15.09.2016

Second to none

It's hands in pockets time, says Robbie Rix

“Your coverage of the Labour Party is just the ticket,” writes comrade CL. “The analysis is second to none.” And to back up his words he enclosed a nice cheque for £100, with the usual exhortation to “keep up the good work”.

As CL and many others know, the role of the Weekly Worker is to argue, continuously and consistently, for what the working class movement needs most of all: a principled Marxist party with the potential to unite the left. And, of course, our call to intervene in the Labour battle to defend Jeremy Corbyn is connected to this aim. A Labour Party acting as a united front for all working class organisations would mark a significant political advance.

But we could not play that role without the substantial financial support we receive from our readers. Every month we aim to raise £1,750 in donations to meet our running costs and help improve the paper’s content - and usually we get there.

However, I have to say that the past week has not been a good one for our fighting fund - apart from comrade CL’s donation, of course! His was the only cheque received and there were just two PayPal gifts - £20 from GH and £7 from DB. And that week also seems to have coincided with the precise period in the month when standing orders are few and far between - there was only the one: £20 from DV.

So this has been the worse seven days I can ever recall for the fund - a mere £147 came our way, contrasting to the £488 we received last week. So that takes our running total to just £635, with exactly half the month gone. But I’m not despondent. I know things will pick up and our readers won’t let us down. I’d like to appeal in particular to our online readers - there were 2,976 of them last week - to make use of that PayPal button. Or, better still, if you have an online bank account, make a payment to sort code 30-99-64, account number 00744310.

We need £1,115 in just over two weeks.