Socialist Challenge No. 207, 23 July 1981
The scan: sc-no207.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
REPRESSION
No. 207 23 July 1981 25p
Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Challenge'
A WAVE OF POLICE REPRESSION has followed the youth uprising. Evidence is mounting of a vicious campaign by the police and the courts to exact vengeance against youth and black people, against a background 'subversives and extreme iste agitators.
Amongst the evidence * In Hackney in East London a mentally disturbed black man, Winston Rose was taken from his home on 13 July by dozens of police with 'restraining shields'. The next morning he was dead. His family said that his body was 'covered in bruises'. * The have contirmed stories of widespread violence against black youth held in custody in Manchester. Dr Donald Bodey told the Times that he had seen injuries 'I never expected to see in England'. * In addition to the raids in Brixton, police have mounted raids in Southall and other parts of the country. The excuse of looking for 'looted' property is being used to harass and intimidate the black
* Hundreds of youth arrested during the uprising
pleading guilty have been given bail. A curfew has been put on those on bai!, and prison camps are being prepared to house those eventually imprisoned * There are numerous reports of sexual abuse and taunts from male police against young women in custody. * Many relatives have not been able to establish
Unemploved and strikers 100
Socialist
STOP THE
hysteria about
is the following:
Bishop of Manchester and local doctors in general only lose
the whereabouts of youth
suffering.
be given a whole new armoury of repression. * The response of the Labour leadership wave of repression has been pathetic.
vestigate inner-city problems!
his statement was 'very good'.
Instead of
police.
provea correct.
state repression.
arrested during the uprising. Police have given deliberately wrong information to relatives, to increase their distress and
* it has been oroved that police in Liverooc deliberately fired lethal CS gas bullets, designed to penetrate doors and reinforced glass, at people on the streets during the rioting. Now the police are to
to this All they could do was congratulate Whitelaw on his statement in the Commons, including his insulting proposal to send axe-man Heseltine to Liverpool to in-
Even Eric Heffer grovelled to Whitelaw saying
going along with this disgusting spectacle of Labour support for the Tory repres sion, the labour movement should take up the de mand of slinaton south CLP for an amnestv for al those charged during the riots, and the demand for
re-equip the predictions that the technology 01 repression used in the North of Ireland would be eventually used on the streets of Britain, are being
The labour movement must campaign against these repressive moves and against the bans on demonstrations. Only the labour movement has the power to throw back the atmosphere of strong
Dhoto. DM GRANT (Socialist Challenge
Tuesday, 21 July.
the union executive.
Snipe. ficial support.
their jobs.
By Alan Freeman
WE'RE closing down for two weeks for our summer break. We'll be back with another issue on 13 August. But our work doesn't stop while the paper shuts down.
Throughout Britain our supporters are helping Revolution Youth put
sheet on the youth riots. We'll be building massive support for the national demonstration planned
two months
Laurence Scott occupation for jobs in Manchester will be doubled
amas Union of Engineerle
OLDARITA
CAURENCE
COTT S
IN SNIPE
Laurence Scott workers
occupy union HQ
OVER 150 workers from cupied the Engineering Union's head office last
They were protesting at the scandalous behaviour of
A mass meeting of the workers the previous week had voted overwhelmingly to reject the agreement cooked up by the union leadership and the company's boss, Arthur
Now the executive is sending Ken Cure to try once again to persuade the workers to accept the agreement at a mass meeting on Thursday 23 July - a meeting called over the heads of the elected strike committee.
When union general secretary John Boyd and president Terry Duffy were asked by Laurence Scott workers sitting in at the head office what the executive position would be if the mass meeting yet again rejected the agreement, Boyd answered: 'Yes, we would withdraw of.
Boyd and Duffy also informed the police that they have "complete freedom' to clear the building.
The labour movement has to respond immediately to this new threat to the Laurence Scott workers fighting for
See p$ for a report of the events leading up to the picketing of the AUEW executive and the subsequent sit-in at the union HQ
WANTED: £3000
for socialism
and redoubled.
We'll be building CND activities around Hiroshima Day — ilke the 8 August Northern Carnival in which our supporters are heavily involved. And we're building support for the 24 October CND demonstration in London. Help us make it the biggest yet!
In the run-up to this autumn's Labour Party conterence we'l be cam paigning for support for ine Irish nunger sunkes and for an end to Labour's bipartisan policy on Ireland.
And we're also defending our own building. A special security programme has begun following attacks on our
Laurence Scott OCshop and its staff by fascist thugs.
All this campaigning for socialist policies need cash! Our quarterly fune has so far brought in €2,229 from a quarteri: target of £16,500. By ite time we come back from our break we need fs.50 o slay villalzcl Tha: means we're £3,271 s..c.
So we appeal to ?.: readers:
Don't forge!
Socialist Challenge this summer. Send us a donation now to keep our work go ing!
Rush vour cash ic Socialist Challenge. PO Box 50, London.!
Page 2 scan of this page
Liverpool 8 defence committee swings
Editorial
PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Phone 01-359-8189/8180 (editorial and distribution) Labour leaders
back Tory
repression
'WHAT we have to deal with now is to put the police in a position to deal with serious violence restore public confidence.
Thus spake The Right Hon Michael Foot, MP for Ebbw Vale and leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition at the height of the youth rebellion.
Labour MPs have been far more concerned about the protection of the police and the defence of 'law and order' than any protection and defence of those who attempted to break from the despair and hopelessness of Tory Britain.
Last Thursday, the day of the Warrington by-election, Roy Hattersley, chief opposition spokesperson on home af fairs, backed the use of CS gas in Toxteth.
Apparently oblivious to the extensive injuries caused by police use of the gas cartridges he said : "The use of a temporarily incapacitating gas was, tunately, better than death or injury'
Earlier in the week, refused to condemn the use of CS gas and water cannons. wing' Liverpool MP, said that the Tories' plan to send Michael Heseltine to Liverpool 'sounds good'.
Heseltine's swingeing cuts, which are the backbone of policy, have done more to contribute to the total devastation of our cities than anything else. It is an obscenity to send him to Liverpool to 'investigate inner city problems'.
The problem is the Tories - and the Labour leaders who go along with them.
Labour MPs have not been crushed in the rush to state their opposition to both the increased militarisation of the police force and the erosion rights.
They have not spoken out against the bans that have been demonstrations yet again.
They have not spoken out against what amounts to a curfew on all those arrested.
Repressive policing techniques have increased over the last few years, not as a result of the riots as some would have it, but the result of the ruling class's increasing inability to rule by consent.
Bans are enforced, state racism is further institutionalised with the Nationality Bill, and workers' rights are further eroded with Prior's law.
Now we are faced with a new Riot Act and while Labour MPs may bleat a bit, most have been silent in the past in opposing such undemocratic laws as the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The youth rebellion has symbolised all that's wrong with Tory cities allowed to rot while billions of pounds are spent on the country's nuclear weapons.
Labour leaders have to state now that they are for an charged during the recent upsurges.
They have to openly oppose the use of bans and the attacks on the right of communities to defend themselves from racist and fascist attacks.
They have to state that the only solution for youth, for the whole working class, is to get rid of this government once and for all. And that means acting now.
We want a Labour government committed to socialist policies, another one that does the Tories' dirty work for them.
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 2
immediately and
unfor-
Michael Foot
But it was 'leftEric Heffer, who
Tory economic
Ot democratic
imposed on Britain
amnesty for all those
not yet
Defending
ourselves
ELEVEN people were arrested in dawn raids
in Southall on 17 July in connection with the
events on 3 July when Asian youth resisted a
fascist invasion.
Police are conducting house-to-house in-
quires
during the confrontations.
The Southall Anti-Fascist Committee is
calling
the two months
fascist attacks on the black communities and
heavy policing methods.
For further information contact SAFC c/o
9 Pluckington Place, Southall, Middlesex.
BRIXTON Defence
ordinating
throughout the country.
If you have any information write to Brix-
ton Defence Campaign, 41 Stockwell Green,
London SW4.
Socialist
Challenge
If you would like to be put in touch with Socialist Challenge supporters in your area or would like more information fill in the form below
Name..
Address.
Age.
Union/CLP (if any).
Send to: Socialist Challenge, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
into action
Part of the welcome for Thatcher on visit to Liverpool this week
using photographs and films taken
for a national demonstration within protest against
Campaign is codefence campaigns
NewsI
Ken Oxford At the July meetings of the Trades Council and I oxteth Labour Party, delegates were TOIC by speakers from the Liverpool & Detence Committer about the background of Uxiora In Paul Foot's book 'wno killed Hanratty', Foot showed that it was the evidence of a certain Detective-Inspector Kenneth Oxford which sent innocent Hanratty to the gallows.
It was also Oxford who said that the black people •I LIverDool o were unt "product of a liaison between seamen and white prostitutes Again it is Oxford who is responsible for the Feret barricade-penetrating cartridges being used against peopie I direct Cold vention of the manufacturer's instructions Local magistrates are dealing out hefty sentences
RULES
FOR THE RICH
POWERFUL
I TAKE!
7
LIVERPOOL Trades Council has called for the dismissal of the Merseyside Chief Constable,
to those appearing before them Three people who were charged with stealing f20 worth of drink were sentenced to three months in prison. In another case a woman of 65 was fined f250.
Many of the youth who have been held in custody for a week or more appear with black eyes and other signs of beating. In many cases police will only agree to bail if the people charg ed plead guilty.
