Socialist Challenge No. 183, 5 February 1981
The scan: sc-n183-feb-05-1981.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Challenge 3m UNEMPLOYED DON'T DESPAIR
THE
Socialist
MARCH AGAINST
TORIES GLASGOW 21FEB
STOP THATCHER
No. 183
JoBs
NOT
BOMBS
US NOW
LATER
5 February 1981 20p Cubans issue
appeal to
defend Salvador
revolution
TEN Hercules transport planes arrive every day in El Salvador bringing American military hardware and US military 'advisers' to the beleaguered dictatorship
For over a year now El Salvador
Central America has been in a state of virtual civil war.
Workers
Three weeks ago the forces wnich reoresent the overwhelming majority Salvadoran workers and peasants
Demo bundo Marti Na Liberation Front (FMLN)
launched nation-wide insurrection.
It is now clear that despite blows dealt to the regime by the inSUNCCLONEr onensive the influx of American and military advisors prevented •LIC FMLN Torces Trom nocine ine towns captured in the initial wave of the offensive
The struggle will be more drawn out tan was originally expected.
Drown
The pouring of american ail to the die. tatorship is an attempt by the Reagan to drown the revolution in blood
ne anan amoassador nas been sackeo ov Reagan in order to bring in someone even further
we nanas or me muntar Sang iner unofficial 'death squads'.
Last week, the Cuban covemment made dude-
united front to defend the Salvadoran revolu tion
Solidarity
The movement of solidarity Growing • last
15,000 Saturday marched the streets of Frankfurt to de-
US intervention in El Salvador
britain Wal Want has hunched
We urge all readers to sudoort appeal.
eno mone to: Salvador Appeal, War on Want, 467 Caledonian Rd, London N7.
Page 2 scan of this page
The TUC's road to
Editorial
Socialist Challenge
Revolutionary Socialist weekly
PO Box 50, London N1 2XP
Phone 01-359-8189/8180 (editorial and distribution)
British politics at a
turning point
'AN unstoppable how David Steel described the prospect of a social-democratic-Liberal electoral alliance during his party political broadcast last week.
of the Council for Social Democracy as markina a aecisive turning point in britisn politics; that we are witnessing something entirely new in post-war politics. This estimate is undoubtedly correct.
ror many paradoxical. went from bad to worse, the old political certainTes a•dearer ro rematar de centre nerdi
1970-1974, it seemed that perhaps the pattern was changing. Labour swung| developed their 'alternative economic strategy'.
Thic wac in emergence of the mass trade union struggle after
since the 1920s
election of a Labour wing firmly in control. Labour's austerity offensive Was met With oniv resistance until the winter of Labour's office the decisively to the right politicisation of the crisis. What
The view put forward by bourgeois commentators and some Labour Party activists that the swme to te fert i ne rowing by leftist activists is pure myth
ing worked out are the inevitable cor the development of the or ine miners imprisoned dockers, the
vark at UCS, and so forth.
Ultimately the struggle between left and right will be resolved by the mass struggle and not merely by in-fighting between left and right in the party.
The polarisatior creates imm ruling class. as easy as it was in 1964 and again ten years later to turn to the Party.
An important factor in the emergence of the 'social democratic
so inside the political 'leadership teams' class is resulting in new formations which can be utilised to force ment - or at least to prevent Labour's outright victory.
The scene is now set not only for an attack on
from outside the monDack inside ike Roy Hattersley Gang of Three ar approacn wnich Is dirrerent
Within the constituencies we can expect the right wing to launch a witch-hunt of the left.
It will attempt to repeat the operation of the 'Campaian for Democratic Socialism' in the earlv '60s. In order to guard against this danger, it is vital that left caucuses parties to prepare te battle against tne rignt
From now on battle will be joined between left and right in the unions in a much fiercer Way. ing for months - that the Labour left has to organise in the unions - is coming home to roost.
It is hopeless relying on the benevolence of the 'friendly' union leaders. As Foot proceeds with his project of attacking the left and 're-centring' party, the union leaders will be pulled into line. The soount waca nas deen ouroa mne cock voto nas axposed above all the undemocratic way in whic t is wielded in most unions
Fighting for democracy and accountability in the Labour Party necessitates doing exactly the same in the unions.
British politics, then, remouroeo. wnetner the svstem can de remouced to benefit the struggle for socialism remains to be
the coming months, both in the Labour Party and the unions, will not be the only determinant of the
The struggle against the Tories will determine the final outcome. never advanced by constant defeats of the working class.
If the surge of the Labour left is the result of the working class struggle in the early '70s, the product of defeats on unemployment, the cuts, and wages will be the re-consolidation of the hold of the right in the '80s.
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 2
combination.' That's
Many commentators have seen the emergence
vears bottics n aritain nave been While the economic and social crisis
During the last Conservative government, from
HeTT 'Bennites'
itself a response to the dramatic
the biggest wave of industrial struggles
This development was stalled in 1974 by the
government, with the right
sooralc working-class 1978-9. But Tories had moved
seeing now is a rapid
•arty is tne resum or ciever oul
sen a prolonged campaign but wnaris oe
mass industrial struggle strikes, the struggle to free the five for the right to
the two major anse difficulties and dangers for the If Thatcherism is a failure, it will not be
council is the attempt :to pre-
CrISIS 01 which faces the ruling of the centre
party, but major Ine dar soearneade• ov beoole whose differences with the not political. It is their tactical function in all the constituency
What Socialist Challenge has been say-
the certainly being arei
The crucial battles between lett and right ir
The fight for socialism was
the dole
While 3 million suffer on the dole TUC leaders try to persuade the Tories 'to change course'
_Home News
By Patrick Sikorski
ment figure
published 40-page Unemployment: natives.
Unfortunately their outrage will not prevent TUC leaders from attending the National Economic Development Council this week, with the prime minister in the chair - with the bizarre illusion that the Tories can be forced to change course.
The TUC's pamphlet spells out the problems. Industry is decline, machinery is out-dated exports are dwindling -and much of the world is
recession The government's policies, says the pamphlet, are
leading economic disaster
illustrate
unemployment ingure last October 2,066,000 another 1,390.000 12101 'hidden unemployed', including number of married women, those affected by short-time working, and others whose only job is On a governmen training scheme.
The pamphlet drafts the historic decline of in-
British dustry to the present day when British has £7,500-worth of machinery to work with while West German worker has £23,000-worth, and anorker Japanese £30,000-worth.
For the Tories and une posses ine man bre blem isn't unemploy
down in order to return
prontablly. process they are not much worried it sections of industry are destroyed
Individual bosses gIve themse ves goldel handshakes as unprofitable firms are merged, while the bosses' organisation, the CBI, dominated by the British branches of the multinationals, is happy to see the closure of thousands of competitors.
tration of capital can only nelp lne survivors monopolise the remaining markets.
not surprising that the latest CBI survey based on highly
LONDON: Regional Labour Party
Tickets at £18, tel. 01-703 6511.
three trains. Tel. 061-736 7439.
582351
SCOTLAND: Details from
Regional Labour Party, tel. 041-332 8946.
MEMBERS of the TUC General Council ex-
at the latest unemploy2,419,452. To show how outraged they can get, the TUC has just
pamphlet entitled the fight for TUC alter-
representative sample of 1,800 firms employing more than 32m people does not call for refla• tion. This is in spite of its prediction that between last next May up to 500,000 jobs manutacturing, Will have been lost and that in ne nexto montas mere will be a further 30 per drop dustrial investment. priority pro. claims Sir Terence 'bare knuckle fight' Beckett, is not to increase inflation. What does the TUC propose? Apparently the flood of closures and reconcer alone kick out the Tories, the TUC Call for boosting public spen• ding; creating new jobs now; planning for dustry; controlling imports; controlling prices and sharing une wedith Thatcher is about as lkelv to implement these policies President Reagan to nationalise the ailing Chrysler car cor poration under workers control.
There section headed 'Union policies action' • under which the main section is concerned with Bargainin for jobs'. Here is some of the advice: 'When job: are threatened, unions should always aim to op pose redundancies and seek alternatives In some cases succeed, and job loss will unavoidable unions will need to go for maximum compensation 10] lose their jobs.
When 590 workers at the Gardner diesel engine plant in Manchester were told last October thạt they had to lose their jobs they gave the reply that the whole of the movement should be giv-
Tine enemy and
with and negotiate Murray and the TUC - they occupied and fought and won.
In the next few weeks we will be examining poncie. SuCT worksharing and the demand TOT the 35-hour week.
HOW TO GET TO
GLASGOW ON 21
FEBRUARY
train departs from Euston on 20 Feb at 10.15pm.
NORTH-WEST: Regional Labour Party has
TEESSIDE: Stockton Trades Council coach. Tickets at f4, tel. 0642 817699 or 0642
the Scottish
Page 3 scan of this page
LAYBETE sorkers say NO cuts in serv
+
Lambeth
manual workers strike out
THE Lambeth week of action against CURS has won firm support
the council's TrOM manual workers. 1,400
construction workers struck on Monday along with more than
thousand other manual workers, including refuse collec-
and roadsweepers.
Senior shop steward Alf Sherwood said: This is just the beginning as we know our Jobs are on the
Socialist
rate
rises?
By Geoff Bell CHRISTOPHER Murphy, Tory MP for Welwyn and Hatfield, has announced plans to introduce Private Members' Bill in parliament which is likely to be greeted with applause by working class people.
Murphy wants to abolish rates. With massive rate rises on the way for millions of people his proposal is one which would, al first glance, find ready accep-
However, when the finer details of Murphy's plans are looked at his rate-free utopia disap-
The money which rates bring in would still have to be found from somewhere: Murphy favours an extra, flatrate tax on everyone on the electoral roll.
Mess
There is no doubting that the present rates system is a mess, full of injustices and inequal-
ities, but a flat-rate tax
would
SYSLCI Illake
thinthe eument rates-
system is based, at least
on the rate-
payers' pay.
The larger the house or building, and the more
amenities it enjoys
which in general means the richer the occupier the higher is the rateable value.
Murphy
scrap that, but by saying
NALGO branch secretary Mike Waller explained: 'We are trying to persuade the government to nave d total change in policy.
'The way the government has squeezed the council means that unless the trade unions In this borough are successful we can see quite sequences in terms of CULS Service ane redundancies.'
council leader Ted Knight, the subiect of a sustained witch-hunt in the Tory press, supports the week of action against Tory CURS SOCE spending.
He commented: 'The council and the workers are under attack from all angles. that everyone should pay the same that means the rich would pay less than peor donde charged they do and the more
Murphy's proposals are Just another Tory subsidy for the rich. Nevertheless, many almost anything will seem preterable to the present system and the promised rate increases.
Policy
It should be stressed
— as the wall message il-
opposite that these rate in-
creases are, in the first in-
stance, a consequence of
national government
policy. The cuts of Tory
minister Michael Hesel-
tine added to previous
ones by the last Labour
government that
Jucall
the local authorities are
receiving less money
from central govern-
ment, which usually ac-
counts for just under
half of local government
revenue.
COnsCuuCHiCe
many councils feel that if
decent services are to be
maintained they have no
option but to increase
rates, which provide just
under 25 per cent of
council revenue.
Recently, councils
nave na doler burden
loaded on them by the
Tory This
governmell.
involves the increased
allocatior of their
resources they are oblig
ed to spend on 'law and
order'. As a result of
Dy
Tories umber employed i the
Il la
and order services
police, court staff, and
probation officers went up three per cent last ye the
At same time
teachers and workers in the social services were being sacked. As much as 8.5 per cent of councils' wage bills now go on and order', which is twice as much as gols lo workers in housing and the fire service combined
All this might suggest that councils, especially Labour councils, have no alternative but to increase rates. That may indeed be the case only if councillors see inemserves us Operaling in the isolated, localised world of this or tha borough.
The fact that they are faced with the consequences of national, axewielding, Тогу government policies shows that
ed world does not exist
To pretend it does is to court disaster. For although the rates system is fairer than that being proposed by Christopher
rate increases do hit the working class, Just as ao rent riscs, or
Home News
Ted Knight, second from right, on Lambeth picket line last Monday
LAMBETA
HATES
THATCHE
RATES
cuts in local government services.
There is no such thing as a socialist rates rise Although the advocates of such rises can argue that such a policy does not hit working people as hard as cuts might do, it still hits them hard It can also in the end hit the councillors them selves.
