The Next Step: No. 4, 29 January 1988

•O• MARCH FOR IRISH FREEDOM

STRIKE!?

Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly 'GET your tanks off our streets' Tory minister Norman Fowler told the health unions last week, as support for action against the cuts spread across Britain. The Thatcher government has declared war on Britain's one million health workers. It will take a coordinated campaign of hard-hitting, all-out industrial action to turn the tables on the Tories. Today, health workers need to get every available tank out on to the streets.

Yet the politicians and other public figures who claim to oppose the health cuts are telling nurses and ancillary staff not to strike.

The top doctors, Labour Party health spokesman Robin Cook Tory wet MPs, Royal College of Nursing chief Trevor Clay and some health union officials have all suggested that health workers will damage their cause by taking industrial action. Instead, these dignitaries insist, the campaign against the cuts should centre on parliamentary debates and getting publicity through the media. But such a 'campaign' would be the surest guarantee that the government will win the war.

ins the next step - 4

COHSE

STOP

THE

EATLOMTATION Of WAGES of the

LOW PAID

Whether they are delivered by Neil Kinnock or a Tory backbencher, windy speeches about the health service in the house of commons put no pressure on the government. Thatcher and her team can simply soak up all the mild insults their opponents throw feebly across the floor of the commons. Meanwhile, the hatchetmen in the real world of hospitals and clinics outside the commons

COHSE

S TOPI

THE

SALE

HOSPITA

SERVICE

Support our fighting fund pay for your tns 29 January 1988 and services. press releases from the royai unionists who attempt to gain a Continued on page 2 There's only one way to beat the Tory health cuts....

COHSE

COHSE

MANNERENT

DICTATURE

REPS IM

40p continue carving through pay, jobs A media campaign is no match for Tory aggression. What use are colleges to health workers facing yet more speed-ups and cutbacks?

Management has already indicated that it will show no mercy to trade the Saturday 30 January Whittington Park Holloway Road London 12.30pm

HOW TO

STOP

CLAUSE

28 -see pages 3 and 10 'Legalised murder" IT'S OFFICIAL: the British security forces are allowed to get away with murder in Northern Ireland 'in the public interest. That was the reason attorney general Patrick Mayhew gave on Monday for not prosecuting senior Royal officers Constabulary involved in covering up shoot-to-kill operations. Ken Livingstone was thrown out of the commons fol calling Mayhew 'an accomplice to murder. There will be more such murders unless the British government's are thrown out of Ireland. In November and December 1982 crack RUC assassins, trained by the

SAS,

shot dead six unarmed Irishmen in cold blood in County Armagh. In 1984 four of the police gunmen faced murder trials. They were all acquitted and praised by the judges for their marksmanship. Lord Justice Gibson congratulated killers for bringing three unarmed republicans to the final The IRA passed court of justice. comment on such British justice last year, by blowing Gibson up.

After Tories the the appointed Manchester deputy police chief John Stalker to conduct a whitewash investigation. But when Stalker unearthed evidence of toplevel collusion in the killings and the cover-up that he was discredited and driven from the force. Mayhew's announcement on Monday finally put the official stamp of approval on the assassination policy. In the week of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when British troops shot dead 14 unarmed Irishmen in 1972, Mayhew confirmed that such massacres are not a thing of the past. Sinn Fein councillor Tommy Carroll, whose brother Roddy was among the six vietims, said on Monday, "legalised murder is the basis of British rule in Ireland.' Let's Saturday's Bloody Sunday commemoration march into a mass protest against British terrorism in Ireland, and demand an end to the colonial occupation which makes

HELTER

legal.

(Continued from page 1)

STRIKE!

sympathetic hearing in the media. North West Hertfordshire Health Authority has suspended two Conse members who dared to speak to the press about the fatal effects of local cuts (see below. In any case, the media are no friends of low-paid workers like nurses and domestics. As the struggle in we will doubtless see the press barons weigh in on the side of Tory ministers like Fowler in their attempts to discredit and divide health service staff.

Focusing on parliament and tne press can only serve to demobilise the thousands of angry health workers who want action against the cuts. The one way we cal our redi pressure on the Tories is through effective industrial action. At present, support for some sort of strike is growing.

But the talk among union officials is of a campaign building up to a one-day national strike to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the NHS - in July! This raises the prospect of a drawn-out series of token protests, of the kind which proved so ineffective during the over health year-long dispute workers' pay in 1982. Instead, we need to move fast and organise all-out action emergency cover under health workers' control to win a decent pay rise and stop the cuts.

