23.02.2017

Worth chipping in for

As I predicted, the paucity of standing orders received last week - not to mention the lowest fighting fund total for a single week in living memory! - was more than made up for in the following seven days.

Standing orders alone accounted for £515 this week - thanks in particular go to SK, MM, PM, TB, TR and KB for their substantial monthly donations - while a further £35 came in via PayPal (thank you, ZA, WN and TR for your contributions). Then there were two cheques - £25 from GS, and £15 from OG, who had very kind words for myself.

She thanks me for my “weekly good-humoured appeals”, as well as editor Peter Manson for “sorting out a muddle with the delivery of my Weekly Worker” - her copy was wrongly ‘returned to sender’ by Royal Mail a couple of weeks ago. Well, sorting that out - not to mention being “good-humoured” - is certainly worth £15!

Unlike OG, the greatest number of our readers catch up with my latest witticisms online - this week there were 2,604 of them. But it has to be said that very few of them show their appreciation in the same way as she does - in their case by clicking on our PayPal button. In fact there were just three of them who did that this week: ZA (£20), WN (£10) and TR (£5).

But this coming week is when we could really do with a few more of them doing the necessary - although we are well within striking difference of our monthly target of £1,750 (currently we have £1,612). But that leaves out of the equation the small matter of the £214 deficit in January - surely we can raise the £352 we still need to make up for that by February 28?

Of course we can! Because it’s not just my good humour our readers appreciate. I suspect that the main reason for our support lies in our politics: centrally our insistence on the need for a single, united Marxist party to overcome the left’s current sectarian divisions.

Now isn’t that worth chipping in for?