While some Labou councillors argue that if they didn't raise rates and would go bankrupt and 1 Calls the council
would be replaced by commissioners sent in by the Tory government, it also likely in many places that massive rates rises will, in the end, lead to the councillors being thrown out of office by the electors.
Working class people are hardly likely to be encouraged to believe in the socialist credentials of a Labour council which raises rates with as much apparent enthusiasm as the Tores raise unemployment To refuse to imple ment rate rises, as well as rent increases or cuts in social spending, means ir
TGWU
STOP TONY
CITA
effect refusing to have anything to do with passing on, even in a watered down form, the policies of the Thatcher government.
It involves telling the electorate that rather than raising rates or imposing cuts, the council will tace the DIOS OCCL O being expelled from of JUCC Thatcher and Heseltine. It would also mean expulsion before it happens, when it happens and after it happens.
Ana turn would require mobilising TOCA and all working people in that fight; in
culoulas ing other councils to take the same stand; in link me lo wila unem wac they do
All that might not seem an easy option, and indeed it is not.
It is always more convenient manage capitalist policies than to Oppose them root and branch. But such an op position is what socialists are in business for - and it is what Labour councillors should also be in business for.
rises,
New attack on
By Phil Hearse IN London borough of Camden, Labour councillors are under vicious attack by the Tories and the courts for paying their local authority workers a living wage.
Following the local authority workers strike in 1979, Camden paid its workers an extra £10 a week and shortened
The authority workers had their
the 118S to roya sum of fol •obr week
to the district auditor by Tory councillors the cast has now been referred to the High Court
If the court upholds the auditor's report that
Lambeth might hate Thatcher's rate
but how will it react to those imposed by its own Labour council?
Labour councillors
the uneconomic and SUSTTICO inen the loca workers' wages could be the Camden councillors could have to ody I2m Daci the counci - £60,000 each NUPE's local full time official John Suddaby told Socialist Challenge:
'The intervention of the district auallo.
If our wages are cut, then w shall certain!! be pushing for strike action
must stand up to this attack Only mobilising campaign local trade unionists and the
these attacks.
Lamaen demonstration cuts. • Satur February 11am Towi March to Kentish Tow!
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
WINNING A MAJO NUCLEAR DISARN
South Road Primary School, Southall
By Alan Lenton IF YOU out of Southall station, turn right, and walk a little way down the road, you come to the new South- Rd primary school, which is due to open at Easter.
At first sight it seems a perfectly ordinary school. Until, that is, you go round the side and find a radio tower.
radio complete with dorield for
munication with cles.
of primary schools. IS the
structure at
the North-west
Thirty below ground, thick steel doors, our would-be
fry The equipped with and" the latest radio telex equipment.
The HQ is connected to the Fylingdales early
JOBS
BS
badges going!
20p each & 11½p postage Bulk orders (over 20) 15p each, post tree Orders to: PO Box 50, London N1 2XP
Socialist Challenge
Frying Tonight!
base, warning which gives the officials the four-minute warnino that the government won't be giving the rest
The bynkers will be staffed
Ical alle central ficials. The regional controller (the Ealing town clerk) will have absolute authority in the event of an attack and there will be armed police, based in the bunker to back up his orders.
Opposition to the bunker has been fueled by a recent decision Ealing's Tory council spend a further f45,000 to
ally with Suwae.
Ealing could
cessfully local
dalous
spent on under-fives
the underground so can start
with impunity.
meeting represen-
the trades council, and Ealing
I won't
die for
Thatcher
STOP • CRUISE
MISSILES
Two of the best Jobs not Bombs
Cheques/postal orders
Tower Hamlets History Society I won't die for Thatcher Cheques/pogtal orders to:
Hackney Socialist Education Group
- 5 February 1981 Page 4
By Kevin Holmes 'STOP Cruise, Stop Trident, Jobs not Bombs!' That was the chant taken up by 1,500 CND marchers in Edinburgh last Saturday morning.
Organised by CND at four days' notice, the of- Protest
ATKINSON
to fight for unilateralism.
of Amazingly, after the
LICI
the
TALS and
Tens
of of
any its case
CND must
the and
the see
in the
of
after all,
do (yet) explode
discoveries nt 1c thA i the politics it is the
of our present system of
allances that the
Illall direction of our
foreign Dolly.
From
'positive neutralism'
Untortunately this con-
cept was profoundly am-
biguous could
the rejection of pro
imperialist policies tha
had been
Labour governments.
was nart ota weekend of disarmament activities. it was follow ed by a 2,000-strong rally called the Scottish TUC Local CND activists wanted to start the new year with action on the streets, and we distributed thousands of leaflets in support of the
Strategies for
banning the bomb
Labour Party and the bomb
In the concluding part of his review
JULIAN explains politics of neutralism in the 60's put it outside the anti-Vietnam war move ment and how the Labour left failed
an and socialist policy
of the
The
world
and more widespread interpreta-
and of neutralism between and
effectively
Positive neutralism as a balanced equiliorium was supporicu v. the Young Fabians, who saw the Labour Partv a. uniquely fitted to carry out such a policy due to the diversity of opinion in the party.
'For a foreign policy of neutrality... the existence or such alverse tendencies within one political framework, from being liability becomes a positive asset.
Pressure from both right and left on a neutralist Labour foreign secretary would in fact help him, not hinder him. of itself less neutralist than CND Was to show
1,500 on Edinburgh march
national labour movement conference against the missiles.
The final event of the weekend was local
ed by over a hundred people. A major feature of the discussion was how to build working class support for CND'S aims.
approving disap-
proving of i silve
soli-
Vietnam formally
the confusion
up
Dick and
Walter of
USDAW their
ment
and for
Britain to remain
NATO
TGWU secre-
tary, wavered and played
with the idea of reiorm
ing NATO from within.
Tribun just before
he March '61 CND con
ference, Michael Foot
backed the 'com-
promise. The retreat
became a rout.
The USDAW con-
ference narrowly re-
jected unilateralism
favour of the 'compro-
mise', which was later
dropped thus allowing
the ÜSDAW leadership
to nave Gaitein The
Engineering Union voted Gaitskell
Priorities decided
upon were building the Scottish demonstration in June, the campaign for 'Jobs not Bombs and intervening
21 February unemploy-
Glasgow.
The conference gave full support to Lothian
narrowly uni-
of delegates
mandate
WCIC
unilateralist.
After USDAW
of
the Al-
though Crossman.
line marked from
SLCO
position the
how
he mooc
unity in how-
for the lack
It the the 'bar-
Four'
1961
ateransm
Labour showing
had to stab
capitalist
party while the end is a
muddled Worke clas:
one. The Labour left was
determined to respect the
regional council in its continuing campaign against implementing civil 'defence measures.
A young CND group was also set up.
• In London at the weekend a conference of London region CND heard proposals for local CND groups to support the Liverpool to London unemployment march with "Jobs not Bombs' cultuscus
boundary limits of what
the right was prepared to a The front end of the
horse was not prepared
unilateralism
The back end, rather
than risk a split,
reluctantly pulled into
line. CND neither
foresaw nor guarded
against this.
Instead of a policy of.
leaving the Labour Party
struggle to the Labour
lefts the campaign
should have made a clear
turn to the labour move-
ment, without shifting
from its mass campaign-
ing orientation.
CND did not produce
literature to reach the
union and Labour Party
rank and file, nor con-
tact the branches. It used
mainly moral arguments
rather than spell out the
ponucal issues mvolver
and the economic conse-
quences
It refused to raise the
issue of industrial action.
t did not tight its impor
tant labour movement
friends when they
equivocatec over
NATO. The new CND
is faced with the old
Michael Foot. Let us
not repeat history.
"The Protest Makers'
Richard Taylor and Colin
Pritchard, published by
Pergamon Press at £10.
Page 5 scan of this page
If a one-megaton bomb
The Government say hide under the stairs!
Paul Smith CND's new pamphlet, Nuclear Disarmament for Britain, is part of its campaign to 'win a majority for nuclear disarmament'.
The arguments that author Betty England puts forward on the so-called Soviet threat, NATO's strategy, unilateral disarmament have a lot to commend them.
She demolishes the 'red peril' threat by quoting the recent government defence White Paper: 'We have no reason to believe that the pre-
Soviet leaders deliberately planning to attack
Deterrent
Similar sharp treatment is given to arguments about the need for Britain to possess an
accial. author points out that Britain
deterrent'. She quotes Marshall Lord Carver, by no means an opponent of nuclear STOP THE MISSILE MADNESS
JOIN CND
On October 26th, 80,000 peopie marchee inrougn une sureels of London to protest against the Cruise and Trident missiles. The demonstration was organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. We can stop the Missile Madness. There are three years until the Cruise missiles are sited. The £5000 mon neen svstem can Su be cancelled. Protest and SurvIVE CND's immediate policy is for Britain unilaterally to abandon nuclear weapons. CND campaigns for a world free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. Sheffield CND consists of local groups, affiliated organisations, and individuals from a broad range of viewpoints. We are constantly organising meetings, film shows, pickets and vigils, petitioning, selling CND literature, writing to local papers - all to get the message of disarmament across to as many people as possible.
Sheffield CND, 43 Chantrey Road, Sheffield, S8 8QU. Membership rates: £1 waged, 50p unwaged, 25p school students.
RITY FOR
IAMENT
weapons, who belief 'that the would totally country and almost all of the inhabitants in it.
danger to Britain in any war would come precisely from the LaCE that nuclear arsenal. Unilateral and This is part of the case put forward for a unilateral rather than proach to disarmament. There is also the failure, so far, of inTernatona nuclear weapons.
BeTTV
the need for Britain to re-align its foreign policy, to ally with alC the non-nuclear
would, she argues, strengthen international pressure on those DOWCIS retaining weapons. strength to all those colntries, particularly in the third world, which have The demanded multilateral nuclear and general disarmament.
But Britain's Field policy is tied hand and foot to US global straregy: One cannot but agree with Belty England
hit Sheffield...
/ B6077
Torley Mi
Extracts from 'The Bomb and You 14, 15, 16, 17 October, 1980
This wall poster can be adapted to your area. It is distributed by Sheffield Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 47-Chantrey Rd., Sheffield S8 8QU Designed, typeset and printed by Lithoprint Ltd., 329 Upper Street, London N1.
rejection Carter's drive.
against the priorities.
'Why we words'.
expressed phlet retaliation destroy this
words, the main
and ths Britain possesses a nuclear
national thousands apposite 45, Labour attempts to limit
ty 1o England points to
club. This
Strength
nuclear 'We could add our
key to insistently population'
ment. foreign nuclear 'Another 80,000 were trapped or injured • nousanas more alea trom fadlation in the udys and weeks that lonewed. "In our small, crowded island there can be no
hit on the city and
that abandonment of Britain's nuclear weapons implies a major political shift in all aspects of both domestic policy and foreign alignments, including
of NATO and and Reagan's war
That means that the camvalei dransi nuccal weapons has to become part of the fight
Tories and their
The pamphlet is subtitled need unfortunate therefore that oniv the last two paragraphs of the 22-page pam-
discuss what action shoul says.en Things
says: have now reached a stage...at which it is possible to carry the argument to the whole population
perhaps in twelve mon to win a majority for disarmament this year. country. To help in that job is the object of this pamphlet.
The case against nuclear weapons is well to the fore in
politics. Tens of have marched against nuclear weapons. Com-
adopted at the Party's 1980 Coll ference, has committed the par-
unilateral disarmament. On 28 March there is to be a labour movement conference against the missiles.
Such large-scale actions, showing the growing strength ot the mass movement. are the
winning 'the whole oppose the missiles and support disarma-
This approach bullding te movemeal agals!
weapons not reniectea in cops new pallphlet. It proposes taking the
* Thorpe Hesley ear Scholes B6067 after a nuclear attack By Martin Dawes
"message to the 70 per cent who are not yet convinced. This means more public meetings, film shows and literature, more active groups..
Where is this activity to be directed? •...the tremendous potential support which exists
churenes, youll organisations, in the women's movement. Above all, perhaps, it means consolidating the victories in the labour movement.'
It also means a major national focus for the fight in 1981. Where is that? Crucial
CND's national counci has posed 1981 as a year of consolidation. Regional carnivals, local activities, the Scottish and cross-Pennine marches; these are to be the stable diet or the campaign over
Using the argument that the centre must catch up with the branches and that it would be dangerous to peak too soon, CND's leadership is in danger of dealing a serious blow to the momentum of the movement.
