Socialist Action No. 10, 20 May 1983
The scan: 010-may-20-1983-SA-UK.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
24 May: International Women's Day for Disarmament NUCLEAR
No. 10 20 May 1983 ACTioN SociAlist
FREE IN '83
30p
ed the election,
Woman taken to hospital.
Ing for tunds Is Helen Joh *it's no colncid
• 'We won't go!"
• 24 May events, page 12
Defend
Greenham
ONLY A few days after Thatcher announc
the peace Greenham Common was attacked in an attempt to evict the women campaigning to top the siting of cruise missiles,
The police and bailiffs stormed into the camp
Thursday. Alleast ten women were arre
removed cars from the site po anding 12000 for their return to pay for lega
and for the cost of the eviction. The Greenham
o is already in financial difficulties and is an
Bone of the Con ce that the first 7 US traine
- interview with Helen John and why Socialist Action is supporting the 24 May International Women's Day of Action for Disarmament, page 13.
9 JUNE 9 JUNE
VOTE
THE
Led
Sped. ment,
for
Wing fighting moves
in
chosen course.
worth camp
tually
tory.
sted ano
national lam wome
LABOUR
How to stop
Thatcher
By the editor
TORY manifesto publish-
this Friday shows what Thatcher has in store if she is returned. She must be stop-
That means harnessing the tremendous enthusiasm and political potential of the peace move-
together with the People's March, to produce a resounding call
•Jobs not Bombs', support-
the miners the closure of Cardowen pit. Linking
It means linking up with black people and youth to stop the
towards police state contained
the temporarilyshelved Police Bill.
The Labour leadership have
the opposite Everywhere political activity is being called off under pressure from Wal-
Road. The Labour leaders are ac-
hampering, the fight for a Labour vicInsisting • Denis Healey is being allowed to set the tone of the manifesto by insisting that the
economic assessment quick route to a new social contract and incomes policy • Labour's leaders are dividing the party again in Bermondsey-
style through imposing Reg Freeson as a candidate on the Brent party when it clearly wants Ken Livingstone • The Labour right wing openly and proudly manouevred to force Tony Benn into
marginal seat in Bristol • Walworth Road is discouraging parties from building the People's March as a way of making unemployment the main issue
Forcing
• The TUC bureaucrats are likewise foreing the People's March to have a 'nonparty' character and disciplining those who want to put the blame for unemployment where it lies - with the Tories and their backers.
The ruling class press know what they want to get out of this election. They want Thatcher as prime minister and Denis Healey as leader of the Labour Party. The left has to defeat them on both counts.
Campaigning on socialist policies and on the basis of mass action is the way to do it. Peoples march for jobs '83
Turn to page 16 for
reports Tony Benn's battle for selection and the latest developments on the People's March for Jobs.
Page 2 scan of this page
The Tories party of reaction and privileg
This quartet from left to right Howe, Whitelaw, Parkinson and Thatcher are going 'to defend freedom against marxist socialism. This is good news
2 Socialist Action 20 May 1983
In these two articles JOHN ROSS shows in WHO'S TO BLAME that the economic stagnation and crisis of the British economy is completely attributable to the Tories not lefties, the unions, womens liberationists, black people and all the other 'subversives' Mrs Thatcher likes to blame.
In the article THE ENEMY he makes it very clear that the Tory Party is dominated by financial power and privilege and that beneath a Tory's hard exterior lies a financial calculating machine.
Who's to blame?
THATCHER SAID IN 1979 that her goal was to regenerate the British economy and arrest Britain's decline. Seeing that the Tories had been in office three times longer than any other party in the last 100 years it was only right they should get us out of the mess they had created.
The biggest and most decisive had
Maniasy already been done when the Tories dominated politics and government in this country
From 1886 to 1945 the Conservatives got the biggest vote in ll out of 12 general elections. From 1918 to 1939 a time of crisis and recession • they held office for 18 of these 21 years. Prior to the elec-
the Labour Government in 1964 the Tories had held office for 60 out of the previous 78 years.
As Britain declined and its power deteriorated other party was in office long enough to have caused this crisis. The responsibility lies four square with Toryism. Of course in Tory mythology naturally always Sonicone else who is to blame. And
the role of scapegoat than the Labour Party!
So it all gets put down to the socialists and the 'increasingly Marxist'
Labour Party. There however snag in that argument. Unfortunately the decline in the British economy was out in tne open in 1870 and at that time the Labour Party did
Photo: CM CONSON
not even exist. Perhaps the dozen or so then existing Marxists caused that problem
The crisis of the British accelerated lllci-wal ycals when Tories were in office almost Labour's leadership for 13 of those years was headed no makes Callaghan and Ramsay MacDonald Healey look like red subversives Clearly you can't put that crisis down to the Conservatives. They just happened to be in otfice at the time.
Stop-Go
By the 1950s the economy was in an even worse state. Yet in that
the Conservatives DCIU held office right from 1951 until 1964 and through those years Churchill, Eden and Macmillan wrenched Britain through the 'Stop-Go' cycle.
Now the crisis has reached catastrophic proportions. But don't worry. Mrs Thatcher is going to rescue
all from the mess her predecessors landed us in
You can tell how well she is doing by the fact that over
million the
for the rich but a message of doom for the poor. population are officially out of work.
Another candidate for responsibility is the trade unions. They have never been too with the Tories. William Pitt was the first Tory ol lille
minister to come across the trade union troublemakers so he solved the problem in 1799 by banning them
By the time the modern mass trade union movement came into existence
1889 the economic decline was well under way. From the deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Vale decision, the Trades Disputes Act of 1927, Heath's Industrial Relations Act and
Tebbit's anti-trade HOW union legislation, the Tories have done everything in their power to curb the unions. Crash
By clobbering the trade unions the Tories have defended the That's why we had the great crash of 1929. That's why we had the mass unemployment of the thirties. That's why whole sections of the British economy have been laid to waste. Without doubt all
things are utable the excessive power of the unions and have nothing to do with the employers and their government which is runnIng une silow.
Another alleged cause of our economic problems is black immigration. course some smart aleck will point out that in the thirties when there three million out of work there were hardly any
black people living here. What such people don't understand is that the threat of a wave of immigrants arriving 20 years later precipitated a crisis in the economy which forced all those white workers onto the dole.
Aliens
Also there was another scapegoat around at that time. On 9 March 1933, tess lan six weeks aller Hitler came to power, thi Tory MP for demanded to know: 'Will the Home Secretarv take steps to prevent any alien Jews entering this country from Germany? Hundreds of thousands of Jews are now leaving Germany and Scull vIne from there this country, now that other countries are closed against them; as regards the Aliens Act, you can drive a carriage and pair through it and aliens are coming nere on taree mon ths and six months leave to get naturalised.'
To protect the economv the Tory Home Secretary obliged and few Jews got into Britain. Instead they were exter: minated Dachau, Auschwitz and Belsen.
The Tories have always been anxious to preserve 'racial purity" anc none more than W.P.C. Greene the Tory MP for Worceste warned way back in 1923 about the
dangers facing Britain
He said: "The old Nor dic type is absolutely changing and becoming the Alpine or Mediterra nean type ferior to the fine old English and Scottish colonist type. It is absolutely essential to preserve the purity of our race and to prevent Eastern Europe, the stiff with riff-raff the dead beats on and
dead beats world'.
Despite gallant patriots like Mr Greene fighting to keep us pure and to stop us getting contaminated with riff-raff the economic decline still went on.
Anuerin Bevan once called the leaders of the Tories 'vermin' When you read quotes like those hove hoehad in mind. above it's not hard And the above are only a tiny sample.
Decline
The list of disrupters of the economy and causes of the decline is endless All of them Irish, munists, demonstrators, trade unionists, wellare some liberationists 'queers', women have their place the Tory hit list. And they all have the advantage
having been power unlike the Tory Party
The Tory Party repres
News
ents wealth, powel an privilege. Its job has beer and still is to rule on behal of capitalism been doing just thai fo 300 years. It is the oldes mass right-wing politica party in the world
When Thatcher too office it was the 300th an niversary to the year of th term 'Tory' first being us ed in Britain. No other ma
capitalist compete with the Tories i
The American Demo ratic Party is 155 years old the Republicans majority of the right win parties in France and Get many are not even 50 year • 00. Without doubt British Tory Party is th granddaddy granc mother of them all
In its 300 year histor
unique relation wit British capitalism quit different to that achieve by any other party. one hundred years it ha dominated governmen
supporters the economy, the civil sel vice, the armed forces legal system and the chur
These are the rulers o Britain. These are the pec ple who have ruled, an still do rule Britain Th Tory Party is totally tegrated into the capitali system and its structures.
The failure of Britain the failure of capitalist and the failure of Britis capitalism's party - th Tories.
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The enemy
News
Sir Alex Douglas Home, former Tory leader.
Photo: GM COOKSON
Keith Joseph was chair of Bovis Holdings :":
Investment Trust besides being a mad monk.
own a large estate and does the odd bit of fishing in his own waters.
Just a simple country lad who happens to
crime, find out who gained from it.
movement is fighting in this election.
work downwards.
Thatcher's
Cabinet
Those who have served in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet since 1979 provide an interesting and atypical cross section of population They also have one big
ding abour inestions an-
question unemployment. Thes are
directors of the firms that created it in the first place.
Of Margare cher's 1979 Cabinet members, 71 , per cent were company directors, 14 per cent large landowners, and 10 per cent lawyers with the categories of landowners and company directors overlapping. One of ihe
Carringier. course later had ice=
THE WISEST SAYING in law is 'who profits?'. That means if you want to find out who committed a
The Tory Party in parliament and the constituencies may be only a small part of those who gained from Thatcherism and its policies, nevertheless it provides an interesting insight into who the labour
Blair steel mills
director of EMI, Sun Alliance and London Assurance * Sir Keith Joseph former chair of the famil firm Bovis Holdings and then director of Drayton Premier Investment Trust * Francis Pym - managHol diay and Webb director George * Lord Carrington director of Barclays Bank.
Cadbury, Schweppes and Rio Tinto Zinc * James Prior - director United Biscuits and Norwich Union Insurance * Michael Heseltine chair of the Haymarket Press
director
business backgrounds as executives, managers, bankers. stockbrokers or farmers. A further 1.4 per
were from small business.
The "professional' layers which made up the rest of the Tory MPs also character. Of those elected had a. definite
overwhelmingly the largest group were lawyers comprised 21.3 per cent of all Tory • VIPS
Apparatus
Accountants formed 2.2 per cent, some 2.6 per cent were from the armed forces and diplomatic ser vices, and 2.8 per cent from the apparatus of the Torv Partv or employers organisations Nearly seven out of 10 of Tor MPs went to public schools, 14.7 per cent of these from Eton
The Tory Party in parliament and govern. ment is totally dominated by company boards, , professions closley tied business such as accoun tancy and law, and some sections of the stale aD paratus such as the armed
forces and diplomatic ser-
TEETHE
Socialist Action 20 May 1983 3 all constituency chairpersons of Conservative Associations were large m medium owners of Dusticss. • direc tors or executives. A further lo per cent were smal businessmen/women and 9 per cent were farmers or landowners.
More than half of Conservative constituency chairpersons came directly from business or manage. ment occupations. A fur-
per cent were lawyers or accountants.
ship of the Conservative Party the SHALON prevails. A 1964 survey indicated that 40 per cent of Conservative Party and 89 per cer 42 cent of activists, of constituency chairper cons were made up
employers, managers an 'higher professiona layers. Backbone
Educationally the only major difference between Conservatives parlia nent senior peopte outside was a distinction
conson.
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Sinn Fein: A voice for Irish freedom
Disarming CND in the election?
4 Socialist Action
IRELAND
UNFREE
Election battle for the
nationalist vote
WITH fourteen Sinn Fein contesting the 17 North of Ireland constituencies the battle is on for the political leadership of the na-
No doubt the British and Southern Trish ruling class along with the media will desperately attempt to bolster the fading morale of the middle pro-British Social and Democratic Party (SDLP)
The Catholic Church hierarchy has been forced to intervene in the election more directly than it has done for forty years. Bishop Daly trom Down and Connor called a journalists' briefing to express the Church view that Catholics should not allow their vote to be associated with 'the men of dondery ts e Di aor reter ed week launched a campaign of clerical denunciation of Sinn Fein from the funeral of a soldier's wite.
While the army steps civilian murders to discredit the IRA, Sinn Fein's views will be 'interpreted' on the media by dubious 'experts'
nt its own views on British or Southern Irish T
Irish socialist organisations
Democracy argued for a unified anti-imperialist electoral slate for the North. Now they are joining their efforts to build the largest
imperialist vote through support for Sinn Fein's campaign and for resistance to Prior's Northern Iretand Assembly.
There is no doubt that Sinn Fein's decision to stand can strengthen anti-imperialist organisation just as did the victories of Bobby Sands and Owen Carron.
Despite the split voting of the nationalist com
nunity created by the SDLP and government pro.
paganda departments walcH number of
massive vote of support.
Labour left
As John McAnulty, Peoples Democracy coun-
cillor from Belfast says:
Whatever government is returned in Britain
the Labour left will find itself with a government
wedded to the continuance of the sectarian Nor-
thern Ireland Assembly in a situation where the na-
tinalist opposition to that Assembly is stronger
•Unless Labour breaks its support for the
Assembly it will find itself once again cheering on a
new wave of repression aimed at quoshing opposi-
tion to British rule. Labour must prepare for this
and reject the Assembly and all other trappings of
For or against the Assembly is the key politica
ine of divide in the elections in the North
dear to everyone, except it şeems the Irish Militant
SUWTIC.
simple anti-Tory one.
