02.05.2012

Subbing subbers

Robbie Rix knows that a standing order is best

As I pointed out last week, the Weekly Worker has increased its annual subscription rate by £10 in response to Royal Mail’s huge hike in postage rates.

True, the extra we have to pay in stamps comes to about £7 a year for each subscriber, but for many years now we have simply absorbed the additional postage costs. We have not increased the subscription rate for a decade! And when you take into account the fact that our cover price remains at £1 (we have not raised this over the same period either), and you will get 48 issues for £60, then we are clearly still subsidising our subscribers quite a bit.

But the Weekly Worker is not about making money. We rely on the generosity of our readers and supporters to ensure we keep getting our message out. And that central message is quite simple: the left needs to unite in a single, democratic Communist Party armed with a principled Marxist programme. The more comrades who read, understand and are prepared to act on that, the better, so we are more than happy to distribute the paper that carries it at the lowest possible price.

For that reason here’s another deal we’re offering. When your sub comes up for renewal, you can actually pay less than last year if you switch to a standing order (£12 a quarter or £48 a year). Once again it suits us to bear the extra cost because we know we will be getting regular payments. And, of course, there is always the chance that regular readers will voluntarily increase those payments in appreciation of our consistent partyism!

That is what dozens of current readers have done. For example in the last few days of April we received £148 in standing order donations to our fighting fund, plus two PayPal transfers - £50 from SW and £30 from BL. The extra £228 we got in four days took our total for last month to £1,358 - unfortunately a bit short of our £1,500 target. But we start May with £212 in the kitty after just three days, mainly thanks to the standing orders that come in at the start of each month (including a new one for £10 from comrade ET - thank you!).

So what about it? How about taking out a standing order subscription? Or, if you prefer to read us online, a standing order donation would do just as nicely! There again, if you were one of the 10,762 internet readers we had last week, you could make use of our PayPal facility and help keep the Weekly Worker going with a one-off gift. Please do what you can to ensure we make up for last month’s deficit in May.