The pamphlet reflects this lack of direction despite the fact that it says 'the coming year is going to be crucial.
Things have started to shift in this country but the battle is by no means won.'
The number one priority for 1981 should be a fight for a joint CND/Labour Party/TUC march which could easily be a quarter of a million strong. Turning resolutions into mass public political action - that is the only means of 'consolidating the victories in the labour movement. 'Nuclear Disarmament for Britain', by Betty England. Price 50p from CND, 1/ Goodwin Si, London 14.
"Irt the event of nuclear war there will be no
RAWMARSH
CITY CENTRE A crater 140ft deep and 1,300ft across. 0-2 MILES FROM CENTRE All buildings destroyed, and 90% of the people killed or seriously injured. 2-4 MILES FROM CENTRE Most buildings destroyed, and 50% of the people killed or seriously injured
35% of the people killed or Eckington
For further information
Tip Bolsover, CND pamphle
WHAT's missiles againse on
following events are listed by CND If you have film-show demonstration public meeting or other anti-nuclear event, please send the details to us and CND
21 February: CND student conference North London Poly, Holloway Road, Lonaon. one delegate cach from a student union or CND student group
28 March: Labour movement conference in Manchester. Delegates will be accepted from all bona UHOI and Labour Party organisations from each Labour Party branch or consumercy trade union branch,
counci or SIOl stewards committee, at £3 a delegate
11 April: Youth CND conference in Birmingham.
12 April: Trans-Pennine march starting in Man chester and arriving in Leeds on 16 April.
Second stage in Brussels on Easter Saturday, demonstration will take
diameter
away
4-6 MILES FROM THE CENTRE Many buildings destroyed, and
side of the sun
the explosion, miles Protest and Survive, edited by E.P. Th
Civil Defence: the Cruellest Confidence Trick.
centre agazine of the Campaign fo
mile radius.
Anti-missile
Action Guide
place outside headquarters. This will be ioined by anti-nuclea demonstrators from several countries.
Information from:
Sebastian Halliday, PenCoordination Committee Laneside. Woodtop Hebdon Bridge, West Yorks.
14 April: March across the sky. Disarma-
across West acmonstrauon: Yorkshire, featuring flares and fireworks Organised by Bradford END c/o Ruth Overy, Bradiord BRIL Albert Wyke, 9BS.
May Day: Nuclear disarmament to be Thene on May Day events.
9-10 May: National CND conference in London. rurther information from: CND, Goodwin No. Tel 01-263 4954. London
The effect of a thermo nuclear bomb depends upon the heiaht at which it is exploded. Exploded near the ground, it scoops out a vast crater, smashes everything for several kilometres and forms a towering mushroom cloud of radioactive dust and debris that comes down as deadly fallout. A near direct hit would obliterate any underground shelter. Exploded high up, where the air is thin and more energy goes into heat, it is mainly a fire weapon for use against people and buildings above ground. A 5 megaton explosion 30 miles up would send a searing heat wave over an area of 30 miles
A 10 megaton bomb would: *flash quicker than the eye can blink for protection, burning the eyes of people looking in its direction from 240 or 300 miles
*grow within 40 seconds to a blindingly bright fireball nearly 4 miles across, as hot as the in-
AND, depending on the height of
*blow a crater, deeper than London's deepest underaround railway and over ¾ mile wide, producing a rim of piled up wreckage up to 2 miles wide *smash everything within 3½ miles, destroy all steel bridges for 7 miles, block streets for 15 miles and cause turther severe damage up to a distance of 30
* fatally burn anyone in the open (up to 23 miles) and ignite fires (30 miles). The fires would coalesce into a fire-storm' - a gigantic uncontrollable fire that sucks in air at hurricane force to fan and feed the flames - to consume everything in the area within 20 miles of the explosion
* kill most people within a 30 Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
WOMEN IN POLAND
A week in the
life of Poland...
Jenny Flintoft describes the problems of daily life encountered on a recent visit to Poland SUN 21Dec Board London-Warsaw train, packed with Polish expatriates. By Dutch border tongues have loosened and current situation being discussed quite openly.
MON 22 Dec, 10am Zbaszynck — snow-covered platforms, steam trains. Brest-Dresden train full of Russian soldiers. Expatriate Poles gaze at them with open hatred, fingers jabbing aggressively in their direction. 5pm Warszawa Gdanska station. By car to flat. T wearing Solidarnosc badge, shows me Solidarnosc bulletins. *Before September everything in Poland was made out to be wonderful by the media, T tells me. suddenly everything is in a state of collapse. TV News shows a group of workers who have
queued all night for coal and not got any. They express their anger very forcibly.
TUE 23 Dec Go to nearest grocers for bread — 'Nie ma' (none). On to another shop where there is a long queue for bread. Leave G in queue and go to buv deodorant. Another queue but not so long.
Queue again for milk and bread. This shop has some bread, though not very fresh. G near front of bread queue. Decide to buy not-soires. bread.
• queue ror cnocolate nas formea outside one shop. It has no chocolate but a rumour has gone round that some may be delivered. Z tells us that when a queue forms people just join it. just know it must be something in short supply.
FRI 26 Dec, 6pm Go to Opera House to see The abduction from the narem, very socianst realist. In Ine Interval i tells us about an opera performance in Lodz a short time ago.
There was chocolate on sale at the buffet. During the second half of the first act the theatre emptied as the audience met to queue outside the still closed buffet.
The puzzled singers thought there was a fire!
Satirical TV programme comedian says, 'Margaret Thatcher had better watch out. There was another country where the leader disagreed with the trade
That leader lost his job!'
SAT 27 Dec, 11.30am Go to bar for cognac and coffee. Get chatting with English-speaking group there. One Pole expresses admiration for Margaret Thatcher. Horrified, I take a deep breath and ask why. 'Because she is anti-
Calmiv I point out that she is also racist and displays remarkable callousness in the face of 2.5m unemployed. He is a bit shaken by this figure, keeps saying 'two and a half million unemployed? It's not
point out that her foreign policy includes deployment of Cruise missiles, some of which are targeted on
turn, we are making an exhibition of ourselves.
Go to J&M's flat for dinner. Very luxurious flat littered with status symbols. 'I got this in India and this photo was taken in Peking.. every country in Europe and many others.
him it it is necessary to wait a long time for a phone to be installed. 'Normally several years,' 'but I got mine in three weeks.
By now it is pretty clear he is a party member.
months tor a phone but that in Hampstead it is likely to take less time than in the East End. say, 'working people don't need phones so much.'
get ill so they don't need to phone the doctor.' Too late J realises we are being sarcastic.
Socialist Challenge
'Now still nowhere
Some of them don't even know what it's for, they He rallies a bit: "But her foreign policy is good'. I
Seems a bit shaken by this too. Voices rise, heads
' J has been to virtually There are three phones in a two-room flat. I ask
' he replies,
I say that in England it normally takes three to six
'After al ' I J smiles. G adds: "After all working people don't
5 February 1981 Page 6
A socialist
paradise?
WOMEN in Poland have, unlike their sisters in Britain, formal equality before the law.
They have the right to work. They don't have to put up with page three nudes, the sexist film
advertising outside
cinemas, the exploitative pornography that outrages the woman walking through Soho Men aren't encouraged
jects for consumption.
Polish women work in jobs not usually open to British women: thes drive heavy vehicles work officers, and take a much fuller part 'masculine' fields of science and engineering.
socials. paradise for women?
Sadly the answer is no Cultures
Poland lies at the intersection of two cultures: the Slav with its traditional contempt for
'A chicken is not a bird, and a peasant woman is not a humar being' says a traditional Russian proverb; and the Roman Catholic, its veneration or woman as Virgin/Mother concealing the profound oppresSIOn OI women in all Catholic countries
Add to this the legacy of Stalinism, with its glorification of domesticity and motherhood,
would truly amazing if Polish women were any more liberated than their Western counter barts.
A woman's right to work, itself an advance, becomes in Poland a dreary necessity since wages are so low. For most women means LIne wearying obligation do two jobs, the second being in the home Share
Polish men are even less likely than their British counterparts to do fair share of Housework. and Tousa women cannot buy the wide of
1 alice nience foods available to
Nor do they have the labour-saving devices we have Britain. Until recently washingmachines were only sold
Pewex, the hardcurrency shop, and the only one I saw was in the flat of a Communist Party member.
Polish men may not be much use where housework is concerned
they gallantry. There is lots of Hanakissing.
International,
bulletin office: • One day a woman goes to the doctor: 'Doctor, give me an examination!' 'You've come to the wrong place, I'm afraid, I am just a vet I don't look after humans.' 'Oh, that's all right, doctor, I feel just like an animal.
'When 1 get up in the morning, I dash through the house.
Panting like a dog or a cat, I gallop to work like a horse, I cling to the bus like a monkey,
Loaded up like a camel,
Defending my marriage like a lion.
"I'm already asleep when I get back from work in the evening, and then I hear my husband whispering Above my head,
•Perhaps you have some miracle cure
Which will make me a human being. Queues, queues and more queues woman accompanied by a man is allowed to open a door. carrv a parcel.
gallantry however mainly for the middle classes
Picture the average working woman's life: up early to • prepare wit
break asen hearts ly
she waits darkness in the driving sleet for the packed, lurching tram or bus to take her to work.
This is likelv to be monotonous, alienating and possibly CVCI dangerous - in the field of safety at work Poland is just as bad if not worse than Britain
At the end of an exhausting day, after endless queueing in the bitter cold for food, there is another meal to prepare. And all this six days a week.
Appeal
As in Britain formal equal pay is meaningless when, despite advances, women are still concen trated in low-paid jobs such cleaning, waitressing and nursing.
By Jenny Flintoft
A WOMAN sent the following poem to the Solidarnosc strike "wake up, owl!"
Small wonder, then that the church has such a seductive appeal for many Polish women. To their drab lives it brings art and music, beauty and dignity, love and hope
The Pope is idolised In the Basilica in Warsaw
women praying with a fervency : I have never seen anywhere else in Europe.
possible escape route is prostitu-
Naturall there aren't the adverts in newsagents' windows Inal you see in britain
Nonetheless in places like the Grand Hotel in Warsaw, where customers spend on meal for four what amounts to week's wage TOT the average Pole, one finds 'girls for AArO currency' dining with oil-rich Arabs.
As a quite ordinary jumper in Marsalkowska
Warsaw's Oxford Street costs half a week's wages, and a pair
shoes nearly two it is hardly surweeks prising that some young
and attractiveness to eke
out their meagre wages for a few brief years.
course, not supposed to naoper Polish men like to see 'their women as sweet and innocent.
East German women are 'bitches American wullick 'domineering' Swedish women 'undress but they are cold but Polish women, ah Polish
al C wonderful, they enjoy being in the kitchen, they know how to respond to a man's gallantrv. how to make themselves attractive how to make a man 'feel like a man'. Important
sadly, many women fall for this. At times seeing University educated women deferring prettily to their men folk, I felt as if I were go ing back in time at least fifteen years.
How Polish women move forward? They may not be able to play an equal part in Solidarnosc but they have been able to play in important one.
Outstanding women
Veteran strike leader Anna Walentynowicz
such as veteran militant Anna Walentynowicz have been an inspiration to everyone. but there are countless other, less well-known women actively organising all over the country
notable that Solidarnose has been able unionise the traditionally organise. such shop assistants. Even the waltesse. female women workers in Pewex weal oldamos. badges. At a Solidarnoso
meeting attended it was clear that the women were playing an active and equal part in planning and discussion.
Nurseries
Solidarnosc's 21 demands include assurances or a reason able number of places in uay-care Collie allu nurseries for the children of working mothers, and paid maternity leave for three years
The Szczecin Joint Demands included a rise in family allowances. Alina Pienkowska, health service delegate to Solidarnosc's national delegate meeting also called for sharp increase
Solidarnosc offer women no easy, , magical TOITE liberation. Nonetheless it is current-
And in situation which almost evervbodi is politically inexperienc
Solidarnosc are
such disadvantage politically as British women.
Certainly, Polish
liberation linked indissolubly with that of the working class At the present moment that link is with Solidarnosc.
Page 7 scan of this page
GMC's should elect
I TOOK Paul Gilroy's advice (22 Jan) and went to see the film Babylon, much to my enjoyment.
wowever was tem wondering about val liculai in the film where the sole white member the sound system was physically assaulted and rejected by his black peers.