The Liverpool 8 Defence Committee is meeting on Sunday 26 July at the Caribbean Centre on Up per Parliament to discuss the campaign against Oxford and to plan a demonstration. They can be contactco co Charles Wo Parliament 2, 248 Up. per Parlament Liver pool 8. Tel 051-708 9698/
RULES
KOR THE POOR
ANT WEAK
1 GIVE-IN/
WAIT
3 DONIT
A SHUT-UP
Page 3 scan of this page
Are the police out of control?
that's the
Their rule as an instrument of Tory terror against youth, blacks and the working class becomes plamel SeC repression mounts daily.
Phil Robins, a professional footballer, was shot by Merseyside police during the loxteth uprising on 6 July: He and an
officer were helping people aftected bv Co gas when he was hit in the chest blood was squirting through his hands.
As he tried to get away he was hit again in the back." days later it was revealed that he had been shot with Ferret
tridges' form of CS Carsic. The cartridge pack warns,
ricaae-penetralion only. not fire at any person or crowd.
inflict serious injury should it strike anyone within a range of approximately 300 yards.
The US firearms company who manufacture the cartridge condemned une police action: 'If you're going to fire them directly at you might as well fire live ammunition because you'd have the same effect.
Dragged
In a series of raids on Brixton's 'Frontline', TVs, windows, zutals. mattresses
doors were smashed to bits.
Maureen Boyle, wife of a local councillor Was needn= ed to the ground by a Brixton
Chris Mullin reported Tribune that he saw two young black women in Brixton being dragged into an unmarked
white men in shirt sleeves.
Thev claimed to be police but it took several minutes of argument to make them identify themselves.
When one finally did so, he held his finger firmly over his number and no detail could be noted.
Brixton on 10 July
PLASTIC bullets in Toxteth, wholesale destruction of houses in Railton Road, Brixton, indiscriminate arrests and house to house searches throughout Britain
grim picture of police activity. careful fiction that British police are unarmed, act only in a defensive way and are concerned about community relations has been totally discredited.
Ten
cal" gas
As Mulin went to note the van's number, one of the men brandished a truncheon at him and only just stopped short of coshing him.
of the men called out shit and white trasin, that's all that lives around here.
In another Leyton, East London, a black man with a history of mental ilpeople Iness locked himself in a garden shed. A social worker called in police, ten of whom and smashed down the shed.
On arrival at the psychiatric hospital he was dead'. The family have called shop for an inquiry into the affair.
The day is long gone, it it ever existed, when ponce kept 'consent' of the community.
Firearms in Since 1968 surveillance and control techniques become more with computers, modern equipyoullg ment ot every description. tional para-military co-ordination and tion.
Over the past ten years there has been an almost 700 per cent increase in police, far criminal use.
More than 12,000 rank and
By Toni The Gorton
CRITERION JAFETY MATURE
Ferret barricade penetrating cartridges and police marksman
firearms ToCes have units.
Brixton drew away one
'Black
aroune me nosers.
incident,
which vestigation responsible
arrived areas Strathclyde. Strikes
'found to be
It goes such Britain's Group. rorce order through the Tactical
rorce
control' last week. have
sophisticated, While SPGs
meant to
training,
tions.
Units, arms issued to
outstripping
Home News
file police are trained to use
and several local special firearm
week, plainclothes police were openly displaying sidearms by caretully arranging their sportsjackets
The Special Patrol Group,
police concluded for ine death 01 Zeal Blair Peach in Southall years ago, is organised in some
trom Hampshire to
policy of
› by different names Special Operations support Aid Group or Task
At least 400 members are attached to the Royal Ulster Constabulary to whom chief constables went tor advice on 'riot
are officially provide saturation policing in areas of high crimi they are clearly a para-military force used in public order situa-
black In addition, Police Support supposedly for assisting homes in civil defence after a nuclear war (!), are primarily organised laws for demonstrations and strikes
Training of the estimated
under
battles class the
tions,
11,000 strong PSUs is in 'riot shielther forces inconde the
Other forces include Special Branch, which gathers intelligence about political and trade union activitv. and the 1. legal Immigration Intelligence Unit which has been involved in the recent swoops on tactories
Scarci of 'illegal'
The intensity of the repression of the working class in the inner citv areas
. Thatcher's government. It is not simply a few cops running 'amok' and out of
although this is undoubtedly happening:
little too much police zeal may result in a slight embarrassment but the objectives are clear. Isolate
Get the population used to increasingly militarised police on the streets, isolate and intimidate militants among the
and white youth, sual C the hell out of workers in their
where they are most vulnerable, prepare the way for
that limit rights of assembly, especially demonstrations and picketing, and impose harshe on those infringing the law. Battles
Why? Because the ruling classes know that social tensions are going to get worse not better. There is no possibility
capitalism of returning to full employment, to homes and health care for all.
Thatcher knows that big the horizon, when the central forces of the working class are going to fight to defend the class against the ravages of the economic crisis. Fight
Earlier this year she backed
miners wasn't prepared then but she intends to be next time. Ideologically and materially she is putting her class in the best position to defeat workers in struggle.
Her forces are being trained in the north of Ireland and in the streets of Britain against the youth — it's up to the working
through Party, black, Labour rally, youth and women's organisa-
to take the lead now in our defence.
AMORA KOJONA
to condon iarat далол Group Migrant Action Group
MIGRANT WORKERS
BENEFIT featuring: FROM GUJARAT GARBA
CHILEAN REFUGEE GROUP MAYAPI FILIPINO CHAPLANCY THE FILIPINO DANCE GROUP BANGLADESHI ARTISTS
poetry reading from: T BONE WILSON
IMRU CESAIRE * FIRDOUS ALY speakers: ANWAR DITTA * NASIRA BEGUM
AND MANY OTHERS FROM IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES
EXHIBITION * MUSIC * BAR FOOD FOR SALE
FRIDAY 31st JULY FROM 6pm to 12 midnight TICKETS €2.00 COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTE 230 KENSINGTON HIGH STREET W 8
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page
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In Wales with LSE
By Celia Pugh
LAURENCE Scott workers collected hun-
dreds of pounds and as many messages of
support on a visit to South Wales last week.
In a packed tour,
Challenge, Frank Pennington and Eric Pine
visited stewards and
engineering
meetings with full time AUEW officers in
Swansea, Merthyr, Pontypridd and Newport
and spoke to
Council, Cardiff TASS,
stewards quarterly and Swansea ASTMS.
Without exception,
cucouracie.
plained that it was
workers prepared to take a stand against job
cuts.
matting plant in Merthyr, echoed this,
day they may try to shut us too, but it's Mag-
gie we want out.
with an occupation, we'll give you a hand.'
Many the
organise special stewards' meetings and fac-
tory collections.
plant in Rhymney, shop stewards met before
rrank alla Eric
mediately give £100.
Port Talbot, full time convenors and stewards
from EETPU, Boilermakers,
and UCATT pledged financial backing from
their members.
who work with Laurence Scott motors.
well as meeting officials
Wales NUM executive and six pits, Frank and
Eric spoke to pit head meetings of between 70
and 200 at Tower, Mardy, and Coedely Col-
lieries before the men
Collections will follow. Put see official ate that Cok.
Lodae officials
Board stores and workshops in Tredegar ar-
rangea tor cric and
listing the LSE and Mining Supplies equip-
ment used in South Wales pits.
about blacking can now procede.
By Tessa van Gelderen THE London tube off. The offer of 11.6 per cent without productivity strings has been accepted by the National Union of Railwaymen.
It was Sid Weighell, the NUR general secretary, who had threatened to bring transport workers out. nighly embarrassing to left
Livingstone, hel Greater London Council, paymaster of London Transport.
Credit
Rut the labour GLC cannot claim the credit for the strike threat
avcILcu mediately grant the tube workers a
increase in line with inflation right into the hands of Sid Weighell.
Weighell was never interested in standard of living. All he wanted was to put Ken Livingstone and his comrades on the spot. The effect of the GLC not openly supporting the workers' claim was to demobilise chem
If he had openly united with the
workers Weighell, Ken Livingstone have defeated Weighell and assisted the British Rail workers, Faim still has not been accepted by the British Rail Board.
socialist unallenge 23 July 1981
co-ordinated by Socialist
convenors at 21 union organised factories; had
meetings of Newport Trades an AUEW shop
their reception was A Swansea Ford steward exprivilege to meet
Howard Griffiths, shop steward at a foam
'Some-
Frank and Eric replied, 'If you want help
convenors promised to
At the Hymac earth-moving equipment
Graver one votee to im-
At the British Steel Corporation plant in
TASS, AUEW
Special attention was given to the miners,
from the South
went underground.
This successful tour was rounded off with
Frank to tour around,
Discussions strike is
Photo: PM GRANT (Socialist Challenael
winger Ine the played
members'
Sid Weighell that it would have armed the tube against workers to sucdessfully fight against could future negotiations on productivity.
whose ormed Socialist Challenge that the London Transport More than determined to go ahead with discusPage 4
By Phil Hearse IT IS always a hazardous operation predicting fundamental shifts in British politics on the basis of the evidence of mid-term by-election results. A whole 'Liberal revival' was widely predicted on the basis of the Orpington by-election in 1962 took place.
Similar wide-sweening predictions are being made on the basis of the Warr-
No tube strike, but...
the union
London Thursday, ( militant.
Despite
the
councils tivity.'
A spokesperson for the NUR in
Executive was
News
British politics?
- a revival which never in fact
ington by-election result, which Roy JCHKIS CO 42 per cent of the poll and came within 1,700 votes of
sions on producuvily levels wnich
'agreed with in principle
At a mass meeting of nearly 1000
Transport workers last hours before the tube strike was called off, the mood was
London Transport workers. Ilke those in British Rai find themselves up against productivitv deals made at local level.