The question of organising for industrial action in the health service raises several important political and tactical problems. Inese are discussed more fully on page 15. But the most pressing priority is for ordinary nurses and ancillary and technical staff to take control of the campaign and to coordinate action actoss unlon and departmental lines. Health workers must reject attempts by the medical establishment, the Labour Party, the RCN or anybody else to hijack the struggle against the cuts and channel it into a useless round of parliamentary bun-fights and press conferences. Il over Britain hundreds of thousands of health workers are preparing to hit back at their domestics. ployers. Nurses. bulancemen and clerical staff have all voted to go on strike. Their for enthusiasm 1S precedented. But one already underway in Hertfordshire shows that NHS managers will pull no punches when they retaliate.

Favourable press coverage will not save us then. We must answer in health workers as Hertfordshire have done,

TELL CHOL.

On occupational January therapy nurse and Cohse branch Barclay-Taylor appeared on Radio Bedfordshire to explain how health authority close down Psychiatric Hospital in St Albans would cause stress among patients and could lead to suicides. Within 12 hours an official from North West Hertfordshire health authority 2 • 29 January 1988 M marked with Bill to week. abortions asu legislation goes into the committee stage whereit is likely to amended to ensure a sate passage through parliament, how should we be conducting our campaign against it? •David Alton on yer bike, will fight for women's rights' was one of the slogans ringing through London streets last Thursday night more than 10000 angry when marched

WOHICH

rights. The torchlit demonstration was organised by the Fight the Alton Bill campaign, and brought together hundreds of local FAB groups, women's rights activists and left wingers. Its size showed the great potential both for beating Alton and building a movement to Health union stewards suspended Barclay-Taylor's home visited with a letter suspending her from When she went into the work. union office five management told her banned from hospital premises.

Barclay-Taylor and fellow steward Doug Landman locked the oftice unand managers cruce dOOr whacking on it' and threatened to have them removed. Landman, already on a final warning for speaking lo suspended and now missal. Management is determined that neither with will hospital again. *When news reached the wards, Barclay-Taylor, said started walking off. And they've been walking ever since. week on strike 85 nurses from Hill Hill End End visited other hospitals in the astrict to ask nearn workers to solidarity action. LaKe January workers from seven including all grades of nursing staff Reroutinary rurist Party

FREE ABORTION

ON DEMAND

HOMES RIGHNES

OUR RIGHTS ARE

ass protests by women's devance rights campaigners liberation. the second reading of David Alton's Revolutionary Communist outlaw As the take the struggle forward.

EVIL

proceed with the We offensive. Alton's 1967 the reducing the time-limit

TOT

45 votes. ot the Their action is days latel. she was for themselves," the strikers. 'started Hill End The

NHS

managers press, Was faces C1S. work in the 'nurses decent working conditions.

GET WOOLS

Messages of support and On 22 more than 500 health nospilais, Hertfordshire.

ALTON PREPARES

ABORTION COMPROMISE

NOT NEGOTIABLE

the cause of women's Hundreds of women who marched on Thursday came accept to a dayschool organised by the Party here on Sunday to work out how best to Last Friday it became clear how tavoured bi Alton and his supporters would anti-abortion Bill to amend Act, by

HOCTOR

for terminations from 28 to 18 weeks, satisfy sailed through its second reading in the commons with a majority of The debate provided an opportunity for bigots like Tory carrying Bernard Braine to condemn all abortion as evil. But the significance discussion lay in Alton's begun admission that he was prepared to compromise. He told the commons that so long as his Bill was not and domestics, came out on strike.

all the more significant because it took place in the heart of the London commuter belt, an area which the Tories like regard as no-strike territory.

*They ought to come down and see warned victimisations show what we can expect when start playing rough. The power of the press does not stretch to defending workers under attack. In the coming weeks the establishment will mobilise the media in an all-out assault on our campaign for a living wage and only weapons are united, effective strike action, and our ability to go out and win active support from donations to Cohse/Nupe joint action committee, c/o 14 Telford Road, London Colney, St Albans, fight Satan the 'emasculated beyond all recognition he would be happy would anything 'rationalise the present law.

are two compromises likely to amend the Bill before it comes up for its third reading in early spring. The first one, to set the legal upper limit at 24 weeks, is the medical lobby, Tory leader Margaret Thatcher, of and the Liberal leader David Steel, architect of the 1967 Act. A Bill setting a 24-week limit would very probably succeed; since it would most objections to the Alton proposals. The second to be tabled compromise likely concerns women who find they are handicapped fetuses. There is talk of a 'stop the clock option. This would mean that once tests for fetal abnormalities had would the woman assured of an abortion even if the result came through after the 18- Nomens Liberator

NOW!

