Party News (1998)

Party News from the April 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Annual Conference

The 94th Annual Conference of the Socialist Party will take place over Easter weekend on Friday and Saturday, 10 and 11 April from 10.15 to 18.00 on both days.

As with all our meetings, there are no closed sessions and visitors are welcome to sit in and listen to the delegates and to meet and discuss with members in the canteen or afterwards.

Local elections

Socialist Party candidates will be standing in Manchester, London, Tyneside and Bournemouth in this year’s local elections on 7 May. Further details and offers of help: South East Manchester, Central London, North East and Bournemouth branches and group respectively (see Directory on this page).

London Referendum

Also on 7 May electors in London will be voting on a government proposal for an elected mayor and an elected assembly to replace the GLC abolished by the Tories in 1988.

The Socialist Party has produced a leaflet explaining that real democracy is not possible under capitalism where some are more equal than others because they have more money and where the economic laws of the profit system work to frustrate improvements people vote for from being carried out.

London branches and members will be distributing this leaflet in April and early May. Copies for distribution can be obtained from: Election Dept, The Socialist Party. 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.

Apologies

Due to problems at our printers a couple of passages in the May Socialist Standard became incomprehensible.

The second paragraph of the editorial reply to the letter from Kimberley Ellis should have read:

“In short, we think that given the development of productive capacity since Marx made the distinction in 1875 between a 'first' (when full free access according to needs would not be possible) and a 'higher’ phase of 'communist society' (when it would), the so called higher phase con be established more or less immediately" 

Similarly, part of the third paragraph of the review of the play Junk was just that. Our apologies to both the writer and our readers.