Election Agent, Carlisie eva was so When Cartole Socialst Alliance was set up fast October we were initially alming at standing in the county council elec tions which also took place in May 2000. We were a very small s esources to make an impact by standing in the General Election.
However, as time went on and the SA became stronger nationally, delegates from Carlisle attended national meet:
and the number of SA candidates standing in the General Election begar sider our position. After much debate tion to sive people with socialist views a voice in the clection, and should not let misgivings stand in our way.
At this point, we had six membersone ISG, three SWP and two SP We chose Paul Wilcox as our candidate. Paul had been the driving force behind the formation of Carisle Socialist Allance, and had proved to be an excel lent candidate when he stood as a Socialist Altemative candidate in the 2000 City Count Election, when he received 24.5% of the vote. Publicly our campaign was launched on a stall that we held on May Ist; to which we invited the local press, who sent down their Political Editor and a photographer. The press were to be our main instrument of publicity throughout our campaign-we did not have the financial resources for leaflets other than our election address, or enough bodies to canvass effectively. Paol was his own press agent, and Led a high level of exposure throughout. We are lucky in Carlide in that we have a daily local paper, with whom Paul has developed a good rela tionship and which was happy to give us exposure. We have been told by Anna the Socialist Alliance national press officer that we seem to have got more press coverage than any other local campaign.
All members contributed to a letters campaign, though some of the best lettoes that were printed came from sup porters that we didn't know we had Paul also did interviews with BBC Radio Cumbria, Border Television and CFM. From the very fest day the possibility of us splitting the New Labour vote and letting the Tories in was an issue that was brought up frequently by a lot of sople. The Labour Party tried to play on this a good deal despite the fact that our New Labour MP was re-elected in 1997 with a 12,000 majority!
More disappointing was the role played by local RMT acthist Craig Johnson, who had been Paul's election gene last year. Craig publichy called on eople to vote Labour, appearing in one sue of the local paper with a huge Labour rosette. As the best known left activist in the town, there is no doubt that his decision to attack the Socialist Alliance had an impact on our vote.
Two husti ng were arranged where Paul was able to put our policies over in some depth. The first was organised by Age Concern, and all candidates attended, apart from the Legalise Cannabis Allance candidate (who was invisible throughout the campaign. This was quite a turning point for Paul as it was the first time the other candidates had had a chance to see what he could do. He did extremely well, winning the audience over, even those who did not share our politics. The second was arranged by the cathedral, and there was a great deal of: controversy when the Tory refused to attend, saying that the bishop who was to be the chair was a supporter of Blair, and therefore biased! On the night the Tory was conspicuously represented by an empty chair.
On the Saturday before the election Now Labour and the Tories had scalls and we had a very good scall with seven people on it. We were there for three ours, and spoke to a lot of supporters, both ones we now knew and ones we had never met.
Our campaign has been very successful. Socialism has been given a political profile locally. We have doubled our membership and have people involved between the ages of 19 and 76. We have several supporters who want to become involved in future. We polled 269 votes. We are now looking forward to building on what we have gained curing our campo organisation, the Socialist Workers Party for forty years Pensioners After early retirement. Terry immersed himself in the pensioners' movement. He played a major role in shifting candidate the union (now MSF) away from support for New Labours stakenolder perr sions to a policy of support for linking pensions to wages with no means testing.
He welcomed the Socialist Alliance when it was set up. recognising the importance of the anti - capitalist demonstrations and that there was now a growing minority in favour of fundamental political change.
Terry was accepted as an Bridge and quickly achieved front-page publicity. He was particularly pleased when he was filmed by Ken Loach for the Socialist Alliance election broadcast. He is greatly missed.
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