More than 400 people attended a dayschool on women's rights organised by the Revolutionary Communist Party last weekend. A wide-ranging and lively debate informed the discussions, which covered subjects from the rise of the moral right to the Marxist theory of women's oppression.

The majority of people had been active in the campaign against the Alton Bill, and This would silence week imit. critics who complain that Alton's Bill would penalise women waiting for the outcome of tests such as amniocentesis and ultrasound which are not performed until late in pregnancy.

FOCUS

satisfy Such alterations might the medical profession and most but they won't wash politicians. with us. We are opposed to all attempts to further restrict access and determined to to abortion, wider extension lor a abortion rights. All women faced with the prospect of bearing a child they do not want should have the right to an abortion as early as possible or as late as necessary Our aim should be to shift the away from theological and medical questions about the moment life begins or the age of viability, and focus the debate on the issue of women's rights. The our biggest success ol opponents has been in creating an the entirely false debate around abortion issue. Often anti-Alton handed the campaigners Have initiative to the anti-abortion lobby by emphasising the problems Bill would pose for

ALOE

birth to women forced to give handicapped babies. This has meant that the central issue of women's rights has been downplayed, and the medical profession which supports a 24-week limit has been able to dictate the terms. Now that Alton has shown willing to compromise, the ground has been cut from under his opponents' feet.

Our starting point has always been that the right to demand is a necessity for women for whom having a baby would mean the loss of a job, economic social pressure. hardship, and ate millions like Michelle There from EastEnders, for whom the right to abortion is the only hope impossible escape from an situation. Fighting for free abortion on demand is only the sulaleg) with a defence consistent and the only Women se capable politically argument of defeating the anti-abortion lobby Over the next few weeks we cannot afford to let the campaign against • Alton slip Re-focusing arguments is the precondition for putting the issue of women's rights on the agenda and stepping up the fight for real freedom. were able to focus the debates on the problems and possibilities they had experienced. The most important conclusion of the discussion was the need to redouble our efforts in the coming months, and use the insights gained at the conference to polish up our arguments and professionalise the campaign against Alton.

the next step

Revolutionary Communist Party weekly

STOP THE

FUDGING

THE latest legal attacks on abortion rights and homosexual people reveal the no-nonsense character of the right's political offensive in Thatcher's third term. The Tories and their allles no longer feel the need to balance their bigoted opinions on social issues.

Instead, the debate about Liberal MP David Alton's Bill to restrict access to abortion is littered with references to the 'evil' done by women who terminate unwanted And the antipreenancies. homosexual Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, which could lead to widespread censorship and discrimination, is defended by the right on the grounds that lesbians and gay men are 'sinners against whom intolerance is justified.

The left has tried to oppose these legal attacks. But many are unwilling to match the Tories' up-front approach.

instead. there is an undercurrent of fudging in the lefts response to Alton and Clause 28. People are fighting shy of tackling the questions of abortion and homosexual rights nead-on, and are seeking di easier way to win support.

The most common manoeuvre isto try to reduce the issues to a level at which, left wingers believe, more people will be sympathetic to their cause.

Thus they depict the attack on abortion rights as just another and tack the struggle against general demand to 'defend the NHS'. Similarly, many left wingers want to bury the fight against Clause 28 within a against the woolly campaign entire Tory Local Government Bill. This fudging of the issues makes no sense. It cannot defeat the attacks on the homosexuals. Nor can it strengthen the campaigns against the cuts in local government and the health

SCIVICO.

The Tores and others like Alton have won wide subport for their reactionary proposals by exploiting specific prejudices in British public opinion. One of the most important of these is the belief in 'traditional family values'.

The attack on abortion rights is built around the idea that women's primary role should be as mothers and carers in the any hint of homosexuality is the next step the nextstep No 4 similarly founded on the notion that the only legitimate relationships are monogamous ones within the sanctity of marriage. How can we hope to challenge these moralistic hang-ups by avolding the issues at stake? Shouting Fight the health cuts' is no answer to the Alton bill. It peopie stare Alton s view that abortion is too readily avallable, Iney are unikely te be up in arms about cutbacks Public opinion polls confirm that a majority of people see no contradiction between opposing general cuts in the health service, and supporting a specific cut in the legal timelimit for abortions. The problem is even clearer on the Local Government Bill. There is no reason why those who are unhappy about Tory proposals for further cuts in council services, or about the poll tax, should automatically extend their opposition to Clause 28.