Weighell's blusterings tube strike, the union leadership does very little to fight
Geoff Revel, exagainst these deals cutive member of the NUR, formed the mass meeting that 'we are not going to instruct our sections
to implement produc-
Productivity
What all union members want to hear is the executive instructing sectional councils not to implement productivity. British Rail and London Transport workers want a lead from their union leadership
Labour GLC could have contributed to that process Now it has lost the connidence or al least some of its supporters. In the comIng montas lnal may be a nign price to pay as the GLC attempts to implement its election promises and increasingly comes into conflict with the government.
Warrington-towards
the recomposition of
beating the Labour candidate Douglas Hoyle.
Turnout
The Tory vote collapsed completely, from 9,000 to 2,000. Since the total turnout was virtualiv the
she general belenion 1s
the general election, safe to assume that up to 7,000 Tory votes Jenkins - many of them 'tactical' anti-Labour votes
Together with the nearly 3,000 votes which last time went to the Liberals (who were standing aown in Jenkins favour), this amounts somelling like 10,000 votes from non-Labou
voters. out of a total o 12.500 Argue
Nonetheless, a significant minority the Labour vote switched to the SDP. The Labour right have been quick to argue that this represents the disastrous effects of the shift to the left inside the
party. Benn and Scargil
that it is the result of an
of socialist poliabsence
ches media support of the
media support of the SDP.
However the SDP vote is put together in Labour seats, there is no doubt that the aim of the SDP is to deprive Labour of a general election victory, playing une same role as the short-lived social democratic split from the
Australian Labour Party
presents of assessment. The SDP aim
1s o- party system by gent
two-party system getling enough Ivirs to nola the balance of power after the next election
As the price for coSDP would demand the establishment propor tiona representation (PR - thus institutionalising a system of permanent coalltions. PR might well be an inviting solution so long as
sharply polarised es are
sharply makes difficult for Labour ever to get an overall majority.
Crisis
The
vith an SDP-Liberal all ance. would also be highly improbable that the Tories would ever get an overall majority either. Permanent coalition government would tend to permanently 'centre British policies — not so usurgeoisie needs radical useful when even solutions to the crisis.
The which will be debated in the labour
movemenl whether the SDP is media flash-in-the-pan, or whether take
Call significant slice of the Labour vote at the general election. The second, subsidiary question is to what extent this possibility Blame
caused by the move to the lett inside the party - is Bennism to blame?
Much hinges on the
side the Labour Party between now and the election If Benn were elected deputy leader, and the left were
carry the major , policy debates at Labour's Sep-
Al clice. then without doubt another 20-30 Labour MPs would defect to the SP. Crush
It would be naive to believe that with socialist policies ала а left wing
leadership the Labour Par-
would automatically crush the SDP threat. The
left-wing policies automatically unite the whole working class, regardless of cumstances, is mythical even when Labour has 1951,S lanes a tie in
something cent of the : working class VULC Tories. Slice
But the fact that the SDP could well take a slice
the working class Labour Fault of the Lab our lehe vote not
Those to blame are the Wilsons, Callaghans and Healeys who have made large numbers of working people deeply cynical tha Lavoll ever solve their problems.
One point has evaded the • media commentators win been quick
Po Marine near hate
represents to Labour. It is virtually excluded that there will be any upturn in
general electon Tories will almost certain. ly suffer a major defeat. unless they completely change their policies and dump Thatcher for good nicasule
With disillusioned Tory voters going over to the SDP, it is not excluded that the Tories could end up being the third party after a general election. If that happened, then pro portional representation and a historic defeat fo the Tory party would be the outcome.
Page 5 scan of this page
Decisions
conference
opportunity. • Campaign for Tony Benn for deputy, especially in NUPE. the TGWU and the POFU. • Fight against the right wing challenge to the left on the Labour Party NEC. Every district of the AUEW shoulo send resolutions condemning the switch by the union's executive of the Atkinson to Eric Varley for party treasurer. Bernard Dix
and Jo Richardson are also threatened.
• Build support for demonstration on 19 September and all other regional
ane marono aemonvranons aoonst unemniovment
• Bleesce in Black poe demorsday 0 Octob ory Party
conference in lo proCon Eraday af Octobstration om
24 October. • Build support for a national women's right to work
demonstration early next year.
• Consolidate and extend the fight for democracy in the movement inrowon
strengthening of campaigning Broad Lefts in the unions.
Dutty
DENNIS BARRY - Convenor, Joint Shop Stewards Committee, Laurence Scott and Electromotors, Manchester, speaking at the LCC conference
fTHERE'S been a lot of doubt and confusion put about by the press and media as to exactly what's happening at Scotts.
Well, just to clear up any doubts on that question we're down here from Laurence Scott with an official delegation and we're still fighting.
We're in the fourteenth week of our occupation against an attempt by Arthur Snipe, managing director, chairman or ine boara ana emer snarenolact ol Mining Supplies, Doncaster to close us down with the loss oi obo jos ana move all our works to une Laurence Scott factory in Norwich.
We decided not to lie down but to give a platform from which the unions could t1ght.
The support from the rank and file of the unions both inside and outside Manchester has been tremendous but the biggest problem we have faced all along
ELSIE BROAD, former shop steward at Royal Pride Manchester, and a member of the Furniture, Timber and Allied Trades Union spoke at the LCC conference:
WE had been on strike for union recognition at our Manchester furniture factory for 21 weeks up to yesterday (Friday 17 July) when the strike ended.
The have been withdrawn and the workforce has accented severance pav of £150 each. Our dispute shows wnatis wrong with the unions at the
We came out on strike because we couldn't get our boss to pay us the newly agreed
signed FTAT and the employers. We were out for the money and for union recognition for our democratic rights.
Our boss Mr Novak
of the
• Support for all activities, especially industrial action
bloc vote from left winger Norman
Birmingham unemployment establishment and
Laurence Scott
workers picket
The end of a strike
had long said how much he admired the democratic traditions of the British. But when asked about recognising the union he said we must remember that we are workers and he is Ine the boss.
He always said that the union would do nothing for us. Then a couple of days ago OUH union official Joss came to with a deal that had been arranged with Novak. Davidson had assured Novak that f200 would be enough to get the pickets off the gate Vovak offered £150 Davidson wanted a vole ao ovull do possible. One of the girls who had been on the picket
LCC conference
By Mary Jacobs THE first trade Labour Co-ordinating
labour movement. The Tories' policies are in tatters on HENA streets Labour leadership has failed to give any alternative solution to the crisis.
But the LCC ference didn't meet the challenge. Miners leader
Scargill made stirring speech, pleading
'wanting to take people onto tne streets lo change governments. this
has put 3 million on the streets', he added.
But stirring speeches are not enough. The LCC still does not see itself as an open campaigning force has been the Confederation of Shipbuilding Engineering Unions and the executive of the AUEW
official support and backing. Snipe was refusing to even negotiate until we started picketing his Doncaster factory.
Then when he came forward with his very first offer, engineering union leader Duffy and the rest wanlea to torce us lo accept 1l.
Snipe's proposals didn't guarantee a single job. But the officials threatened that unless we accepted them, strike pay and backing for the Doncaster picket would be withdrawn. Our mass meeting on Tuesday last week overwhelmingly rejected the official deal and supported the stewards' position for no enforced redundancies.
Then Ken Cure was sent down from the executive to persuade us to accept the deal. cnance. we are sul in a positon wnere we lave l0 make sure that the executive doesn't pull the carpet from under our feet.
That is why some point we'll have to get rid of Duffy and the 'Magnificent Seven' on the executive.
In the meantime we're fully supporting the campaign by Tony Benn for the deputy leadership.5 Messages of support and donations to LSE stewards c/o G Fryer, 20 Roundcroft, Romiley, Cheshire.
Photo:
Elsie Broad
line since the beginning was off sick last week
til Monday. I rang her before the vote. I asked her if she would call it off for £150. She said: 1 wouldn't call it off for £1,000. We're out TOY union recognition.
But the official
Home News
union conference of the Committee met last Saturday at a crucial turning point for the
of Toxteth yet the
inside the unions. This was clear from the poor attendance from key unions like engineering transport, rail stee ace ine momes
Many Labour parties were represented at the correrence our ne succes of the Benn campaign and ultimately government committed to implement socialist policies, will depend on the unity that can be forg ed between the unions and the party.
and
When you're fighting people like Snipe you need
But he had no
we are picketing it this Tuesday. At wouldn't accept the proxy vote or delay the vote until Monday. The girls voted to accept by a majority of one vote. Immediately after Novak called us in and on his desk was the money. It had all been cut and dried between Novak and Davidson.
Activist
On the way out Davidson asked me: 'Elsie, do really think you could have won that strike? 'If you had tried as hard to win as you've tried to sell us out then of course we could, ' I replied.
Then he said: 'You're
union activist now Will we be seeing you at branch meetings?
I turned to him and said: 'You bet your life you'll be seeing me at branch meetings. I'll be there just as long as it
get rid of LANES you and your kind from out of our unions.'
Verbal opposition is not enough
The LCC should be organising lo provide Ina focus now. should
workers confronting this
workers like those in Laurence Scott occupying against closure; workers uke inose Lee Jeans, fighting for woman's rignt lo work
At the same time as Un gallising solidarity and support for these strus gles the LCC shoul launch a campaign of mass
agitation not to protest against unemployment, but for a 35 hour week and worksnaring will no loss of pay.
