OXFORD SOCIALIST Alliance will today launch the new party’s MANIFESTO for the General Election with a photo-opportunity outside Oxford Rail Station.

John Lister, Alliance candidate for Oxford East, and other Alliance supporters will display giant ‘Rail Tickets’ proclaiming "76% say Renationalise the Railways", and distribute leaflets to commuters, before a short press conference on the Manifesto.

"Opinion polls show over three quarters of the British electorate agree more with our programme for renationalising British Rail than with the government pumping more subsidies into the private operators, or with the Tories who made such a pig’s ear out of the system by privatising it," says John Lister.

There are many other issues on which the Socialist Alliance represents the mainstream of public opinion against a government which has nailed its colours to the Tory mast of privatisation and deregulation.

We are for scrapping student fees, reintroducing student grants, a big increase in the basic state pension, and full state funding for new NHS hospitals, schools and other projects which Labour is handing over to the private sector. We are for a fully integrated transport system, which New Labour cannot deliver.

"Unlike Oxford East MP Andrew Smith, who has turned somersaults on the issue since Labour was elected, we are still against the privatisation of Air Traffic Control, and the sell-off of the London Underground, both of which put passenger safety at risk in pursuit of private profit," says John Lister.

"Our Manifesto, with sections dealing with a wide range of issues including democratic rights, the crisis in the countryside, rights at work, and defence of the welfare state, shows that6 we are much more than an alliance against New Labour. The Socialist Alliance has in a few short months developed as an all-round socialist alternative for voters sick of the choice between Tory Hague and Tory Blair.

Note to Editors: Advance (Embargoed) copies of the Manifesto available: ring 07929-618579