This occurred after ine wnie racist family who lived opposite the lock-up where the youths stored and often played UneT sound system late at night had
the equipment
an vulns returned to witness the damage and UlIC after allulick turned to stare at the THE defeat of ine Labour right Wembley was obviously a step forward. But our unconditional support for the 40-30-30 position looks alarmingly like that age-old fallacy, 'left' equals better.
True, it is important
seek trades unionists who pay their political levy. True, the arguments of the Owen clique would leave control of the Labour Party vulnerable to any Tory who felt like taking out a party card.
And revolutionaries ought not to allow gang of rank opportunists to make press mileage out of the issue
participatory democracy without some very good answers.
But that the union block votes are in the hands of the bureaucracy need careful attention.
Anyone with ten minutes experience in a trade union knows that
1o make the the tight leaderships accountable
members on issues this has scarcelv begun. We can't ignore this because it is inconvenient.
Books for the
Southern African
revolution
I AM once again making an appeal for funds
for Books for Southern Africa.
peal brougnt a tal response and
been able to send
groups of South African revolutionaries all
over Africa.
charges have now exhausted what money we
had.
our comrades who are trying to lay the foun
dations for
parties in Africa.
vide them with the means of publishing their
own materal.
rades' money but this is part of the job of
building the world
All funds
London N1.
CHARLIE VAN GELDEREN, London
white youth. 'Why are you looking at me?' he asked. 'It wasn't me who did it. don't sympathise with them!'
'But you're one of them. It's your kind that
Beefy, one the black youlns, ted his ex-comrade and the others, although thinking that Beefy was bit lal i nevertheless shared his
Labour leader
On the other hand, active trades unionists heard in the labour raes make their voices through their delegates to general manage ment committees.
Surely the answer to the democrauc wen gang should be to propose leadership elections through open votes of the GMCs, the elected representatives of all active party members. Isn't this the kind of democracv we stand tor
at the ls softhe state?
such DIUposal would have got nowhere. But how much influence Challenge have last Saturday's decision?
If SC supporters had succeeded in convincing even one constituency party of such a position, we would have been able argue publicly that Labour wOrkers need not choose forever between appointed bureaucrats and self-appointed parliamentary leaders.
Surely that would have been worthwhile?
MARTIN BUCHWALD Oxford Our last apwe have
quite a lot of books to
The increasing cost of books and freight
These books provide vital ammunition for
building revolutionary socialist We are also hoping to pro-
I know there are great demands on com-
party of une socialist
to: Books for SA, PO Box 50,
Babylon — race or
race and class?
view. The white youth was left rejected by his peers, black youths, on the basis of his skin colour.
Now for me the film left an ambiguous question here. My impression watching the film was inal olack youths were unable undersLalla and 01S -tinguish between the class character of the attack the equipment and their friend's class
— I use Class here MOST IT IS pathetic that some Labour leaders should now "Reynesianism res the
the solution Britain's economic problems; for example John Silkın and Tom Jackson on a recent 'Any programme.
Silkin himself raised the question ot how great increase in public spending financed and airily dismissed 1t Jackson said that such a scheme would 'pay for itself'
The truth is that 1t could only be financed wo wavs. ov the asses and thus
-Letters
La political rather than sociological sense For the black youths it all boiled down to the question of race, not race Cass They were unable to see one set wilte were the other
Now I don't blame blacks feeling hositility and suspicion to all whites, quite the reverse. But do disagree with Paul's view that this scene is impor-
Socialist
Challenge
40-30-30!
Keynesianism is
no solution
reducing our purchasing power and putting us Dock lo sulait vlic, by taxing the capitalists, which would reduce their 'inducement to invest' which, according to Keynes, is of supreme hortance And indeed it is if the system is to con tinue! There more than a grain of truth in Tory assertions that the country can't afford" this, that and the other What they mean is that the capitalist system can't afford it! of course perfectly legitimate to ask how 'the country'
LalL because it help.
Rosso (the director) em-
the class
character of the youth's
sub-culture, so that race
and class consciousness
are seen as inseperable
aspects the
dynamic process'
thought that the
scene did exactly the op-
posite; reduced
everything to a question
of race, completely leav.
ing out the question of
class.
I may be wrong and may misunderstand
what Paul and Rosso are
saying. some
enlightenment from Paul
others would
welcome.
STEVEN ARCHER,
Leeds
Labour Special
Conference Issue
can afford massive spending on 'defence', while having to cut spending on weltare
But the final proof that Keynes' ideas don't work is that if they did work Maggie would now be pursuing them and we would never have heard of Friedman and his
After all, Keynes was capitalism, not establish our disill
Why are these "socialists' so anxious to
socialism?
JIM PARKES, Walsall
Sinatra,
the mafia
and Princess Anne
Bob Pennington Frank Sinatra, longtime buddy of Ronald Reagan, has be had the gaff blown on him by another 'singer', one Jimmy Fratianno.
Mr Fratianno and Mr Sinatra worked for the same The
vivally Weasel, as Fratianno known, worked on the
of the business 'wasting' people at odds with the Mafia then disposing of their bodies
He admits 1o eleven assassinations, but his friends say he is being too modest and has much belter score than that.
'Ole blue eyes' had a different job. One of his tasks was procuring, like the time he fixed up President John F Kennedy with a new lady friend called Judith Campbell. Believing spreading Joy around, Sinatra also introducer the lady to top Mafia bos: Sam Giancana
Even the fun-loving Kennedys, was 'a bed is a bed is a bed'. got worried abou that and John F was instructed to seek company elsewhere than at Ms Campbell's
Sinatra's bosses were a little put out that Frank had not delivered the president In fact, Johnny Formosa, one of Giancana's hitmen, offered to demote Sinatra by putting a hole between his ears. However tolerance prevailed and Sinatra was given another chance.
Again he but his nose to the grindstone He wormed his way into the favours of those two
CrOOK.
Agnew and Richard Nix on, and helped the Mafia at its Villa Venice nigh club in Illinois. where he perrormed without pay
- what greater devotion
show than working for nothing?
He even got Reagan to sign his application for a gambling licence Vegas where only Mafia appointees run the gaming joints.
Weillammsmiral pal
of William Smith, new US Attorney General - the man supposedly responsible fighting Cause will claims he has never heard
Sinatra's links with the Mafia
Now Sinatra's hard work in jeopardy
Fratianno has become a 'gun who turn-
Callary to save his own hide.
For years govern-
, big business, and organised crime have happily collaborated They all believe in free enterprise and the he powe
reds and troublemakers
like workers who want better wages and decent conditions.
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981
The Insane Society
DiCKS (Socialist Challende)
Bob Pennington
In a system where the profit motive rules and human needs poor second, organised crime will always flourish, both in and out
government PolitiClaus will always be up . for sale.
Reagan and his
torney General have much more with the Sinatras and Giancanas than they do with the working people of America.
Meanwhile in Britain lady whose family owes all wealth organised crime even the Mafia could not organise the rape and plunder of five con Linen
take up the academic life.
Anne Phillips, née Windsor, has decided to go after her nan's old iob as Chancellor of London University
To the consternation of the establishment Anne faces an election for the post an unusual experience for the windsors One can didate is ex-TGWU _na
Jack lulla.
Jones whose sponsor Tessa Blackstone ad mires his cotribution to the Social Contract
The other candidate is black liberation fighter and Robben Island
Nelson Mandela
Normally Socialist Challenge does not concern itself with elections for the chancellorship of London University; it is after • all a pureiv sym bolic post. But because of its symbolic importance this time we are supporting a candidate.
victory tor Mandela would show
graduales sidt with this courageous fighter against apartheid. vote for Mandela is a vote fo human dignity anc human rights.
A vote for the royal offspring is a vote for privilege and represents an obsequious kowtowing to an archaic and reactionary institution The best service Jack Jones can do for progress is to withdraw in favour of Mandela.
Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
THE LABOUR S
By Geoff Bell THE British Labour Party has led, for most of its life, a moderate, perate existence.
Quarrels bance have always been oresent oul uney bubbled under the surface or been confined to occasional Labour Party ferences, after, they can soon be forgotten.
Like other British institutions, the Labour Party usually settles differences by smothering and fudging them.
This time that does not look Merchant banker and bon viveur Roy Jenkins likely to happen. issue avoided in 1931 when the Labour Prime Minister say MacDonald and a few of his cohorts ditched the party they had led to form a 'national government with and some Liberals
The split of 1981 will not be a replica of 1931, but there are similarities.
The most obvious background in which the split took place: unemplovment and a capitalisi system intent on punishing the working class in order to save
The economic crisis and splits in the Labour Party is not coincidental, because the nature and purpose of the party is always most acutely posed when the future of capitalism is at stake.
In 1931 the Labour government had been in power for two VCal) seen Labour winning 287 seats the Tories 260 and the Liberals 59. Labour's manifesto, timid document compared to previous ones, had still promised much. Proclaim
In a foreword Ramsay MacCatholic anti-abortionist and ex-Labour MP, Donald had boldly proclaimed Shirley Williams that Labour 'unlike other parties is not concerned with patching the rents in a bad system, OUl Willl italism into socialism'
The manifesto went on to promise 'an against capitalism unceasing war against poverty and working class servitude'.
concreleiv. inere were oro mIses to establish a WECK. mulllulll agricultural workers and, most ironicaliv as it turned out. to raise the ment benefits.
his number of unemployed insured worker Wd.
December
2,70000, by June 191 The
2,700,000 by June 1931. rise had been hastened by the Wall Street crash of October 1929 and the shattering of the monetary and credit world. Manifesto
It was an excellent opportunity for ment to launch the unceasing war against capitalism promised in the manitesto
Instead the reverse occurred.
David Owen, author of social democratic credo, public works was inaugurated 'Face the Futuré'
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 8
THE
1931 22
Stem.
and distur-
have
at to conwhich
for
Nor was the
Ram-
the Tories
is the
rising mass
concurrence of The 1929 election had
election
although a rather
cap-
unceasing war and 'an
48-hour the wart LUL
scale of unemploy-
1,640,000.
1930 the total had
consequential
system of the capitalist
the Labour govern-
modest programme of
democratic'
labour movement.
Not since prominent
that famous split.
stop the Donalds of the reviewed.
but only f42m was earmarked
it, with Chancellor axcneoue! Philip strongly resisting the allocation of more funds
plan, drawn cabinet member Mosley, …aucn d thorough-going unemployment was Mosley resigned in protest and began a political journey which was to end up in him leading British tascism
There were other critics of government inaction. The Independent Labour WICA was federally-organised Partv. urged the adoptior more radical measures. the PLP and ference of 1930 rejected the calls.
Launch
If the Labour Party and its government were unwilling to
aunch their war on capitalism une east ural coulu oe exocclcu of it was to offer some form of shelter for the capitalist crisis
The manifesto had pledged an increased scale of unemployment benefits of 20 shillings a week with ten shilings to dependent wife and five shillings for each child. When the government introduced Unemployment Insurance Bill
the promises forgotten.
Unemployment benefit for men stayed at 17 shillings, the allowance for each child at two shillings; the rate for dependent wife was raised, but
one shilling short of what had been promised.
All the government had to offer was melond ang age on bn sanal inere so
CONOT familiar 50 years evoked. Philíp
Commons in 1930:
'Instead of party bickering, which wẹ can resume later must unite in a common effort to take effective measures to overcome our temporary difficulties and restore our former prosperity.
Sacrifice
To acnieve inis Snowden, what was needed was 'some temporary from all. and those best able to bear them will have to make the largest sacrifice'
The call for sacrifice from those best able to bear them brings to mind the more recent oec aaon that the Labour Government elected in 1974 would 'squeeze the rich until the pips squeak'.
was deliverance there was later from
The budget of 1931 offered
open threat by leading right wingers in the Labour Party to split and form a 'social
group will have significant repercussions in the
1931 have such individuals the Labour Party tried to divide the movement. The divisions in 1931 have a relevancy for today. and below GEOFF BELL recalls
A new pamphlet which aims Ramsay future is also
of the Snowden
up by Oswald
attack on resisted.
Party within the Labour of Both the party conthose worst hit by were
and
The
sacritice' later, was Snowden told February said
sacrifices
Denis Healer
from Snowden as Healey.
within Mac. no attack on the rich; the only Lax creast part Snowden was waiting for the judgement of the Committee On na which, under pressure, he had established in February 1o cuveillcl The committee was headed b Sir George May of the Prudential Assurance.