The recent 'anti-Tory' conference they prompredm she menery , w ih isha dey surs sing
memory
Callaghan, Mason
perpetrating some of the worst military excesses
against the people of the North.
wing and trade union leaders.
«to would be only too happy to do deals with the
U'nionists jusi as they did in the 1970s.
icsetf. In Ireland the opposition to Tory policies is
coming from Sinn Fein.
apport the anti-imperialism of the Sinn Feiners
ind dessand that Britain gets out of Ireland.
Thatcher's Britain
Ta_NE viC
er: not entorsine ts arguments - particularly those
sare = roma
20 May 1983 up its campaign of
and reactionary politicians like Gerry
like Peoples
possiDie anliCulct the winnable seats, Sinn Fein expect a This is
They claim that the struggle Is a
Labour leaders Concannon
This Militant line is identical to that of the right
The same leaders
Socialists need to remember that the election is
fought wherever the British state has planted
The Labour left should general editorial policy we wish to name i sesar = a by printing extracts trom Thatcher's d.
": Kains. pudisned last ween, we
FOURTEEN candidates in the election arguing for radical policies and troops out of Ireland will be largely ignored by the media pundits. Not because they are fringe candidates with little chance of success, some of them are very likely to be elected. It is because they are the candidates of Sinn Fein.
Following the success of Bobby Sands and Owen Carron in parlamentary elections in the North, and of Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison and Martin McGuinness in elections to the Assembly, Sinn Fein are standing 14 candidates in the general election.
ATEIOSU alunc alcals parliamentary, candidates their voices will spell oul a way to stop the war Ireland: to get Britain out.
That's the Sinn. Fein nessase the next government whoever e CCLCur It's the message you probably won't hear UnICSS live the North of Ireland where the regional TV has agreed for the first time to give sinn Fein candidates TV time
But the rest of the elec-
message through the media. They are certainly unlikely to get to hear the Sinn Fein candidates. Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison were bar-
from entering Britain . TC0 to discuss with the GLC last December despite their election as genuine representatives from the North.
They were barred by
the Torles but with
the support of the
whole Labour front
bench, and under the Up and down the country CND groups are organising to the issue of a 'nuclear free' Britain a major feature of the general election. But the CND leadership are preparing tor an unilateralism is being withdrawn as a campaigning slogan to become a long term aim.
The election committee of
CND met on 14 May with
representation trom the
majority of CND regions.
Delegates gave encourag-
ing reports of activity
Incal reas
Manchester on June CND have organised
rally with thy
Labour-controlled
Council in Albert Square mitt au biree in ig " 'vote
nuclear free EP
Thompson, Mike Harding
and severa! bands are ex-
pected to draw 10,000 peo-
ple.
Birmingham CND are
organising city-centre
march on 4 June and are
planning a mass die-in. On
the same day a three week
A RECE
AT LAST! A CHANCE то вОот OUT "HAT GANG OF BARBARIANS! ROLL ON JUNE THE NINTH.
Prevention of Terrorism Act introduced by Labour government.
The PTA has been con- . sistently used not to stop 'terorism', but to prevent me tm son reacocing known in Britain, to palass Irish people living
this country, and to threaten those trying build a movement for the withdrawal of British troops.
By Martin Collins
While the Labour Party manifesto now calls for
he repeal of the PTA, the rest of its Irish poncy is abysmal - full of vague calls for Irish unity, but no call for withdrawal of the troops Labour sent in 14 years ago, and no policy to end the war. So much for
radical nanestr
The election campaign could be an ideal opportunity for the Labour Party to campaign for an end to the war in Ireland. Yet Ireland scarcelv figures
election issue for
Labour. The Labour left seem to have dropped the Irish issue 'dangerous' to Labour's election chances.
The Labour Commit long
final
catilliae
poleu io
massive and
In public
AneCLIS being
printed.
.voull
York, CND
holding a "Jobs not
Bombs
of the Parly -and
LPYS.
CND's campaign revealed
a shift to the right in the
thinking of some
delegates.
THE
LITTLE 'X' ON A SCRAP OF PAPER! MY PART IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS AND THEN
II DoNT HeNT TO SOUNO PESENMESTIE:
00
raulesI uKo pickel ine ırisn lourest
board office in London on 14 May. They
were demanding the release of Nicky
- on hunger strike and serving a
12 years prison sentence for allegedly
robbing the Cork to Dublin main train in
1967.
Nicky has always protested his
complete innocence, backed up by a
tee on Ireland will be campaigning to make Ireland an election Isste. Inl palticular it will be arguing that the best wav to tight for Labour's conference DORCY against the PTA is to challenge the PTA now,
Labour giving platforms Sinn Fein representatives during this
One delegate said that he agreed with Bruce Kent that unilateralism had hecome an a batross rouno the neck of the campaign.
James Hinton, lading national council member on the elections committee argued against campaignIng for unilateralist goyernment. tsedu said the aim should be a hung parliament, which CND's lobbying of MrS woue nep orl alliance of anti-cruise, anti-Trident TeHCCI tatives.
For him the key issue 'armers versus disarmers - unilateralism didn't figure.
Julian Harlow, European Nuclear Disarma-
ment member spelt out the electoral tacties he thought necessary throwing
CND's weight behind anti-
• RoTa
BE EASI
METORT ISINCE THE MAR.
THE PoLis
RELEAS
NIC
release.
election.
But the rest of the electorate will be lucky to hear the Sinn Fein message through the medla They
are certainly unlikely to get to hear the Sinn Fein candidates. Gerry Adams and
Danny Morrison were barred from entering Britain to discuss with the GLO
cruise, anti-Trident
Liberal candidates.
event na
tionally remains the 24
Ma. International
Women's Dac ND for Disar-
ulanlclt. are
organising a major post-
election event in Trafalgar
Square on 12 June, follow-
ing by a running lobby of
Parliament. The May pilins the need por lo ex CND election
because 'it is our respon-
sibilty io ensure lal le
pro-nuclear alliances are
formed'.
What emerged from
he campaign meeting wa
hat the CND leadershi
preparing, to throw the gains of the
movement over the last
four years.
Instead of bulding the
peace movement and argu-
ing unilateralist
case during the election the
leadership are preparing to IT's nOT jons To
HE suMs REALIRRT FOR A LABOUR THE GREATEST
AND
News
WHAT ABUNL
NICKY KELLYS
RICHT
TO LIFE P Photo• HEI EN DADY
statement from the Provisional IRA which claimed responsibility for the robbery and insisted on the innocence of the three accused. Nicky's two codefendants have not been acquitted but Nicky is still in jail. Since 1 May he has been on hunger strike to demand his
Contact the Release Nicky Committee by phoning 01-250 1293
last December despite their election as genuine representatives from the North.
Tores ber barte the the Tories with support the whole Labour front bench, and under the Prevention Terorism Act introduced by a Labour government.
In the nuclear eleciion
vote
for them. the uceo Anis questor n influonce
CND CND election leaflet waterdown their policies in the name of tighting for an anti-cruise, anti-Trident Parlamel.
However the leadership should take note that they are going in an opposite direction to the CND activists on the ground.
YOU THINK YOU'VR /GOT DIFFICULTIES?
I'M HOPING FOR SINN FEIN TO FORM THE NEXT GOVERNMENT!
Page 5 scan of this page
News
tion.
stations on 4 June.
The delegates the arguments like the GLC, that action should be postponed dur ing the election.
By Redmond O'Neill
They took the opposite view that the election provides a tremendous oppor-
explain millions the threat of a new Tory government bringing Northern Ireland style policing to the streets
London, Manchester and Glasgow.
As George. General Counch, member
DuL 'We should not stop the Calla sil because of the general election. The Police Bill has been put asid With less than 4 weeks not defeated to go the Labour Party is the only hope we have of breaking the rule of the Tory class enemy. I say: Kill the Bill and remove the government which introduced it.
'This Bill has to be put on the nattorm of every election campaign in the Couriery.
David
A young black from
Southall, jailed nearly
two years ago for a
robbery he did not
commit, was freed last
Thursday at London's
Court of Appeal.
Cheers
Seventy people
from Southall who
were picketing the
Court in support of
David whooped and
cheered in jubilation
as supporters poured
out from the public
gallery with the news.
MAL
Misogyny
prize
THE Ireland
Abortion
(NIAC)
May 1980, following the
death of a young woman
who had been forced to
resort to a back street
abortion.
Last year alone, the
Ulster Pregnancy Ad-
visory Service referred
over IN women for ter-
minations.
1967 Abortion
Act doesn't apply in the
North of Ireland, and the
only choices open. to
Kill the Police Bill!
The National Campaign against the Police Bill Conference last Sunday launched a series of activities to make police powers a major issue in the general elecOver 400 delegates, mainly black, voted to go ahead with a national 'Kill the Bill' demonstration in London on 22 May and nationwide pickets of police
La full time the GMBATU pointed out
necessary Labour in power.
Tory
and order reality
capitalist order.
community policing'. 'The did not come into existence to Serve une working men and wonch.
Revolt
Ernie Roberts, Labour prospective parliamentary candidate Hackney North, explained worsening police/community relations. 'When people are more and more oppressed, thes revolt. When they revolt lney state. The police are part revolt asalisi the
For Ife stale. so ine revolt
Avondale freed
Avondale has been in Brixton prison since July 1981 WICE sentenced thirteen vears for taking part an armed robbery. The conviction made WaN purely on the evidence of two coppers. Constables
Led Avondale out of an ID aler LICY had already jointly chosen his from photo album. No other identified David.
Once again a campaign against police racism has drawn a big response from within the
ORDER
women WIth un wanted pregnancies are elmer une dangers or a back street abortionist, expensive trip to England. The British Labour Party is committed to extending the '67 Act to the North.
NIAC have just completed a of doctors which resealed that many GP: faroner
But 14 per cest of the GPs against abortions in any
Some the ments they made are truly horrific this ULC
of oppressed people inevitably results in bad relations with the police.
John Fernandes, sacked teacher recentiy from Hendon Police College, read out selections from essays by police cadets whose publication had resulted in his sacking.
'Blacks in Britain are a
Verare Sales They are 'They seem to exist
sponging bi makes me crinelligen 1 nature unintelligent. see a black man going out with a white woman.
Summing up the conference, Patrick Kodakara, Hackney Councillor, criticised the GLC for Its slalculcill. that actions would be call-
off the election period.
He introduced resolution which was unanimously passed establishing an ongoing national campaign which seeks o bue a auo! alliance of the black com munity. CND Luc labou movement, women's
gav and lesbian movements and all other opposed to the Bill'.
The campaign will seek to bring together and sup-
Various local defence campaigns. Now the task is to extena lt to organise similar cam-
throughout the vassals country.
black and Asian COI• munity of Southall. Last week hundreds of vouth picketed the local police station in protest acainsi the treatment doled out to David Avondale.
He briefly became a symbol of the hostility of local people state harassment. It is no accident that oneplacard on the police station picket read We remember Blair Peach'.
Avondale out, discussions are taking place on how to react to any provocation by the fascists during the election.
wins Male Order's 1983 misogy t prize:
life is
murder I'm out.
Should a woman gratify
his animal desire
italy Histance
degrade some fine male
she should answer for Girls, the sweet
children, are taht they
forbidden: they
rebel, why should they
add murder to their sin
and involve another or
others this satanic
• NIAC can be con-
tacted c/0 16/18
Donegall Street, Belfast.
Tel: 243363. Gentle mystification
'A MORE gentle mist
designed to cover a wide
a-za No, this is not a
¿airpion of a new sub-
version the
defoliant Agent Orange,
but vaginal
deodorants!
Adverts for vaginal
deodorants are due
reappear again the
dependent Enquiry
NO COVER UP
to demand an independant inquiry into the death of
incident from Bethnal Green to Hackney.
and took photos from their spy helicopter.
silence. The inquest into Colin's death is planned to SOMEBODy isn't using
HoLL
a MAN.
pages of glossy wite:
magazines.
The Boots company,
Crookes, is relaunching a
Femfresh
1 alic
'women's body care pro-
ducts' including vaginal
deodorant. Their
publicity campaign
COLIN ROACH
OVER UP
COLIN ROACH'S parents at Saturday's demonstration Colin Roach. Six hundred protestors marched without
The police densely surrounded the march, followed in mobile units
The demonstration stopped outside Stoke Newington police station, where Colin Roach died, for two minutes
Kus Asquith (City Limits)
Women's Hear mation Centre (WHIC) is concerned about the splay because a cal • SUlay because cause vulval .itching, allergies and infection
VENS 33 Duncan Terrace, Islington NI. (Jeff Charlton).
holding a benefit on
Brooksbys Walk,
7PP, 01-254 7480.
and totally
necessary. The sprays
don't mask
and aren't
hygienic. But there's nothing so simple and
useless that with a little imagination can't make a profit out of it. (from an article by An-
Gartland in City
Limits) Action
against
Pornography
• Pornography › is Violence Against Women are
will include i.
and discussion
against OUr
nography and male violence).
Socialist Action 20 May 1983 5
ROACH
COLIN
Independent Enquiry
NO COVER UP
resume on Monday 6 june at Clerkenwell County Court
• The Roach Family Support Committee (RFSC) are
Friday 20 May, , 8pm at Chats E9. A video of'the RFSC cammeetings from RFSC, 50 Rectory Road, London N18
Straight
stars HOW much reactionar clap-trap can be packer into the popular daily tabloids?
Here is an offerin from the Sun's 12 Ma edition, courtesy of their Sunshine stargazer:
ARIES (Mar 21 20): you short Journes have mer arrange do • 1t 14 Si 10. vacant Street. London arrive nor later 3aa Ther da: a meet prior io patta tion.