Bob Wright, was assistant general secrețary of the engineering union. the engineering executive manoeuvred to reverse the decision of a mass meeting to continue the occupation, the delegation sat in at the union HQ
This branch/conference/trades women are bearing the brunt of unemployment.
women's economic dependence is acceptable.
of the labour movement
tion for a woman's
importance of women's independence,
ana loo scoiezaliol
who raised the real prolaunching fightback: 'The labour movement is in crisis because those who led us to betrayals are still, by and large, in positions leadership, and are held guilty for those betrayals by the mass of ine movement There is a search on for leaders and policies. the past, he said, betrayals had been covered calls unity — but always on the basis policies. of What was needed right Willg
now was a unity based on left wing policies It was therefore a great Pailed to break with some conference of the, at best, ambiguous statements, trom the
LABOUR
CO-ORDINATING
COMMITIEE
Three bus-loads of Laurence Scott workers came down from Manchester last Tuesday to picket
union executive. When the For a woman's
right to work
demonstration
Model resolution for Trade Unions and Labour Parties
council notes that
One of the factors affecting women and not men 1s the view, still all too common in the labour movement that women's right to work is an optional extra, and that
This is an ¡dea that saque de oodose ana chanensea oy tric wiiurc
We therefore call on the leadership of the labour and trade union movement to organise a national demonstra-
right to work.
The slogans of the demonstration should stress the
neee lo defence and extension of services, especially childcare the special neea to detend part timers Jobs, the tight io adequate maternity leave, and the fight against low pay
The demonstration should include special facilities for children, and in the localities the labour movement should be encouraged to organise creches for the day.
Labour leaders
Con ine riots. Even Tony Benn assured the conference that the Labour Party did not believe in rioting as a route to social progress, nol was de preparea lo ser the police injured in the
of their duties.
Course
While at great pains to roundly condemn a Tory Labour vall oll Ireland unemplovment. and racis legislation, the conference did not distance itself from the Foots, , Hattersleys and Hellers when it came to the riots. Youth
While 'understanding the underlying causes for the riots, no one called for
amnesty for those charged or defended the youth NO argued the need for the unions and the Labou Party to reach out and organise black and white unemployed youth under the banner of Jobs not Bombs.
The massive CND demonstratior planned for the autumn against nuclear weapons, along with the TUỚs lobby for unemployed youth were ideal initiatives LCC to build over the coming months
from the floor, national secretary Post Office Engineerine TInion's Broad Leit. io 2) plain how control could 5: wrested trom the right :: the unions. Victim
If Benn's campa:e:
Photo: PM GRANT (Socialist Challenge)
was to be success! bloc vote was crucia the POEU, the Broad de had openly campa:g: for a programme w had won them 9 our c: places on the execut: =
Although Phil Holt a mitted that the Broad Le:
much stronger amor was the branch officials tha. the rank and file, he ex plained that the problem with Broad Lefts in the past they hai been electoral machines.
'In a period of reac mere electoral machine can tim of an alliance between an more effective right wing electora machine and the mas:
An effective LCC needs to be a campaigning LCC. It is not enough, a Harriet Harman, from the Transport Union, policy of a woman's righ: simply nave to work without activel! campaigning for positive action for women employment and job train ing. Support
Nor is it enough for the or anv section o the labour movement ic verbally Employment UUUS Bill Prior's The
most effective oppositio: to the Bill is for Scargill ic
Laurence workers on the picket lines at Mining Supplies at Don
caster, and boycort ot all the company's pro ducts
Only then can the LCC play a real and effective role in securing Benn as deputy leader and in sup porting thost struggling against this Tory govern.
- a government tha! has to be removed as soon as possible.
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page!
Page 6 scan of this page
The horror of Hiroshima
THE message will be rock not rockets in Alexandra Park, Manchester August when thousands are expected to attend the Northern Carnival Against the Missiles.
John Cooper Clark will be among those providing the music when bands, activists from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and speakers labour movement will be uniting in a mighty sound of protest against missile madness.
The date for the carnival has been deliberately chosen as the nearest possible weekend to the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although those who initiated the carnival - members of Young CND in Manchester — were not even alive when these fateful bombs were dropped.
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981
from the
Attracting will be Hawkwind, Spirit and others.
and anti-missile movements.
Page 6
Rock not rockets
Kerry Wade of Young CND said: 'A big carnival will bring in kids who just go for the music. But we hope that they will leave the event at least sympathetic to the ideas we'll be putting across.
the youth to the carnival aluriel There will be stalls at the event and speakers from the labour
Kerry explained: 'I felt the Anti Nazi League carnivals weren't strong enough on politics. Of course they were fun, and so will ours be, but we do aim to put out a lot of propaganda to make the aims of the carnival — nuclear disarmament —
Stop the missiles
absolutely clear.
The youth content of the carnival will be very high. Kerry believes: 'When the older generation see youth on the streets, they're going to wonder what they're doing sitting on their arses.
'Youth will inspire people who think nothing can be done about nuclear war. But we do need the chance to do our own thing and organise ourselves.
Another Young CND member helping to organise the carnival is Kate Denn ing. 'Luckily', says Kate, taking place in Moss Side. type of carnival atmosphere people in that area can create.
By Bob Pennington 'MY watch stopped at 8.15. It was 6 August. As 1 got slowly to my feet after the blast, the yellow dust that had enveloped everything gradually dispersed to reveal literally a hell on earth — half-burned people, their skins peeled, hanging in strips, the flesh raw, groaning in agony. there. Some were trying to escape'
That is how one surVIWUL described Kiyoshi the day Sakuma the
United States dropped a bomb on Hiroshima. The bomb was equal to 20,000 tons of TNT Today there are bombs 500 times as powerful.
So, on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, imagine the effects five hunoreo limes over ot what happened there.
conservative estimate a quarier million people died when
two Jabanese cities 580,000 were injured in the bombed. Another holocaust. Up to 1.2 kilometres from the centre of the explosion people simply shrivelled and roasted.
Burns
Even four kilometres away thermal radiation
was 20 times greater than that from in sas badiy and fulllal burned. skin The was fireballs
reached temperatures of several million degrees centigrade. has been estimated that 50 per cent of the deaths in the two
bombings resulted from ourlls.
By Tom Marlowe
11am
Manchester.
ch.
These include 'the carnival is We know the All in all,
August.
Unable to move they crouched
As the moisture condensed on the particles activated by the explosion, a 'black rain of lethal ash and dust fell over the two cities. Houses which had been seriously damaged by the blast were completely destroyed by fire. Large steel structures such as factories were stripped bare of roofing and walls by the blast wave, resulting twisted, skeleton-like shells.
Hibakusha
An American nalist on the scene, Hersey, reported the experiences of those around him. There was the case of a German priest, Wilhelm Kleinsorge:
'When he penetrated the bushes he saw there about 20 men and they were all in exactly the same nightmarish state Lnel
faces were wholly burned,
LOCU eye sockets hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks... their
mouths were mert swollen, pus-covered wounds.
1 ne survivors were
called Hibakusha literally those wAG had
seen hell. Many had other
The aftermath
The day of protest and fun will start
when a demonstration will assemble in Strangeways car
park l A brass band and a stee band will then lead an anti-missile mar-
ts nopeomna tenanre memoers u the labour movement will agree to speak during this part of the day's activities.
Already a number of union branches have given their support to the carnival.
branches from the AUEW, TGWU and NALGO.
Alexandra Park, Manchester will be the place to be on
Shells to suffer the Leukaemia TULUC genetic defects, retarded malignant ucyciu olilcilt. diseases, cancer of the lung, the breast and thyroid, were just some of the after-effects of the bombs.
Myth
One of the worst was Keloids, thick overof scar tissue ZOWLS which led to a horrible disfiguration of the skin By March the number of people given onca Hibakusnu totalled nearly 370,000. It is not a static figure. Even now there are still-born deaths or infants are boros grolcsuucly deformed due to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The diseases will be passed or to generation after generation.
Despite all the horrors which flowed from the dropping of the first atomic bombs, the myth is still peddled that they might have saved lives that the bombings did at least ena with Japan. Defeated But even Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the 'Allied Forces, Dorome US President wa later
later to admit that, . Japar was already defeated... wasn'1 niccessaly to hil them with that awful thing'.
Jobs not Bombs T-shirt. Red and black on yellow Ideal for all un. employment and CND demos. Only €2.99 incl p&p Sizes
and neorum larce Orders SCD T-shirts, PO Box 50, London N1. Cheques payable to "The Week'.
The reason whv the bombs were dropped has been explained historian John Bagguley:
"The decision to use the atomic bomb had been made at a higher, political level: not in order to defeat
with the minimum Jaball expenditure of American lives, but in order to induce a Japanese surrender before the . forthcoming
ManSoviet hflyasiul churia had time to take efControl
'If an immediate peace could be obtained, the controi oi japan in the postwar Woro. ane predominant influence in th
Asia, TaClC Cas would pertain to the United States alone, viet trammelled claims to intluence. The sudden surrender of
would Japan, MOOTCOVCI. underline the immense. atomic power now American disposal.?
So, the bombs dropper
on Hiroshima and Nag saki had the purpose of out-influencing the Sovie Union. In that respect they were not so much directed against Japan but as i warning to the Soviet Union. They were a 'preemptive strike'
That over a million people died, were in-
jured or have suffereo
the effects was, for the United States the price to be paid for the securi-
ty of US 'democracy'.
Page 7 scan of this page
BEHIND THE WEDDING
Pages 7-10 by The Crisis of Representation Group (and thanks to Mike Abrahams/Network/Dave Hampshire / Chris Steel-Perkins:
The ROYAL WEDDING Official Seemi
subjects.
tionary social order
Todav.
obstructing changes mains.