Given the current state of the debate about the 'threat from lesbians and gays, it would be easier to find people who agree on the need to throw out the Tory Bill - except for the 'commonsensical" Clause 28.

Any attempt to avoid the centra issues or the oppression of women and homosexuals will leave these victims of Tory policy defenceless. It means shunting the question of their democratic rights off into a political siding, where they will be easy targets for the sexual terrorists of the right wing. It will also impair the ability of the entire workine class to combat Tory attacks like those on the health service and local government. Thatcher was not elected because people believed she would pour money into public services. Ine tones penny pinching attitude to such services has always been their weak point. But they have managed to undermine the opposition to these policies, thanks to their dominance of wider political issues like law and order, defence, and the position of black people, women, lesbians and gays. For example, the Tories have been able to turn aside criticisms of their cuts in loca covernment spending, by blaming loony left' Labour councils which they accuse of spending too much money on homosexual propaganda'. The acceptance of the Thatcher/Alton view Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX ® copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16 nnual subscription rates • Britain and Northern Ireland E26 • Europe and Irish Republic £34 • North Africa and Middle Eas airmail) £34e Americas, Asia Central and Southern Africa (airmail) £37 • Australasia, Japan (airmail) E40 • Outside Europ destinations (surface mail) £33 All cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd.

Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX.

ISSN 0144 350 X 29 January 1988. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

Editor: Mick Hume about women's role as childrearers and all-purpose 'carers' within the family has also helped the government to away with disguising health cuts as a policy of encouraging 'care in the community. Unless we challenge the moralists' directly on such political issues as the rights of women and homosexuals, they will be able to keep control of the debate and force through their antiworking class proposals. Public support for such initiatives as the Alton Bill and Clause 28 ties ordinary people to the worldview of the Tories.

It is only by breaking these ideological chains, and puncturing Thatcher's political defences where they have proved strongest, that we can create an effective opposition to any Tory policy. Our response to Alton and Clause 28 is to call unequivocally for free abortion on demand and for full equality for homosexuals. Our critics on the left often respond by arguing that the working class is not ready for such straightforward antiestablishment ideas. This insistence on tailing-ending the existing level of consciousness within the working Class is d historic mistake among left wait for people to wake up one morning with the sudden realisation that they should struggle for democratic rights, then they will never be ready for the fight. The task of those who want to end oppression and exploitation and create a new society is to seek to raise the level of consciousness in the working class. simply echo the existing Ideas of people whose outlook has been influenced by nine years of Thatcherism and the collapse of the official opposition. We need to challenge many of the political prejudices which are held by those who will oppose the Tories on economic questions such as the cuts. This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party prioritises demands which express the independent interests of the working class on the political issues which the Tories have made their own. Standing up for demands like free abortion on demand and full equality for homosexuals is certainly not a short-cut to building a resistance movement. But it represents our only chance of creating an effective opposition, by breaking the reactionary bonds which have held our class back. We cannot fight the Alton Bil. Clause 28 or ant other aspect of the current offensive by trying to hold a movement together with handfuls of fudge. We need a party founded on the firm ground of anti-capitalist politics, which will throw itself into the fight to free the oppressed and to liberate the working class from the political influence of the Thatchers, the Altons and the rest of that gang. get W miners still into a company union tacing management. Walsh, Coal. work. not Walsh strategy.

WASTE

Any more jobs issued . We should not forced to - A

ARTHUR SCARGILL

RE-ELECTED

A SHORT

BREATHING SPACE

e welcome Arthur Scargill's space re-election as president of the National Union of Mineworkers. But only because it shows that a core of identify militant traditions and reject John Walsh's attempt to turn the NUM In itself, Scargill's return will not provide any protection for miners onslaught from terce The 46.2 per cent of the vote won his for his platform of seeking reconciliation with British indicates growing other conviction among many that militancy does not This problem goes further than the election results suggest. In areas like South Wales, miners who voted for Scargill want more own negotiations with the coal bosses.