The May reported in matters came Unemployment 2.75m, and to meet the budget dencil or tizum may proposec a modest increase of taxation amoHmO Lau are Culs o] £96m, two-thirds of which was come ml ssn glvel to the unemployed.
Benefit
unemplbyment benefit was int A 20 cent cluded
Publication of the report saw finance chestrating a run on the pound The financial crisis worsened
PRES
Betrayer of a generation Ramsay MacDo
was on cliol
La enole Conservative
enquire into 'extravagance'
Committee
July and with it
La climax. was now
speculators
and MacDonald wa ed by US bankers. offered on recomandons. Committee were fect. MacDonald agreed, but they kn majority of the La and the TUC woul at last.
By August 1931 government had c end.
What followed political drama. Th the Tory and Lib together with Macl King George V had secret meetings on tion of a coalition g having agrcca un outlined by necessary, lie proi plotters was how them with the minir position.
If this wasn'
It wanld b that Mr MacDonalc main Prime Ministe National Governme Daiuwin, talCi To
Page 9 scan of this page
'LITTERS - PAST, ENT AND FUTURE
11101L- agreed with this plan. in was It is easy to
the wanted Mac Donald to lead the
May new attack on the living stan-
dards of the working class and wden the unemployed. As a leader of at the the Labour Party for so many
MacDonald halt
attack, and if the Tories were abour not seen to be leading the
fensive they would suffer less unpopulanty. high rs of Handful allics
brma- MacDonald agreed to the
coalition and. with the support of only a handful of Labour
cuts
Mrs. he tormed his National government.
SUll. the new leader Labour Party, nounce the 'Whether our colleagues be long or short,
said whether it be temporary or percrable manent, it is a direct loss to the Id re- labour movement.
What are the odds that this anley script will soon
Michael root when he com
on
see why they Williams.
company?
Henderson needs
wa.)
Drift.
What 0| - August 1931
conclusion
for the previous
had turned benches pleaded: wonder possible, Arthur Hender- abandoning
of the Dositiulis refused to desplitters saying:
of willulawal
each other in battle.'
be re-read by
had been practised
coalition
spiralling million.
than
intrigue. the socialism. huge they
stances, policies
so is
Tories, the
Ine departure Owen, Rodgers and
As with Foot and Williams, the sorrowful nature of the par- taken
ways Detween and MacDonald deen cavalalon.
There was no great ideological
MacDonald did in economic the logical was succeed of what he and Henderson and the rest of the Labour cabinet had been doing
two years. As early as July 1929 MacDonald
to the opposition in the commons and
how far it is rapidly as any way the any of • party challenges williout lil allyway surrendering any of our party 'mixed principles to consider ourselves more as a Council of State and The less as arrayed regiments facing
The 'Council of State' was officially established in August
but because its ideology to throw for the
previous two years, the Labour
Partv when it came to tieht the
1931 election was powerless to
contest the idea of a national government'
A landslide victory for the dominated by the
Tories but led by MacDonald followed, and this was in spite
unemployment figures towarus LICC
There was much more to the Lavour rarty debacie or 193.
the parliamentary manoeuvres and the DOLLICa
For one thing the class had still
1920 general strike Never
general strike. Never theless what happened in the years 1929-31 is relevant.
Excuse
Just as in the years 1929-31, Labour government
1974-79 had a precarious posi-
wunl barnate a and used this as a reason for not being able to adopt the socialisi measures which had been pro-
was a mere excuse.
MacDonald, Snowden, Wilson and Callaghan had never tended in the direction of radical
With or without a majority in parliament would have steered similar course. Because the majority of the PLP, in both in-
supported such rising unemployment being the most obvious it made it all the more difficult to alace duv decree dr Bonesl' to subsequent disavowals.
MacDonald, if nothing else. was at least consistent. Indeed,
Shirley Williams.
Labour splitters
1981 will not bring about the same result as their trail-blazers half a century ago. MacDonald
the and while he sank into oblivion as soon as his patrons felt they could dispense with his
This departure from the Labour Party in 1931 had come as a further blow to the labour movement.
Decimate
It was over a decade before
working Cass was recover from the decimation of
ing standards brought about by its leaders and the bosses.
In sheir of to are
from strength of the working class, rather than its weakness. While the ruling class needs the Tories to impose the policies required to meel ine exigencies or ine
CrISIS. cannot be confident that Thatcherism will
For that leftinfluenced Labour government would pursue her good works.
Enter the Gang offer what unev nove will be a vladif path to sustained employment and axed living standards. They will not sink into obscurity as
MacDonald unless working class leadership what the Gang stands for, not excluding the
economy' and allegiance to NATO
Gang not quite Tories, but their ambitions will certainly help keep the Tories in power. The sure way to relegate Owen & Co
LU d footnote in the history books is
Margaret Thatcher out of office.
How to spot
a potential
MacDonald
By Tom Marlowe EVERY time a Labour MP is elected to parlia ment s/ he becomes a potential Ramsay MacDonald
This is not because of some CharaCe defeat common to all
because of the nature or une poacal game they are involved in
they step once through the doors of the Palace of Westminster.
This point is made in
anusine sentence dedication in a new pamphlet written by Chris Mullin and produced by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and the Institute of Workers Control.
Line •amoniel dedicated to 'Mr Reg Prentice and the 18Č Labour MPs who sent a written appeal on his behalf to Newham North-east CLP.'
Version
That 180 Labour MPs supported the now Tory Prentice, annieute of Ramsay MacDonald
worth remember. ing shows the distance that so many members of the Labour pe they can Travel once are fortunate enough to get a job in the House of Commons.
Undoubtedly becoming an MP must
an awe-inspiring occasion. The minute it happens the flattery. the seduction. and the compliments begin
sall Very building and conse-
Chris Mullin notes: 'Many come to believe that the Parliamentary Labour Party is an independent institution with a life of its own, with a right to make its own policy decisions and generally behave as it pleases.
Pressure
'To some MPs the Labour Party, to which they owe everything
an inconve nient pressure group
Chris Mullin's pam. phlet is an aid to trying to stop this process. He sets out to advise on the intricacies of re-
give that process a real
by assuring accountability of MPs to their local party. Mul Party urges Labour members to check what
E
Labour MP turned Tory, Reg Prentice
their MPs say in parliament, to watch how they vote on crucial issues, and to demand consultation with them before important decisions are taken in parliament.
In his introduction, Chris traces the sorry history Labour governments an argues that it is a repetion of this history which re-selection designed to challenge
'The truth is, he
'that plans to increase pubiic spend #S10 cut ment, and abolish nuclear weapons are just so much hot air until parlamen tary representatives are made accountable to the party in whose Tallic they hold office.'
There is no doubt ing the importance of
the left achieved at the Blackpool and Wembley conferences.
They brought some
cracy to the Labour Party, and to challenge the notion ot the sovereignty of parliament by insisting that members of the Labour Party outside of those who are
sard should be
date of the debate in which you are interested.
To assist Labour where their MP stands we have listed below
key issues Ten Crucial Issues 9 April 1975: EEC membership 22 july 1975: £6 pay policy.
following IMF loan 3 May 1977: Agee and Hosenball case 1 February 1979: Rhodesian oil sanctions. 27 March 1979: Defence expenditure. 13 July 1979: Corrie abortion Bill. 6 May 1980: Abolition of House of Lords.
rorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976. 10 December 1980: Northern Ireland emergency provision.
- From 'How to Select or Reselect Your MP'
Persecuter of social security claimants,
elected to Westmin. ster should have some some say in what the does that place.
The point worth making that the sovereignty or parila ment is in any case a
MP has less say what the government does than treasury of. ficials, the newspaper chief or a TV pundit. eattors securit Minimal
Giving the trade unions and the Consti. tuency Labour Parties some minimal influ ence in the movement or wnica tney are part, is - - if nothing else - a
to the civil servants and the media stars Accordingly the Chris Mullin pamphlet Is an essential guide for all Labour Party activists.
How Select O1 Reselect Your MPs, Chris Mullin. Publishea the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and Institute for Workers ' Control, price CEPD. Available from; 10 Park Drive, London NWII.
Your MP's voting record
THE voting record of each MP is recorded in Hansard at the end of every Parliamentary debate. Han-
available in any good reference librarv. To use Hansard all vou need to know is the
Party members to discover the dates of debates on 10 crucial issues since 1975. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is compiling a table of each Labour MP's voting record on
21 December 1976: Government economic policies 4 March 1980: Continuation of Prevention of Ter-
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
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In this lively and wide-ranging feminist study of
language Dale Spender shows how language is
man-made and how its patriarchal character struc-
tures women's liberation.
Edited by Chris Searle Bricklight Pluto Press, £2.95
This fascinating book
poems and stories and struggle in East London over the last hundred yeais.
James Connolly Selected Writings Penguin, £2.25
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SC Events COVENTRY: Socialist Challenge public Valerie Coulta iolence
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includes pieces on
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from The Other
London N1 2XP.
produce one leaflet: but it's some leaflet! One hundred thousand printed of CND's publicity handout for the Labour Movement Conference against the Missiles to be held in Manchester on March.
The conference sprang from small begin.
against the Missiles supporters mounted a lobby of the Blackpool Labour Party conference to demand that the con-
supported tions to stop Cruise and sited in Britais. missiles being
They circulated a petition calling for a labour movement conference.
band of Socialist Challenge. sellers « Blackbool seemed to spend half their signatures for the peti-
These sponsorships started the ball rolling Since then our paper has battled to make the idea of a labour movement conterence a Ically.
Along with other supporters of the con• ference we were elated to win CND and official Labour Party backing earlier this month
Socialist Challenge has been a vital link in this chain events We've fought to build CND ana lo working class action against missiles right from the start.
We succeeded because we have weapons to fight with. We have our paper and our press. bul you can l keep these going on thin all and good ideas. costs money.
Printshop
At the end of last year we linally made lne last payment to our printshop's large camera which makes the screens
photographs in Socialist
Challenge.
Every month we have to find over £300 to pay another instalment our new typesetting machine. We've channeled £1,500 so far from the fund drive into stocking and equipping the printshop and we want to inYOSL another £2,000 this month.
We're also preparing taper. The first for the papel step
Loons roads to com plete essential building
This month alone we've had to spend over £600 in security measures.
All this costs money: money build YOUl paper and the causes it
launched £100,000 fund drive in October, to buy and equip a centre for the paper.
By the end of January we reached the £10,000 mark. That's
than Socialist InOIC Challenge has ever raised in the same time span.
Socialist Challenge News
copies have been
our own....
It's up to you!
But only £2,000 of this has come from our local supporters. That's Progress chart
for each district and for the national centre.
Below we show the
£100,000 goal.
Branch/area
East London
Outer West London
Brent
North London
Lambeth/Southwark
Other South London
West of England
South Wales
South England
West Midlands
East Midlands
North West
North East
South Yorks
West Yorks
Scotland
National Centre
National Target
€3,000 behind target which is causing us big cash headaches
From now till Easter we want a really big push on funds. We hope our local supporters will be following the example of
The world political situation
historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.
C: commadore whole afternoon to three quarters of an hour.
our East London supporters who have planned events and activities
IN December we published monthly targets
crechildre progress which each branch has made towards our
Percentage of target reached
11.0 11.5 27.0 2.5 10.5 17.0 17.0 0.0 12.5 1.0 4.0 3.0 22.0 1.0 5.0 0.0 8.0 10.0
up through to May to bring in their target of £400 every month.
They will be out in force on the coaches and trains to the 21 February Glasgow demonstration with badges, tickets for
as a whole is chiefly characterised by a Our plans to buy a computer out of the fund drive money have taken a step forward — the first programme has now been written! It is a programme to produce the invoices for the Socialist Challenge Groups. This cuts down the time for this chore from a
At the moment the programme is being run on a supporter's home computer, but obviously it will be easier when we have
their f250 raffle, and subscription leaflets to win readers the 10 paper.
This is the kind of commitment we need What are you planning to do to help us? Dig ucco ul your Dockel dc push us back on target by the end of February!
