Socialist Party Meetings (1991)

 Party News from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

There were so many meetings advertised in the October 1986 Standard that I had to split the party news post into two. And I still didn't even get to include everyone listed in the label section. Apologies to Janie Percy-Smith, Cliff Begley, Steve Coleman, Pieter Lawrence, E. Hardy, Carl Pinel, Ralph Critchfield, Enfield & Haringey Branch, Islington Branch, Doncaster  . . . did I leave anyone out?

SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard carried an article by Janie Percy-Smith giving an overview of the Women and Socialism meetings that took place in the autumn of 1986 to help promote the SPGB pamphlet of the same name.

Obituary: Lewis Hopkin (2002)

Obituary from the June 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swansea branch are saddened to have to report the death of comrade Lewis Hopkin at the end of April. Lewis was born in 1933 and joined the Socialist Party in Swansea in 1959. When he went to London to study as a mature student at the London School of Economics he transferred to the old Wood Green and Hornsey branch. He later moved to Salford where he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the local polytechnic and was an active member at different times of both Eccles branch and Manchester branch.

He had been born on a farm near Swansea and was a native Welsh-speaker (he translated the only article so far to have appeared in the Socialist Standard in Welsh in July 1969 on the occasion of Charles Windsor being declared Prince of Wales). He remained a farmer at heart, eventually moving to a farm in Anglesey and giving up lecturing. He later moved back to South Wales to the farm where he had been born and where he was buried in a rare public display in a Welsh village of non-belief in god and religion.

Lewis was an occasional contributor to the Socialist Standard over the past 40 years, his last article appearing as recently as February this year. In this he reaffirmed that the working class, properly understood, remains the agent of change from capitalism to socialism. On his return to South Wales and to the branch he first joined he had enthusiastic plans for renewed activity, both in his own reading and writing and in the organisation of meetings. But the cancer he had suffered from for a number of years finally prevented this.

We extend our sympathy to his wife Ann, also a member, to their four children and to the other members of his family.

Donations to Party Funds (1946)

Party News from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1987)

 Party News from the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: Paul Maxwell (1992)

Obituary from the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paul Maxwell
One of the last surviving members of the old Eccles branch, Paul Maxwell, died in February. The Eccles branch was founded in 1932, continuing with the Manchester branch the presence which the Party has had in the Greater Manchester area since the earliest days. The branch, as was fitting in an area which was the birthplace of the industrial working class in Britain and indeed the world, was composed largely of trade union activists, of which Comrade Maxwell was one as well as being a part-time conjurer. He joined the branch in 1934 and for years was a literature seller at the outdoor meetings held at Eccles Cross. When, as outdoor speaking opportunities everywhere died out (Eccles Cross became a traffic island), the branch had to wind up in 1962 Com Maxwell transferred to Central Branch, and it was not until 1986 a new Eccles branch was formed.

SPGB Meetings (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Turf Hotel in Wrexham is the pub featured in the Hulu documentary Welcome to Wrexham. So, 34 years before McElhenney and Reynolds were pulling pints, you had the SPGB in the same pub putting the world to rights. The circle of life.

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the September 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1990)

Party News from the August 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1987)

Party News from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the August 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Donations to General Fund (1941)

Party News from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I've not previously made a habit of posting these types of party funds columns from the war years on the blog, but I thought this time it was appropriate because of the bitter irony that the war economy brought full employment, and that trickled down into members and sympathizers pockets resulting in the Party being flush with donations for the first time in years. The sheer volume of donations was unprecedented and when you see the likes of Hamilton Branch donating to Party funds again and again, you know that for millions of workers war brought its financial benefits.

Party News (1998)

Party News from the June 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The results in the three wards in which the Socialist Party stood in the May local elections were:

South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council—Primrose ward

Scorer (Lab) 1155, Smith (LD) 220, Armstrong (Con) 181, Bissett (Soc) 104.

Manchester City Council—Levenshulme ward

Whitemore (LD) 1550, McGregor (Lab) 771, Davies (Con) 148, Garratt (SLP) 104, Chislett (Green) 81, Pitts (Soc) 32 .

London Borough of Camden—Brunswick ward

Weekes (Lab) 653, Cousins (Lab) 601, Avery (Con) 443, Norman (Con) 376, Jones (LD) 286, Whitley (Green) 258, Parker (Soc) 58.

London Referendum

The Labour government has claimed public endorsement of their undemocratic proposal to have a directly-elected mayor for London who will have all the power, reducing an elected assembly to the status of a chat show. The actual results were:

Non-voters: 327,897 (65.4%), Yes: 1,230,715 (24.6%), No: 478,413 (9.5%), Rejected (spoiled and invalid papers): 26,188 (0.5%)

It would be nice to think that the unusually high number of rejected votes was due to people writing “Socialism” across the ballot paper, but most were probably blank votes.

 

No, thank you.

Last year two Labour MEPs, Hugh Kerr and Ken Coates, were expelled from the Labour Party for being too reformist. They are seeking support to get re-elected in opposition to Labour and feel that they may have a good chance since these elections will be held under a proportional representation system. In January a group calling itself the Green left issued a statement calling on “all radical and environmentally minded people-organisations to consult on the possibility of a green, democratic and pluralist alternative for the 1999 European elections and beyond. We ask the Green Parties of England, Wales & Scotland, the English Socialist Alliances, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party and all other Green Left Affiliates to respond positively to our consultation.”

At its meeting in May our Executive Committee adopted the following reply:

“The Socialist Party’s only aim is socialism as a society of common ownership and democratic control with production for use not profit. Because we hold that the best way to further the cause of socialism is to campaign for socialism and socialism alone—’to make Socialists’, as William Morris put it—we have always refused to ally ourselves with organisations which campaign for reforms to be achieved within the context of capitalism. We do not see that the introduction of proportional representation is a valid reason for abandoning this principled stance.

On these grounds, therefore, we decline your invitation to talks with a view to presenting joint candidates in the next European elections.

We shall, in all probability, be standing our own candidates in these elections, in opposition both to candidates who openly support capitalism and to those who are standing on a platform of reforms to be achieved within capitalism.”

SPGB Meetings (1989)

 Party News from the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1989)

Party News from the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Local Election Results (1990)

Party News from the July 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The results in the two wards contested by the Socialist Party in the May local elections were as follows:

Winton ward. Salford Borough Council: Prior (Lab) 2790, Botton (Con) 506, Hanley (Green) 267, Rushton (Soc) 101.

Southfield Ward. London Borough of Ealing: Ebonezer (Con) 1574, Atkinson (Con) 1568, Richardson (Con) 1568, Hill (Lab) 1295, Tatlorsall (Lab) 1254, Rose (Lib Dem) 1089, Bastin (Lab) 1069, Huck (Lib Dem) 1031, Lourie (Lib Dem) 1000, Landon (Green) 501, Buick (Soc) 41, Critchfield (Soc) 37, Cronin (Soc) 31.

Socialism at the Polls (1990)

Party News from the May 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party candidates are standing in two wards in the 3 May local elections: in the Winton ward, Eccles, of Salford Borough Council (candidate: Jimmy Rushton) and in the Southfield ward of the London Borough of Ealing (candidates: Adam Buick, Ralph Critchfield and Kevin Cronin).

Those in these areas who want a socialist world of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use can show this by voting for these candidates. Elsewhere, they can do so by writing the word “Socialism” across their ballot paper.