wing bureaucrats under capitalism. On unemployment, Shrieks of horror from the press also greeted a statement by the new Labour candidate in the marginal Kensington seat, Ann Holmes, that if elected she would vote in Parliament as her constituency party decided. The press see this as the first step on a dangerous road, and they may be right. Accountability to the Labour Party can be the first step towards accounta bility to the workers movement as a whole. This sort of fight for democratic control of working people over their representatives knocks on the head all the arguments of the media that accountability to Parliament is the highest form of democracy.
But the 'lefts' are almost as frightened as the press barons at such a prospect. In the latest issue of Tribune, reporter Stephen Kelly argues that of the resolutions on the question of party leader, 'perhaps the more reasonable suggestion emanates from Rushcliffe CLP, which calls on the NEC to "establish a sub-committee to report within one year" on a new procedure'. This follows in the wake of last year's rather pathetic appea who was protesting at the fact that the Brightside resolution on the election of the party leader by conference was not to be debated. The resolution called on the NEC to investigate whether such a decision by conference would breach parliamentary procedure!
But no amount of appeals to being 'reasonable' or to sticking to 'parliamentary procedure' will do. This will just play into the hands of the right-