This month's episode of the soap opera of the extra-but-ordinary Windsor family is the marriage of their eldest son. This is a saga of epic proportions threatening to involve the entire population of Britain as "loyal' extras.
On the production side the entire resources of the BBC have been deemed inadequate and additional cameras have been flown in. The audience for this special episode is no less than the world, with the latest development in satellite technology beaming the happy couple to an ex• pected 750 milion viewers in the •Common wealth' and sympathetic capitalist countries.
The bill is picked up by Her Majesty's loyal
From the point of view of the British ruling class and its establishment the marriage is a timelv reintorcer of the cherished mvth of na tional unity. The royals are put to work in the service of maintaining a dominant and reac
, the monarchy, having lost its posi tion with the downfall of the aristocracy, is a
hostage of capitalism But the privileges given to the present 'royals' are no freely given by the ruling class
They are given in exchange for the work of
and suppressing progressive in Britain and the neo-colonial do-
This role would be certain to come to the fore in the event of the election of a socialis government determined to govern in the interests of working people.
Socialis: C-a enge
Page 8 scan of this page
The two ugly sisters were horrified to discover that Cinderella was the beautiful princess who had been at the three balls. ne were so angry that they were pale with rage.
At the palace, the King was glad to welcome his son's bride. He arranged a magni heent wedding lor the prince and inderela All the kings and queens, the princes and princesses, in the land, came to the wedding. The wedding feast lasted a whole week.
And so Cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after.
wanted OFFICIAL SOUVENIR
DAILY EXPRESS precise specifications.
PAST (no more Mrs
lover. the family her lineage,
ly.
The girl next door, Diana, as she was at three—at Park House, Sandringham
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 8
But Lady Diana did not need long to make up her mind,
I never had any doubts about it. It's what I always
•We want to make her like a fairy princess' said the
designers of the wedding dress.
LADY DI-THE
GIRL NEXT DOOR
REGARDLESS of the actual Diana Spencer, the 'Lady Di' image is built from nothing to
She must have NO Simpsons) - so her father assures journalists she never had a
She must, of course, be Aristocracy - so her Family Tree discovers a common ancestor in the homosexual Henry VI. She must be fertile, but not earthy, attractive but not astounding, bright but not a know-all.
She will lead fashions, change definitions of intelligence and beauty, must be constructed as the personification of
SO that we, families, will identify with her.
Thus we see 'The Lady Diana' slumming it in Kensington, doing her own shopping and even working in a kindergarten - a job she gave up as soon as she got engaged.
This identification works twice level of wish-fulfillment, the fairy story, and at the level of families we know. In her ordinariness we are meant to forget her class,
her wealth, and rejoice in the assured continuation of another Royal Fami-
public... but above all,
from our own
- at the
Janet Reger, renowned for her slinky, sexy lingery, favourite with Lady Di WOMANS OWN
She knew how to shoulder her new responsibilities...
She plunged through the crowd SUN
It gave Britain an uplift ..........
It caused cleavage amongst the
DAILY EXPRESS
up'
ALL THE WORLD loves a lover - especially a fairy princess live again our dreams. In our fantasies, again carefully constructed, conquer all - a force so powerful it could even thrust us onto the throne of England against insurmountable odds. ing will do anything to get us ......
on earth, Romance remains the most popular form of literature. Reality, we all know, is a little different... behind the courting lies the erotic, the sexual and the State power, feudal oppression, huge inequalities of wealth and privilege. political rather than romantic reasons... choice was narrowed to around 30 high-born ladies.. and so on.
Romance realities, but by glorifying their trappings. We are invited to celebrate the wedding publicly, titillate ourselves privately by thinking about the wedding night, and thereby accept continuing relations of power. is a firm Her friend said, 'She's so domesticated, she always seemed to be washing dishes or cleaning
THE ROYAL WEDDING
- because through her we can
we believe love can
Prince Charm-
In England today, the most literate nation
He was told to get married for
the
works not by forgetting the
lines
rakish,
DAILY MAIL
40272
OF POSITIOn DAILY EXPRESS For the monarchy it means that the direct succession is almost certainly assured.
OFFICIAL SOUVENIR We are asked to celebrate a wedding made to identify with a family.
are human, fallible
because families inherit (while
give (while capitalism takes).
family album, do
KOD-
Lady
Diana
Barbara Cartland says: "The royal wedding mirrors where a virginal heroine like Di falls passionately in love with a man of nobility not raffish, characteristics, like Charles.'
told me she WoUld marry for love, not for money Her father, E physical speci In the later sta subjected to a that she could WOMANS O
- but Why? Not simply to take our minds off Thatcher and unemployment. But because families endure (while capitalism does not); because families
and accepting (while capitalism is technical, divisive and ruthless;
capitalism disinherits); and because, above all, families
But wouldn't a President, complete with
just as well? Not so.
Presidents have to be elected (by someone),
Page 9 scan of this page
Prince
Charles
Spencer, said 'She was always a fine
of her romance with Charles, she was reet gynaecological check out to ensure r him heirs.
they can
political power and they represent, in some
sense, the people. To the monarchy all this is
alien - they represent an unrepresentative
class, vestigial,
politically outwitted,
dent. They represent the past - knights in ar-
mour, wild Welsh Princes with silver tongues
- they represent tradition, a false history,
become, for the English, their passion and
their torment.
position,
unat or the nurer.
historical The dashing bachelor sowed a few wild oats... but at heart he was always looking for discreet English rose...
WOMANS OWN One favourite swear word from Prince Charles angry crowd 'Bloody' was the word. that was enough to calm down aemonstraung Delhi University. The students, all members of a militant Hinau frour compilining nd bint virginity tests conducted on Indian women by immigration of ficers at London's Heathrow Airport.
DAILY MIRROR be impeached, they have real
overtaken history,
economically depen-
precisely as it is presented in school, and thus
WHILE SHE is rapidly constructed to fit the
Future Queen, he occupies a position constructed over the centuries
The task is to re-construct a ruler while concealing the ruled. Thus this ruler has sown a few wild oats, is active, dashing, even rakish — but he'll settle down to be a good constitutional monarch.
There are two lines of connection - the
monarch. genetic heir to Kings of Olde that put the 'Great' in Britain, but also a practical leader of men, a military uniform, a hint of the forces of the state - but so symbolic that we cannot hold him accountable for the massacres of history, the rubber bullets in Belfast and the CS gas in Toxteth.
This silenced an yesterday.
And
StudenT
complaining about
the for their birthright"
THE ROYAL WEDDING I am entering the RAF anc then doing the navy because I believe can SONCEHE LO doing.
THE ROYAL WEDDING
TRUNK CALL
FOR CHARLES!
Of earlier Princes of Wales: Some won their french...otgers hers died travely in battle, righting
others died bravely in battle, fighting contribute LIY UY SU roadblock
THE ROYAL WEDDING
come at £300,000 a year.
LABOUR RESEARCH
THE FAMILY OF THE
COMMONWEALTH
AS A 'Family' of loyal nations the Empire lies in ruins. continuing the sham Prime Minister Conferences', cil, Royal visits monarchy 'rule' Britain - well England, excepting of course Wales, parts of Bristol, Bradford, Southall... pool...
There's the answer.
Back. Naked class struggle, sion, racism and bloodshed, for so long kept out there in the colonies, is now reimported to metropolitan Britain.
The 'troublesome natives, by a Royal Word, are now who join unions and run British Rail.
event and the aristocracy family reunion, we, the 'consumers' are constructed as (loyal?) subjects
Royalty mirrors the real construction of their political power. Commander-in-chief of the armed forces but unable to direct their actions, chooser of governments but unable to make policy, owner of fabulous wealth but unable to distribute it, titular head of state but unable to marry a black; commoner... foundly conservative system whose options are only open to anti-democratic forces... it is inconceivable that the three-pronged coalition of Capitalist, Monarchy and the Armed Forces elected Left government to take power.
The home of the Prince and Princess of Wales joins a list of distinguished properties Charles Gloucestershipeand London esch accountie, Wiltshire
As Duke of Cornwall he is entitled to all the revenues from the Duchy. The land involved is about 140,000 acres, including not just Cornwall, but most of Kennington, South London Latest estimates put the Prince's personal in. Why does the ruling class insist on
the 'Commonwealth , the Privy Coun- instead of letting the
and Brixton and Liver-
The Empire Strikes violent oppres
once silenced British workers
While the capitalists construct a media
construct their
The careful construction of the image of
For a catholic, this is the formula for a pro-
would ever allow a democratically
Doing the
Royal
Reggae
2 said on horse le Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 10
Page 11 scan of this page
Support the youth
IF socialists needed any confirmation of the importance socialist policies, ( weeks have surely provided it.
Revolution recognises nese events for what they are — outbursts of rage which offers youth no future at all. They are massive working class youth, black and white. common desire to hit back at the representatives of Tory Britain.
But we also know that umiess une energy or liese uprisings can be harnessed and directed. unless it can be linked to the fight of the whole of the working class against the Tory
overnment, the rebel-
ions will peter out battered down by riot police, water cannon and rubber Dulets.
Socialist Challenge supporters can play a vital role in channelling this
The fight should Clickey. be taken up in union branches and local Labour Parties TOr The labour movement to support and aciena une youll lacing massive police repression
The shameful stance of labour movement leaders in failing to defend ine youth from Tory rebellion has Chanengea.
But we need to do much HOIC than this.
Socialists should reach out
rebellious VOULE SUBSCRIBE TO
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six veas monson or ourgary. weve vears aler. neelu the Muslims and spent what was to be the last year of his life developing his political ideas.
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life and ideas of Malcolm X by brutal murder but rich in political ideas and action.
