will appear on the ballot paper. A draft manifesto was adopted which will be made available on the Alliance web site. The SA will seek to coordinate, at the local level, with other anti-war candidates.
Arrangements were made for our involvement in the anti-war demonstration on April 12th.
The slogans on the Alliance placards will be: Stop the war; Blair out - Troops out; and Freedom for Palestine. There will be two ••• however, in getting speakers on the platform at the demonstrations and other major anti-war events. It was agreed that the Alliance make a direct approach to the Coalition for a speaker in Hyde Park on April 12th.
This is important given the need to raise the issue of a socialist alternative to be forged out of the radicalisation against the war.
It was agreed to urge Alliances in various which can address both the crisis in the Labour Party and the situation in the unions. This will be the basis for a series of meetings and debates at local level.
The meeting endorsed the decision to postpone the Alliance AGM - which had been due on March 15 - due to the fact that this was just days before the war started and therefore at the height of anti-war activity. Several Executive members also argue that politically the Alliance will be in a better position on May 10 - when the AGM will now beheld to assess and relate to a new situation.
The need now is to have a well-attended and well-organised conference which could set out the tasks of the Alliance in light of the changed political situation created by the war. There will be provision for further amendments as well as emergency resolutions 1992: some will remember Labour group leader Pat Lally almost speechless on TV after this result
The SSP's best chance outside Glasgow is Central, where the party won 3.5percent of the vote vote in 200l. It is a random sprawl, mostly in post-industrial Lanarkshire, but stretching to Falkirk and Kilmarnock.
No. I candidate here is SSP co-chair Carolyn Leckie, who has been a leader of industrial action by NHS staff in Glasgow, but lives in the region.
The next best region is West, 3.2 percent vote in 2001, another random sprawl, the main towns are Paisley, Clydebank, and Greenock. The no. I candidate is Frances Curran, ISM convenor and an ex-member of the National Executive of the Labour Party. The no. 2 candidate is Jim Bollan, one of the SSP's three councillors. Jim was the Labour group leader on Dumbarton District Council; in 1999 he was elected to West Dumbartonshire council as an independent.
He has also been active in the campaigr for an enquiry into the large number of suicides in Cornton Vale women's prison, as his daughter was one of those who died there.
The SSP also stands a serious chance in Lothian. (mainly Edinburgh) and the Highlands, where it is standing its regional organisers Colin Fox and Steve Arnott.