FOLLOWING the hyperactive campaign by Andy Newman to advertise his declining Socialist Alliance, the result of the council elections should have come as rather a shock to him.
His few supporters queued up to write letters to you and organised marches and anti-war rallies which were very well publicised despite tiny attendances. They even had a political TV slot together with the real parties.
Despite all this frantic activity, they were only able to field one candidate, Mr Newman himself. What happened to the rest of his Alliance? In a very left wing ward he was able to find only 170 votes.
The way in which Pinehurst voters were let down by their Labour councillors over the People's Centre should have produced a lot of protest votes from their regular supporters.
Even his close comrades in the very red Green Party, who remembered this time to hand in their nomination papers, suffered the usual humiliation of gaining only a handful of votes.
I hope they do not give up the unequal struggle. We all need them so that we can show to those who do not care for democracy that extremist politics are dead in Swindon as they are almost everywhere else.
KEITH RATCLIFFE
Priory Green
Highworth
Swindon
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