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organising
themselves, and help them to organise politically. To do this we need a socialist youth organisation.
Revolution Youth, together supporters within the LPYS, is working to build such an organisation. We alreauy occh oul on the in force, selling SLICCES discussing with Jaucis. people and organising meetings.
We have been fighting for the LPYS branches to do the same that whole new force of youth can be brought directly inthe struggle for socialism. Such an approach would enormously strengthen the whole of
But all this costs The ICSOULLES of Revolution Youth are already badly overstretched, and we're aimproduce free 4-page broadsheet centred on the rebellions to boost the work of our supporters on the streets.
So we would ask Socialist Challenge SUDporters both to help our political work the rebellions locally and also to send us a hefty financial donanon.
You can contact Revolution at PO Box 50, London NI 2XP.
An Autobiography by by Malcolm X and Alex Haley,
Malcolm X joined the Black Muslims after spending
He died a black nationalist and a revolutionary inter-
There is much for socialists today to learn from the
• a life cut tragically shott
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Ireland to be major issue at
By Geoff Bell UNLESS Margaret abandons her 'no talks' no concessions' the H Block hunger strike the recently formed Irish coalition government is likely from office within weeks.
The Fine Gael/Labour presently survives by two. But there are two Irish MPs who are unable and unwilling to take their seats in the Irish parliament. hunger strike Kieran vorerly. other is fellow H Block prisoner Paddy Agnew.
Kieran is likely to die this week and when that happens Paddy resign his s il probably lead to the scal The resulting elections election of two candidates from the opposition Fianna Fail party. parliamentary majority premier Garret FitzGerald would be wiped out.
That is why FitzGerald is now applying considerable pressure on Britain to compromise over the demands of the hunger strikers.
Last week 1t was revealed that FitzGerald had sent a letter to US President Reagan, 'the contents of OVER 50 resolutions on Ireland have been submitted to the Labour Party conference in October. The withdrawal bipartisanship on Ireland.
Altogether there are four times as many resolutions were submitted last year the rapidly growing feeling within the rank and file of the Labour Party that Ireland should be an issue in British politics.
Many of the resolutions are based the model circulated by Labour Committee Ireland. Among its demands is a call for ending of the Loyalist right to vero ary bonlical seLLIci ment in Ireland.
Contrary to the clear reelng in une consuluen
ecutive to produce a policy in Ireland has come out in favour of such a veto.
It has recommended to the NEC that a North oi Ireland referendum would Have loves towards Irish unit pprov any
With the in-built Loyalist majority in the North of Ireland — a ma-
artificially would mean there would be no prospect of such unity.
The study group's proposals were due to be debated by the NEC as Socialist Challenge went to press. ine leadership support the study group's last minute decision back Loyalist veto they will face
opposition should they try and sell that line to the party conference.
But if nothing else, it is obvious that serious debate on Ireland is well underway in the Labour Party.' That is one victory for the Labour Committee on Ireland.
The next one would be to win the conference to support for a commitment
Incontera withdrawal.
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981
HBlock crisis threatens
Irish government
Thatcher and the White House, thern Ireland and the prisoners'. attitude to
her intransigent stance to fall Gerald's international several premier Lority of majority direct talks strikers.
One iS Quoting a LOC obbying effort ever seen will from this country'.
tor direct talks with The Irish pet in Ireland
lasted.
This effectively
tional Red Cross. beneved there could be no
prisoners by the government. vast majority call for British and a break from Labour/Tory
By Geoff Bell Page 12
which' according to a spokesperson at
'dealt with NorThe euer was wdc y coorce to ocabic for Reagan to tell Thatcher to drop
That has not been the limit of Fitz-
endeavours.
Accoier has as leis Timesther ich
asked number
on the British government to enter in-
with hunger
'source close to the government' the Irish Times said the
'the and far beyond anything the British have ever had
On Sunday Britain again rejected the chorus of international demands
the DEsUliCIs.
Humphrey Atkins — Thatcher's pup.
declared he would not negotiate while the hunger strike
ended the latest 'peace' intervention from the Interna
They also as l have told Britain thai progress unless there were direct negotiations with the
= Labour
conterence
Irelandı
FitzGerald is now likely to take an increasingly nostue public against Thatcher, especially after the scenes outside the British Embassy in Dublin on Saturday when there
casmes Derween demonstrators and the Irish police
The scene in Dublin after Irish police had attacked H Block demonstrators
Wing calling out the army to protect the stance Embassy from the wrath of the Irish
people is due to take place there next Saturwere day Block
Farm tactics against sul aluls will By Loretta Loach
community Ireland, driven to discrimination in employment, took to the streets to demand equal rights.
In doing so, they were met with the same brutal repression that rebels in Liverpool, London, Manchester were met with last week.
No one would uprisings had identical causes but one thing remains common to them both: the brutal response of the ruling class.
Groups of police officers are now being trained in the use of plastic bullets, CS gas, and water cannons. They are to be equipped with specially protected vehicles, that of a militarised police force such as the Royal VIstel operates in the northern six counties of Ireland.
The techniques of repression, for the first time in 'mainland' Britain, have been well perfected in the British
Dall plastic bullet — one of the most valuable weapons ever produced' according to the British military — was first introduced in the North of Ireland in August 1972.
Several people have died having been shot at point blank range with this weapon. Many more have been maimed and seriously injured.
The water cannon, used frequently in former British colonies was first used in Derry in October 1968. Nearly one year later, civil rights demonstrators in Derry were choked and sickened by CS gas
To: TOM, PO Box 353, London NW5 4NH
Name.
Address.
• Tel. no..
Organisation (if applicable)
strength when another demonstratior
But FitzGerald knows that strong Block demon- make seCure own
See how the Irish revolt!
North movement. anger housing and
ference
Birmingham and
suggest that these
the anti-riot gear and stabulary befitting
Constabulary
used been suppressed.
of Ireland The
tunity. the slip below: 1 am interested in joining the TOM mass delegation to West Belfast on 8/9 August. Please send me further information.
government. Because of the growing OI feeling in the : South of • ne aesper ately needs an H Block solution Otherwise the H Blocks on the one hand and Thatcher on the other will his premiership one of the snortest in irisa mistory
The Irish' experience provides important lessons for the British labour
These expressed in Tony Benn's speech at last weekends' Labour Co-ordinating Committee Con-
, where he attacked repression in Ireland and said: 'We must not allow the government to try this policy again here.
It would be dangerous, he continued, to respond to riots by turning the police into 'temporary armies of occupation'.
The British Army, which went on the streets of Derry and Belfast in 1969, was meant to be only 'temporary'. Instead, it has ended up perfecting the technology of repression and passing the lessons on
sectarian Royal Ulster con-
Last week police chiefs from Britain went to visit the RUC to study their methods of dealing with popular revolt. But what these British cops didn't seem to notice was that the Irish revolt has not
So perhaps blacks, youth and labour movement l ganisauons i cas country could in turn learn something from those who have resisted repression in the North of Ireland. Fortunately the Troops Out Movement is providing such an oppor-
It is organising a mass delegation to Belfast on the weekend 8/9 August. It will mark the 12th anniversary of British troops in Ireland and the 10th anniversary of internment - which has now been replaced by the notorious H Blocks.
For further details of the TOM delegation phone 01-267 2004 or fill in
Page 13 scan of this page
Israel moves to war in Middle East
S'tea dance' disaster
By Davy Jones MANY heads rolled week's Polish Communist Party congress. First to go was former party leader Edward Gierek. was expelled from the party for his part in the corruption mismanagement which brought
country to the economic chaos.
Next to be cleared out were many old Central Committee members. Onlv 18 of the 146 members of the old CC elected by secret ballot to the enlarged 200-strong body. Thirty-three of the 49 regional party secretaries got the chop, incluaing tose trom Poznan, Krakow and Katowice.
Hardline
Many former top leaders were given the thumbs down. Head of State Henryk Jablonski, General Moczar and Tadeusz Grabski, Moscow-backed 'hard men', failed to be elected to the new CC. Even Mieczyslaw Jagielski who signed last By Toni Gorton ISRAEL'S attack on Beirut, the capital of Lebanon on 17 July represents a major escalation in its terror campaign in the Middle East.
400 civilians dead and several hundred injured, follows hard on the heels of the Israeli bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor on 7 June and months of repeated bombing and shelling of towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin declared: 'We shall continue to attack terrorist bases and headquarters even if they are purposefully located in the vicinity of, or within, civilian concen-
Syria
Earlier this year on 28 April Syria removed anti-aircraft missiles from Lebanon aler Begin had warned that Israel would ICOULL LU "military action' and shot down two Syrian helicopters.
The Syrian Foreign Minister Abdul Khaddam pointed out that Israel just 'wants security for its planes to bomb and
population centers and Palestinians. So Israel wants the uncontested right to strike at peaceful Lebanese...
NEWS DIGE.
19 JULY 1981
3,000 killed
by Yangtse
THE Yangtse river's has 3,000 people and Chinese officials 3.WVU day. A huge surge of floodwater
due Gezhouba this weekend.
In Taipeh, Taiwan, there are plans 10 air-drop reliet stricken mainland Sichuan. Ines balloons reicased from a military base will be
in Taiwan.
at last
and
brink
were
Solidarity
Warsaw, Gdansk,
congress in that the party the This latest move, which resulted in over
Several days before,
Reagan had received a let-
ter from Begin in which
the situation in Lebanon was compared the period leading up to the
1967 Arab-Israeli war.
This war was initiated
by the Israeli regime with a series of Israeli air strikes against the Egyptian air
force and followed by the
destruction of the Syrian
and Jordanian airforce
and the capture of large
pieces of territory
Zionist forces. Altered
But 1981 is not 1967
and the international
balance of forces has
altered in favour of the op-
pressed and the working
Although the British express
vacal lay
its 'extreme concern' and
Reagan described
worst flood of
than nore
injured meally
said yester was reach China's biggest dam at
ince the
SuoUlIes
province
delivered by
No Comment
Polish CP congress:
Solidarity lost his CC place.
