Statement from Paul Smith

On the evening of Sunday the 25th of November I was selected to stand in the next general election as the Labour Party candidate for the Yeovil constituency. I stood on a platform of socialist and democratic values, openness and honesty and for a Labour Party that puts working people first.

My key objectives for the build up to the election include:

1) Establishing a link with young working people and introducing them into politics.
2) Re-connecting with voters and members disillusioned with politics in the last ten years.

To do this I believe it is important to show we're not an organisation ruled from top to bottom, but a democratic organisation ruled from the bottom up, where the rank and file members can make and influence policy. To not be afraid to disagree with national policy when we believe it is wrong, nor to criticise when we think it doesn't go far enough. We must be willing to speak our mind and listen to the working people our party was founded to represent.

Over time the Yeovil Labour Party shall be, with the public formulating local policies on which to fight an election campaign. My goal is to ensure they are as fair as possible to people of this constituency and put their interests first.

Candidate Selected

The Yeovil Labour Party has elected its candidate for the next general election. The candidate shall be Paul Smith.

Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting and cast their vote. The candidate himself will be making a statement shortly.

Hands Off Venezuela Conference

The 'Hands Off Venezuela' conference will be taking place on Saturday November 24th. The event will present a number of speakers from both Venezuela and others from parliament as well as a number of other organistions.

You can get more information on the event from the facebook site, which can be found here.

The speakers list include:

Venezuelan Speakers

Guadalupe Rodrigez, Coordinaadora Simon Bolivar, 23 Enero,
Nelson Rodriguez, Inveval Factory Committee, FRETECO

Other Speakers:

John McDonnell MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jeremy Dear, General Secretary, the National Union of Journalists
Matt Wrack, General Secretary, Fire Brigades Union
Alan Woods, Author of "The Venezuelan Revolution"
Derek Wall, a national spokesperson for the Green Party


I'd recommend any of my fellow comrades attend. It is extremely important to show solidarity with our Venezuelan comrades and the socialist government of Hugo Chavez. The emergence of a revolution is extremely rare and the progress of the Venezeualan government in securing a future for all the people of Venezuela has had unmeasureable success. The country is finally freed from the pseudo democratic rule of the bourgeois pro-capitalist political parties - and the people are, now given the choice, consciously supporting a socialist government. The government is using its massive resources (including oil) to support a progressive social program, rather than lining the pockets of the rich.

We have seen massive reforms in health and education - but there is still much left to do to ensure a better future for the people of Venezuela. We must ensure the 'revolution' continues and that the fervour does not die off in the face of American imperialism and global capitalism.

As socialists, therefore, we must support Venezuela. We must continue to fight for socialism and for real labour values, and we should not just fight for it in our own country, but globally as part of a bigger and greater and more powerful true labour movement.


In solidarity,


Lee Skevington
CLP Secretary

New Poll

Although last week intervention from Downing Street meant no full introduction of a national waste charging scheme; a scheme will be piloted around the country in several areas. These areas are yet to be decided.

If passed into law, the proposed Climate Change Bill will result in changes to the Environmental Protection Act (1990) to allow for the legal introduction of waste charging schemes.

Upon completion of the pilot scheme a report and assessment will be made to parliament regarding the successes and failures of the scheme. However, the proposal of waste charging schemes has highlighted concerns over fly-tipping. According to South Somerset District Council fly-tipping has cost Yeovil £25,000 in the past year.

The Communities and Local Government Committee in their last report requested further clarification on how financial incentive schemes will interact with council tax and also recognises that such schemes will disadvantage large families and those on low income. This report makes clear that if any scheme is to be introduced there are many issues in need of ironing out before going ahead.

Opinions regarding waste-charging are mixed, therefore we have placed a poll on the homepage of this website. I encourage you to vote in the poll and/or comment on this blog and let us know your thoughts on the issue!

Waste Collection & Recycling

It has been revealed this week by the L.G.A. (Local Government Association) that Britain still throws away more waste than the rest of Europe. It is reported that in the past year the UK has thrown away 22.6 million tonnes of waste.

The UK is followed closely behind by Italy, Spain and France.

While significant strides have been made in an attempt to reduce the amount of non-recycled waste the new statistics are testament to the fact that enough is not being done to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill sites across the country.

Lee Skevington, Yeovil CLP Secretary commented :

"Local councils have an integral role to play in limiting the amount of waste sent to landfill. While in Yeovil proactive steps have been taken by the council in reducing waste, there quite frankly isn't enough that is being done to tackle the problem".

"If we're to be serious about recycling we need local government to be providing more pick up points for recyclable materials as well as collecting cardboard and plastic as they do in other local authorities. While it is tempting to place all of the burden on local people to recycle, enough isn't being done to encourage local business, both big and small, to go green. We all have a part to play in meeting recycling targets."

"It is inconvceivable to pass the total cost along to the common taxpayer as they are only responsible for a very minor amount of the total waste produced."

This report comes amidst government controversy over waste charging. However, the communities and local government select committee has this week commented that if waste charging is to be introduced then council tax must first be reduced.