Page 6 scan of this page
6 Socialist Action SALVADOREAN through their clanestine radio stations received a telegram of solidarity from the highly successful labour movement conference on El Salvador in London on 14 May.
Three hundred and forty delegates and 100 onservers crammed into County Hall this included 183 delegates from
By Celia Pugh and Pete Briggs
over 20 unions and 105 from the Labour Party.
The biggest union contingents came from mineworkers, transport, engineers and
and the local government and civil service associations.
All rose to their feet with emotional applause after hearing Juan Martinez of the Salvadorean
federation
cada, representative of the Salvadorean
movement the Nociallul FDR-FMLN.
Martinez explained the history of his people. It is ridiculous to say that our struggle imported. started centuries ago when the Spanish arrived on our
shores. I doubt whether the Soviet Union existed
then! ... Popular and arm-
struggle al c not imported, because it is the
national
situation that the people
live through day by day...
We will fight against any
force that violates our
right to self determination.
hospitals. streets in protest against the government.
The present turmoil in
demonstrations. OI 1973.
But there is a difference.
By Tony Brown
The student demun-
strations are much
smaller. They are led by
right wing Guallist and
Giscardian students, back-
ed up by the fascist com-
mandos' The overwhelm-
ing majority ot students.
who are either apolitical or
who sympathise with the
left are not on the streets.
The other groups are
mainly middle class, 21110
they are protesting against
Why have left wing government.
events reached
this stage? Why does the
right wing have the in-
itiative? The answer lies in
the growing unpopularity
of Mitterrand's austerity
measures, and the
response to these of the
major left wing parties and
unions.
The problems of Mit-
terrand are the problems
faced by all left wing retor-
mist governments who
take their plans senous v.
There is no doubt that the
Mitterrand
has achieved solne suc-
cesses in the field of social
20 May 1983
El Salvador
conference
major success
PEASANTS and workers
'That's why workers are in the liberated zones, mass organisations, in the neighbourhoods
That's Reagan's mistake. Laclulics. He THUKS the whole thing just military that the problem for him is merely a minlary stalemate. But we understand that it's political power that makes the difference. We understand that we have to build That political-military force
can combine the military offensive with an insurrectional general strike ...
'We have Nicaragua a free country defending itself with arms in hand. We have an obligation to ask VOul solidarity with the just cause of San-
The only way that Nicaragua and El Salvador will be able to thank you for your help will be in the definite triumph our
people'
Salvador Moncada
underlined these points,
'We come to you with the
knowledge that the main, long lasting support for • our struggle comes from
working people through-
out the world
'Only one thing can
reverse the aggression
against us and that is the
joining together with
working DeODle through-
out the world. We need
Mitterrand under
THE CRS riot police are fighting students in the There are strikes different groups march a, and the statutory holi- Shas
day for workers has been
increased to TIve weeks.
The SMIC, the minimum
wage, has been raised in
real value.
But the strategy of the
government has been to
try beat the world
capitalist recession by
coverticul spending.
Without effective control
UVC. the major mono-
polies, and without effec-
tive price control, this has
lea to a massive loss of
business confidence and a
flight of capital.
It has meant destabil-
isation of the franc on the
international money
markets. The result has
been the need to introduce
deflationary austerity
measures like higher taxes
and a tough attitude to
strikers along with wage
restraint. Unemployment
still keeps going up.
Support
Mitterand
ported, albeit grudgingly
the Communist Party
and the main trade union
federations. Now the right
wing has launched a big
your help and not just in our present struggle but also when we take power, when we are subjected to the same kind of disinformation directed against the people of Nicaragua'.
These links were stressed greetings from Nicaraguan ambassador, Franceso D'Escoto.
Other platform speakers outlined the pressing solidarity tasks Jenny Pearce author of Under the Eagle, John CONCI Marsland, MP and assistant Terry
general secretary the Tobacco Workers union A message from Michael Foot pledged backing from the Labour Party.
Victory
But as Terry Marsland pointed out 'Getting resolutions through the 1Uc is one lning Going out into the factories, the workplaces and the streets is another Victory is imminent in El Salvador. We must be behind them in that struggle and when they win we must be sure we are behind them in their attempts to build a new society'.
With this she drew attention to the declaration.
the conference to be taken deep into the labour movement. This pledges to publicise
situation EI
Salvador to ao wilal wo
can to assist Salvadorean
political prisolicis and refugees and to support
mobilisation of the enrag-
ed small business people
ty of the left plays into
Among the students,
the initiatives of the right
The reform of the univer-
sity admission system pro-
posed education
minister Savary stems
directly from the economic
He proposes more
CrISIS.
selective admission,
an emphasis. . on science
aburses, because French
ability French
capitalism to employ LICi
number of graduates being
turned out. Protest
Both right wing and
left wing student unións
opposed the measures. But
the right wing took the in-
itiative to mobilise protest
The Socialist and Com-
munist Party students
organised only a small
token protest. The situa-
tion has echoes of the
1930s when the fascists in
the Latin Quarter
demonstrated against the
Popular Front govern-
ment.
has nasty
parallels with Chile under
Arene. students at the Catholic when the
were able to
Universitv
link up with the copper
the reconstruction of the coulill y in areas freed from government repres sion'.
A special appeal for aid for the zones controlled by the FDR-FMLN was launched from the conference. The second declaration pledge 'to against any government support I01 government of El Salvador the present
or for the United States intervention In Central America'.
An appeal was mad
for the labour movemen
build for the 11 September demonstration on the tenth anniversary of the coup, Chile. speech which raised £500 chair of the conterence.
ACTT genera secretary
Alan Sappe explained
"There must be no more
Chiles. We must take to
the streets on
September to say • US
seige
miners, in reactionary
mobilisation against
Allende, inspired by • the
fascists.
May Hot lull
into a May '68 in reverse
The huge majority of the
French are not
about to be mobilised by
the chic middle class
trom the
faculties. But the situation
La dire warning for the
left.
Important
To seize the political
initiative from the right it
is not enough to 'defend
the existing government.
It is only
that the interests of the
working clas are cham.
pioned by the left,
necessary against the SP-
CP government,
offensive of the right wing
and the bosses be checked.
AL/VADOR
ER hands off Central America'.
Delegates outlined
examples of practica. solidarity like the report from the NUT executive delegate about their work to raise funds for schools in • the controlled Zoes Others explained the importance chauering British government backing for Reagan. ticular the Tory pledge to send observers the phoney elections in December. Unity
Juan Martinez's call for a trade union delegation to El Salvador was taken up as a demand on the TUC
The mood of optimism, unity and defiance at the 14 May conference can now be used to deepen the roots for solidarity in the labour movement.
Greet Weinberger
• Casper Weinberger
(US defence secretary)
invasion of Oxford. Fri-
day, 27 May. Be there
to protest.
6-7pm meeting in
Oxford Town Hall with
EP Thompson.
7pm, , picket outside
the Oxford Union.
Transport from London
leaves the Nicaraguan
Solidarity Campaign of
fice, 20 Compton Ter-
race, off Upper St, Lon-
don N1, 3pm 1 27 May.
Tel: 01-226 6747. law
telephone 01-226 0571 Open Thur, Fri, 11-7
telephone (021) 643-5904
I VOTE
HERE!
REPUBUCA DI SALVADO FDR representative in Britain, Salvador Moncada speaks to the March 1982 demonstration against the phoney elections. 1983 will see more elections and more demonstrations against British complicity. The contribution from Tyrone O'Sullivan, of the Towel lodge of the South Wale Miners union shows the potential. He received thunderous applause when he brought greetings tron meone from l Salva dor the NUM 'We had to speak to our members.
Then the miners asked us What the hell are you Salvador? We said we'd going been writing letters and they said CHO| enough. You've got Power lies with the rank and file, mountains. LIC ř'll can tell you move
LOUS we'll go from here and make sure we fight'. la our movement declara • For copies the tion or aid appeal write to El Salvador Solidarity Campaign, 29 Isting on Park St, London NI.
For Marxist
books, posters,
postcards, badges
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London 328 Upper St. London N1
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The Politics of Thatcherism Edited by Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques Lawrence & Wishart (in association with Marxism Today) £4.95 Thatcher's Britain: A Guide to the Ruins Pluto Press & New Socials €1.50 Labour's Plan:
The New Hope for Britain The Labour Party 95p
Page 7 scan of this page
AND THE TORY
No.l
FOLLOWING the riots in Britain's inner cities twe summers ago Thatcher was quick to take up the ideological oftensive. Failure of parental respensibility was the greater supervision discipline for youth was her answer. The campaign for a return to Victorian values had begun, and at the centre of that campaign — defence of family virtues.
Thatcher explains what every Jobs FROM 1979-81 the average percenlage or unemplovea women almost doubled. 71,000 women have been dropped from the register because of the new way of compiling the unemployment figures. Over 860,000 women are officially registered unemployed, but than a million more would like to work, most of whom are married women.
Pay WOMEN'S pay as men's is steadily declining. pay rose from 63.1 per cent of men's then fell back to p9. percent in 193d cent in 1977
Nearly cent of workers' earnings today in Britain are below f80 per week. The government is abolishing fair wages resolutions in government contracts.
The Tory government was compelled by the European Court to update the Equal Pay Act. By using the Order to amend the Act the Tories avoided debate and rushed through a cosmetic amendment which accepted the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, but erecting hurdles every stage discouraged making any use or une legislanon. Part-Time workers BETWEEN September 1980 and 1981 alone 197,000 part-time workers were sackea. I wo out or nve women are
Socialist
Woman
VICTORIAN
VALUES
OFFENSIVE
Margaret ee the advantage of putting pen
never be able to get on in the
cause, tien that they are the Caring Par and ty, the Party that "good l the
to realise how, economic and social crisis, how appealing the traditional rallying cries of the right can become.
In this first
in the firing line
part-time workers.
Maternity Benefits
unemployment DIC.
birth.
Women must
La percentage of Women's open for women when they but can
Education and training women THE GOVERNMENT
greater 1ob segregation
SO LIC CIOD. the Open University, TOPS
systems further threaten women. al women from Social Security
live below the poverty line.
housewife kaows; that you can i Socialist
pead beyond your meaas; thai
mildren should leara at sa carly
es in the piggy bank or they'l
world. Central to this election campaige will be the Tory conten- the
values wbat is world. It bas takes some time for sacialists to begin
at a time of
by the
supplement of
Women and the family
child FIRMS employing fewer than six peo- under
where many women work. are now exempt from the duty to re-
vulnerable. instate women wno nave Just given Nurseries
Procedures for gaining maternity NURSERY leave are now much more complex.
state in writing when year they intend to leave, giving the assumed date of confinement and when they will return to work. All employers do not any longer have to keep the job
return, get away with offering a numbers Musters
has done nothing to halt the trend towards
Abortion oI under the impact of the crisis. In post-
which help women most are the first the approaches on this
mature student places. day release,
have missed out on education or need - all essential to those wnc has retraining. Student loans and voucher
WOMEN excluded from the labour market are more and more forced to
Women account for two-thirds of pensioners, permanently.
Woman JUDITH ARKWRIGHT looks at the realty belind the rhetoric of the Tor Party. She takes up the challens of the Tary Party as the party of concern and reveals the hypocrisy of a phitosophy that rails agsinst
'busybody social workers, urging people to welcome cuts w state predaion in welfare, and instead builds up the powers of the police to play a much busier sole in every aspect of people's lives.
The alternative being offered
Labour Party is also critically examined and a basis for a socialist policy explained.
most of the seven million recipients of
benefit. The notorious co-
habitation rule is policed rigorously
the Tory administration.
Young single mums are particularly
education under the
Tories meant that the three and four
old's contingent In time
education between 1979 and 1981 rose
by 4 per cent and then fell by 5.4 per
cent between 1981 and 1982
By 1980 child-minders accounted
for 57 per cent of full day-care places
Great Britain. Estimates of the of unregistered child range TONI 100,000
300,000 in England alone.
DESPITE the defeat of legal attacks
women's abortion rights under government the attack
facilities continues. As the NHS share
of abortions has failed to keep pace
with demand the share of the 'market'
increased the private profit-
making end of the market.
Black women
UNDER the new immigration rules of
1980 and 1983 women who are British
citizens have the right to
husband but only if they satisty im-
migration officials that they have met
and that they intend to live together
WE ARE NOT
AMUSED
sprout
!!!! (Weekend World January 1982)
GREETINGS
'GAY YOUNG
Socialists greets socialis
rival Socialist Woman. There aren't enough women's voices on the left, let young lesbian ones! We hope to see regular coverage of issues from Gays and Lesbians and how they effect 'straights' as well. No Gay liberation without socialisa. socialism without Gay liberation!'
GAY YOUNG SOCIALISTS
'WE HOPE Socialist Woman succeeds in bringing confidence and strength to women working to end all forms of male violence from Cruise missiles to pornography. Women together are strong. May the 24th be with you. LAURA AND CARMEL. Brighton May 24th Planning Group.
"ГНЕ NATIONAL Abortion Campaign sends greetings for your
'You've really outlined an approval of what I would call
Victorian values.' Brian Walden
'Oh exactly. Very much so.
Those were the values when
our country became great'.
first issue and urges your readers to support our campaign for a woman's not to continue pregnancy. We still need inancial support too!
JATIONAI ABOR.
TION CAMPAIGN
'YOUNG WOMEN have been at the sharp end of the last four years of Tory misery, but have also led the fightback a at Greenham, in Youth CND, at work and in the Labour Party. Revolution stands with thes young women i tell struggles, and welcome the 'Socialist Woman' supplement as a new form for discussion and debate that will map the way ahead.'
