Saturday 3 April 2010

Trade Unionist Socialist Coalition


For a few seconds, in a blurred out of focus shot I was seen on Newsnight! My friend Toby Abse was in the front row so was seen more clearly. Last week the left that has come together in this coalition launched its campaign for the coming election. The meeting was held in a packed meeting at the Friends Meeting House in Euston Road. The windows to the room appeared not to open so the numbers of people present and combined with the 'hot air' being generated rapidly raised the room temperature! My visits to Malaysia with my partner over the years stood me in good stead to cope well with the conditions. I half expected a 'chit-chat' to scamper across the walls in the room! It would seem almost 50 candidates will be standing in many cities across the country and hopefully some of the candidates may well get respectable votes. The coalition and its programme is an improvement on the anti EU slate that was put together for the European elections, which had a flavour of 'little Englander" about it. But again the coalition has been put together at the last minute and is more limited than the Socialist Alliance. My concern is that apart from a few cities, like Coventry, Preston and Salford the candidates have not been able to establish a presence and may well get a very limited vote.

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