They re-elected him out of loyalty.

because they rejected the negotiated deal in the coalfields today would be done at miners' expense. British Coal has made it clear that no concessions be are on offer, and that they want to impose six-day working, shake out NUM activists. Last week management at Bentley pit in Yorkshire photographs pickets OT involved in the recent strike there.

with a warning that they would be sacked if there was any repetition of the action. The defeat of Walsh will give miners a short breathing Glyn Wriglesworth n Thursday 21 January Glyn Wriglesworth from Pontefract, Yorkshire, died of heart failure. Glyn was only 27, and leaves behind a wife and two young children. Glyn spent most of his adult life as a miner at Kellingley pit. He was active in the historic struggles of the 1984-85 strike, and the experience led him to take a broader interest in politics. Like many of his fellow strikers, Glyn regime imposed at the end of the dispute, and left the pit last year.

resented being pit in Work cowil a conditions that made it very difficult to spend time with his family and spend time on politics. He hated the British Coal bosses whose drive for profit was made at the expense of to organise against the employers and the advance of scab unionism. But if NUM militants look to Scargill for leadership, they will waste the opportunity.

DISILLUSION

Scargill's brand of bureaucratic trade unionism, with its inefective gestures like the current overtime ban, is no match for the new and more aggressive methods adopted by coal bosses. The gap between his militant rhetoric and inability to organise action that could count has only helped to disillusion the more passive NUM members. Activists cannot afford to entrust their futures to another five years of the tired Scargill approach Instead, they need to look to their and and rank tile torces organise to rebuild their union from There is no time to lose. The moderates on the NUM executive are already lining up to override the deflated Scargill and take the path union along the disastrous championed Walsh.

NUM

by activists need to coordinate their response now. The priority must campaign to win the disillusioned miners back to the cause of a struggle against British Coal, by developing a fighting strategy that holds out the hope of success. Let's start by forgetting any idea that the re-election of Scargill, or the continuation of his will methods

SOLVE

problem for the miners in the firing line. the men they exploited, and he spent 12 angry months fighting for some dignity for miners whose livelihoods were threatened by closures.

But Glyn was not just a militant miner.

He was somebody who didn't like what he saw going on all around him, and recognised the necessity for a political movement to fight the system. He felt passionately about the war in Ireland, the oppression of women and the fight against racism.

He was prepared to speak out about the things he felt strongly about, and most of all to stand up for the oppressed. The greatest tragedy is that he didn't have a chance to play a part in building the sort of society he would have loved to see. We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife Sharon, and to his family and friends.

Joan Phillips 29 January 1988 • 3

ON THE WHITE SIDE

Alan Harding, just back from New York, found racists in charge he first Saturday of the year was bright and crisp, and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York City, looked a pleasant enough place. The lirst thing you nonce on the bustling streets is the Italian shop signs calcio (football) - and the street that Rossi and the other footballing blues from Italy were World Cup winners in 1982. Bensonhurst is almost per cent American working class and white - lust like Howard Beachin Queens, three or four miles the road. The two neighbourhoods have more in common. second thing you notice on the streets of Bensonhurst is that there are no Howard Beach blacks Bensonhurst are both racist nogo' areas. We were in Brooklyn that day not to sample the pizza.

but to lom a demonstration against the rising wave of racist violence on the streets of the city.

WOLF PACK

Just before Christmas two black brothers, Sylvester

VOUS

Steven La Mont. and escaped serious injury when they had the temerity to walk the white streets of Bensonhurst. They had walked In Irom un e Marlboro housing project on the east of the neighbourhood.

looking. for deposit cans bottles for which they would get five cents an item. The white wolf patk that attacked them with sticks, bottles and a marble table top yelled Niggers, what you got in the cart? Are you robbing houses? The brothers said that only the intervention of passers-by saved their lives. But it didn't stop the police black youths on arresting the suspicion of theft. brothers LaMont The lucky. Almost a year before to the day, the car carrying a group of 4 • 29 January 1988 A DIVIDED CLASS: BLACK PROTESTER MEETS WHITE BIGOT ON A MARCH AFTER THE HOWARD BEACH KILLING

THE RACIST

STREETS OF

NEW YORK CITY

black youths had broken down on Parkway the Belt Howard Beach. They walked into the neighbourhood looking for help. One Griffith, never got out of there again. A racist gang attacked and Bari, beat up the black youths. When Griffith tried to escape on his Zoff, hands and knees, a car driven by a good friend of the attackers ran over his head and killed him. The driver was never tried, but four of Italothe white gang did eventually end up in court. he verdicts on them were delivered just days before the up Bensonhurst attack: no murder, three convictions for manslaughter and one acquittal. It remains to be seen how long they will serve.