REVOLUTION
'THE STRUGGLE of women in the west and the east as women is would like to extend our greetings to the first issue of Socialist Woman'.
KUMUDINI; Revolu-
Margaret Thatcher
tionary Marxist Party, Sri Lanka
'FORGET the differences between women of colour Let's unite together to get rid of Mayas TacTamil RAJES BALA, Women's League of UK.
'MARGARET THAT Woman he disgrace to women unite against her and hel • covernment T the coming election and
the only other significant party with a proper policy on jobs no bombs.
PAT ARROWSMITH, CND National Council
'A WARY feminist welcome to Socialist Action from Spare calis. Rib.
the Woman supplement rise (and bite the hand that feeds wherever icerosaly) Women are revolting!
SPARE RIB collective
Page 8 scan of this page
The family
DURING the last twenty years the family has undergone changes (see chart). The family unit is difficult to identify. In particular what is supposed to be the typical' male with a non-working wife plus
children only eight per cent of the labour force today.
The number of families has doubled in recent years to the extent that the model of the nuclear family is not the typical household unit.
Still, BEETOSL people pass some kind of nuclear family unit during
lives, the Family found that the vast majority of people aspire to that model. ' In particular the institution of marriage shows a massive durability. Only 14 per cent of men and 8 per cent of women never marry. Ninety per cent of young people expect to get married.
Nevertheless the family is in crisis. One in three marriages end in divorce. As many as one in five children born today parents before the children are 16 years old.
The families that the Tories conveniently forget — battered by their social and economic policies.
today
ding to a 1981 study.? his nas to be scen backdrop of
makes up
single parent hold is of
through different means-tested
Commission
women can expect to look
in their lives.3
And behind the who divorce
Violence against women and children constituted 25 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of all violent crime accor-
against the economic social deprivation which are the consequences of the Tories' attacks outlined above. Today nearly 1,300,000 children are in families where the head of the house-
work. Means-tested benefits interacting with falling income tax thresholds sets the notorious poverty trap into motion: income increases, a family begins to lose its entitlement to
and pays higher taxation and national insurance contributions.
Cut backs in health care for the
mean that today one in two after an elderly or disabled relative at some time
The Tories' response to this crisis of the family has been the type of strategy outlined bysthe Think Tank, leaked to the press at the beginning of this year.
Think Tank lie the ideas of Tory advisors like Ferdinand
Households: by type Great
'1961 1980 % % One person - under retirement age
- over retirement age Two or more bcobic
• one or more over
- a vicer Tentencil arc
Married couple only 26 27 Married couples with 1 or 2 dependent
30 26 CHUC Married couple with 3 or more dependent Married couple with independent child (ren)
10 Lone-parent with al
east one dependent child Lone-parent with
dependent child (ren)
OftV
Two or more
Total households 100 100
Source: Social trends, 12, HMSO, 1981, Table 2:2.
IN PREPARATION general election the Cabinet's Central Policy Review staff (the Think Tank) produced a radical list proposals for welfare state.
These proposals before a committee Cabinet ministers (all men) were to refine them to provide the strategic backdrop manifesto. Many of the proposals deal with the strengthening of the family.
According to the report in the Guardian (17.2.83) they include: • Women and couraging mothers Encouraging families - in the widest sense to reassume responsibilities taken on by the state, for example, the responsibility for the disabled, elderly, unemployed 16 year olds'. • Parental rights and responsibilities. Encourage more parental involvement in schools and find 'ways of encouraging the development of children... into self-reliant, responsible capable, enterprising and fulfilled adults'. • Training children. Train children to manage their pocket money and encourage banks and schools to look for further ways change the culture so that business and wealth creation become more acceptable.
• Encouraging private social needs. net for welfare needs, encourage voluntary contributions to both state and voluntary services by permitting PAYE deductions for charitable consolidate and extend use of surrogate families.
• Caring for the elderly.
and benefit allowance to see if families
looking after their elderly might be bet-
ter rewarded; give more encouragement
to community-based services like day
or short term care.
• Preventing crime.
responsible for some of the anti-social
behaviour of their children.
• The moral environment.
the desirability of more active govern-
ment role in dealing with pornography,
sex shops, television and press violence.
The philosophy that
these proposals is, according to a pro-
minent member of the Cabinet commit-
tee Patrick Jenkin, the idea that:
THE IDEAS of personal liberation
and freedom which are the main
targets of Mount and the Tories do
not inform the thinking of the pre-
sent leadership of the Labour Party.
"The family is the most important
unit of our community. That is why for
the first time in our country our govern-
ment is putting forward what amounts
to a national family policy. Our aim is
straightforward
the stability and quality of family life in
Britain...
While the rhetoric is Mount's, Jim
Callaghan was actually providing a ra-
tionalisation for the cut required from
his own government by the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund. But it would be
facile to assume an identity between
Mount's views and those of the leader-
ship of the Labour Party's.
Underlying current Labour Party
policy on the family, and in particular
Labour's manifesto, are the ideas of
Lord Beveridge.
The Tory
for the f
for the
It possesses of restructuring the
Ferdinand were put Margaret of senior who depth in Family. for the Tory
their families. En- ch.
to stay at home.
is within the family.
beer development, limiting,
the test of time, savings;
Opponents
provision of Define minimum safety
antagonism purposes, bring abour
Adjust tax
society.
Make parents
Consider too much
are underlines
Labour's fami
by the Tories.
sophy was
keep her wage.
it is to strengthen This
towards redistribution archiell
"The family has been the foundation for every society known to history.
the strength and resilience not least in adversity. Loyalty to family ranks highest of all, higher than loyalty
Mount, head of Thatcher's personal policy unit, has explained these ideas in some
This book The Subversive
Mount's argument rests on four main planks. Firstly, that the nuclear family is the universal family form. Secondly, that the values of the family are for individualism as against the col lectivism of socialists or even the chur-
Thirdly, that the family Is subversive because it has always fought a battle against those forces which attemp ted to supplant it. Finally, he suggests that the main source of power and control for working class men and women
Cursorily dismissing any evidence to the contrary, Mount argues that the present family form is universal and has
constant factor in only qualifying this by his conclusions Western civilisation and to the last 1000 years! But not only has this institution stood
, Mount tells us, but it has positively resisted all challenges.
The family is subversive because it consistently puts private before communal good and thus is in permanent
with those who wish to change in society as a whole — utopians, feminists, Marxists, Hitler and even Jesus Christ are opponents of the family says Mount.
'It is the essence of marriage that it is private and apart from the rest of
"selfishness" "exclusiveness" is not its undertone but its heart and soul.' But on the other hand
fraternity permeates both the Christian and Marxist hope'S
For Mount such ideologies place emphasis the public
sphere of life and devalue the private
sphere and achievements within it: they
obsessed with economics and
politics and ignore the power of natural
ties such as love and caring. For him the
family endures because it is unaffected
by political and economic develop-
welfare state now so bitterly attacked
At the core of Beveridge's philo the notion that married
women would stay at home and that a
man's earnings should be sufficient to
- the concept of the family Income gap
concept was buttressed by
three tenets. First, that the aim of the
welfare state was to provide aid and
help to individual families, not a move
social responsibility and of wealth through
benefits and tax concessions. Secondly
'the gap between incomes, in and out of
work should be as large as possible'
in other words state benefits were not
intended and should not provide a liv-
ing wage for their recipients.
Finally, the welfare state should be
used to consolidate a traditional role
for women. Indeed Beveridge's recom
mendations were based on his division
Page 9 scan of this page
a Vigorian housemaid — the rich object to socialisation of housework, but have always found their own way around domestic Marxism and the family
amily
ments in any fundamental sense and is a haven from them.
From this Mount draws the conclusion that what the family needs is to be left alone. He claims that the working class family has carried out a 'permanent revolution' against all those forces which have tried to interfere with it.
The most dangerous enemies of the family today are come with the best intentions, but come armed all the same with statutory powers and administrative instruments; education officers, children's officers, arenilects, planners not intruding in po pue These people Mount accuses private space.' Services run down
The consistency of approach between this position and the Think Tank proposals can immediately be seen. The net result is a continuation of the present policies of the Tories and a further running down of the services which most families depend on to one degree or the other. The family and not the state 'must be in the front line when Gran needs help' according to Patrick
The notion that the family can exist ndependently from Stale, is of course, a sham, as are the Tory declarations against state interference. government stands on its 'libertarian' principles in refusing to intervene to save a factory or mine on which the livelihoods of thousands of workers depend, but will readily mobilise all its resources against a strike.
The Think Tank proposals hemselves are the most shocking and extensive intervention in the heart of private and family life. Its proposals amount to a massive programme of social engineering to achieve its nirvana of a culture in which business and wealth creation becomes acceptable.
The double standards aiso apply to the position of women. Mount argues in favour of basic civil rights for women as enshrined in recent legislation. there is a class bias to the way in which the Tories extend these rights: namely to those who can afford to exercise them. Abortion is readily available to the rich in private clinics, while cuts in the NHS restric the same right for working people.
At the same time the Tories have of society into six groups: employees, OLIC employed, working age not gainfully employed, those below working age, those above it. and housewives married women of working age. It is in this context that the granting of family allowances has to be seen, not to give women economic independence, but to encourage larger families without which the British race cannot continue.
The concept of the family wage informs regulations on most benefits; justifying keeping women's wages at a low level and the idea that women do not need to go out to work since men are the bread-winners.
Likewise it informs aspects of the labour movement's policy. For example, the local authority unions' claim to the Clegg Commission after the Winter of Discontent used in negotiations the fact that almost half their full time workers earned less take home pay than a typical family on social security. & By using the family in this way as a comparative yardstick for the purposes of
future
been forced to promote 'law and order' type demagogy nographers, in order to more clearly demarcate the boundaries of the fami-
Such rhetoric, the bag and baggage of the 'Victorian' approach, creates a more favourable climate for the growth of right wing forces such as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child whose growth has a reciprocal effect on Tory policies.
However the kernel of the Tories' policy on women reflected in the Think Tank proposals to drive women out of the workforce and into the home. This policy has met with considerable success as we have shown albeit with some unexpected results. For example in South Wales it is estimated that women will soon outnumber men in the workforce because the structure of industry favours keeping women in low paid but profitable industries. Nevertheless currently being expelled workforce at three times the rate of men.
Nurseries & creches
Again the double standards of the Tories regulations introduced The unemployment benefit system by the Ravner Report. requiring women to prove that they have the means to look after children in order to be eligible for work. So at the same time as the Tories
the possibility of women having their children cared for through nurseries and creches they demand that women provide that thev have access to these same facilities.
But the hypocrisy of the Tories does not make their policy inconsistent. The catalogue of attacks on the family outlined above, has taken its toll in families broken up and violence within
family. But these represented as • individual which only prove the general rule that But the family is a haven of happiness in a grim world.
The starting point of the Tories is not defence of the family, but the promotion of policies which put profit before social need.
Tories is to bolster the family as a buttress against the effects of their own policies.
y philosophy
wage bargaining women will lose out. of But of course the myth of the family wage applies to all those in the family. It is estimated that if wives did not work the number of families on the poverty line would quadruple mousLy to tne seven mulion already dependent on state benefits. In Tact te tory poncy or ariving womer back into the home resulted by 1980 in a drop of disposable income available to families of six per cent. state Assumptions
The weakness of therefore lies not only in its fundamental assumptions. In the context of the economic crisis of the '80s the progressive measure supports
ecome utopian without going transformation of the economy putting social nead before profit. contradiction is nowhere more evident than in the policies and programme advanced by the Labour manifesto The New Hope.
DUL-
campaign women are
from the
lie new philosophy of the family
into the provided by Marxists and socialist
feminists.
that the nuclear family
working
legal relations.
evidence
offers
place within
and reproduction of the working class failures are
instances
sion of women.
tive responsibility; and to
The aim of the - adding enor-
people Beveridgism
have a thorough
This
Party's Thatcher - double values
FOR MOUNT there is only one coherent alternative to his own
interested in loving,
sonal relationships.
He accurately describes this view
is not the natural and universal way to organise society personal relationships, but an institution with a definite historical role in the them context of given economic, social and
Socialists do not deny that the fami- tion, and
from ravages of capitalist society, and that love, care and genuine affection take
framework. But socialists also insist that the functions of the family, in particular the welfare
through the family takes place on the basis of the subordination and oppres-
To Tory notions of individualism socialists argue the need for coopera-
boarding tion; to self-help the notion of collec-
notions of nominal equal rights we put forward the prospect of a real choice and power for women and children in determining their lives. But while Mount correctly In sees these notions as counterposed, he
Joan Lestor —
is also forced to distort socialist conceptions. He accuses them of not being
caring relationships' and having a rigid schema into which they want to organise all per-
The irony is that Mount and his colleagues' policy is to impose a schema on
through discouraging women from going out to work and forcing
into the home, while preaching the evils of maternal deprivation increasing family poverty, cutting educa-
taking away • children's
Marxists do not believe that there is one way to bring up children. We do not think that women can have a real choice ine cestrainthe yar domestic
constraints domestic drudgery and responsibility.
At present only the very rich are liberated from the bulk of these tasks. Ironically a large number of examples of non-nuclear family arrangements —
schools, nannies, domestic servants and the like — are the prerequisites of a class that enforces a different model of family life on the majority of the population.
proposing the notion of the abolition of the family, Marx and Labour's spokesperson on women
Engels exposed the hypocrisy of the ruling class who preached one thing and practised another; not to limit peoples choice about how they lived, but to enhance it. t is tronic commen on Thatcher's appeal for a return to Victorian values that her ideologues should preach the same Victorian humbug.
