GLC Election (1981)

Party News from the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Elsewhere in this issue there are details of public meetings and activities for the Party’s GLC election campaign in Islington South and Finsbury. Since last month’s column, which announced that Barry McNeeney will be the Socialist candidate for the election, there has been a significant change in the state of affairs in our constituency: Douglas Eden, the “leader” of the Social Democratic Alliance, has announced that he will be standing in Islington South and Finsbury "to appeal to Labour voters who remember the Labour Party in the mould of Lord George Brown’’. (We presume that he will be trying to find them in the local pubs.) Lord George "will be campaigning for him in Islington’’ (Islington Gazette, 13/3/81). Combined with a proposed electoral pact with the Liberals, we suspect that this might be the kiss of death for the so-called social democrats. Eden is to be challenged to come and defend his views on April 16th when a public meeting at the Prince Albert pub, Wharfdale Road will be asking “Who Are The Social Democrats?" The Islington Gazette has published a letter from a Party member which made clear the SPGB's principled opposition to all other parties. We are hoping that the correspondence will continue (there has already been one letter in response from a "social democrat"). The campaign is going to cost us more money than is readily available and so we once again appeal to you to dip into your pockets and send us whatever you can afford towards the greatest cause facing humanity today.