CLAMOUR

and The Bensonhurst attack was the no-nonsense reply from the racists.

A token conviction wasn't going to put these guys off when a racist police force immigrant hysteria made it clear that there was open licence on blacks in New York. The city's notorious mayor. Ed Koch, had added his voice to the racist "Many clamour: physically afraid of blacks, and if you ask lots of whites, they will tell you that's true. Many blacks are physically afraid of other blacks black Blacks are not physically atraid of whites... Their rejected, of having their persona and attacked, not their body.

analysis as a result of talking to people. He might talking residents of Howard Beach and Bensonhurst. But he clearly hadn't heard what was said by the black people who planned to march in Bensonhurst that day, in protest agamst racist violence.

'COMMIES'

were We were on time demonstration wasn't. found out that the buses had been

A WALK

from the mayor's office down to the city suburbs misdirected by the police and the marchers were still gathering in the alongside safety of the Marlboro project.

But the streets Michael were far from empty. Thousands of local people lined the road. They were all demonstration touch football, old men put their heads together: commies have said they are going to subvert us from inside.' Women exchanged information: "They [the blacks] won't have inter-marriage and won't have nothing to do with Jews. There was a lot of laughing, but only at the idea of anyone trying to come into their neighbournooa. Iney were not walung to welcome the marchers.

ABUSE

When the march finally set off from the project, and headed up to the 62nd Precinct police station, it and general antiwas already demonstrators were chanting "This is Johannesburg. whelming hostility still came as a surprise. had to walk through a sea of angry whites abuse. pressed in on all sides bv a are crowd straining to break through the 1200-strong police lines.

counter-demonstrators Confederate and the Italian flags.

invoked the Ku Klux Klan and wore T-shirts proclaiming I'm a fear is of being racist pig'. The most haunting and Koch unsettling refrain developed his Beach, Howard lessly repeated. have been the march to be shouting Freedom of the racist or Death'. police station the march wheeled and headed back to Marlboro, while the racists tried to break up the back of the demonstration Mobs of white youths, one at least 200-strong, hurtled off to try to intercept the march. This section the of the We later had made clear what it thought of black white streets. of Bensonhurst class eyeball to waiting for the behind a Groups of white youths played *You know the the police, York's the clear why But the overmarch The 400 demonstrators racists todav. the resurgence flew the within the USA.

ELITE

was "Howard in 1968, Beach endwith It didn't seem melodramatic for After five minutes outside the black black deprived political elite Bensonhurst community government in past. visory civil down people's right to walk It was bad enough seeing the division in the American working eyeball. It was worse to watch the bravery of the Beach mobilised participants useless strategy. The official demand of the demonstration was tor the Bensonhurst community to turn those respon sible for the LaMont attack over to community Just as leaders in Harlem had turned in black youths who had attacked a Polish taxi driver that same week.

Alton Such a call entrusts the struggle against racist violence to New racist police force and courts. It leaves anti-racist activists marching behind the little Stars and Stripes which waved at the head of the Bensonhurst march, appealing for assistance from the same US authorities which hold the world record for institutionalised racist discrimination.

The misdirected approach of the the organisers retlects confusion among American anti- The civil rights movement is in a quandary, as the moderate strategy it has pursued in recent years proves no match for of fierce racism In the years following the explosion of the black inner cities the state adopted a double-edged strategy for dealing black unrest. First it murdered and imprisoned the bestknown black militants. Then it set about encouraging the growth of a black middle class with a stake in US society, which could help to head off the fire next time. For a while this policy appeared to work for a small, middle class section of America. State-sponsored businesses sprang up in black and arcas. emerged in local New York's Koch was soon isolated as the only remaining white mayor of a major US city. Jesse Jackson went a stage further and ran for the presidency But by then, the constitutional approach to moting black equality was already running out of steam fast. Today it has come to a dead halt. Reagan's massive budget deficit means that there are no more handouts for the inner cities.

CLAW

Now the authorities concern is to claw back the concessions of the And the increasingly reac Reagan's climate in America means that there is no longer a place in the sun for the black middle class. Over the last decade the proportion of blacks reaching university, getting out of low income housing or into an form of professional or superhas beeen employment falling. For the majority of blacks.

things are far worse. Back in 1960 before any of the post-not retorms, the jobless rate among black youth 1986 it had was 25 per cent; by risen above 40 per cent. In 1975 the black populatons meatan income was 62 per cent of the white total; by 1986 it was down to 56 percent.

