Candidates

Chair:
Pam Stevens (North & Mid Wales branch)
Re-Open Nominations

Vice Chair:
Sian Addicott (Swansea branch)
Re-Open Nominations

Secretary:
Len Arthur (Mid Glamorgan branch)
Re-Open Nominations

Treasurer:
Ann Bennett (Mid Glamorgan branch)
Re-Open Nominations

Statements

Chair: Pam Stevens

My name is Pam Stevens and I live in Flintshire, North Wales.

I worked as a teacher and college/university tutor until my retirement in 2012. During my working career I was an active trade union member, rep and activist but did not belong to a political party despite being an ‘instinctive socialist’.

That all changed when Left Unity emerged from the Coalition of Resistance movement and Peoples’ Assembly organisation which I continue to firmly support. Becoming a member of LU soon after its inception in November 2013, I’ve been interim Wales Left Unity Chair since the inaugural meeting in July this year.

Left Unity’s socialist ethos and policies offer hope for a better society, one which has sound humane values at its core. I want to join with others to make that society a reality and that’s why getting involved in establishing LU in Wales is important to me.

In Wales we are facing a savage onslaught of further cuts and Wales LU has been fighting back with insight and strength. There is much to do but unless we work for the change that is needed we won’t succeed. Please support me so I can continue to help strengthen the establishment of LU Wales.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Vice Chair: Sian Addicott

My name is Siân Addicott and I am currently working as a Lecturer in Photojournalism at UWTSD Swansea and researching for a Phd. I am a member of the NUJ.

Since the inception of the Con-Dem Coalition I have become increasingly concerned about the effects of austerity, back-door privatisation of the NHS and the mainstream media’s representation of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. I came to Left Unity via the People’s Assembly (having attended the PA conference in June 2013). I joined Left Unity in March 2014, having never previously been a member of any political party or group. I have been working hard with other local members to set up a Swansea LU branch, and have been closely involved with LU Wales developments and activities.

I would like to help get LU Wales fully established and strengthen our position in the fight against the upcoming onslaught of austerity and cuts to our public services. I am committed to Left Unity’s fundamental values of socialism, feminism, anti-racism and environmentalism.

Secretary: Len Arthur

We are facing class war and in the words of one US financier you and I, the working class are losing. We live in a planet where humanity is in imminent danger from global warming. We are paying for the financial crisis which we had no hand in creating: as Lenin said somewhere ‘capitalism will survive so long as the working class can be persuaded to pay the cost’.

It should be the job of a socialist party to speak out and reveal these dangerous trends. More than that, the party should be prepared to support and help organise a fightback offering an alternative in every way possible – through direct action and elections.

The Labour Party has failed to do this so I left. See my resignation letter here. I’m committed to helping build Left Unity into the socialist party we need in Wales and the UK.

In Wales I’ve worked closely with comrades to help bring Left Unity Wales into being, providing a democratic and accountable way for all members to take an active part and for us to work in complete public openness. As socialist we should try to practice what we preach, acting as a party as far as we can in the same way would expect a socialist society to work. We have already been involved in important campaigns such as No NATO, arguing for welfare not warfare and are now supporting the People’s Assembly Wales petition, calling on AMs to vote against cuts and defy the Tory government.

We need to do much more and are working on a manifesto for Wales which, hopefully, will not only provide a socialist vision for Wales but also a way of linking our actions and struggles with people across the UK and Europe.
I’d appreciate your support for continuing as secretary of Left Unity Wales. As a retired person I have a little more time than most to keep up the bureaucratic bit together with the freedom from fear that a pension brings. I’ve a long history of being a socialist activist in Wales in the community, trade unions and politics. I hope this will be a help to the party.

Treasurer: Ann Bennett

I have been a member of Left Unity from its first conference. I share and I’m committed to its stated aims and objectives. I have spent most of my life as a committed socialist. In my youth I was secretary for the Labour Party Young Socialist and until recently a party member, experiencing the duplicity of consecutive Labour leaders from Wilson, Callaghan through to Blair and Miliband.

I finally left Labour this year in disgust.

I was an active shop steward in NALGO, NUPE and finally UNISON.

I have campaigned for decades on equal pay, saving the NHS, the miners’ strike, countless picket lines, anti war anti NATO and anti austerity.

What would I bring to the role of treasurer?

Well, we don’t have rich backers like the Tory /Lib party or Sainsbury’s propping us up: we just have you, the members and your serious commitment to changing the way we move forward. Your financial commitment is critical if we are to stand candidates. We do need to fund raise and may have to be raise additional funds in Wales to achieve our goal.

My HOPE

There is only one: is the complete transformation of society and the end of senseless capitalism.

The Labour party for decades has pursued a half hearted pragmatic approach to political reform. Not having the courage or commitment to do any other.

A united left can and must take up this challenge by stand candidates on our socialist programme.

As Rosa once said we face the challenge of “socialism or barbarism”.