Our thanks in January to:
Anon £4000.00 Sth London Poland school 40.00 January standing 152.00 10.00 KP Forester 3.50 Tooram Narshir 2.50 Lesley Caldwell 2.50 K Martin .50 2.00 A Spalding 7. .50 A Agathangelou 2.50 PB and MFP 3.00 J Nudger Andy Herring RD Hibbett 7.50 Bristol IMG 100.00 Lewisham IMG 31.00 Wolves IMG 20.00 Lambeth IMG Swindon IMG 8.30 Leeds IMG 32.00 Brent IMG 25.00 Hemel IMG 30.00
Back a winner DOCK WI now make a foriune on 2 February!
and posters from our local activist. are a sure-re winner to Tune drives • Make sur you've made an order and have a team ready to sell on 21 February.
obtainable individually or in bulk: 20p each plus 12p post and packing, o 12p
euch OULA orders, payment in advance.
A CO available: New suits free ofter of far subscription
Economic Disaster, 50p 100 free ts despatched Tree paid in advance.
Oxford IMG 20.00 Manchester/ Oldham IMG 2.30 Middlesborough IMG
38.00 Total 693.80
-Cumulative total, 187.37
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 : Page 10
Page 11 scan of this page
Belgian BL workers occupy
Towards a general strike in Belgium
From Brian Grogan in Brussels FOLLOWING the shock ment of the total closure of Seneffe plant in workers in the plant immediately occupied and are now work-in. 3,500 cars have pounded by the workers' tee, who are threatening to sell them and any others finance the strike fund.
As well as 2,800 jobs at the BL plants a further 2,000 jobs are in danger in companies manutacturing components and machine tools. This is a region already hard hit by unemployment.
The actions of the Seneffe workers come in the wake of a rising tide of inBy Paul Lawson TWENTY years ago, at a time of relative Scare in the Europe, insurrectionary strike took place Belgium.
Today history is repeating itself. Strikes and factory oč. cupations have throughout the country protest against the government's austerity measures
Un January, trade unionists marched
Socialist Chaltenge •5 February 1991 Page 11
announceBL's Hitherto,
Belgium, the
operating been im- strike. commitOn produced to help
against LIEUt 100,000 Belgian trade unionists march against austerity measures
through the Brussels.
Belgian capitalism is going social through grave
of unemployment is even higher than in Britain general runs at around 12 per cent
and numerous factory closures are taking place. response Belgian vocast party spread coalition has
in austerity vicious suspends a number of collective agreements and prohibits wace increases oroveds It has also cut social security
dustrial militancy, aimed at the govern-
measures and rapidly ments dustery rising unemployment (see page 10).
British steel workers, have been renowned for their 'moderation'. In the plant's 17 years of operation there has never been a
Saturday a demonstration organised through the centre of Seneffe led by a mass convoy of cars, blocking all traffic for several hours. Workers in all other British plants in Belgium are being called on to take sympathy action. Seneffe workers will also be taking up their struggle during a national strike
the government's measures on Thursdav.
Unfortunately the leaders of the trade
UNITE
FGTB-CSC
pour la
Grève générale !
streets of benefits.
steel companies crisis: 4.111 currently it workers' the unleashing strikes in
this, the Christian-Democrat- workers
Covermen introduced cedich law
the The Cass
International
like the on British workers. ing circulated that benefit from this closure
was nonsense. Some
threatened with redundancy.
The Revolutionary The (LRT) and the Group Belgian the Fourth austerity
of Belgian and British workers The merging of two large announcec recently will result in a further
unemployed. The response has been of general the steel-making towns of Liege and Charleroi
At the same time. textile
have occupied railway stations and sat down in front of trains in opposition to threatened closures.
winer rexue workers save Leaoue begun a hunger strike against
threat to their livelihood.
IS having big
unions are attempting to turn the attention of the workers away from identifying BL as the enemy, to putting the blame
A false notion is beBritish workers will
The idea that what is bad for home workers is good for foreign workers, put about by the advocates of import controls, is once against shown to be a
225 Cowley workers who make kits for the Seneffe plants are
Workers League International Marxist and British sections of International, will be distributing a common leaflet to the plant this week showing the common interests
repercussions inside the Socialist Party. While the readersnip or une party ticipates in a government of austerity, the socialist Party. dominated trade union, the volved the counter-attack. Thousands of workers trom Christiar Democrat trade union federa. tion are also participating in the struggles. of the belgian trotskyists Revolutionary Workers are intervening LOU calling for a general strike to working class plan Housed to beat the crisis
Shock waves spread
through Central
America
JIMMY Carter's last act as President of the United States was to authorise $10m of military aid to the ruling El Salvador junta.
Ronald Reagan's
first act as President was to cancel a $75m loan programme to Nicaragua because of the Nicaraguans support for the El Salvadoran guerillas.
That sums up his statement last week that the US government's enemies 'would not go to bed with the same confidence Since his auguration.
These actions have caused SMOCK waves throughout Central America
El Salvador: Reports now suggest that the guerilla offensive has
halted by the been regime's new US military hardware. Some reporters suggest a real
US Hercules transport planes are arriving daily in El Salvador loaded WItn war matrials and US military advisers.
The Russell Tribunal
on charges of violations
Salvador the Secretary General the Salvador Human Right Commission was abducted the junta's security forces on 26 January.
other leading
sion have been assassinated recent weeks since President Duarte accused the Commission 'partiality against the government'
Further leading figures have defected from
dae regime anary nes
January government eco-
Planillg viceand the subfurther concessions
from government
By Davy Jones
newspaper have
summer's
and reduce press censorship.
it would continue to
the state of the economy'
provide full information
policy
rebrea
director of the national coffee institute both resigned the allusile of tion and repression Nicaragua The FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) issuca an appeal ur 27 January for the people to 1oin the militias Eden Pastora, commandant of the militias declared:
War 'Each Nicaraguan should be ready to go to war. North American marines want to invade our country for the fifth time they must be expelled by a prolonged war.
guerilla organisations announCCu • on 27 January their 'unification in the revolutionary struggle'.
Pledging full solidarity with the Salvadoran and Honduran revolu liulial y struggles, they launched an appeal the people to join in the , struggle to overthrow the governNeed that Abel Lenounced that Abel mus. leader of the Guatemalan social democratic United Front of the Revolutionary Party, was found dead in the capital city.
Costa Rica: icarucu January that large cuer. tues of arms had car. peared from the nationa arsenal overue bastly y years. Rumours capital city suggest tha the arms may have found inel way lo the siruggle.
Nicaragua and El Salvador Honduras: Having recently completed peace ener Salvador the Honduran hailiste of foreign affairs, Cesar Elvir Sierra, began discussions with his Salvadoran counterpart on a crackdown on arms for the Salvadoran guerillas.
Polish workers wring
A WEEKLY TV programme and a weekly
been conceded Solidarity, the independent union movement. Solidarity had been campaigning for the government to implement last
Gdansk strike agreements
The Polish government have also backed down on the matter of Saturday working. Solidarity's national consultative commission announced that
fight for a 40-hour week but would appeal to all Polish workers to put in one eight-hour Saturday workday a month 'because of
They further demanded that the government
of the on lne Salt economy and called for public control of fiscal
The outstanding dispute between the unions and the government is now over the registration of Rural Solidarity. A government commission has Door will role one here ration before no
will rule on the registration before 10
The government concessions came in the wake of the threat from Sclidarity to call a genera are:
Page 12 scan of this page
Turning abortion into a right
Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Challenge)
By Joan Twelves SIXTY-five thousand women in England and Wales were forced to pay for a private abortion in 1979. Only 46.1 per cent of abortions in that year were performed on the NHS.
Abortion the only operation in this country tor which you are likely to have to pay. It is also the only operation which is illegal, except under specitic circumstances.
A combination of Thatcher's axe and anti-abortion senior hospital consultants is making it even harder to get a health service abortion. While the number of abortions increases, the percentage carried out by the NHS continues to fall.
In some areas, like Liverpool and the West Midlands, it is virtually impossible to get an NHS abortion because of LIC COHOUILAILS who are determined not to implement the 1967 Abortion Act.
Hsewhere the cuts have forced the closure of gynaecological wards, and promised day-care clinics have not mateauseo
Survey
The National Abortion Campaign is doing a survey of abortion facilities to see what
around the country.
Call be statistics to show the number of women loreca to nave all unwanted child because they coulan i anora to go privaic or who have had to wait so
By Hazel Macpher-
son, Paddington
No. 1 Branch, NUR
THE National Union of
Railwaymen, as
title suggests,
with al-
thouah fact
organises large
numbers of women in
all sections.
It boasts a large
By Pierre Court
policy
chester on
this repression operates court,
will be
than parable offences.
For chat each other up.
places, long that an abortion was no longer teasible.
The 1979 Royal Commission on the NHS advocated an increase in health service abortion facilities reverse has happened and the '67 Act is being further under. mined through Lne facilities.
Over the past tew years we have seen numerous on our to abortion of haying up the o Act Yet the most glaring abuses of this legislation who won't implement it and the facilities have
Right
The time has сотеанак. ae ano are Labour Abortion Campaign, LARC, have call-
ference London March to discuss changes in the law needed to give women a positive right to abortion, and how this can be achieved.
LARC has three-point plan legislation. First, there has to be mandatory provision abortion facilities equate coaces inseconarts the abortion has to be decriminalised.
These are prerequisites for the introduction of legislation
to choose: there would be no
statutory right to decide if no one was prepared to carry out the operation or if the woman had to travel or pay to exer-
Railworkers call for a woman's right to choose
number of sponsored IVIrS, most of whom voted for John Corrie's restrictive Bill on abortion. However the victory won over that Bill, due in main to the mobilisation of the labour movement, has not unnoticed within the NUR
Paddingtone, No.1 Branch mously passed resolution calling for
lesbians and gays!
WITH a report on gay rights
about be presented by the Labour Party national executive, a march is to be held in Man-
28 February against the state repression of lesbian and gay people.
It aims to bring to light the many different ways in which Children are pressured to hide lesbians their sexuality for fear that they
separated. Gay men face much heavier sentences
heterosexuals for com-
On the streets, the police arrest gays if we hold hands, kiss
• Thev ar. rest us for having sex in 'public'
but harass our private clubs. They refuse to protect us BOVRI
The
Black PS
attacks PH limited right all in the name GELA
the doctors
to NHS
photo
been 1g-
come for
Rights White's Bill, June 1975
A bill both the thest
La 10-Minute year. adopted for positive
of are put to the allow Party conference
Secondly, the bill
women's experiences
debate on abortion
towards what want. positive legislation on abortion which points LITC wav torward not for the our le labor the whole labour movement.
calls for the mandatory provision of abortion facilities by the NHS; the decriminalisation of the abortion tion, and for a future Labour government to pass giving
Sexual Politics
Don't let the state repress
from 'queer bashers'
In school children taught that heterosexuality is 'natural' and desirable. Young
repressed, harassed by the police, and liable to be put into care or sent to Borstal 'for their own protection'.
In mental hospitals, lesbian and gay people are given aversion therapy, shock treatment, drugs including hormones remove our sexuality), brain surgery to Cure
In prison, we are emotional. ly and physically harassed by both warders and other mates sexuality known.
In the bedroom, young people involved gay relation. ships are liable to be put into care or sent to borstal or mental hospital. It is illegal for adult
_PUC
OFF
WOMENS
cise h bill on facilities along
now been drafted and will probably be introduced into Parliament as useful focus
Bill later this Just
The chances of this tactic which was being successful are slim and it is essential that resolutions 1980,
calling party to formally adopt this year, men ai singerences of at- crucial in
• abortior under existing legislation, the
can be shifted away from the terrain of the anti-abortionists and
women really movement fighting
Although we are talking about parliamentary legisla-
positive right to choose.
This resolution has been sent to the NUR executive in the hope that it will be selectea to go the Women's TUC wastever its fate Paddington No.1 to be con. for taking first step to the tide within the rail union.
men to have gay relationships are with someone under 21 - or, in the north of Ireland, any age.
The police have regular witch. hunts which blackmail to gain information In the home, have no legal rights and so it is impossible for gay assert their against their parents. The way the law is applied to tor instance. and man to rape his wife out make the situation of married lesbians more intolerable.
In employment, public secemployers against gays if about our sexuanty, if we are in contact with young
have upheld employers to sack us solely on the groman see sa many FLASHBACK to the National Abortion Campaign march against James the bateground for the fight parliament will not for a woman's right to choose
although it can provide a
as it was the mass movement outside parliament
so decisive in the defeat of the Corrie Bill in
and which scared Timothy Sainsbury off introducing further restrictions
so it will be that mass movement which will be
winning positive abortion rights for women.
The NAC/LARC labour move comicace is bac first stage in building a mass
committed to for positive legisianon on abortion.
