Orice again the Labour Party is in the throcs of an internal crisis. But beth the left and the right wing are agreed on one thing the authority of Parliament must be upheld at all costs and at all times.
The struggles of the working class, however. continually tend to break out of the framework laid down by the laws possed by Parliament, and even threaten to destroy them. For the right-wing, believing that the clectoral prospects of the Party lie in reassuring the capitalists, the answer is to roundly condemn these struggles. But for the left, seeing the need to consolidate electoral support from the working class, the problem is how to appear to support these struggles without actually duing su.
Reg Prentice has now emerged as the spokesman of the right, Ho belteves that the working class the Tories by continuing lo provide tree school milk, und recently they went on to break the pay laws by awarding large wage Bat the Clay Cross councilors wouldn't agree with Mr. Prentice that their actions constitute a fundamental threat to Parliamentary rule. For them, there are laws made by the Tories. and laws made by Labour, If Labour was relurned, the Housing Finance Act and the pay laws would, they hope, be repealed. and life in Clay Cross could retunt to normal. But is Prentice right? Can the seeds of socialist revolution be found at Clay Cross in Bourgeois state Unfortunately, the two opposing authorities ae hardly of equal weight. Skillington has al the might of the bourgeois state on bis side, wbich concrerely means the power to penalise the officers in the courts, Clay Cross merely has the moral aurhority of its councillors, together with the unorganised indignation of its 10,000 inhahitants and the power to sack its ufficers (who would, however, then be re-employed by Skilington).
In September, the Council agreed to demands by NUPE for a l5 increuse for manual workers, brineing them into line with other council workers in the area. The Pay Hoard eventually