The fact that the ruling class have no principled objection to collective responsibility to the functions of the nuclear family is shown by measures such as 24-hour nurseries introduced during the Second World War to free women for the war effort. Tory objec tions apply only to the liberation of women and humanity.
The first steps towards such freedom of choice lie through state provision of socialised child-care through 24-hour nurseries, complete socialisation of health and welfare through the expansion of a free and comprehensive health service; socialisation of education that allows people of whatever age access to education; care of old people through an adequate pension and provision of suitable accommodation.
All these necessary steps towards freedom of choice are those which the Tories are undermining.
Friedrich Engels - for liberation
Page 10 scan of this page
New hope
New Hope for Britain, the document on which Labour's general election manifesto was based, was greeted with predictable hostility by the media and their Tory allies. the family and women's rights did not escape their critical attention and for gooa reason since on certal Issucs ll represents a definite advance, reflecting the hard work of women activists within the party and the growth of women's organisation (a doubling of the size of the Labour women's con-
of thinking represented by Beveridge and no radical measures proposed women's role in society, and thus provide a real alternativé to the Tories' view of the isolated tamiv unit.
choice between staying at home to
work. Men and women should be able to share the fights and responsibilities
The problem lies not so much in these sentiments but-in the lack of
realise them. While it is progressive to suggest that men share responsibility for domestic work the document does not explain how this is going to be
Swapping
LICELI women swapping roles, but for these
' Although men may be beginning io ao Just a utte more aomesnc labour and most married women are by now part of the paid labour force ...the division of roles itself has only arisen in the context of a gender-
...that the roles of breadwinner and houseperson were there
THE FIRST STEP towards such an
alternative should be to introduce in
households rather than families. Less
than one third of the population live
on households and the
This is already the case wIlll
Domestic Violence Act which applies
both to married and common law
of this kind should be _LaWS
extended to take account of all type of
property laws, taxation and benefits
which currently take as their starting
point a married couple. But it should
also mean that violence within the
people and children cared for in the
home should be made where possible.
Likewise payment should be made
ledgement of home
This should not be seen as inducement
for women to stay at home, but as the
creation of independent relationships
within the family. Neither should it be
as
Wlnln cenkl
and Anna Coote urge such a strategy
in their book Sweet Freedom when
Lilsok
for the family?
filscated to them, but that that dii ana woner sion only grew up on the basis of their
we coll surp tem ol dell sesis content giving men and women equal opportunities to step into ether role the roles and breaking down the division of labour between the two sorts
document to challenge this framework which leads into weaknesses in specific areas of policy. The antithesis of the family wage concept is to treat
But while the manifesto proposes the abolition of the married man's tax allowance it does not situate this correct reform within the context of an overall strategy for a guaranteed in-
work of equal value is an indispensable concept which the document takes on board, but this is meaningless without a statutory minimum wage which deals with the low pay ghettoes into which women are torc-
were three million low paid workers in
walll women: if part time workers, young workers, and homeworkers are added it totals nearly 6 million of whom the
Labour's Programme '82 has gone in favour of a discussion with the TUC on the possibility of such a measure. As the TUC is overwhelmingly hostile to the laea is an interterence with its role in the free collective bargaining process (with the honourable exception of the National Union of Public
redistribution of wealth within the
family. It does not eclipse the aim of
redistributing wealth between labour
and canita: but in our view it is the
appropriate context in which that aim.
argument is.
being paid for through the abolition
of the married man's tax allowance or CUVa
principle that they constitute a collec-
authorities are not outlandish as the
World War and still exist in some
areas - although too few to change
habits of domestic work.
women should be recognised, this is
merely a step on the road towards
their colectivisation and the release
women's right to work
SUCH CHOICES as outlined above
can only really become a reality by en-
suring the economic independence of
this meafs enshrining in law and in
practice the right of women to go out
to work.
cano woner In-
dropping the idea.
Aolnen Programme manifesto is the parent families.
realistic answer
which will reflect the tact that untı universal child care is provided by the state the allowance must be sufficient for the child's needs and those of the caring parent.'
promise of mandatory provision of Nusenes
plement' tor one parent families.
not appear in the campaign document and the promise nursery care is hedged with the pro-
In addition,
supplementary availability tests
recently
TeDOTL.
the existing cake.
through this
Breaking down the division of
collective bargaining
— tundamentallv
labour market are to change.
Ter and matten
Labour leaders only give in under pressure.
Impoltanl advance in '82 not present in the relaton lo single ty control.
Programme '82 explained: 'We will introduce the only have
the poverty which many one parent families live; an adequate one parent family benefit party trom
society, states that:
respect
NHS facilities and abortion,
This commitment, along with the
represented an important break with Beveridge: a firm commitment for the state to extend its sphere phasis). of duties and in the meantime to provide a decent living rather than a 'sup-
of the 1967
However this commitment does
advance of mandatory
viso that this should be 'as soon as possible'. But nowhere is the retreat
guaranteed minimum income for all women has measures to be ensured. This would mean getting rid of the cohabitation rules on
benefit and is utopian. including those introduced by the Rayner
Again this policy would have to be control
linked into demands for a wealtn tax
— but no policies for women can be effective on the basis of sharing out
The notion or ine family wage has to be challenged
mechanism through establishing women's absolute right to work on the same terms as men. homosexuality.
labour between men and women
ciple of
A FIRST step toward this would be
the introduction of positive action for all
programmes at work and in training. control.
But this should not be geared towards
enhancing the opportunity of in-
class action and quotas for women in
certain jobs and industries to break
fought for in the unions both through
LarOUe! al cas
Will car io be orer.
from the advances in Labour Party policy over the last three years more pronounced than in relation to fertili-
Three Labour Party conferences
enaorscu tree ADO LUl request. Yet the document, clearly indicating pressure on all wings of the
reachonal y forces
'While continuing to defend and the absolute right individual conscience, we will improve
for family planning including counselling and day care; and we will remove barriers to the implementation of the existing right of choice for women in the termination of pregnancy' (our em-
This refusal to move further than the limited and vulnerable provisions tion.
Act signals a. worrying timidity by the Labour leadership to
the interests of women.
However such timidity is consistent with the limited scope of the document in relation to the amendment of the the laws of consent, on prostitution
TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE
come through the combination of
described above. Persuading individual men to take more responsibility outside this framework
Right to choose and fertility
upon ANY FORM of cercion in sexual relationships must be eradicated from law and custom, whether this be ex. pressed through lack of contraception and abortion facilities; through the age of consent laws or laws against
Abolition of such restrictive laws should go hand in hand with the prin.
mandatory provision of contraceptive and abortion facilities
Wages under local community
At the same time violence against women and children must be tackled, not through strengthening the forces of the state, but through self-defence being taught in schools, through expansion of battered wives refuges, through community control of police operations and through rape crisis centres being established in all
This programme of democratic and partial demands will not resclve the problem o: 307 :0 :eu5e T-z: bes etere ses
and of rape.
On the issue of rape the document
suggests that in power Labour will:
'Give more support for victims of
rape and provide urgent review of
police and court procedures in cases
of rape and violence against women.'
Basic steps such as making rape
within marriage a criminal offence as
moved by John Tilley MP in the last
parliament are not even discussed
The sum effect of these deficien-
cies within Labour's programme is a
retreat from any fundamental effort
LO Conne lu grips with the crisis ot the
family. While this is true to Labour's
decades-old strategy, it corresponds
neither to current problems nor to the
responsibility that Labour has to
champion women's rights to libera-
policy has to be developed
which, rejecting the principles of
Beveridgism accepts the need for an
alternative to the nuclear family if
women are to be truly liberated from
ties and burdens experienced
wIn Is Commes class and oppressed under the banner of Victorian values. Neither does it provide an answer to the social and economic crisis that is the context for the crisis of the family. A socialist programme is needed to put the cost of the crisis where it belongs — on the bosses. But it Ts only if we start to take up the measures outlined that women.
whose subordination Thatcher's plans for the family rest, can be mobilised A fight by the labour movement around these policies will begin the process of winning women who have the most to lose from Thatcher's plans into a mighty force against them.
References
1 Families in the Future. Final report ol
uc uy comssor oo me romy
January 1983 2 House of Commons Hansard. 8
December 1982
4 PreSSter ine iFate
The Subversive Family. F. Mount.
Macmillan 1982
8 Quoted in Sweet Freedom. A . Coote
and B Campbell. Picador. 1983
9 ir Wharis to te done ba "fr
Page 11 scan of this page
REVIEWS
THERE WAS a time when a book about Zionist collaboration with anti-semites, Nazis included, would have been dismissed as a sick joke by a self-hater (as anti-Zionist Jews are invariably denounced).
But last year's invasion of Lebanon so tarnished Israel's image that there is growing scepticism about une unimpeachable authority that Zionists have alwavs taise v assum. ed on the 'Jewish Question'
reviewed by Pam Singer
With the massacres at Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, even the trump card of the Holocaust losing effectiveness as
pathy and silencing opposition.
In this context, Brenner's book should get the serious deserves as a thoughtful, wei-researcaca valuable book.
Brenner' s starting point is that Zionism as an ideology leads logically co-existence and col-
with anti. semites. He does not try to by making glib equations between Zionism and Nazism. Rather, he shows how Zionists sought the aid achieve their goal and accommodated to them
Zionism has always DUSLUICU the sole defender of the Jews
anti-semitism.
However the Zionist movement and indeed the state of Israel were founded and maintained not out of intransigent struggles Israeli soldiers on patrol
nternational
overseas surface,
Zionism in the Age
of the Dictators*
against anti-semitism, but OULI ot an acceptance of anti-semitism as endemic and 'natural' to gentile society.
The Holocaust was an extreme example 'fact'. The
acteristics, perpetual
• 5 Jewish
anti-semitism futile gesture.
antisemitism, has aways central strategy the Zionist his cvnicism
as he Jews in century Europe, WaN at pe of the '30s.
on 8Insemitism, slogan was "Jew. go back to Palestine'. It is not surthen, that the Zionist movement would have collaborated with anti-semites to achieve the common goal of a Jewish ghetto in Palestine. The early Zionists however were not fussy about location.
Zionists, left and right alike, subordinated everyNew issue out now!
Red or Green for Europe? Articles on CND, West Germany & the Greens,
France under Mitterrand, socialists and the family, education, steel industry plus extracts from conversations with Nobel Literature prize winner and socialist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. All for just 75p. Or subscribe for £5.50 inland, £6.50
£13 overseas airmail. Cheques etc to
'International', PO Box 50, London NI 2XP.
thing to the goal of creating and maintaining the Jewish state. Brenner shows how they consistently Tanted movements against fascism and anti-semitism This is still true today. The 1101C CoR improve the lot of Jews
but to bring them to the promised land.
Much has already been published about Zionist cooperation with Germany during World War 2. Brenner gives us a more rounded picture by cluding lesser known material about the Jewish communities and Zionists IN Cold.
Hungary. He goes through the records of all Zionist political currents up to the pro-fascist •Stern gang,
considered the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, operations commander
Shamir _ПОй Israel's foreign minister.
SLICHOLICIS his convincing case by letting Zionists from all factions speak for themselves damer sage unen and social context. within wider political
Brenner's conclusion is that Zionism is totally incorrect. That it is not, and never has been, identical
peoples. He insists that
progressives must unite to defeat Zionism.
Read the book and see who are the real 'selfhaters'.
•onısm in ne age or me Dictators (Published Croom Helm Ltd, f9.95.)
снова
On Your Bikes
Saturday, 21 May,
4.35, Channel 4.
NO. NOT the Norman
Tebbit Show or a Tory
clechon broadcast, Dul a
series for cyclists.
the first ever on l'V eve!
though there are eight
millon in Britain.
The Witness
Saturday 21 May, BBC2
HUNGARIAN FILM
banned there for nine
years. A satirical comedy
about the attempts of the
state to turn a man into
the star witness in a show
Vietnam
Monday 23 May,
9.00, Channel 4.
THIS WEEK is the Tet
Offensive and features
some of the best film of
Rita, played by Julie Walters. English Literature.
willing to accept her
portantly, to herself.
The film is about woman who a echtes she wants to make her own decisions, her own choltes.
By Sue MacDonald
As she says to her husband who wants her to give course and have kids, 'I don't want a baby until I have a choice'.
From the minute she
Uxiord cobbled courtyard (do all
ly wear shoes we can't even stand up in!) She brings a hilarious breath of fresh air into the life of hel Michael Caine) Frank (played by
Frank is permanently drunk and totally disillusioned with his job and the series so far. It was the turning point of the war — Icaacrs acuvc I. the solidarity campaign will remember what great morale booster it was at the time.
The World:
A Television History.
Wednesday 25 May, 6.30, Channel 4.
CRAMMING IN the
Educating Rita
EDUCATING RITA is about a working class woman who takes an Open University course in
Rita, a hairdresser played by Julie Walters, isn't role , just a wife and childbearer. She knows she is intelligent and intends to prove it to her husband, her tutor and most im-
life. He realises that most
of what he leaches
students pretentious,
irrelevant, rubbish.
By her very presence
there Rita blows apart the
myth university
telligent than other
people.
Her sharp wit and
realistic attitudes to life
and literature expose the
other student's artistic
bullshit.
After discussion
•Macbeth and Tragedy'
Rita says. and
thought Macbeth was just
a bloody good story!'
Because Rita refuses to
obey her husband he
burns and
essays to try to stop her -
split up. She tinds
herself ostracised from her
OWI working class com-
Period from 10,000,00 ~ untu low isa vlt OlI
tall order, even if it is
spread over 26 episodes.
The series is based on
the Times Atlas of World
History and has all sorts
and maps. Collioule The trouble graphics
with this sort of thing is
that it goes all over the
place politically trying to
explain massive
developments in the
short time it can devote
to each event.
