The Socialist campaign: buy it, sell it – read it, write it

The Socialist campaign

Buy it, sell it – read it, write it

Ian Pattison, the Socialist campaign organiser

For just £1, a fraction of the cost of a pint or cup of coffee, you can get a paper unlike any other. And many people are willing to donate a lot more to support a workers’ paper. 12 year old Harry Job from Swansea sold a copy of the Socialist for a £10 donation at the 100,000 strong anti-austerity demonstration outside the Tory Party conference in Manchester last month.

We need sellers of the Socialist like Harry. How can you help? Do you sell the socialist at the moment? If not, will you start? Why not carry a few copies of the paper with you, ready if the conversation arises? Do you sell to friends and family? Burning anger at the Tories is never far from people’s thoughts.

Len, a London NHS worker, regularly sells the paper to colleagues in his hospital. “I send a text to workmates with the most pertinent points of the current paper as soon as it is out. I approach colleagues with the paper in the tea break, start a discussion, and recommend a particular article or news feature.

“Over time the paper has enabled me to win support for important fighting industrial strategies. It also helped gather a small group of health workers to stand as Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates in the 2014 local elections.”

If you are already a seller of the Socialist, can you add in an extra sale once a week?

Sellers of the Socialist in the Southern region have set themselves the target of increasing the number of papers they sell to 100. They want to start with 10 campaign activities across the region in a week. They’ve already kicked off to a great start – they sold 150 copies of the Socialist at the Tolpuddle Martyr’s festival in the summer.

Swansea Socialist Students members sold 50 copies of the Socialist to students at the university freshers fair. The topics hotly debated on university campuses are covered in the Socialist. One student that becomes a seller of the Socialist can help reach the tens of thousands of young people enthused by Jeremy Corbyn’s call during his election campaign to bring back free education.

Last week’s edition of the Socialist included a full page review of new film, Suffragette. Sellers of the Socialist could offer the paper to cinema goers to read about the real history of working class women’s fight for the vote. We carry articles like this every week.

The Socialist doesn’t take a penny of funding from big business or give up a single column inch to corporate advertising. We rely solely on the donations of working class people like you. To help us better plan our finances and maintain a 16 page colour weekly newspaper, why not take out a subscription?

Every week, the Socialist will be delivered straight to your door. Due to Royal Mail privatisation our postage costs have increased. So we are increasing subscription costs by 50p to £4.50 a month for the paper, £6.50 combined with Socialism Today magazine.

If you take out a subscription you can request an extra copy is sent to you at no extra cost, so you have one to read and another to sell! You can download a subscription form online at www.socialistparty.org.uk/subscribe.

If you’re already a subscriber, what about asking an interested friend to take one out, or helping your local Socialist Party branch chase up lapsed subscriptions? Can your union branch subscribe?

There’s loads of potential and everyone can play a part in helping make sure the campaign is a big success.