The traditional leaders of the rights movement are dissatisfied with what they are getting for themselves, and more and more distant from and the concerns aspirations of the mass of black Americans. Jackson is running for but his deter

DICSIUCHE

mination to distance himself from any hint of radicalism reflects the way in which the 'official black is keeping its under pressure from the right.

OUTRAGE

Against this background a new of community leaders. part lawyers and for the most the has rejected clergvmen passivity the old black ot National establishment Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and initiated direct action. This was the 'Day of the Outrage on 21 December 1987 the Howard organised meet verdict. Black militants protesting against the court coverand institutionalised racism blocked the tunnel and bridge connections between Manhattan and Brooklyn. They brought rushhour traffic to a halt before police hauled off 69 of them. The lawyers same organisers C Vernon and Mason and the reverends Herbert Daughtry and Al Sharpton, were at the head of the Bensonhurs march. Their militant tactics have brought condemnation from black conservatives such as the NAACP.

Radical journals like the Village Voice have also spent less time condemning racists thai dwelling on theories that such black militancy is publicity-seeking and counter-productive.

SWELL

The radical argument that organising and marening against racism is part of the problem gives an accurate measure of the scale of une siege ascaese voice ol radical white America would be better employed convincing its readership to swell the ranks of the 15 white faces on the Bensonhurst demonstration. anti-racist an bullding current among white Americans is the best way to convince black people that there is an alternative to calling on the racist authorities to come to their aid. Until a movement exists which Tenses to conces back aceyse for fighting back and puts itself on the line to argue anti-racist, anti- American politics in the white working class, many more courageous men and women will walk to police stations behind the US flag and there will be more bad days in Bensonhurst. the next step

'THEY'VE TURNED

THEIR BACKS ON US'

Last week Haringey Labour council invited Lord Gifford to return to Broadwater Farm to conduct a second inquiry into the estate's problems. But as far as local residents are concerned, the council itself is the big problem. Kenan Malik reports 'No schools, no votes' in Strathclyde T he way the council have handled the cuts, says Millard Scott Broadwater Farm Youth *it's different from the way the police treated us on October 6th.'

On 6 October 1985 Broadwater Farm exploded into the headlines black youth on the North London estate rose up against police brutality. The previous day, another police raid Tottenham home had led the death of black mother Cynthia Jarrett. In the street-fighting which followed - the fiercest ever seen in Britain - hundreds of police were inured and one Blakelock, was killed. Relations between police black youth have changed little since then. But today, the tenants think Labour council is as big Ene problem as the police. *The flats on the estate never been so bad,' says Ramdin, chair of the residents' *The whole place is association. infested with cockroaches. Tangmere block there's a gap ambeth Labour council locked out 71 vehicle engineers last week. Their crime: refusing to do extra work for nothing.

In a series of agreements with the engineers union (AEU), Lambeth council promised bonus payments for flexible working and covering vacant posts. But council promises turned out to be worthless. In the New Year management failed to meet the terms of another bonus agreement, signed only two months When mechanies, before. drivers and maintenance workers Shakespeare Road depot refused to do extra work unless they received the agreed rate, Lambeth council ordered mem on we premises and docked their pay. They have been locked out since 20 January.

The lock-out taking against a background of wholesale cuts. Staffing at Shakespeare Road is 15 percent below complement, and 30 more jobs are due to go next Throughout Lambeth veal picture is equally bleak. Last week protesters in the town hall public gallery threw eggs Labour at councillors voting for f40m cuts covering every council service from nurseries to cemeteries.

DIKTAT

The prospect of a left-wing Labour council carrying out Tory diktat led has

COYCE TCHE

widespread confusion among council workers and local residents.

councillors have seized the opporthe next step between the patio of one flat and the wall of the next. Every time it the rains the water just comes pouring through the gap. *The flats Smoke seeps from one flat to the other. It happened to me on the night of the riot. I live above the sweetshop and when that went up the kids' room completely filled up with smoke. They nearly died!

Many residents Haringey council when it set up the to Gifford inquiry after the unrest of 1985 to look at the problems of the estate. Today they feel differently.