It wasn't only 'hardliners' who were edged out of leading positions. Tadeusz Fiszbach, noted as a leading 'retormer also failed to be elected to the CC.
Forty members of the new independent trade union movement solidariti were elected to the party Central Committee. One of them. Loria Grzyb. a party member for thirty years is the first woman ever to be elected to the party
The emergency party congress with its election bv secret ballot representea a major break with the usual 'democratic'
Hastenti Europe. The fact members were able to old leaders shows the
F-16 MADEIN US.A.
DEFENSIVE USE ONLY!
ANY OFFENSIVE USE OF THIS
AIRCRAFT WILL RESULT IN
A WRIST-SLAPPING
'vexed and perplexed' the likelihood WOOLCIl. governments limiting stopping the Israeli war drive is remote.
Depends
American imperialism depends on the existence
19 JULY 1981 ght re lol Daily at tne
Be 10
See Friday the dead, red, hotel in Kansas an when two crowded mait 12-month-old building he
?l0w.
International
Old wine, new bottles
strength of the movement for workers democracy in Poland since last summer.
But these dramatic changes in personnel at the top don't represent a real revolution. Any doubts were soon settled by the Soviet press who cautiously welcomed the outcome of the congress.
And Polish workers brought down to earth Minister Jaruzelski calmly announced at the end of the congress that they would have to pay for the economic crisis by price rises of Poods tutes and oil!
Airline
Such an attack on standards is bound to deepen the growing unrest. This week (LOT) workers are due to take further of the Israeli state as its main ally, in the Middle casI against lne Arab revolution, especially sinc he overthrow of the Shal in Iran.
Without US aid Israel would sink without trace. Each vear Israel receive $2.2 billion in US
No 3:95 Price 35D
THE SUNDAY TIMES
AT LEAST 111 people died on
rubble-strewn dance floor at the Hyatt Regency
City, Missouri, balconies in DIUKe away and crashed onto the guests hotel
City Regency, sh bodies, dragged from the were laid out among million ide flower The
av valatus on this score Debate
were soon when Prime
to 110 per cent
of the former view
gles. workers' living
Polish airline governmental aid and another $1 billion from the US Jewish community.
Condemn
Following the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor the United Nations Security Council
111 die in US hotel
by Florence Frischer, Kansas City cular walkways, built along the west wall of the lobby.
The ballroom, the size of a football pitch, was the pride of the Hyatt chain, which is renowned for its adventurous, imaginative
architecture. The Kansa: 40 stories high, , was opened in 1980, at a cost of $50
balconies, though quite
strike action. They are campaigning for the right to nominate their own boss and to veto appointments made by the party
These twin themes of defending living standards and fighting for workers' control will dominate the coming months now that the party congress I OUL OILK way. The party leadership will increas ingly try to saddle Solidarity with responsibility for solving the economic crisis.
As the union movement prepares for its own congress in August, the debate is shaping up between those who accept the need for a joint government/Solidarity partnership to solve the economic crisis and those who favour the workers charting an independent course. Acceptance
could lead to the •emorausanor or me workers and the loss of the gains of the past year's strug-
And whatever new faces are at the top of the Polish CP, they would like nothing better than to wear down the new union movement and get rid of it altogether.
unanimously to strongly condemn the venture although without calling for any sanctions.
The US delegate Jeane Kirkpatrick stated at that time 'Nothing has happen cu unal ll ally way dilei the strength of our com mitment or the warmth of
wants wille aiscussing tactics. hurt. One of the sound technici-
standing on " It started
Dans, walkway, said: someone stepping on a hardwood floor-a creak—-then the thing came down like a deck ot
woman, Betty Nelson, had been trapped for 40 minutes under wreckage, recalled: old lady
SHOW where you
stand with
SOLIDARNOSC
T-shirt. Small, large
and medium sizes.
Just f2.99 (incl p&p)
from SCD T-shirts,
PO Box 50, London
N1 2XP. Cheques to
'The Week'. our feelings'.
She said 'We in the Reagan administration, are proud to call Israel a friend and ally.'
Inflation
Israel's international isolation and the catastrophic Stalle 01 economy - it has a cur rent inflation rate of 133
- has grown out of Israel's permanent war against the Arab peoples.
The military war against the Palestinians, against i the Arab revolution and the measures that nave been taken against the Jewish workers within Israel are necessary maintain Israel as a Zionist
Force
The recent elections show that the Jewish working class has not yet broken from Zionism
deep discontent.
The only force that can turn back the Israeli wal drive is the revolutionary mobilisation of the Arab and Jewish masses and the sooner that comes about
to our
formity poity."" port Adop phrase, Labour's "a b which charge."
Mrs T judged reality the second-floor lishm
like Socia
anti-g whole supp
of r on
who
"An
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Positive action for a woman's right to work
By Hazel MacPherson READING through two articles on women in the Militant (26 June) recently, I was struck with the familiarity of the arguments they advanced in opposition to positive action for women.
When I first joined my union the National Union of Railwaymen - I went up to union headGudELCS ask about special structures and
facilities for women.
I was told that no such structures existed because, after women are no different from men. I was
such facilities would be to lEVILC avisUis the union.
As I'd just got a job By Valerie Coultas FOR a long time, Militant has turned its back
the ONeRS debates on feminism spreading through the ranks of the trade unions and the Labour Party, Militant is changing its attitude.
They have heralded women's sections inside Ine caoour r artv as answer for working class women in Britain. This is a welcome change, but how real is it when. at ine same
they have become one of the most outspoken tendencies opposing positive action for women?
In an articie entitled 'The Way Forward Positive Discrimination or Class Action?' in Militant 26 June Margaret Creear spells out their position:
'In a period when mass unemployment biting into the living standards of the whole working class "'positive discrimination" is a recipe for dividing the working class.'
Class action and the unions working narder lo involve women the genera economic battle. 1S the only solution Militant offers to women.
Yet the idea of positive action is not new; Karl Marx was one of the first to point out that equal opportunity applied to unequal individuals or groups is a sham.
The ruling class tells the workers that everyone has the same opportunity to become a capitalist. But they conveniently "forget'
with huge amounts of insented wealth including the factories themselves.
Working people start out owning nothing, except their capacity to work.
Similarly, women eo not enter the labour market, or any other sphere of society, on equal terms with men. HOT Colunic women have had limited aLLEOs education. Their political training and
rights have been restricTec. and thev Havent been regarded as personalities in their own right but as possessions of men.
Is it divisive to recognise asermenenor and oppression against Socialist Challenge 23 July 1981 Page 14
where I'm the only woman in my section and I'd been through intimidating
all interviewing alu SCXISL process to get it, 1 was in
1100G such platitudes!
Heather Rawlings' article about the Labour Party Women's Conference makes exactly the same points as the NUR administrator.
She says: 'Some delegates were putting forward demands for positive diseriminatior with
Fighting for
real equality
movement. Now, with
wonlel, and to want to
the balance ICaTCS through positive action?
Margaret Creear refers
the problem of the 'dead weight of tradition and prejudice within the labour movement but the whole emphasis of her arace s to and avold recognising that divisions exsr vila lic worke
movement today. and sIcTuu cc still divide the male and female worker; black from young trom old and killed from unskilled.
It becomes even more important to counter divisions in the working class
time of movement at a economic crisis. You only have to listen to Enoch Powell's attempts to stir
race hatred today to realise that.
Militant object to legislation being the focus
WOMENS W
CHRIS DAVIES (Report)
Trico workers struck for equal pay in 1976. In 1980
measures like job quotas Incsc uculanas be used to divide the working class along sex lines... such demands in a time of recession and slump will HO I mobilise men and unify all workers'.
Logic
other words, divisions exist, but even if iney ao, WOlolE right mention it in a ume or recession.
In the same issue of Militant Margaret Creeai argues that positive action Wole CrCale HIOTC jobs and that positive action within the structures of the labour
Huvcllicill of a campaign for positive action. We would never SURECSI that womer should rely on Parlament or any other capitalist institution Will unCu liberation.
But it's only by women winning the labour movement to a perspective of lgnling lor real equalit! for its Temnac members, committing SUCTI Labour government
equally cas aliunl. that a focus for mass class action can be created
Positive discriminanon s nol a bolcy arallisı the working class as MiliTO SCSE. Ihere is no objective reason for working people to be opposed
freedom and equality for women
Prejudice only - and in some cases it's a big only holds them back from realising this. Milltant offers no political way forward for women
it has succumbed to the dead weight ot tradition in the British labour movement that it claims to oppose
AFAL
ONL
RICH T.
women were still only earning 72 per cent of men's
Women's Rights
would be a 'shortcut' to INVO VIng WOIECH would produce female officials elected because sex rather than sitability.
Of course the argu-
positive action does not create more jobs IS CulLe correci if you accept the logic of the bosses and are prepared to shoulder the responsibility for their crisis.
Fiat
epi becs sesie donat
accept logic that DoCaNs Challenge sup porters. fight around the cemald 35-hour week, and work sharing with no loss of pay and for
has received
Women's TUC
movement.
opposition.
Valerie
Hazel MacPherson
with Marxism.