Many trade unions have
with
There
the
be they women.
young people wilso
youth independence
marriage Support from helps to Students tions. for strong
discriminate
we are open VOUI
especially
emplovment tribunals
the right of
Lesolan
respects state positions to defend the '67 Act and no Other labour movement bodies, like the TUC and the Labour Party, have positions supporting a woman's right to choose but have not discussed how this will be achieved.
A commitment from the labour movement to actively campaign for and support the draft bill on facilities will be a
WILL YOU BE REPRESENTED? NA LAR
Labour Movement Conference
Abortion and Positive Legislation, London 14 March
any trade union body and from CLPs affiliated
to NAC or LARC. To affiliate to LARC, send f2
to: 160 Rosendale Rd, London SE21. To affili-
ate to NAC, send £15 to: 374 Grays Inn Rd,
London WC1.
the conference from: NAC/LARC TU Liaison
Cttee, c/o 374 Grays Inn Rd, London WC1.
01-278 0153.
repression is being stepped up
increase police witch-hunts over the past year
Manchester demonstration will be calling for an end to police harassment and to discrimination in the courts
crime without a victim.
Young people should have
right to determine their own sexuality, ana inere nas to
legal and financial independence for youth and
The demonstration demane end medical torture of gays, and to discrimination in emplovment
It. will be the first march ever held on the general issue
Stare repression of gays National already come the Unior of and left organisa-
organisers are calling labour movement support, so us is a good op portunity to raise gay rights ir
oracusalem Labour Party branch.
Information leaflets and posters from: Campaign Against State Repression of
and Gav People, BM Gay volse, London vC TV 3XX. Attillatior and donations to: CASR, c/0 Gay Centre, 61a Bloom St, Manchester 1.
Draft Bill
For the provision of facilities for the termina-
1. (1) It shall be the duty
ensure that each district health make such provision for of pregnancy inside the NaHealth Service for all terminations carried out on women ordinarily resident in that area either: (i) both within the NHS and the private sector, or (ii) whether carried out by the NHS or not. (2) The district health authority shall calculate the extent of facilities quired to carry out this Act/Section by reference lo ine last year yor wnich figures are available relating to termination o) pregnancy in that district.
quired from any person in respect of the termination of a pregnancy within the NHS
step towards achieving woman's right to choose Delegates to the 14 March conference will have the op portunity to discuss how they can win that commitment and how the campaign for abortion rights can be taken forward.
The conference is open to delegates from Registration forms and further details of
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 12
Page 13 scan of this page
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Page 14 scan of this page
H Block - 'on the brink'
Labour and Ireland: the civil
By Geoff Bell POLITICAL prisoners in the H Blocks of Long Kesh are reported to be 'on the brink' of a renewed strike, according to the latest edition of An Phoblacht/Republican News, the newspaper of the Republican movement.
The new H Block crisis follows the breakdown •itne step ment agreed by the British government ano we orsoners ust perore aması
Under the terms of this agreement part of which made representatives of the prisoners and the government prisoners five demands would be granted
up by
the next step?
Hated unions.
raised in the
IN RECENT years, a considerable number of reforms have been introduced to attack discrimination and enhance gendes Northern Ireland. But major changes are still neded if the people of Northern Ireland are to have the alle rights as other
of the United Guzens Kingdom.
Most of the 'reforms' which were passed lasted for onlv a saort une.
One of the demands of the civil rights movement was for the disarming of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They were asarmea, but oniy Ior a few months, then they were rearmed with better guns. The RUC has also retained its overwhelmingly Protestant membership.
A further demand of the civil rights campaign was to disband the exc usivev Protestant para-military security
unit, te seces s,
Specials were disbanded but the replaced by the overwhelm-
Protestant Ulster HICIY Defence Regiment. Hundreds of members and ex-members of the UDR have been convicted of arms and 'terorist' omrences
Perhaps the most famous ot ali the demands ot the civii
oi the spesial tesers pint,
the Special Powers which among other things allowed for internment without trial.
That, too, was scrapped — •i ı was revaceo ov e and the Pre Pentisic Provisions and the of Ter-
Act, which together IOSISHII provided for internment without trial and many other attacks on civil liberties.
BILL OF RIGHTS It is organisargns in orsher argued some
Ireland that only a prehensive Bill of Rights Cole protect Ine civil liberties of the citizens.
A report by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights Commented that: 'A Bill
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 14
agreed hunger
Provisional
by step' settle-
vereciv
the malor aspects ot the THE Northern Ireland Study Group, set
the national executive of the Labour Party, has just produced a consultative paper entitled Northern Ireland,
The Labour Party has asked for a full discussion on the paper's contents in constituency Labour parties and affili-
As an aid to this discussion Socialist Challenge is taking up the five questions
consultative paper. week we deal with the second question posed in the Labour Party's paper.
Rights might be interpreted by the courts in a manner which would hamper strong, eTTeCTIVe gressive government...
It is not clear. over, whether such a Bill of Rights would be for Northern Ireland alone or which covers the whole of the United Kingdom.
SC: A Bill of Rights Make oRv a minimal
ArIKESS
Act of
to the prisoners as they their protests Within days of this procedure being
reports began Long Kesh that prison warders were conun• to mare r lose un uner onaree The accusations included one
still inflicting waraero WEIC 'squat search', by which a prisoner was forced to squat naked over a mirror while his anus was probed.
Despite this, the prisoners still tried to keep their side of the bargain. volved the first 20 prisoners coming off their protests by washing, shaving, having their hair cut.
On Friday 23 January these prisoners asked to be allowed to wear comes. under te terms or une agree
terence There against discrimination such discrimination tinues; laws against the RUC and the Army pic inl co• oooe. continue;
This prisoners have still been tor- arallls LorLurC
LUCU Parlamentary is not alle guarantee of HUrudO CILS of Ireland or anywhere else.
EMPLOYMENT proTHE Fair Employment Act
more 1976
equality of opportunity employment between peoOlIC ple OT beliefs It makes it unlawful for would an employer to discrimindif- against a person
Ireland.
de-escalated
recreation periods come out
Led their clothes. that the The the hated
this
This in-
and
their own
rights question
iseri mination aws or political
con-
murdering peobut those Employment laws DUL Irish ensure Tene
legislation Telsl
never wil be
equality - in the North
have to before emooymenn
exists to encourage
the Fair different religious
Employment
on PORTEN Water cannons — the police response to civil rights demonstrators in Derry, April 1969.
ment the British government had con-
ceded this right at weekends and other
Although the Friday was the eve of
the weekend the 20 prisoners were refus-
harassment by the authorities continued when a number of prisoners were assaulted by the warders
as they were moved to new 'clean cells'
point 96 prisoners who
already been moved to such cells began
to smash their furniture.
volbutalou amore te •nisoners Is now taking place within the H Blocks as
to whether and when a new hunger strike will be launched. Apparently a fresh set
of demands has already been drawn up by the political prisoners. grounds of religious beliefs
opinion in sklled either the public or private sector of employment.
It is the task of the Fair handful
Agency provisions the Act are carried out. It is judges not yet clear whether cur-
convictions. legislation is strong enough to enforce the provisions of the 1976 Act.
It may be that we shall wait some time the pattern of Nunerr Ireland is radically altered.
troduction Abortion SC: It is abundantly clear that regarding
Employment Act wolked ine Agency has itself reported that a Catholic is two and a half times more ilkelv to be unemoloved thar a Protestant and that: 'The
L
which has now recovered. Michael McAlisker
prison
her lung. had complete her
•A march Bloody Sunday Glasgow on model Protestant male is a
Amanda WOTKCI. whereas the model Roman Catholic male is unskilled.
There have only been
of l selalvls under the Fair Employment Act, and because most of the
al C Unionists, there have been only one or two
ABORTION HOMOSEXUALITY THE present law relating to abortion is similar to that
England estet and Wales prior to the in.
of the 1967 Act; the law homosexual aHS conesoonos wila tacI which existed before the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offenders Act.
SC: The last Labour government promised to reform the law relating to gays, and then
of to
LATEST reports are that Bernadette McAliskey is 'progressing well'. One of the bullets entered her throat and caused a temporary loss of voice,
was released from hospital on Tuesday. His first action was to visit Bernadette. This will be the first time they have seen each other since Bernadette's operation. Bernadette has an arm and leg in plaster. One of the bullets also entered
This week should tell how recovery will be.
to commemoote will take place in 14 February. Assemble 10am, Dunolly St, Royston Rd.
changed mine Cone pressure exerted by Unionists a w estaster. witwo the government then had a parlamentary alliance Gays have a right to lead their WILDOU being harassed; women have the right control OWIl bodies. No legal restrictions should be , permitted which stand the way of those FISTES
CUSTODY RIGHTS?
IT was alleged by Amnesty HemCiona report published 1978 that police at Castlereagh police station had used illegal methods to CALlarI confessions and informa. tion out of suspected per sons taken into custodv.
It is believed that more than three-quarters of convictions were made on the basis of such methods The Labour govern. ment immediately set up a comlet waca reportea in March 1979 that 'our own chatliiialion of medical evidence reveals cases in which injuries, whatever their precise selfLaust wert inflicted and were sustained in police custody'.
The report therefore listed over 60 ways of im proving interrogation procedures and the rights of those taken into custody. All these recommenda tions beer implemented including exter nal observation questioning and the right access solicitor after 48 hours.
How Labour Col Government best promote and protect civil rights in Northern Ireland?
SC: The denial of civil liberties occurs because of SOllIC sauisul tendencies among members of the RUC, the British army, or 'military solution' advocates like Roy Mason, Labour's last Northern Ireland Secretary Such practices, reinforced by discrimination, are designed to intimidate the Catholic population because of its opposttior the Nothern Ireland state.
The establishment of that state and the . partition Ireland was in itself a denial of a basic human right - the right of the people of all of re ane determine that country's future.
It is only to be expected that the authorities. in backing up tha anti-democratic settlement, find it necessary employ other antidemocratic methods.
The best way the Labour Partv can protect civil rights 1. remove the why those rights are deniec - the partition of Ireland and British presence in the north ofithat country.
Page 15 scan of this page
Yorkshire miners pick up Thatcher's gauntlet
By Ken Capstick, Parkhill NUM delegate to Yorkshire Area Council ALTHOUGH there massive pit closure programmes, carried out in the. late '50s and miners have never before felt that their jobs were in jeopardy.
With coal stocks currently estimated at about 6m tonnes TeC uDnCu has been brought to a halt. Even miners' sons, wio uave OCCT traamnonaly able to rely on a job in the inuusu y. are being turned away from the pitheads.
The Lilical of another massive pit closure programme looms over tne maustry as une
Opposition
grows to
Murdoch
takeover
RESISTANCE has begun to build up among Fleet Street workers against Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid for Times Newspapers.
Last week 200 delegates from une cenua London clerical branch of the print
NATSOPA unanimously to reject Murdoch's proposals,
dilu lilcy weic culcal orlne way lne Panticy navs sud reasan. unIol ¿caders nave ine union leaders have welcomed Murdoch's
record and his ucialcs tul sweeoils 100 CULS. He wants cuts of between 30 and 50 per cent.
of craft print union NGA have sug seslealo workers dl
Newspabers mnar they do not agree to Murdoch they will lose 4,000 jobs.
Journalists' union depulv penera secrerarv Jake ac. clestone points out that they to Murdoch
across Fleet Street, since the caccis ui ms axe will nol De nmnlied Avew Printing House Square.
considerable anger Murdoch wandered around the SunCu y d umies making lew antona changer ls eor‹
1е ker cn busy printworker, who was abe preses pora ne c1
presses,
Ihe reply was: 'As little as fucking possible.'
Striking journalists
back anti cuts battle
NEARLY all journalists on local papers in London were on 24-hour strike last Thursday in protest at the closure of the Camden Journal.
Many joined the mass picket of the paper's printworks in Nuneaton, in an effort to halt production of scab issues of the Islington Gazette and Hornsey Journal, which are part of the same group.
While some members of the print union NGA have refused to cross the picket line, waiting for word from the union leadership, which is a long time coming
Camden Journal NUJ father of the chapel Howard Hannah says:
Their struggle over jobs and cuts is exactly the sume us ours.
This has been a feature of the weekly paper Save the Camden Journal, now selling almost 8,000 copies. A march against cuts to be held in Camden on Saturday 7 February is receiving wide support. It starts outside the town hall in Judd St at i0.30am.
