30 October 2004
Louise Thompson, housing campaigner, is our candidate
THE SOCIALIST Party in Walthamstow, east London, is standing in a council
by-election in Hoe Street ward on 18 November. We had 12 members out
canvassing on Sunday - our first two canvasses sold 34 papers and we met three
people interested in joining the Socialist Party.
Full story...
3 July 2004
Leicester South by-election: Schools
Campaign Challenges Labour
...IN AN important development, the local campaign Save our
Schools (SOS) has decided to stand a parent, Patrick Kennedy, in the
by-election. The Socialist Party in Leicester, along with others on
the left, met recently and decided to support this move...
Full story...
10 June 2004
Socialist Party election successes
STANDING 48 candidates in 34 council wards on 10
June, the Socialist Party (standing as ‘Socialist Alternative’)
received 16,787 votes. In addition, 2,825 people voted for Socialist
Party Councillor Ian Page in the London Assembly election
constituency of Greenwich and Lewisham.
Judy Beishon
We celebrated the re-winning of two of our
council seats in the St Michael’s ward of Coventry, with increased
votes.
This was no small feat considering recent
boundary changes and a high resident turnover. Unfortunately our
third Coventry councillor, Rob Windsor very narrowly lost his seat,
despite getting a higher vote than when he won it originally. He was
not helped by being in bottom place on the ballot paper.
Our three Socialist Party St Michael’s
candidates polled significantly more than New Labour, gaining 4,236
votes compared to Labour’s 3,536.
Elsewhere, other Socialist Party candidates had
very good results. For example, standing for the first time in
Lincoln, Ryan Hayward achieved an excellent 16% (329 votes). Jess
Leech in Deptford achieved 13% (374 votes), Steve Pugh in Stoke
gained 12% (312 votes) and Alec Thraves in Swansea gained 10% (258
votes).
Once again, our candidates had the best results
on the left in Merseyside, receiving 23% of the vote in Sefton’s
Netherton and Orrel ward.
Two Coventry councillors re-elected
COVENTRY SOCIALIST Party was left with mixed
feelings, as we didn’t succeed in defending all three of our
council seats in St Michael’s ward, but overall we gained an
excellent 8,614 votes across the city.
Paul Hunt
All three of our sitting councillors increased
their votes from the last election contested, but unfortunately Rob
Windsor missed out on third place in the poll by just 16 votes.
Despite winning back a councillor, New Labour
will be relatively disappointed, as several factors meant that the
election was more favourable for them than last time. Boundary
changes, with a brand new estate being added to the ward, meant that
retaining all three councillors would be very difficult for us.
However, despite a campaign which included some
farcical leaflets from Labour, including talk of ‘mansioned
militants’, and accusations that we voted with the Tories to
oppose a new football ground (it was our votes that secured this
project whilst winning a better deal for working people in
Coventry), we showed once again the firm and deep roots that we have
in the community.
Amusingly, a Labour candidate – who was
defeated once again – lied to one of our supporters, saying that
Dave Nellist took far more than a worker’s wage when in
parliament!
We canvassed and leafleted the ward several
times and put out a leaflet aimed at the student population and also
an anti-war leaflet in Urdu and Bengali.
Since the election, on our Saturday stall we
have met voters who are extremely angry that Labour got one seat
back. But as Rob Windsor said, "don’t be gutted, get
organised!" Two of our supporters agreed to join at the stall
and we hope to get many more in the near future.
Across the city we scored three votes of over
500: in Henley, Lower Stoke and Whoberley. On our first run out in
Sherbourne ward, we got 446 votes, and good results in all the other
wards.
In Woodlands, a group of anti-fascists and
socialists stood as ‘Socialist Alternative’ and received an
excellent 348 votes. This is a ward where the BNP polled over 1,000
last time, but their vote fell to 894 this time and they failed to
win the seat. This was the only ward they contested in Coventry,
whereas we fought in 12.
With each voter having the option of three
votes, our total score went up compared to a ‘normal’ election,
but the 8,614 we received shows the support we have, without having
watered down or diluted our socialist ideas. We had around 70
Coventry people involved in the campaign and have begun to spread
roots throughout the city.
Labour panic in Deptford
JESS LEECH, the Socialist Party
candidate in the normally solidly Labour-voting Evelyn ward in
Deptford, south London, gained 13% of the votes cast. As we had been
getting an excellent response during our campaign, at first, some
Socialist Party members and supporters were disappointed that we
hadn’t run Labour even closer.
Roger Shrives
We certainly had Labour
panicking. Many of Lewisham borough’s Labour councillors stayed
out till the last hour in this one ward to get every last vote out,
despite important elections for the Greater London Assembly (GLA)
and the Euro-elections.
We worried them partly because
Jess is well-known on the large Pepys estate, where she has been an
activist on many issues, especially housing. Also, the Socialist
Party had won the last Lewisham council by-election, when Chris
Flood beat Labour to get our second seat in the borough.
In the 2002 council elections
Labour got 60% of the votes with their nearest rivals on about 15%.
It had been even safer for Labour before then. This time, Labour was
down below 50%. What saved them was an increased turnout, with more
people voting a solid Labour ticket for Euro, London Mayor, GLA and
local elections, particularly as opinion polls made people worry
that Ken Livingstone could lose the mayoral vote.