Painting, Repetitive Assembling, Product Inspecting, Packaging and related 18.3%
Making and 12.3% Repairing (excluding Metal and Electrical)
Source: Department of Employment, New Earnings Survey 1979. cess to the better paid jobs.
fight for minimum wage. The positive action for a woman's right to work cannot be seen in isolation from these other demands.
The workers at the Fiat factory Turin are among the most militant and politically conscious in Europe. They won their fight for asliding scale of wales Somc wHc went on to fight for and win demands for positive action for women. They now have a fixed quota of per cent for women workers. Their class action won this right for women workers.
Unless women win the argument for positive ac-
POSITIVE action for women's rights
widespread support within the labour movement. Both the
and the Labour Women's conference supported positive action proposals. Opposition to the idea has generally come from the right wing bureaucrats in the labour
But now the Militant - which describes itself as a Marxist paper for Labour - had added its voice to this
Coultas - former staff writer on Socialist Challenge - and
from the railworkers' union examine the views of Militant on women's rights and conclude that they have little in common
Catering, Cleaning, Hairdressing and other Personal Services 53.8%
15.6% Others
Manual
'The overall picture is one of continued and increased concentration of women into the lowest grades
ARICOFOLBERTA
NOMEN SIKE R average wages because they still didn't have ac-
tion within the labour movement, we will never achieve our aims. Only the organised labour movement • Canl win a wollan s right to work. Focus
That's why we need to fight for special structures amacmue wolcu which recognise that, DISCIL WOlkls wotel do not look automatically to the labour movement as
for their
GOCUS UWI struggles. And those that do, don't feel competent to play a leading role.
Special training programmes, D alCI NECCLings in working hours and
Professional and related in
Education, Welfare
and Health 24.9%
13.3% Selling
WOMEN'S WORK
in the 80's.
Women in
ACTION
abis xrap-heat
similar measures would ensure that reserved places would be filled by large numbers of women with the necessary self-confidence and expertise.
Militant advocate the unity of the class on the basis of the lowest common denominator, and it is ironic that they .do because that is precisely the concept put forward by the right wing of the Labour Party to stifle debate and stop the move towards sand anerr democracy involvement within the Party If Militant continue to abstain on the „questions WaCI HOS divide the class, if they fail to take up the rights of women then they place temselves firmly on the side of reaction.
Clerical and related
54.7% 7.1% Others
Non-manual
of white and blue collar work. CIS Report: Women
LATEST issue out now. For a woman's right to work A Paper for Action in the Unlons on Women's Rights
Page 15 scan of this page
Can't Pay? Won't Pay!
Jude Alderson and Felicity Steel in 'Red Door'
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST was a real breakthrough in bringing radical theatre to the West End. farce '
Criterion Theatre. Kirkham played the maniac in the original production of 'Anarchist' and is now one of the leads in 'Can't Pay? Won't Pay!'.
Tell us what the new Dario Fo play is about.
centres around two working class families in a subracter 1 aila suburb My, Gio The The ni, is a Communist Party member of the old school - you know sep Dy step, parliament, the whole
- and doesn't DUSHICS. believe in direct action.
His wife Antonia and her friend Margueritta, and al the women in ine block where they live are so incensed by Colistalli price rises, that they decide and either just take the
either just take goods OI pay whal they think they're worth. They don't reanse that they can't get away with it with aneir ausoaos
One of the CP members says 'If I found any wife of mine stealing food I would make her eat the lot of it, can and all, Fa kill her and then I'd get a divorce
So the farce revolyes around the women trying to hide this food and convince their husbands At the same time the husbands become radicalised by things happening their lives, when one of Inem is made Icuundall.
The play's got all the elements of farce. that it's political and people don't LOSC their trousers.
All of us involved in the play are socialists. All theatre's pontical there's no such thing as non-political DUL this kind of theatre gets labelled 'political' because it's left wing.
'Anarchist' the
I0
West after it had
already been on tour with
shows in front of trade
unions and so on. But this
is starting the other way
around!
Actually there's
already Candy Paye Wont Payof tour
but wasn't very suc-
cessful. But there's a built
in irony here. Dario Fo has
proved himselt as a play-
of their
rock Now a new Dario Fo 'Can't Pay? Won't Pay!' is opening at the Phil Hearse and Kathy talked to ALFRED MOLINA, who
wright and has heen writing this kind of thing for years, auld it's recently that he's become well known in this coun try. Now he's become a Dankable commoulty allel the success of 'Anarchist That's why this play's Criterion, rather than starting off in arts centres and community halls.
One the interesting things about Italy is that the struggle against price rises has been organised by the unions - for example the auto reduccione movement in Turin, where the unions organised people to refuse to pay fare increases and burn their gas bills. there anything of that in the play?
The play makes it quite clear that women's raid on the supermarket wasn't just individual people looting. They are organised and have cogent view of what the world is doing to them. There'se one or the play Witc OlIC women says to her husband who is telling her that stealing wrong: 'We were out there today fighting, whee your party, your union and witic were you
Do you think anything to teach us about political theatre?
There have been two plays by Fo put on in Britain and I've been in both of them. What I've learned is that
British political HOSL theatre like Howard Brenton, David Hare and
Trevor Griffiths theatre of ideas.
We're bogged down with this literary tradition, so the actors have debates on stage. that. He says *Bugger ideas, let's have a good time, sod intellectual debate, let's enjoy ourselves
— our job is to entertain'
What I've learned inal lnere s a place for theatre of ideas, but I'm not really interested in it at
By Kathy Kirkham SADLY, a lot of feminist plays, political theatre in general for that matter, end up as earnest agitprop but are theatrically just plain dull. Not so the Sadista Sisters.
Their programme warns the audience to expect 'a collection of bleak, modern tables, innocent music, violent lyrics, crude actors, filthy. humour and sex'.
And from the first disconcerting moments
'Red Door Without a Bolt' get the feeling that with this 'n' roll theatre company anything can
'Red Door' is due to go on tour this
Alfred Molina as Fiat worker Giovanni the moment I'm interested in making politics tur theatre of action.
talking earner about political theatre breaking the West End. But surely the auprevileged an wae toy diences there are don't get many workers going to the theatre in the West End of London.
Well sure, our audiences are going to be young, mobile, trendy lefTes The working class don't go to the theatre they've got the best theatre in the world, British televi-
Under Review
Red Door Without a Bolt
and
susan.
ironing youthful turns to
Using a skiltul
you cer- audience feminist kinds
women's lives.
Live theatre has compete against very high technical standards of thelish TV, very tion THeatre
, very high standards of performance.
So what's the point for ordinary people going to of their way to check out what is ultimately an unknown quantity, when they can just turn on their
The only way that left wing political acting Willl ultimately get its ideas across is by breaking into the mass media that count - television and films.
So our play the Criterion, the little cell of liberated cultural activity, isn't going to change the
autumn. The story line, such as it is, follows the fortunes from womb to women's movement of
working class heroine. Her father, bullied and humilated by his boss the same treatment to her mother Winnie.
But Winnie eventually breaks free from the board. susan.
feminist sand discusess he pen is
(DOOKS discovers 'the pen mightier than the prick'.
mix of wry humour and music the Sadista Sisters somehow achieve the impossible. They send up themselves and their
while hammering home the many pain anu that
For Susan the traumas start with dirty raincoated 'Uncle Ted'. Then comes school with its
world. In this sense theatre isn't revolutionary; what is revo luondry Is controlling television, radio and Hullis The only kind of live working class theatre now is varlety - - and look at it. it's racist, sexist and so on.
Look at your average club comedian, what does he talk about? i ne size CODIC S cocks, about blacks, women, the Irish.
Real vicious stuff.
think that anyone who's involved in the performing arts, and I know a lot of people disagree witn me, has got to be a success to have any kind of influence.
academic
along).
game
whole range of emotions. playing men's roles, humour
even more chilling
Sadista Sisters to male sketches Mart el 'Red Door sual
tor a moment its energy or impact
That's what Fo says. . If you want to be a socialist artist, then first of all you've got to be a good artist. No amount of commitment will make up for not being a good artist. So what I suppose I'm really talking about is burrowing
from within.
That's what we're starting to do with the West End, starting with cidental Death'. The West End is changing. All these theatre managers are shitting bricks, because they know they're dying breed. Whereas they've beet shrinking the last 10 years, the fringe has been expanding attracting
put-downs and cookery classes Finally it's a dreary low-paid job on the factor; floor (just until a suitable young man comes
There her women workmates decide that if they're going to be exploited, they might just as well make some money out of it and go on the
• win aevastalllie corscuucules.
Each new scene puts the audience through a
The device of women Torostance. of the funny sequences, yet makes the scenes of child-molesting and sexual violenc
It would have been easy, no doubt, for the
settle simov tor Men are never let off the hook certainly. But the show has a detinite political edge: the ruling class is cleverly ridiculed, and
'superwoman'
Without a Bolt' sometimes meanders, if its political framework could have been mapped out more sharply, it never loses
'Red Door' is showing at the Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn until 1 Aug
new directors writers and so on.
I think what we should do is play them at and say OK, you can have our show, on our terms. You all lay our little leftie cabaret o our terms At 'Accident' the performers insisted that the management had different ticket prices for OAPS students and claimants that's never happened before in the West End You're not going to tell me that that's selling out? 'Can't Pay? Won't Pay!' is now showing at the Criterion Theatre, Piccadilly Circus.
Socialist Chailenge 23 July 1981 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
WE DO ALL THE WORK
Socialist Printed by East End Offset (TU) Ltd, London E2
Challenge
PO Box bu. London N
BAT Esso Imperial Toba
19S-k3
ICI WE RULE YOU
WE FOOL YOU
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BP B Ford
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