Therefore, before local government can introduce any waste charging scheme they must first make reductions to the rate of council tax. There has, however, been talk of revoking section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act. Under section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act (1990) no local authority may introduce direct charges for household waste-collection.

Anyone interested in reading the report of the select committee can find it here.

PPC Meeting Update

Just a brief update for anyone unaware - although i previously posted saying that the hustings meeting would be on the 15th the letters i sent to all of you (our members) say it is the 25th. This is now the correct date. The meeting and vote will be held at 7pm on Sunday November 25th.

A few words from our perspective parliamentary candidates

Below are a few words that Colin Counter and Paul Smith feel give a brief description of their beliefs and thoughts, and hopefully will give you an idea of where they're coming from.

Colin Counter:

A Labour Government! Who would have thought 30 years ago that a 'we' would have been in power for three successive terms! When I say ‘we’ I mean the royal “we”. That is the people, of which I am one. I have not been a Labour supporter all my life, simply because they were a rag bag of people with ideas which quite frankly scared the living daylights out of all people. The Tories were even worse. we needed a ‘third way’. New Labour provided the balance. Which is why ‘we’ were elected. My politics are the 3rd way. That is, there will never be any room in British politics for extremes. The journey for the British people, has been long and very painful, both in emotion and financially. The Tories with ‘boom and bust’ and Labour with ‘tax and spend’. We are here!

The question now is were do ‘we’ go? Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair, he was not elected by the people. His dithering over a ‘snap’ election has cost ‘us’ dear. ‘We’ deposed the king. Let ‘us’ reflect for a moment. King Blair, brought ‘us’: Positives; a stable economy, full employment, new schools, new hospitals, free bus travel for the over 60’s. Negatives; Record personal dept, smoking/hunting bans. War in Iraq/Afghanistan and migration of workers from the EU. This is REAL life! In our personal lives there are pos/neg. It is getting the balance right that counts. Personal dept, is that the fault of government? Bans on smoking/hunting - free vote. War in Iraq, brought on by extreme groups. Migration, full employment requires people to work. If the Brits wont do it who will!

I could debate all these points for hours, but this is the election for PPC for Yeovil CLP. We are up against the LIBDEMs. A contempt able outfit, whose ‘policies’ defy all coherence, whose loyalties change from day to day. Who have turned ‘fence sitting’ into an art form! I should know, for I once was ‘one of them’. Convincing the electors in this area to support Labour is going to be a mammalian task. But not impossible! You asked for my politics, it is all contained in the words above. To summarise, for Labour to win in Yeovil/Chard/Crewcerne/Ilminster we require two things: 1. Oust David LAWS, 2. Get the 50% of people who don’t vote to VOTE! 3. Elect me as PPC.

Paul Smith:

This Labour government has certainly achieved many things, the minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, and a ban on fox hunting and so on. However many within the Labour Party, and those who have left the party in the last 10 years, almost half our membership, are disillusioned with the direction of the leadership. Not to mention the public as a whole, the broad spectrum of people who brought Labour to power in 1997 have, section by section been disappointed by the failure of this government to bring radical change, to reverse the damage of Thatcherism upon society.

Instead of re-nationalising the railways, the very idea is branded by the Labour leadership as "extremism", despite most of the public supporting it.

Instead of restoring rights to trade unions, the draconian Thatchite anti-union laws which has led to the biggest assault on living standards in living memory, remain standing, leaving us with some of the worst working conditions, and over-stressed workforce in Europe.

Instead of ending private businesses profiteering out of public services, they've allowed the private sector more and more influence, privatising twice as many jobs as the Tories carried out in their 18 years in power.

Instead of tackling corporations avoiding taxes, to the tune of an estimated £97-£150 billion every year, they turn a blind eye. Even using the low estimate that is somewhere in the order of £1600 per person, per year. How far that money would go to funding not only maintaining the public sector but also the expansion of the public sector.

Our democracy is, to be frank, at risk of going stale, trapped like the United States between two right-wing parties who represent business and business alone. Already people are utterly disillusioned with politics, "all political parties are the same, they don't represent us." is something I am sure we all hear too often. But I think they've got a point, we need a Labour Party worthy of the name, that's not what we have at the moment and I hope to push the Labour Party a little bit more to the left, which I believe is closer to where the British public are on the political spectrum.

"New" Labour simply cannot distinguish itself from the Liberals or the Tories in the Yeovil constituency, and I am convinced the only way to begin to build an effective challenge on the other parties is by differentiating ourselves from the run of the mill policies that get thrown around so much like "we support the NHS", while behind their grinning faces they're planning on privatising jobs, just so private companies can take a slice of our taxes. People can see through that, they're fed up with it, and they've got nowhere to turn apart from the likes of the far-right, who'll say anything and blame anyone and Respect, probably the biggest laughing stock the left has ever known. Too many working people are unrepresented in our democracy, we need to give them a voice and Labour is the mechanism by which to do so. Yeovil needs an MP who will vote in accordance to what the constituents want, not what their party leadership demands especially when it comes to further privatisation of public services and wars fought solely on the grounds of picking up a few lucrative business contracts.