At one entrance to Leytonstone tube station the Socialist Workers have a stall with their papers on and a lady is giving out fliers for a meeting organised by Respect starring Gorgeous George Galloway MP (I thought the SWP didn’t believe in bourgeois democracy). Titled “British Politics after Blair”, it’s taking place at the al Badr Hall on Lea Bridge Road on Friday 9th.
Through the underpass at the other entrance a member of the Labour Party is giving out leaflets (no stall note) entitled “Labour, the Leadership and the War”. This meeting boasts 3 MPs (Labour have an unshakeable belief in bourgeois democracy) and takes place at the Welsh Church on Leytonstone High Road.
The leaflet, and the man giving them out boast that “all three MPs are anti-war”. You know our democracy is a bad state when our elected representatives try to impress us with the fact that they voted against an illegal war against a sovereign state that has cost the lives of over 600,000 people.
What else can I read about the politics of the nation from this encounter? Both groups seem to gravitate to religious buildings. Respect/SWP to an Islamic venue adjoined to a mosque, in order to show that they are no Islamophobes and can communicate with the ‘Arab Street’ (they never believed in gender politics anyway).
Labour are drawn back to their Celtic roots, still more comfortable with Methodism than Marx.
Whatever happened to Working Men’s Clubs?