Photo: JOHN STURROCK (Report) *No cuts in services or capital programme.' This was the response of Haringey Borough Council in London to the demands of the notorious Shore circular. The circular, coming fast on the heels of the TUC acceptance of the wage-cutting 4½ per cent limit, outlines the need for councils to reduce their budgets by about 10 per cent. In the event of refusal, it threatens to withhold the rate support grant which funds some 65 per cent of the £10½ billion spent by local councils.
First estimates are that the Shore circular has not achieved its aims. The Government has demanded cuts to the tune of £450 million, but 'only" £200 million have been made. Thirty-nine local education authorities seem intent not to trim their sails.
But already the Government has followed up the Shore circular with its decision to announce further cuts within the next few days, to the tune of £1,000 million. In the face of such vicious attacks on working class living standards, the response of the trade union and Labour Party lefts has been pathetic. All that Benn had to say over the weekend was that the labour movement should not only be concerned with 'day-day' issues. We all know what this means. It's the position of 'don't be concerned with the struggle against the cuts-struggle rather for "socialism"!' On Tuesday Benn was chairing a meeting to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the General Strike yet at the same time he sits in a Labour Govern ment which has the unfortunate record of repeating as far as is possible the wage-cutting policies of the 1926 Tory Government! Benn, along with the trade union lefts, will do nothing to mobilise the working class in mass action against the Tory policies of this right-wing Labour Government. Prom inent left-wing MP Brian Sedgemore has also said that he is not sure whether he can abstain on the vote on the cuts-as he did along with 34 other Labour MPs on the earlier White Paper because it might threaten the existence of the Labour Government.