Britain in the
Thirties: For King
and Country?
Thursday 26 May, BBC2.
IN 1933 the Oxford
Union voted for the
famous motion that they
wouldn't fight for King
and Country. Some of
these former daring
young men are asked if
they would vote the same
way again.
Socialist Action 20 May 1983 munity because she refuses to fulfil their expectations of women, and she cannot fit into the society that Krank is a part of - polite, comfortable, middle-class
and completely dishonest.
'student lifestyle'
thinks everything "style', "literary talent', and so on.
only when the woman she lives with tries to commit suicide that she realises this way of life is also a fraud.
Rita again realises that she's going to have make it on her own - - the only person she can consistently rely on is herself.
Education
Educating Rita is not working class woman being 'made good' by an education. Il is a SUIS of a working clas. woman who decides she has to make her life her UWIL
Nuclear Week Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday, Channel 4.
CHANNEL FOUR
seems a bit embarrassed
that its long-planned
week has
in the middle of the elec-
On balance, it will
probably end up aiding
CND more than anyone
else, partly because the
most attractive program-
mes are the anti-nucleas
ones.
It kicks off on Sun-
day with Weekend
World Special. Brian
Walden looks at the
Britain's
nuclear arsenal and then
chairs a discussion bet
ween representatives of
the major parties
Many of the
'unilateralists' of
Labour's front bench are
putting our side, this will
11 different after she has learnt how to criticise and Chekhov • it has merely reasserted her bellet thai she can lead her own life indenendent of her ho band and enforced motherhood.
Enjoyable
When she has choose between ber hus band and her education. Rita chooses her education.
Similarly when Frank eusk and disorderly sind sacked for being asks her to go with him to Australia, she again mains adamant about her right to choose. 'No. I may continue my studies, I may go to France ... I may even have a baby.'
Educating Rita is really funny, enjoyable, and in parts very moving film.
Julie Walters makes what could have been a somewhat predictable film into one 1 really enjoyed and one well worth seeing
probably make the scor
1-0 to the opposition si far.
The more interesting stuff is during the week
Three programmes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday describer
"provocative enter. tainment' feature Jonathon Dimbleby an others in a mixture of songs, sketches and more serious contributions called It'll All Be Over in Half An Hour.
Following each one,
of Opinions has Michael Howard word caleron ana Lora Zuckerman In that
the need for deterrence The week ends with debate on Sunday 29 May.
Page 12 scan of this page
12 Socialist Action
DIARY
(These listings are free for all major labour movement and campaigns .OCEes Semidisplay advertisements cost Sp per word and must be paid in oovonce Denu Diary Socialist Action, 328 Upper Street, London NI 2XP 10 orrive KOL later than Thursday, one week prior to publication). • 'Ireland and Labour' •uolc meetis wiln Aen Livingstone (GLC leader) and Clive Soley (LP deputy spokesperson on N. Ireland). Called by Islington South Labour Party. Tues 7 June, isvo soetor cenual Library, Holloway Road. • Resistance to Racism •ocdi rii zu way. olo midnight with bands, food, bar etc. Haringey Community Centre Brabant Ko. wood Green Nul Tickets £2, unwaged El. In support of the Haringey defence campaigns.
• Labour Movemen Campaign for Palestine: recalled first national conterence. sal Li May, 11-5pm, County Hall, London SEI. Open to mem bers ane celecates rom ffiliated organisations Nembership £5 (£1 unwaged), conference fee f2 (El unwaged). M'ship deadline 19 May. For information write to LMCP, c o 28 Carlton Mansions, Holmleigh Rd, London N16.
• End racism in schools and police harassment! Public
Wed 25 May, inccllb, .30pm, Church Hall, 4
Algernon Road, Lewisham, SE13
A ar comantee di Palestine public meeting. wea lo lidy Lambeth 1 own Hall. 7.30om Speakers from PLO, LCP, Palestine Solidarity, Labour Widdle Fast Council and apen discussion on preparations for LP and re calei cules
• Labour Movement
Conference on Ireland 16
July, Conway Hall, Red
Lion Square, London WC1. Starts 10.45am. . Delegates
f2. Further details: LMCI, Box 189, 32 * . ODSerVCIS Ivor Place, London NW1.
GOOD news for some this week.
As the capitalist class gears itself up for
the election effort, it is
calculated that £15 million is floating into jam jars in the Tory Headquarters.
It all comes from our
pockets. It is taken and
offset against tax profits from some of the biggest companies in Britain. Good news for some
on the wages front too.
Agents of the repressive apparatus (or as the sun would say, 'our boys') got a lovely 7.2 per cent increase.
Unfortunately
parliamentary review was BXTON mis-timed. Take the judges for inStItC. they can last out that long, they will nave lo wait until after their26,000 or8 1,00 i- the election
crease.
20 May 1983
MAY
24
ENT :
@ O 80s
Events
• Dalston WONT taking
action outside army recruit-
mrenl ornice.
• Woolwich Royal Arsenal
Co-operative Societv giving
out peace badges in shopp-
ing centre.
• Nicaragua. Guatemala and El Salvador Briefings are produced by the Central ucuica ulolwaliol Service, 14 Brixton Rd, If you would London SW9.
Ike to recerve then regularly, please write enclosing your name and address. • ruDiiC meeling on Chile in support of the Committee for the Defence of the reople s kignis (CODEPU) project. Sat 21 May 1.30pm, swan noler London koad. Liverpool Chilean speaker plus film and folk group. Admission nree. organisea ov une Laun America Solidarity Front, Merseyside, 70 Huskisson St, Leeds 8. • 'Turkey — - a people in chane Holnsow bocals! Forum discussion led by a member of the Turkey Solidarity Campaign. Sun 22 May, George IV pub, 185 Chiswick High Rd, W4, 7pm.
• Walk for Life from Faslane nuclear submarine base to Greenham Common,
When 19 May to 6 August the mareh arrives at lornes nuclear power station a festival will greet them on Bank Holidav Mondav (30 May) with music, theatre, stalls etc. For more details of events contact the scottsh Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh 031-557 4284.
Election fever
How much ao you
reckon Thatcher earns
being Prime
Minister? £38,200.
Because of the election
she had to recommend
parliament olin i ap-
prove the increase of
41.4. Der cent
planned. Maybe hus-
EWO S a
millionaire) will help out.
Cabinet ministers like
Norman Tebbit were in
line for a 51.9 per cent in-
crease their basic
€28,950.
We are not asking for
anything like the in-
creases tnese peopie nave
had to turn down.
During the election
campaign we want to
produce pamphlet,
badges and posters, all
arguing why we need why socialist policies are policies,
Labour Victory. best WaY lO win a
We are asking readers
Local action
• A May Is nernona Women's Day for Disarma-
For informaLICH IIVIO non. trade umon leariel and national poster contact the Greenham Office, Leonard Street LORQOI EC3 01-251 3133.
• ulaszuv Women TOr
rally in George
eace
12-2pm, plus Dolare festival and vigil in the evening. For details of all actions in Scotland ring Ann Kane on 041-423 1483
• Swansea March to Coun-
alll I Ul detail of all actions Wales: Liz Forder 0222-566548. • Nottingham Rally Call Market Square, ,12-2pm. ed by Nottm Trades Council Women's Committee.
Greenwich Greenwich CND are setting up a stall in Woolwich market.
LABOUR'S
ELECTION
SPECIAL
Here for judgement is the truth.
sets the record straight. At just £1.50,
destruction of Britain' MICHAEL FOOT
• Popular Planning for Social Need conference. 21 May, County Hall, London SE1. 11-5. £2.50/[1 unwaged, creche available. To develop a democratic Alternauve cconomio Strategy. Organised by CAITS, Poly of Nth London. Holloway Rd, N7. ohune baserlo dvcatc• ner to help us fight the HOHE
We want to have reporters covering the rest of the People's Mar-
fight Bristol to keep Benn in
The hacks from the gutter press will be around digging. slanders and scandals to keep me lelt oul.
We want to send our reporters out to write the workers' side of the story.
Cash, postal orders dr ancuucs we're not fussy - make them out to Socialist Action. Thanks this week to: East London Cabaret $ 10.00
40000
4.00 12.00 Total this weel •£371.00 Total so far £4858.74
• Manchester Greenham Subport Group is organis ing actions in the centre of the town where a human details of all actions in the WeD will iotaca. For North West ring Marion McNaughton 0532-670289. • Oxford. For details of all activities in the central Dari England ring Andrea Heath on 0533 555466.
Brighton Where began. Brighton Women for Peace are planning lots of acnon ring UL13-333400.
• Hornsea Families Against the Bomb are plan-
from 22 midnigha non gil
midnight IrOm May to nignlgnt tne money spent on arms that could be food for used to Day those without it in the semi-colonial world.
• Haringey Women for Disarmament plan to picket local factories and hospitals. 'We will tell the people the truth and the people will be our judge'
MARGARET THATCHER 8 October 1982 $1.50
Thatcher's Britain - A Guide to the Ruins
this 128-page handbook is for all those who would like the facts at their fingertips, the better to put paid to the Tories.
'Here is the true record of Margaret Thatcher's
• Fred Tonge Memorial Lecture given by Ralph Miliband on •Marxism and the Labour Movement'
Postponed due to election to Wed 29 June, 8pm, Douglas Hyde Hall, Irish Centre, Camden Square. Organised by St Pancras and Holborn Labour Party.
drawing the links between cuts in welfare and jobs and exenaiuic derals ring 1 allls Maggie For
Weatherby on 01-340 2715.
Peace and Labour canDeu Women Party for women plan a peace camy on Clapham Common near
threatened South andon women' s nosoital to draw the links between women's fights for jobs and healthcare ano lnenn against militarisation.
• South East London direennam Womer alt assembling 11am Peckham Rye to cover the common wen wilile ciusses A creche will be provided. At 12 noon they move off to the Imperial War Museum. • Peoples March Women's Day of Action called for 24 Mav. resuval taking place as part of IWDD in Warwick The Leamington Emolovment Action Move-
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ment sponsored
meeti unioth speak ro acd
trade union speakers women speakers from CND and Greenham 'Common.
Local END has evening entertainment planned. (LEAM meets every Tues-
8.00pm, Oddfellows Hall, Leamington.)
• Newham. Newham CND
an Natoe ery sing
lunchtime earietung nosDitas aDoul government civil defence expenditure Newham NALGO has voted to strike on that day.
• Camden. Camden Labour Partv dl c planning to leatlet cusior station at llam where the North London line carries the nuclear waste across London.
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Street, London N1. Starting on
date until further notice. Debit my A/C No for the amount of f.
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Diary
Greenham Women will be setting up a peace camp at Highbury corner, where the
nuclea waste also travel: followed by a peace picnic in Highbury Fields • lowei Hamlets/East London The East London Greenham support group is Pianning to icariel Ine Lon
do rataital aSlunce Pen
• Trafalgar Square SUnCES Peace and Women for World Disar mament will be on the steps of st Martin's-in-the-Fields chureh getting signatures for the freezt on arms ex. penditure 1I ULE. Ull wards. Later at 6pm women from all over London being asked assemble locemrer ar mne eno or tae day • Enfield Greenham women are going to destroy a cruise missile in the shopping centre and a die-in wil be staged around a bunker site
Socialist Action Forums
MANCHESTER 'Coalition
and Proportional
Representation , - a debate.
Thur 19 May, 7.30pm,
Millstone Hotel, Thomas St
Manchester 4 (off Oldham
St).
EDINBURGH Socialist
Action readers forum is on
the last Thursday of every
month. Phone 031-667
9630 for furthe
information and details of
venue.
HOUNSLOW Socialist
Action readers forum Thurs 19 May: "Fighting for
socialist policies in the
Speaker Val
CiccLonl Coultas (SÁ). 7.30pm , Cttee
Rm 3, Town Hall, Treaty
Road. For further
information phone 01-577
3429.
BLACK
TRADE
UNIONISTS
SOLIDARITY
MOVEMENT
LET CONFERENCE
COUNTY HALL LONDON SEI
INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS FROM
USA I SOUTH AFRI ICA L GRENADI APPLY FOR DETI MDON SEIS 4&5IH JUNE 83 Socialist Action Bankers Order Form
19 Please pay to the credit of Socialist Action, Acc. No. 70372315 at Co-Op Bank, 08-90-33, 1 Islington High
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Please do not send the Bankers Order direct to you
Page 13 scan of this page
'We won't go'
Surplus Value
Helen John
'CHEERIO LADIES', said the Sun on 9 May to the Greenham Common campers. The election, it said, will decide whether or not the country wants missiles — and the Greenham women can pack up and go home, where no doubt they belong.
The campers have message for the Sun and for the bailiffs, who seem have slightly less respect for the democratic process than the Sun's editors: 'We will not be moved until we can live in peace'.
HELEN JOHN, helped found the camp and is speaking up and down the country for a Labour vote in the coming election, told us why:
UNLIKE Michael Foot we are not watering down our policies. There is a straight choice: either we ban cruise from this country and get a breathing space to get full nuclear disarmament, or they'll be here for good.
I am very alarmed at the way Foot is talking. If they arrive, he says, then we will send them back. And then he says we mustn't be despondent if they arrive.
But once they're here, people will sav we can't send them back because the Russians will misinterpret On 6th December 1981 2,500 Japanese women, many of cond world war at the use and abuse of their land by the them Shibokusa who have been protesting since the military, marched through Tokyo's commercial centre behind a banner that said 'We will not allow the way towares wor
No more Nagasaki! No more Bikini! Onnanatade
says Greenham Common camper
the
a
to who
They'll be in place and Reagan will be one step nearer to wnal ne really wants, which is to start a nuclear war in Europe.