Undoubtedly the New Labour
council’s capitalist policies of cuts and privatisation will
present local people with many new issues to campaign on. This
election campaign, together with that for Ian Page in the Greenwich/Lewisham
GLA constituency, has given the Socialist Party a great basis for
these new battles – and for future elections.
Lincoln Socialists take 16%
LESS THAN a year after the formation of our
Lincoln Socialist Party branch, we decided to stand in the local
council elections.
Marc Glasscoe
Ryan Hayward stood in Birchwood ward and beat
all expectations by taking 329 votes out of a total of 2,100. This
means that in less than 12 months a previously unknown party locally
has picked up 16% of the vote!
This success has come about through the hard
work of our Lincoln comrades with help from others in the East
Midlands region and beyond.
But it is based on the fact that Lincoln people
are seeing through the lies and deceit of the three main capitalist
parties. Many are crying out for an alternative that will represent
their interests, and the Socialist Party is presenting such an
alternative.
We are not going to rest on our laurels now.
Although we did not win this election, we intend to fulfil our
promises. Failure to do so will leave us no better than the parties
who "only turn up when they want your vote" as one local
resident said.
We spoke to many people who wish to start
campaigns on local issues and we will help them to take up their
causes.
While doing this, we will also take this
opportunity to raise consciousness on socialist ideas and on the
need to build a new mass workers party.
Socialist Alternative 10 June 2004 election results
Note: Where we stood one candidate in a
three-seat ward, percentages are shown as a percentage of the number
of people voting. Further information on our percentages will be
available our website as we obtain it
|
Council Seat |
Candidate |
Votes and % |
|
Newcastle Byker |
Bill Hopwood |
378 13.6%
|
|
Newcastle South Heaton |
Cathy Collins |
195 7.4%
|
|
Sheffield Arbourthorne |
Terry Wykes |
253 5.3%
|
|
Kirklees (Huddersfield) Newsome |
Jean Goodison
Julie McKinley
Mike Forster
|
245
101
100
Aprox 3% |
|
Wakefield East |
Mick Griffiths |
436 Aprox 10% |
|
Wakefield North |
Adrian O Malley Diana Shepherd
Rob Crab |
351
297
222
Aprox 6.6%
|
|
Wakefield MDC Pontrefact North |
John Gill |
232 Aprox 6.2% |
|
Leeds Beeston & Holbeck |
Kevin Wilson
Dave Jones
|
179
177
Aprox 2.7% |
|
Doncaster Thorne |
Mary Jackson |
375 Aprox 8.6% |
|
Merseyside Netherton and Orrel |
Pete Glover
Marie Savin
Michael Brierley |
706
537
485
23% |
|
Stoke Abbey Green |
Steve Pugh |
312 12% |
|
Stoke Northwood |
Chrissie Baldeh |
87 3.5% |
|
Birmingham Northfield |
Louise Houldey
Dave Salt
Clive Walder |
242 4.9%
154 3.1%
113 2.1% |
|
Coventry St Michaels |
Cllr Dave Nellist
Cllr Karen Mckay Cllr Rob Windsor |
1586 * ELECTED*
1449 * ELECTED*
1201
|
|
Coventry Fosehill |
Jim Hensman |
332 |
|
Coventry Whoberley |
Mark Power |
565 |
|
Coventry Westwood |
James Donnelly |
424 |
|
Coventry Binley/Wilenhall |
David Bryan Runnalls |
423 |
|
Coventry Henley |
Paul Hunt |
527 Aprox 17% |
|
Coventry Lower Stoke |
Jane Ashwell |
561 |
|
Coventry Holbrook |
Mick Holton |
284 |
|
Coventry Sherbourne |
Jason Toynbee |
446 |
|
Coventry Radford |
Fran Flint |
220
|
|
Coventry Upper Stoke |
Judy Griffiths |
251 |
|
Coventry Woodlands |
Jon Morley |
348 |
|
Lincoln Birchwood |
Ryan Hayward |
329 16%
|
|
Stevenage Bedwell |
Steve Glennon |
119 7% |
|
Lewisham Evelyn |
Jess Leech |
374 12.9%
|
|
Southampton Bevois |
Nick Chaffey |
189 7.6%
|
|
Gloucester Barton and Treadworth |
John Ewers |
68 3% |
|
Swindon Moredon |
Jean Walker |
105 4.9%
|
|
Swansea Castle |
Alec Thraves
Rob Williams |
258 10%
227 8.8%
|
|
Cardiff Splot |
Dave Bartlett
Katrine Williams Alex Gounelas |
76 2.5%
57 1.9%
52 1.7% |
|
Cardiff Pentwyn |
Steve Williams |
139 3.6% |
|
Lewisham and Greenwich GLA seat |
Ian Page |
2825 2.4% |
Elections
2004: A Shadow Over Blair
European
elections: 'Kicked In The Ballot Box'
CWI
election campaign 2004
Our
manifesto: What Is Socialism website
Victory!
Lewisham By-election 4 December 2003
News
and analysis of the May 2003 Council Election results 2003
