a scoobie. Funnily enough, he had plenty to say on the issue of consultants cos, as he admitted, he’s got a few mates in that game. Cheers Osama, a couple of folk have asked us why I’m standing ‘against’ the SNP in Glasgow Central. Well, you just gave us an excellent reason. Btw Osama, if you’re reading this, sending texts/checking your emails during a hustings smacks of arrogance and yes, people in the audience did notice.

The LibDem was even worse. He started babbling about how he had never studied trade union legislation when he was doing a law degree *yaaaaawwwwn* then admitted: “I honestly couldn’t give you an educated opinion”. His party are branding themselves as the new alternative to “those two old parties”. Quite clearly they are no alternative, they’re the same auld shite painted a different colour. Disnae matter whit colour ye paint a jobby, it still is wan.

TUSC were invited, despite not standing in the seat. That seemed a bit off, but their candidated Brian Smith (amusingly introduced as Brian Tusk) was gracious enough to encourage folk to vote SSP in Glasgow Central. Shame his party has just made the worst election broadcast in UK political history.

There was a wee Conservative there n all. Fair play to him for turning up, cos it was obvious pretty much from the start that everybody there hates the Tories and would rather use tampons made of nettles than vote Tory. He did cast a bit of light on it, when arguing against Proportional Representation, he admitted “being a Tory in Glasgow, I know what it’s like to be in a minority and for my vote to be wasted”. Lolz. I gave him a tanking for trying to claim the RMT leadership had been ‘railroading’ their members into strike action, which was shamefully banned by a judge recently. At one point I nearly shat when he said “I agree with James, politicians do need to start listening to trade unionists and protecting their rights”, but then he totally contradicted it wi some pish about protecting consumers n managers or something.

On the whole, the SSP message was well-received:  fighting against cuts and supporting wages rises for the workers. There were many nods and a lotta ppl going “uh-huh” when I made the point that in the early 20th century the trade union movement were sick of the Liberal Party taking them for granted and working hand-in-glove with the capitalists. A hundred years on, we have a similar situation with the need to build a new working class alternative, this time because Labour have sold out and conned us for too long.

The SSP is an important part of the process of rebuilding workers’ political representation and fighting to end the capitalist system: for workers rights, environmental protection and democratic socialism.

Deputy First Minister had her day campaigning on the streets ruined yesterday by an angry bin man. He hijacked her to demand to know why the SNP government wasn’t doing anything to support bin men facing brutal attacks from the SNP/Liberal coalition that runs Edinburgh City Council.

The bin man, Charlie Docherty, did a pretty good job of explaining what the dispute is all about, with his wages facing a big cut while managers have given themselves pay rises. The council has been been trying to crush the bin men for months, spending millions on private contractors that pick up the rubbish bin men refuse to pick up on public holidays as part of a work to rule.

Sturgeon’s response is to parrot the SNP’s stated policy of freezing pay for those at the top end of the scale to ensure low paid workers don’t face wage cuts. The only problem with this is it isn’t a policy the SNP has applied where it’s in power in Edinburgh. She also keeps saying that it’s up to the council to resolve the dispute (the council your party runs!), and that she doesn’t know the details of the dispute. Charlie’s response is classic: “Are youse the government of Scotland? You need to find out about what’s going on in your own country, eh?”

You can watch a video of the incident on the BBC site here. Leftfield applauds Charlie for taking a stand and calling the SNP out on their supposedly anti-cuts agenda. We hope that the SNP face more attacks over their record on the bin men, until things escalate to this level:

The attempt by Aberdeen SSP to conduct a serious interview on the issue of  free public transport was left in disarray last night after a (no doubt drunken) passerby interrupted SSP candidate for Aberdeen North Ewan Robertson’s attempt to explain the policy. Rather than discuss issues of climate change, reversing rip-off privatised transport with a free, publicly owned service run for people’s needs while reducing congestion and carbon emissions, the interview was cut short as a local Aberdonian vented his anger at Donald Trump. This is probably in response to Trump’s efforts at building an elite golf course in Aberdeenshire which will destroy the beautiful and environmentally rare sand dunes, as well as threatening the local resisdent’s with compulsory purchase orders i.e. evicting them from their homes, if he can get Aberdeenshire Council on side. Then again, we’ll never know…

The far right BNP are hated by socialists, anti-fascists and anyone that isn’t white, straight and mental.

But today it emerged they’ve made a powerful new enemy. The makers of Marmite have announced they are to sue the BNP, after they used the images of the spread in their party election broadcast.

As you can see below, the inclusion of Marmite in the broadcast is pretty bizarre and inexplicable. I can only guess the floating image of a Marmite jar was inserted on to the screen to evoke a sense of “Britishness.” It’s in a shot which also features Nick Griffin sitting at a desk in front of a picture of Winston Churchill (leading the to the astonishing outcome of Churchill not being the ugliest person on screen) and a display case of medals that Nick Griffin has never been awarded.

The broadcast hasn’t been on telly yet, and Marmite makers are trying to get an injunction to have their product removed before it is. It was previously up on the BNP site, but has been taken down. Marmite say they support no political party, and didn’t give permission to use its image.

A spokesman for Sandwich Fillings Against Fascism said: “We’re delighted that Marmite has taken this stand to stop the BNP spreading hate. We think their attempt to focus on bread and butter issues will not distract from their message of racism. We believe their chances in this election are toast. You’d have to be crackers to vote for the BNP.”

“Like Marmite on a slice of Mother’s Pride, we call on black and white to unite and fight.”

“While we applaud the stance taken by Marmite, we demand to know the position of other spreads on the rise of the far right. Are Nutella, Philadelphia and Vitalite  with them in their stand for a non racist democracy, or will they allow the fascist BNP to sandwich their spreads into their message of hate?”

Below you can see the offending broadcast. I’m sorry for embedding a fascist video here, but this actually has to be seen to be believed. Actually, seriously, why is there a picture of Marmite there? It makes no sense!