We have to stop them coming. That means the Labour Party has to get together with the unions to exert enough economic pressure to make sure they can't but them nere.
What should the Labour Party do during the coming actions on 24 May against cruise missiles?
LABOUR will have to drop some of its traditionalism. the local issues to disarmament. Every single penny spent on bombs instead of hospitals or services should be an
next day's canvass
terms how their lives are threatened
desert are
get that message home,
the vote be spent on their jobs instead weapons.
dead a job isn't much use.
election?
I'M GOING to Labour vote
voting'.
We have to link all
its unilateralist policies.
Heva (Women for Peace) were their slogans. Six months later half a million people were to demonstrate in the very same place against the war drive in Japan, where the population knows first hand about the experience of the use of the hydrogen bomb on their people. • Pictures and cartoons from Keeping the Peace, ed. Lynne Jones, The Women's Press, £3.60.
issue, and it's worth taking a day off canvassing to do that. It'll make the
much better because it will show people in real
How many people now know, for example, that their parks and gardens — their 'green oasis in the concrete
designated burial grounds after a nuclear war? If we can
bring home just how immediate is the threat to life, we will ensure that people have their priorities right when it comes to
That's why I'm disturbed that there seems to be some idea we should downplay disarmament and highlight unemployment. Clearly the two issues are desperately linked. I'm sure, for example, the Timex workers understand very clearly that money should Every
of
Unfortunately some people in the unions are trying to protect their jobs rather than their lives, and if you're
ty seems
What should CND be doing in the
ment and
be calling for Everyone in CND the only knows the election is a vital time to get our issues across, and we should do just that. I depart totally from some have been people in CND who go for "tactical
the
The SDP or the Liberals aren't what we want at the end of the day.
Only one major party has unilateralist 'divisive',
We should be calling for a Labour
movement. vote, but demanding Labour sticks to
as opposed
Capture
December tney
ting arrested for a people supported.
This
fragette
Socialist
Inev lal to
as
in the peace issue.
Lindsay
•Fancy a bunch
of women
achieving all this!'
'FANCY a bunch of women achieving all this!' remarked a delegate to Helen John at the Scottish TUC.
woman I have spoken to in the last three months in CND, the trade unions and the Labour Par-
inspired by the authority and initiative of the women's peace move-
the Greenham Common women.
But Lady Olga Maitland is not person in Britain to disagree. Many different voices
raised in criticism, from Janet Radcliffe Brown in
Guardian to the Socialist Workers Party. All, in their different ways, are worried by the
'women's only' character of the women's peace
What they all fail to grasp is that women have made peace a women's issue, not by the theories that link the fight for peace with 'women's values'
to male values', but pride by taking such a militant lead in the fight against the missiles.
Why does Greenham capture the headlines every time an event takes ment place there? Because when thousands of women surrounded the base on 12 are
made the whole of Britain aware that the cruise missiles were a rcal lureal inal go misslies would be sited at Greenham and 64 at Molesworth in December '83.
Women were saying no, and get- mies.
cause that man • Women have moyed in where the CND leaders had failed to tread — to give a clear lead as to how to oppose the missiles in '83.
was what Socialist Action meant when we talked about the 'suf-
spirit' that the Greenham Common women had re-awakened
Brown and the Workers Party alike are transtixed by the ideology and theory of the women's peace groups. They take no account of the diversity of women's views on this question.
women approach the issue from an explicitly feminist commitment, that_ see male power and violence linked from cruise missiles through to pornography. There are others who see it
something that they can identify with as mothers, or as a very successful way of involving more women
What is crucial is that whatever the motivation the women's action is Tories and has met with greater success than many other more powertu sections of the movement.
German argued Socialist Worker on 26 March that the
Socialist Action 20 May 1983 13 women-only character of the mobilisations has discouraged men from participating, making it 'more difficult to mobilise working women'.
Where is she living? Union branches that have discussed and voted on strike action on 24 May would never Have done so willoul a call coming from the Greenham women.
To deal with the question of male
power and male values is vital from a
Marxist framework. We don't believe that the sex battle causes war, rather it is the class battle and the drive of the imperialists to expand their spheres of influence
But that doesn't mean that women and men experience war in the same way. It doesn't mean that men aren't victims of the militarism in our society from a very early age.
Today we have a women's peace movement I Drilain, a progressive movement that is opposed to the plans of lue Imperialists
Not all peace movements are pro-
ment in Ireland wasn't because it directed its fire at the onoressed na tionalist movement, not the oppressor, the British army of occupa tionWhat's divisive about appealing to women's experience when society is normally geared to men? When men go off to fight, women have traditionally stayed at home
but women are sull usea Dy tel governments in a war. They are con scripted into factories, they may be drafted into the army of nursing corps to do the lowest of jobs.
The values that predominate in the army and the military establish-
are particularly reactionary 'Boys will be boys' and nationhood
linked to stop men themselves really understanding what they fighting for. The ageless prize of con-
where women's bodies are part of the spoils is still a feature of the modern warfare of capitalist ar-
So what's wrong with talking, explaining, agitating and organising a women against this nuclear war drive?
goa. anti-capitalist why should socialists complain?
But I must strike one note of caution about the Greenham Common peace camp. I think some women and many men peace campers, do
cruise arrives if everyone puts their bodies on the silos they'll be stopped
Non-violent direct action on its own, by women or men will not stor the missiles. The trade unions and the working class are the only force ir society that has the power to alter the course of the British ruling class or this issue. And this is true whether or not a Labour government is returned on 9 June.
The actions at Greenham have started a movement that has won the sympathy of many working people far more profoundly than the passing of resolutions at TUC conferences.
On 24 May the first steps will be taken to cement that alliance between the women's peace movement and the ranks of the unions. But to stop the missiles the TUC and the Labour Party have to be forced to call the action. This time round CND can win if i adopts this approach.
Page 14 scan of this page
4 Socialist Action 20 May 1983
PICKET
LINE
Metal Box strike METAL BOX is multinational Couldany with tentacles spreading from Chile and Jamaica to the heart of London's east Hard on the heels of a
defeated struggle against redundancies, workforce at the Clapton plant in Hackney. have
been forced into dispute.
When 137 workers were moved from shift to day work on 3 May, they lost their shift premium. Management refused compensation al C now trying to drive through changes in manning levels.
The workers responded with sitCOWIl strike departments for tWO Cays. The meeting
and
Workers members on 12 May voted by a four to
Picket against
sexual harrassment WHEN Audrey White, manageress of the Lady Liverpool stood up Lord John store
for assistants being sexually harrassed by the area manager, she was sacked.
Audrey is a member of the Transportand
Transport and General workers union, which tried to negotiate her reinstatement.
Management refused to take her back and attemoted to pav her off. She has stood firm and a picket of 20 or more
Aire Valley Yarns
THE AIRE Valley Yarns strike for union recognition ana agallist VIL' timisation is in its tenth
Solidarity stepped up with a packed public meeting in Leeds on 7 May and the decision of the ruling Labour group council to support the strike and visit the picket
The police have har-
Hackney dole office strike
MeANS Department of MANAGEMENT Employment have stepped up attacks on trade
unionists, through the national introduction of the facilities agreement for union lay officials
and the lock out
unionists at Hackney
benefit office.
The Hackney dispute
is over the badly over-
crowded premises. Local
union leaders believe this
could have been resolved
if management were not
determined to prove
their 'right to manage.
Management action
is an attempt to pick off
SLOY Hackney CPSA branch offices
has shown militancy in
the past over racist ethnic
monitoring and gained
over
premises. It follows
similar attempt in Brix-
(0l.
one majority to walk out
picket he strike has
picket. strike has been made official by the Transport union and the membership of 250 are out solid.
CHIC from Metal Box
local trades Ernie Roberts MP, Brian
South
native and
Box
Send Jim Wills, Strike
House, Lane, union members in the
side the shop. Thousands of signatures have been collected in the street and many shoppers are now boycotting the store.
On May, eight pickets were arrested, including a voung who was humiliated in
police station by a strip search with the door left open. Still, the picket remains. • Support Transport House ington, Liverpool 3 (Pete Kennedy)
rassed the pickets and
. Riasat strikers' tamiles.
Ali, the brother of shop steward Liacuat All was arrested and kept in custody Ior five hours without charges being
Support is needed for the picket line at the 7pm evening change over
Messages and donations: Aire Valley Yarns strike committee, Dirkhill St, Bradford 7
In solidarity the workers at the local
office boycotted work done by
imported lavour.
This led to suspensions,
strike has spread to DHSS members.
Solidarity is called for the picket between
7.30 and 9.30 am. There
a mass pickel every
Thursday.
and TOMORROR
messages: Phil Newby
and Ken Davieson,
Strike Centre, Hackney
Trades and Labour
Club, 96 Dalston Lane,
E8
(By a striker)
Short word reports by
Thursday
publication. Longst
stories,
Editorial Board by Mon-
day, week before
publication.
spread
WHEN Thatcher came to office she promised to make British industry 'leaner and fitter'. This has meant speed up, rationalisation and less workers producing more, through higher productivity. The result, factory closures and mass unemployment.
election campaign workers are still fighting back.
The Cowley workers challenge to changed work practices was followed last week by strike of workers at Albion Motors
Glasgow. They are resisting compulsory redundancies.
By Celia Pugh
This against
This to subsidiaries Firth of companies Greening Ltd in and
to drive forced
These oc-
port. Action
The five week occupation at the Dundee Timex plant continues this week, despite a new management offer. The company agreed to the immediate reinstatement of all those dismissed, retraining of workers and the abandonment of court action to
end the occudation.
But LICY insisted on
their right to enforce com-
redundancies.
This has been rejected by
the 450 occupying workers
who are now preparing to
tempts to forcibly
Unity on the agenda
IN 1971, the national postal workers strike was
defeated by the Heath government.
this have dampened confidence in the Union of
Communication Workers for many years.
gains for the left as members make the connection
between opposition to the government and the Post
Office and British Telecom management.
TENO
By Steve Bell (Cardiff
personal capacity.
telecom, covering
members of the UCW
POEU and CPSA (post
and telecom group).
As the campaign
against privatisation
reveals, this unity of rank
and file communications
workers could be a power.
ful force. The executive
fears this power and has
manoeuvered reverse
the conference decision by
prioritising amalgama-
with the CNA, the
Occupations
But, after four years and in the middle of the
the factory. Shipyard workers have already pro mised to mobilise a mass picket outside the factory if this takes place.
Factory
Scotland could see another explosion of action against the closure of the Cardowan pit outside Glasgow, with the loss of 1100 jobs. are not persuaded by arguments that their action down because of the eyed should tion.
Sharks
Many are demanding a government
taking their companies inreversing Tory plans to sel
private sharks and ensuring sufficient investment to stop closure and redundancy
Support the occupations:
Timex: Treasurer John Kydd, 81 Dundee, Fife, Scotland Michie, 21 Mather Littledale, Sheffield 4GN. • Greenings: JSSC Strike Fund, c/o L Blood, 26 S
St. Newton-LeWillows, Merseyside. • Unit Superheaters: Fred Evans, 8 Bishopston Rd, Bishopston, Swansea. But this year's annual conference should see man. This wis be chalicia LIUL.
CHIC CLi
Resolutions to conference seek to step up the activity assessment in Labour's
Party.
WITHOU
CARDOM
Scottish miners resist closure of Cardowan pit. Swansea
sit-in
One of the occupied factories is the British Steel subsidiary Unit Superheaters Swansea. Engineering union members have been fighting for three weeks against forced redundancy.
BSC dirty tricks THE ANNUAL conference of the Civil and Public Service Association marked up policy gains for the Left.
But these were overshadowed by a major setback in the members' ballot for the national executive committee. The Broad Left representation was cut
six, reversing the balance and giving the right a large majority.
But this defeat coupled with growing militancy on jobs and conditions. Industrial action over the Hackney • unemployment
spread to Islington and Hackney. Liverpool DHSS members are also in conflict with management. Dispute
This militancy was reflected in the censure of the outgoing executive for its handling of the Oxford and Birmingham DHSS disputes last year.
The conference re-
A OFI NEWONKERS*
COTTISH AREA
SM
OSPERITY
department is on a war
the cupation. Management
completely and letters
ing of dismissal. A packed
meeting on 13 May voted by a big majority to continue the action.
By Graham Atwell
Convenor Pete "Thomas told how manace ment is trying to split the
and cash of up to f6000
Gains and
Setbacks
affirmed its fight for a 35 hour week and privatisation. also reJecica une excculive cont mittee recommendation to endorse the introduction of government youth training schemes.
The NEC was also instructed, by a large majority, to mount a vigorous campaign against cruise " missiles.
Women
But affiliation to CND
and the National Abortion
were defeated were resolutions on
positive action and
women's rights. With
women making up 70 per
cent of the union member-
ship, women delegates
were Jusullably angry
these defeats.
Such setbacks, with the
swing to the right on the
new 'NEC, highlight the
failure of the Broad Left
to organise and lignt
policies among the
CPSA members
They have been tied up
in the election errort to ge a majority on the NEC
with the result that they
lost that too.
The Broad Left must
RANCH
through the letterboxes of workers facing forced redundancy.
Management aiso threatens court action over the publication of 'secret'
found at the factory which expose the
of asbestos and high noise
Support flowing in, but the AUEW has still to make the occupation official. Branches of union should follow the Cardiff branch in demanding that the strike is made now build on the policy gains at conference inside ine branches. The ference overwhelmingly agreed to launch a campaign in the union for a yes vote toI affiliation to the Labour Party. The Broad Left should actively camon TOTAL SO VE
in the • general election anc
link this with disputes like the one in Hackney and the Peoples March Jobs.