Support to: Save the Campaign, Tel 01-485 8207/8.
capitalist recession bites deeper was into British industry.
Against this the Yorkshire miners' '60s, ship has decided to
nettle and ballot Yorkshire membership. bers will be asked if they are prepared lo take industria ac tion, including strike action if necessary protect any threatened with closure on any grounds other than exhaustion. campaign has been conducted throughout the field with mass meetings of up to a thousand have listened to their area officials argue the case for a fight CPSA special conference last week most are
'We are very much linking
unionists in Camden.
Camden Journal 38-40 Camden Rd, London NW1
lo save pilnead Jobs
background Castleford
leader- club on 25 grasp the estimated that apart from 1,000 the entire miners inside, there were up to
Mem- 200 outside who could not get
At this Taylor, the area vice president, warned that trying to erode the organisation
seam- oi the trade union movement.
Scargill
cual"
workers who ty, he said.
introduced a ballot over heads of the steel unions. Benn backs Civil
Service union Broad
Left
approval.
Delegates at the
COnTe ence on 29
January supported
selective action in key
areas together with
one-day strikes of the
entire union member-
Heathrow
fightback
takes off!
By Hilary Driver THERE was hundred per cent support the 24-hour strike of British Airways
Home News
meeting 'Tories never llaucs ano LaDou friends, nor January was They will
have got
meeting Jack
Tories were members Arthur
'We need strength and uniMacGregor has policy. the real intention of Ed-
A SPECIAL conference of the 200,000 strong
Civil and Public Services Association has decided on a wide range of industrial action on wages. This will be put to branches for
ship. They also agreed ship sperialo minanee levy to finance their campaign.for a 15 per cent wage rise.
At a packed fringe meeting, the CPSA
workers on 24 January.
The action was provoked by BA management who have torn agreements and offered an 8 pi Clou vci ccnl rise don l anni deducions, the offer amounts t
January, 9,000 BA worker: voted unsic wage rise org basic wage rise cent, plus improved
wardes had his ballot in BL
roreer unen their enemies. want to old SCLLIC scores of 1972 and 1974. This may not be the best time but we Silver.
to take them on sell because the time is now
'I have faith in this union,' he added. 'In the past unions have not been let down by their
- they have generally 'I am asking been let down by their leaders.
Scargill informed the meeting that secret Cabinet but minutes had come through his door dealing with nuclear fuel had.'
They showed that the the Friday, ment is to take away the power
Broad Left launched ITS campaign for the forthcoming presiden AleCOn ITS can. didate is Kevin Roddy TrONt i ves ee who will challenge presi dent Kate Losinski one of the most right. wing leaders of ally trade union.
The Broad Left meeting was addresed by Tony Bs nike the who urged unions CPSA to affiliate the Labour Party. He endorsed Roddy's campaign and compared it to the campaign for democracy in the Labour Party.
pay, London weighting, and a shorter working week The mass meeting pledg ed its total opposition to any planned redundancies. .While : the national ofticials of the main unions in yolved have been luke warm their navo nodo the l BA workers ha encouraged by the stand of Engineering UnOl LOCay n creacer wages in line with inflation a shorter working week, anc weeks holiday for al workers.
have
of the NUM and the TGWU
Warning against accepting redundancy payments, Scargill said that no one should sell their job for a few
oleCes 'No one has the right to a loD the InOusu Anyone who uid would be sell. ing the lob oi a son who has never had a chance to work'
Arthur Scargill received a standing ovation when he said
— no demanaıng - not only that you vote yes,
campaign ine LLIOS massive vote this union has ever
When the ballots closed last
early indications from most pits were that the miners
jobs battle
By Pete Clifford
not rely simply unemployment to
Schreibers, and possibly Massey Ferguson.
workers against redundancies. Schreibers' ownel Arnole weinstock fame has decided that of f4.25m profits the Manchester niture plant has to go The uU-slon worklorce nas oune Beeas UUSYIHSSIARAIIUANSPA venor explained: workforce take Managemen cut production berdec cvcl dlncellll i nele soluLlon (TO] unemoiovment unless were all out for a shorter working Further down the road is Kelloggs the COrl llake factory WILI employees. Management 380 redundanmembers of USDAW, Lapel sticker by the lall unlon unvolvca. suldle DON T DI Konned Fight the Sackings'
At Shell Carrington, the big petrochemica dallasclbl I LylIR LU C /ww volunteers CIOI Tecun dancy with severance pay on So only have taken CalTOl ricu ureen. ne transoort unoi convenor told Socialist Challenge that th
claim for increased manning
the tractor firm is also heading IOR rouole Las week mass meeting voted for substantial wage claim.
Unemployment
march
Huddersfield
By Steve Vokes TGWU 9/14 branch NEARLY two thousand
the Tory ål unemployment Called
the ocensinmere 193o per
Locally, more thar
textile and engineering plants are on short time.
by the main speaker, Star columnist Joe Ashton, will only lead the labour movement up a blind alley.
more than 1,500 leaflets arguing for plementation ot a worksharing with no loss of pay.
responded to positive leadership as they always have the past. excess ot its Most are acc arine Couve cent for the c asro psals, with some as high vci cclll.
When all the results are in it expected that the outcome Will be between 80 and y0 De cent support for the union ex. cculive The Yorkshire miners mean business threat 11 have challenge • LO Ihatcher is nov clear. If the Yorkshire miners take strike action, we will no confine our action to our own coaltiela or even our own in dustry.
There will be no respect for anti-working class laws. Thatcher's gauntlet is now in the hands of the Yorkshire miners.
Manchester
WORKERS in five Manchester factories can-
on marches against solve their problems. They face redundancies now at Kelloggs,
Shell Carrington, Mosedales
A fightback is developing in the area following the successful occupation by Gardner
was act ucldllt the bosses multi-national have instruc lons irom the bankers to make job or wage cuts. . In America that has hinal the United Auto Workers into a 3-vear wage Ireeze Presently in dispute are TGWU Mosedales brick works wiu lave poci OCKCO-OU lOr IWo monEn. Iney were sacked for going on 24-hour strike rates being pald it
One of the strikers says 'Mosedales is only do this becaus of the situa. "hoto: tion in : building industry - the l ories are decimalng On Wednesday of last week, oickets Jaroner. shel. .ivernoo direct works , and Schreibe ensured that Mosedales was closed for the day Glasgow demonstration and Liverpool-to-London march in May will have five groups of determined supfrom v an chestel area .But they are also fighting now for thei
6/234, 216 Irlam Rd, FlixManchester Mass pickets ever; Wednesday a Rixton Brick people marched through Huddersfield last Saturday in protest
government's erore on by Huddersfield Trades Council and the local Labour Party the march was the largest demonstration in
cent of the workforce is unemployed. Most of the local
Unfortunately the call for import control: Labour MP and Dail
Socialist Challenge supporters handed out
the im34-houl week, and for
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
FORD DRIVERS TAKE
Deptford blacks organise after
By Mick Drake FORD Motor Company has laid off over 20,000 workers in a bid to smash a strike by
Dagenham. Car, truck and transit van production at the Dagenham, Langley and Southampton plants is at a standstill.
The Ford drivers struck on 27 January when management announced that in future outside contractors would be used for runs OTO Ke an reached with the unions in July 1980, and as that meeting was the final stage of the grievance orocedure the drivers were lett with alternative strike.
Trucks The drivers Genk run takes place against management reduce the truck fleet by giving By George Reynolds AT A packed meeting on 25 January, representatives of all black organisations in Deptford formed a committee to following the fire which claimed 12 lives last month.
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ASTAND
nearly 5,000
workforce's
with working
prepared to do so.
Genk in Belgium. Picket agreement
Dagenham. initial to Dagenham union officials
their picket.
LECIN COCKT fight for the trade attempts to faces tanks
organise action in the area
which costs
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their work to contract labour -and against a background of
jobs lost at tne Dagenham plant in the past
yo Ford has interpreted
the acceptance of a 9.5 per cent wages and conditions deal against union advice as a green light to press ahead
aLLaCH on jobs and conditions And agreements have to be torn up
acnieve tnis rora Is quite
The drivers fight is the first ScHous doposuonto ooloss cu
Despite this, the Ito ponise of trade •olel and convenors was to urge the drivers to lift
Bolt une mooe orune trivers in a poster on
'Lech Walesa fights the official
UnIOns Poland the Dagenham panel doesn't have one
The black communi-
doi hesouth-e ase leve-
borough believes that the police and media are covering up a racist alaCk Evidence points to this as being the HuLIve for tirebombing.
Fire
The driver of a car seen in the area • at tne ot the fire was the fire. The 25 ponar black, but reported meeting dismissed 1OUILO that there had been a fight during the party that gatecrashers had returned with a fire bomb.
Suspicion has centred on a white woman who entered the house look ing for a purse and left soon after When LOUS was reported to the police they claimed tha the woman was vagrant, although ther now appear to be investigating.
Attacks
There have been number of racist attacks the area inciuding black people being shot at with air rifles, shotgun
an opinion
poll sample
This determination produced desuits. Monday February the drivers agreed to
vided the officials negotiated their grievance with the com. pany. Not 'only did Ford refuse
budge, they threatened to shift any driving work to out side contractors they conside: cheaper.
dd. Transport and general
Todd, Workers Union negotiator, talked the dispute made official.
The LUtu vanua Silcock and Collings transporter drivers strike after their management tore up an agreement which guarantees them basic when they refuse
fire-bombing
attacks on black homes
de beduus Dyzales O
skinheads. Black youths
sav that cars are driven al
them as they walk along
the pavement.
Gang
One young woman
told me that on the night
the fire she, her
orolnel, and some
friends were threatened
by a gang of white youth
just up the road from the
house where the party
was held.
The nouse. which
was totally destroyed by
the fire WiCu swept
through it in minutes, is
within sight of the route
of the National Front
march in 1977.
Thugs
The area is notorious
for fascist activity. Column 88 claimed responsibility for a fire which burned down the
Gia Monemen piet Theatre
Creek 1978.
au out cacus dune by Millwa® football ground.
wy net local newspaper published the
Confessions of
Ford
Wing Dagenham now joined the picket.
The issues cut: either and the
serious defeat.
Ron
chief on at least three grounds. of getting Harwich
wnet hore wnicn car WORL ON
pickets.
COSS LOrIeS addresses of the victims the Deptford fire, Inet families received racist hate-letters.
The local black community has little confidence police, coachloads of whom weic rouen loror lne 25 January meeting. The emphasis at the meetings has been on black selfdetence and the best way of organising it. day of mourning for the victims is planned. and discussion is tak. ing place on the need for other action.
By Dave Carter,
Councils.
WALKING
lunchtime,
Labour Party right wing. picket lines at Dagenham.
Subsequently seven Silcock drivers were sacked for dump-
at the depot. They have
are now clear the Ford drivers win Silcock drivers are reinstated or both will suffer a
THE drivers' dispute is breaking the new Tory Employment Act
Dockers ure Oo yCOLLe the movement of all Ford cars; Silcock and Collings drivers are picketing
place of work; and there are often
people L/lEn
far there have been no moves from the company or the
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Secretary, Cleveland Assn. of Trades
along Stockton's High Street with a workmate last Friday
managed to achieve every socialist's private fantasy: the chance to take part in a MORI opinion poll for the Sunday Times about the
Don't believe what you read about the polls being conducted "scientifically'
When I realised what the poll was about I went up to the canvasser and volunteered my services - hardly a random opinion!
The canvasser was so delighted at not having to cajole another harassed shopper into taking part that she forgot to ask the opening, but vital cucotiuk. Was _¡ a resident of the Stockton constituency?
the
La number about hons and
Union poll statisticians
electing Labour leader infinitely
and that the social democrats liberals
ment.
Question
But I was flummoxed by the question: In view of the fact that the next Labour leader will be elected by 40 per cent UHIOT voes. should these votes be cast by trade union leaders or by a ballot of trade union members?
I tried to explain that 1 tavoured trade branches formulating the choice, but was told that this was not an 'acceptable' option In the end I plumped for à ballot, but I've had sleepless nights ever since. Pollster My pollster told me that I was the last male elector she needed make up nei 'representative sample'. This was a great pity since by this time several my friends had arrived and were preparing to give similar answers to mine Since this week's Sunday Times poll found that Bill Rodgers would lose his seat if he did not
didate my friends weren't needed.
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← Socialist Challenge No. 182, 29 January 1981Socialist Challenge No. 184, 12 February 1981 →