• LAST week, 40,000 electors in Islington North cast their vote for a parliamentary candidate whose manifesto did not mention the word “socialism” even once; for a candidate who stood for redistributing poverty within capitalism, and investing a little more in state-run services by taxing a little more.

We will have to wait a while longer for the experience of seeing how such plans always come apart whenever they collide with the demands of the wealth extractors’ profits.

In the face of this surge of support for state-regulated capitalism, the tiny vote by 20 intransigent socialists may seem insignificant, but I thank those electors who have chosen to use their precious votes to be steadfast signposts of a different way: pointing towards a society of common ownership, where poverty is abolished not managed.

The Socialist Party will continue to make the case against capitalism and for the abolition of the wages system, and to point out the flaws in the Labour Party’s message.

BILL MARTIN
Former Socialist Party parliamentary candidate, Islington North