Tag: Communist Party

Richard Shillcock, the Communist Party of Britain candidate for the Southside/Newington ward, has officially declared that tackling the city’s housing crisis through municipal house building will be a core priority of the Communist Party campaign for the upcoming City of Edinburgh Council by-elections on 3 September 2026.

Richard Shillcock emphasised that the current market-driven approach has failed local residents, arguing that a massive return to publicly owned housing is the only viable solution.

“Edinburgh has a housing crisis and there is only one answer to it—build council houses,” he said. “We need the Council to build, own, maintain, and administer council housing and not leave such an important issue to the free market.”

The Communist Party campaign outline focuses heavily on local job creation and public investment, linking a housing strategy directly to local economic development and skills training.

Shillcock added: “We need to employ council staff and invest in a new generation of apprentices to learn the skills required to build and maintain the highest quality council housing.

“Large-scale council house building was the best answer to the postwar housing crisis. It worked. Since then, turning homes into commodities in a market has failed us.”

Addressing potential concerns regarding budgets, Shillcock pointed to historical precedents and called for a major shift in public spending priorities away from military conflict and toward domestic infrastructure.

“If the money could be found in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, it can be found now. “The Communist Party would spend on homes for people, not endless warfare,” Shillcock concluded.

The Southside/Newington and Craigmillar/Portobello by-elections will take place on Thursday, 3 September 2026.

Shillcock is standing alongside fellow Communist candidate Peter Olech, who is standing in the Portobello/Craigmillar ward, on a platform of peace, public ownership, tax justice and workers’ rights.

Communist Party candidates to stand as “a socialist alternative” for Edinburgh voters

The Communist Party of Britain has today (Friday 17 July 2026) officially launched its campaign for the upcoming Edinburgh City Council by-elections, announcing a slate of candidates running on a platform of peace, public ownership, tax justice and workers’ rights.

The party will stand candidates in both the Southside/Newington and Portobello/Craigmillar wards.

A Communist Party spokesperson said: “”Our candidates are standing to address the city’s growing housing crisis, its underfunded public services, and the rising cost of living. 

“We are offering voters a distinct socialist alternative to the mainstream political parties.”

Key Platform Priorities

Housing for Need, Not Profit: Immediate rent freezes, a cap on short-term holiday lets, and an expansion of high-quality, municipal council housing.

Funding Local Services: Reversing budget cuts to local services such as libraries, community centres, road maintenance and youth services by demanding a fairer funding model from national government and taxing the wealthiest in the city.

Investment in people not wars: Demand an end to funding genocide in Palestine and endless foreign wars and instead spend that money for the benefit of working class people.

Peter Olech, the Communist Party candidate in Portobello/Craigmillar ward, said: “Edinburgh is a city of vast wealth, yet working-class communities are being priced out of their own homes and left with crumbling public services.”

Richard Shillcock the Communist Party candidate for Southside/Newington ward, added: “We are standing in this election to give a voice to working class people and to fight for a city managed in the interests of the many, not the wealthy elite. 

“Edinburgh Council should have greater responsibility for local economic development, with increased investment in council housing and public services.”

Residents will go to the polls on Thursday 3 September to elect one new councillor in each ward. The current electorate is 24,304 for Southside/Newington and 27,347 for Portobello/Craigmillar.

PICTURED: Peter Olech (L) and Richard Shillcock (R) outside City of Edinburgh Council Chambers after declaring as candidates.

Tony Delahoy: Things Remembered

COLD WAR CHALLENGES – AND A LIFELONG AMBITION

At this time (1950) a petition had been launched to collect signatures against the proliferatation of nuclear weapons. We in the union branch at the New Cross tram depot decided to set up a Peace Committee to collect signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal.

The Cold War was intensely pursued by the Western powers. Charlie CHaplin was thron out of America and Paul Robeson too.

We had a big meeting in Camberwell to support Paul Robeson, to which he sent a recorded message, but we were up against the full wight of an anti-communist media.

I even stood as one of three candidates for the Communist Party local elections in Debtford, as their proposals seemed at the time to best address the needs of ordinary working people. But this was at the time of the Yangtse incident, where the Chinese communists were fired on by a British warship and the McCarthy era in the United States was in full swing.

The Vauxhall Tram authorities gave permission for a stall to be set up for just one day in the garage – and we were successful in collecting over 900 signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal, which I delivered to their offices near Regent’s Park.

I would collect the Daily Worker newspaper before my shift and do leafletting after my shifts, early morning or late. The shifts were spaced such that it was impossible to go home in between shifts. They were long days away from home.

Over the seven years I was active in the Transport and General Workers Union we were always under pressure and the canteen was a hive of activity with the early morning sales of all kinds of newspapers. We had to prove we were selling all papers inside the garage and not just the Daily Worker – this we did from outside the garage!

Then we were banned from selling the paper when we had tram uniforms on. The attempts at control were relentless.

There were of course already some big improvements such as improved provision if social services and the formation of the National Health Service in 1948; it is hard today to imagine not having an NHS and having to pay to see a doctor.

I knew that improvements to the lives of ordinary working people would have to be fought for by ordinary people like me and the hundreds of thousands of people who were now finding ways of making progress through sound argument and political pressure.

This was the challenge of winning a better future for everyone and pursuing this has been my lifelong ambition.

Progress is never guaranteed and things are sometimes disappointing, but I have seen poverty, war and destructive chaos and I know that only through ordinary working people struggling together will the devastating evils of poverty and war be avoided in the future.