In this way they car
build up the confidence of ine union ranks, Chancig
the national leadership to act the left losses on the NEC.
• Gains were made last
week by the Broad Left in
of the National Union o
Public Employees
The moderate executive member lined up to
become president of the
union was ousted by Jenni
Webber from Tower
Hamlets, who has been in
the forefront of militant
campaigns against government cutbacks.
Another Broad Left
candidate Frank Fallan
won an executive seat for
the Scottish area.
Page 15 scan of this page
More on the march
News
AS THE MARCH leaves Lancashire this week the
feeder marches are
ultimately all the marchers will pour into London
for 5 June.
its answer to Thatcher in the mightiest of all the anti-
tors rallies of this election campaion. Here are some
From Lands End
to South London
Most of the march so far
La trek through uninhabited countryside ald svalsicy populated villages. The people we have met have been warm and friendly, the response has been positive.
Representatives of the labour movement in this area have been few and far between. This has meant that they have had to work _doubly hard to give us a decent reception, and find
fed. Truro NUPE official had organised the local hospital (Trelisk) to feed us änd give us accomoda-
arrived th because they
offer, LUCH couldn't be seen to be
political this near a general election!
The marginal support we have received has not demoralised a single mar-
Northern leg
Into Leeds the march was
big success. showed that when the trade unions and the Labour Party get their together
all She march roe done.
march through industrial South Yorkshire
WORM'S
EYE
VIEW
Electrical
fault?
WEST MIDLANDS
police that's the lot
that keep breaking in the
wrong houses — are ob-
viously bright.
A caller tipped them
off that a safe had been
abandoned in
Halesowen. Immediately
the ever-alert force put a
uniformed
guard it.
For a full hour this
eagle-eyed lad protected
this vital evidence. Then
the detectives who are
the bright boys with the
high IQs arrived. They
carefully dusted the safe
fingerprints. They
tried to move it. But
just would not budge.
Not to be daunted
they sent Land
Rover and some towing
beginning 1o converge and
Inal is ine dar ine labour movement must give cher. People are rising to the challenge and enjoying themselves, the blisters and sore feet are shown off like. battle scars! tremendous feeling marcning inrougn a part or lac country which hasn't seen a march for seventy years.
The response of the Cornish kids has been amazing. This leg of the march is just warming up: The labour movement this area particularly weak. This has been reflected in the numbers turning out and supporting the march. But the march is having an impact on the local inhabitants.
The people that we've talked to and those who have come to talk LU US have shown a great affinity with the march as they watched their own child ren moving away from
native Cornwall to uner find jobs in the major industrial centres.
partly criticised by
WaN
local Labour Party
members who felt that the
Party had not been suffi-
ciently involved.
The reception
Chesterfield and Clay
Cross was fantastic - it
gear. Then they found
the cause of their pro-
blem. It was not a safe, it
was a Midland Electricity
Board cemented into box
into the
grouna.
I hope the rest of the
police are as bright as the
West Midlands ones.
Surviving
DON'T DESPAIR
about your chances of
surviving the 'big bang'
If you live in an area like-
ly to be nuked then the
government's advice
evacuate.
All nev were co
ing to evacuate 12 million
Linen ney upped
it to 35 millions. But that
would take a lot of trains
put the bigger towns shame. The march has been progressive in terms of explaining the issues of unemployment to working people.
The People's March
and buses. Anyhow who
stop. when the road melting before your very CYCo
To simplify things it's everybody for themselves. So when the three minute warning goes off start running for the nearest motorwav. 11 Yeckhamto Sornwall in can from three minutes you might have a chance.
Then there are the deep bunkers. _o get in one is a simple matter. You just need be a Cabinet member, a very high civil servant, a top cop, or a general.
The reinforced shelters are tor district councils so if you are not chairperson of the police committee or boss of the housing committee don't bother turning up there. If you can't run to Cornwall or in a shelter don't despair.
Lie in alien. The nice gentlemen who published Protect and Survive have kindly drawn a diagram showing how to lie in a ditch. Alright, there are no dit-
Peoples
march for job obviously won't convince Thatcher and Tebbit of anything. soclaists must explain the Issue to the one-third of the working class who vote Tory. Despite opposition from
This postcard and many others can be bought at th
137 Digbeth, Birmingham BS
ches where you live, sc wrap yourself in a pape bag and sit under the SLallS Do lake a good and Peacedes abu will be preferably War there for a long time.
If all else fails still might survive. If oniv milntarv targets are attacked, not population Coales for their OWIl sake, about 39 million of
will • die and 4½ million will be badly injured.
• population of around 57 million two in nine might survive - so why all the fuss?
stewards we have had regular meetings of marchers leg of the march to decide the direc tion and orientation of the march. step in the right direction. God in red weather
shock
THE SUN moans that whilst we have been getting rain for weeks: •Moscow has been basking in a mild heatwave.
It asks: 'Have the Russians found some weather? way control the
Adding 'We don't accept that but wouldn't it be a typically dirty Red trick!'
The Sun knows that the Russians a ready con. trol Monsignor Bruce Kent. God's man on ear. th. But at least they are
entirely convinced that the Reds have got their hands on that great rainmaker in the sky.
Compiled by BOB PENN. INGTON. Send contribuLOL. Worm's Eye,
Street, London N1 2XP to arrive not later than Thursday a week prior to publication.
Socialist Action 20 May 1983
say:
'Be prepared"
privatisation.
engineers had been called out only days before.
John Golding, the right wing MP sponsored by the union , is presenting the Bill's failure triumph of the NEC's But of course the threat is Darlanncular strategy. still very much alive.
If re-elected the Tories will immediately reintroduce the legislation and ensure its rapid passage through parliament by the • new year.
By Pete Cooper POEU
Labour has maintain both British
British Telecoms as a nationalised industry and to integrate Project Mercury the private business only network into bi. ine cabling
Britain, for cable TV, will also be integrated into BT.
The SDP Liberal Alliance azallisi privatisation of BT, but has nothing to say on these vital issues for the future.
BT workers therefore have every interest 1n Labour victory, and sup. porters are organising for a Labour vote.
The Tories campaign for privatisation ('Even when we re lalking bish we're talking sense!') needs to be countered by Labour explaining how denationalisatior attacks jobs, conditions and union
eep youl
On Saturday after-
noon there was a Jobs
for Youth festival in
Wythenshawe. The
marshalls of the
march told one of the
performers, John
Cooper-Clarke to
keep his act clean!
As John Cooper-
Clarke said, 'that
would mean a three
and a half minute set'.
Not surprisingly in
this kind of
mosphere a group of
marchers outside the
hall ritually burnt a
Agreeable
THE SUNDAY
TELEGRAPH is a bit
worried about all those
Trots on the People's
March for Jobs.
As we know it is a
paper with the interests
of the working class very
close to its heart.
However the Sunday
Telegraph did find a little
ray of sunshine in all this
Trotskyist darkness. It
landed 46-year-old
Peter Lenahan which it
calls 'One of
15
Telecoms workers
THE BILL to privatise British Telecoms has fallen because of the general election. In response the national leadership of the Post Office Engineering Union has called off all industrial action against
The action had been taking place in Whitehall, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange where
Unfortunately the limited scope of the industrial action sanctioned by the POEU leadership has meant that Labour has lost an electoral asset. In continuation and extension of industrial action through Ln f period by the national
that the Tories drop thei demanding that the Plaus could nave privatisation a central elec tion Issue
Emergency resolutions for the unions upcoming conference are critical the Industrial Strategy Actions Committee. The two . branches involved in the action, Westminster and City are calling a second national meeting
in London's County discuss the campaign. Serious
The mational executive comes up for re-election at conference and it is certain
June Broad Left wil make a serious challenge TO Leave bat present leadership
vectate LO. the conference should be dated to back resolutions such as the one
Westminster calling for national action, should any future government seek to threaten jobs with privatisation.
Star.
mounted
march
Maggie,
Cashman,
the People's agreeable old-fashioned communists told who kindly the LEOTAICA that the
Liverpool TUC and th North West regional council both had been infiltrated.
Soon the capitalist press wi not necu lo employ Tory reporters to attack the march. They will their slanders written by 'agreeable old fashioned communists.'
Page 16 scan of this page
A Marcher's journal When we left Preston on Monday 9 May the reception was fantastic. Workers from three factories on strike lined the road. It was a solid crush of blue overalls, smiles, cheers and applause.
What a chance for the march and we missed it.
No speeches. No rally.
No mixing with the crowds. Instead we hit the road for the open country.
At Leyland Vehicles a lunch-time mass meeting of 2000 workers heard the ex-convenor Len Brindle call for a Labour government after the general election had been called for 9 June.
Again the next day at the Horwich rail works their convenor Denis Green spoke about the political nature of the march. As more and more workers get involved with the march it helps
the dead hand of the TUC approach.
The TUC leaders see it as a moral gesture, which is supposed to influence 'all parties' and "any government', not a
nass political struggle ming to sweep the Tories out of office.
That's why in Salford
ACTiON SOCiALKE
Alain Krivine, French Trotskyist, leader of
student revolt 1968 on how to beat the Right
in France
Helen John, speaker from Greenham
Common Women's Peace Camp on defeating
the missiles in 83
John McAnulty, Peoples Democracy
councillor from Belfast on getting Britain out
of Ireland
Peoples Marchers from the '83 Jobs March
And speakers from the Police Bill campaign
and the Labour Party.
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SOCiALiSt
ACTiON
the car with the loudspeaker was stopped from saying: 'Since the Tories came into office unemployment has grown by 2½ million. ' Instead it was told to just say 'the present government' and cut out any reference to the Tories.
But you can't keep olitics off the march.
More ana more sugal. were raised as the Liverpool and Glasgow con tingents joined us in EcThen as we marched into Manchester city centre the shouts: "Tories Out' and the song 'Solidarity for ever' echoed through the streets.
The previous Tuesday in Chorley rumours had swept through the march that the TUČ were think. ing about calling it off because of the election.
They knew that once an election was called the non-party, non-political approach of the organisers was a dead letter.
They could hardly be consistent with their line and invite the Tories and the SDP/Liberal Alliance onto the rally platforms which would turn the whole thing into a joke. rally from At every Leyland to Stockport Labour MPs called for a Labour government.
Of course a lot of us know the record of the last Labour government on unemployment and we
Rally Against
the Right:
for a Labour Victory
County Hall Wed 1 June 7.30pm
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don't trust that bunch to sort it out for us. We have to break out of the straitjacket of apolitical moral gestures on the streets combined with hollow electioneering at rallies We have to be part of a mass active campaign for a Labour victory.
This means the march has to reach out to the factories, the shop stewards committees, the unemployed centres, the youth clubs and to strikes and disputes. It must mobilise them all behind the 5 June demonstration so that it can be a gigantic anti-Tory rally.
Every major Labour rally should have a speaker from the march, not just as window dressing but so that they can demand action and support. They should insist Labour supports all workers fighting redundancy. They should raise the need to throw back the threats of privitisation and rationalisation and end the wasteful concentration of productive resources in the arms industry. marchers' meeting
La demand on the first point. It also wanted regular marchers' meetings and regional delegation coordinators this happens.
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5 JUNE
ABRA
march.
On Friday at the Brinnington Labour Club. nerry, a young wollan marcher from Manchester rushed forward to speak but the marshalls tried to stop her speaking. To a great round of applause she said:
'I am on this march as a Greenham Common Margaret Thatcher is a woman. It's true the ruling class. The working class are oppressed and working class women are particularly oppressed.'
Kerry pointed out the Greenham women have been leading the fight
ack against Thatcher. A
ie said 'I never want hear anyone get up on a
platform again and say it's women who have
brought this country to
where it is now. In fact
it's women who are
leading us out of it.
MODERN
TIMES None of you are moving another step until the person who whispered that they didn't like Mrs Thatcher owns up...
ALL OUT Peoples
AGAINS1 for jobs
TORIES
voles
Peoplen
for jobs
83
YORKSHIRE 8 HJMBERSIDE ON T
jobs
Rally to Benn!
BRISTOL EAST CONSTITUENCY Labour Party is fighting for the Labour left's political life. At the local elections 23,240 people voted Labour in Bristol East, 22,961 voted Tory and 12,290 voted Liberal.
And the dirty tricks have already started.
Within hours of the election being announced, Bristol East voters were getting anonymous phone calls — wnien later turnco out to be from the Sun asking inen, opinious on Tony • Benn.
Labour voters were
asked do you know Tony Benn backs unilateral disarmament?' and 'would you prefer to vote Labour Peter Shore
march
Peoples
march for
were standing?'.
We are sure disproportionate of Thatcher's £20 million election spending will into stopping Tony Benn gelting back in the Com mons.
By Phil Vowles, Chair, Bristol East
But the whole labour movement is fighting back. We've just been set up but we've been flooded with offers of help The South Wales miners and the Steel union are sending flying teams over. The Bristol and General Workers Union have donated their Bristol office as permanent headquarters and seconded fulltimers to the campaign, as have the National Union of Public
83
83
Employees
We are pulling no punaesung Socialist and We've agreed Iu woman speaker on platform. Nuclear disarmament will be up front. We'll be out in force when . the People s March come to Bristol on 28 May and Tony will be in London to welcome marchers when they get there.
But the rest of the time he will be fighting Bristol. We aim to find out the shift changes and mea breaks at every factory and visit them all, any time of the day or night necessary.
The labour movement is solidly behind Tony Benn and the media solidly against him. We need your help now!
← Socialist Action No. 9, 13 May 1983Socialist Action No. 11, 27 May 1983 →