COCKROACHES

PC "The inquiry achieved says Sheila. and have opened. The Painting Project employed about 20 people. There's been some money for the gardens and clear the They've employed half a dozen people doing murals on the estate.

have Sheila And that's about it.' According to the submission to the new inquiry, it £350 000 in spent repairs on the estate, and £156 000 Lock-out in Lambeth to blame extravagance for the cuts, and some workers are starting to believe them.

carrying would be better off in the Tory implementing. councillors who oppose the snould make a clean break from their Labour colleagues, and help to organise a real anti-cuts campaign among council community in Lambeth. Unless left wingers show where they stand, the left will be discredited Tories Call political capital out of the crisis in inner-city boroughs like Lambeth.

place the THE centre of Glasgow came to a standstill last week when more than 5000 parents, teachers and students lobbied a meeting of the majority Labour group of Strathclyde regional council. Demonstrators came in busloads from all over the region to protest against council plans to shut 37 Tory primary and 20 secondary schools by June next year, with from central bul are real fire-traps. And, project has major social service supported "awaiting finance. complete. The council policy appears to wall murals. little,? The main demands *A few new projects cockroaches. council 1986-87 they meant to go?' facilities. childcare Sheila. There's one nursery that's people If you've a time. 'loony left' are up their rates to f10. out cuts

THREATS

Hard-left should be workplace nurseries for

CUS

workers and the then there will be no co-ops'.

essential facility on the estate.

and the Project will be OK, Gaby Hart *But more closures to follow in 1990. 'Tories close factories, Labour shuts schools' they Strathclyde Labour council claims that falling pupil rolls justify school closures. But parents and teachers disagree.

were too few teachers and too few facilities right,' said one parents' representative from

BROADWATER FARM REVISITED

this year on estate projects. The figures are a fraud. The money for repairs came not from the council government. the Building Design Services report reveals, not a single got off the ground. The enterprise workshops are 'awaiting DoE approval. The offices and the Lordship recreation buildings are The council is 'undertaking feasibility studies' on Even the essential repairs are not only successful be the of the tenants — for a community centre, for nursery facilities and for jobs have been ignored. 'We were promised a community centre 15 years ago,' says Sheila. 'All we've got is a grotty little room. We've put in a bid for f5m for a proper centre but we know we're not likely to get anything. But cuts or no cuts we're entitled to it. There are 2000 people on the estate - where are Even more pressing is the lack of *The creche only operates during the day,' said tony takes Kids. on Lordship Lane. Takes about 20 kids. There's Adams Road. But under threat of closure. They've already got rid of all the part-time staff and had to close one class. Even before that there was a waiting list of over a year. How can get a job if there are no cent of nurseries? Child-minders cost £30 got three kids that's f90 a week. Who can afford that? People can't even afford the council nurseries now they've put convened his HeW

CULS

When tenants argued that there of day. Haringey the proposed enterprise co-ops on the estate, the council threatened to cut off all funding. "They said if you push too hard for nurseries, The Labour council has cut every *Toby Harris (Haringey council was done secretly. leader) last week swore that the Mothers Project and the Nursery said Sheila. already been by night. chanted. 'No schools, no votes.

less teachers. In the past. we were told there • and they were school closures.

'THINGS HAVE NEVER BEEN SO BAD': SHEILA RAMDIN,

RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATION CHAIR

At the Broadwater Farm school the head said to me, "We're short of dinner ladies, the temporary staff are going, 10 per our capital funding's already been cut and there's more in April." How is the new inquiry going to stop this damage?'

they Just five hours before Gifford second inquiry, Haringey council agreed f20m of None of the projects 'awaiting finance' will see the light might not have the money to meet tenants needs, but it is willing to cough up to help the police keep a tighter grip on the estate. Last February the council

OICE

built barriers across all the roads on the Farm as part of a police riotcontrol scheme. The whole project •We never saw them do it, said Leonardo Leon of the residents' association. "They Now used outside contractors and did it Barmulloch, Glasgow. 'Now we are told there are too few that fewer students should ratios and better facilitles per student, not tewer schools and Labour councilors have beer taken aback by the strength of working class opposition to They know now that East Klibride parent After October 1985 many black activists on the estate looked to the Party and Haringey

L2DOUT

council for support. Bernie Grant, then leader of the council, won widespread support in the black community for telling the police "got a bloody good hiding.

Last June he was elected as MP for Two months later he Tottenham. repaid his supporters by voting with the Tories to implement cuts Today he denies on the council. having made anti-police statements.

Local activists have nothing but contempt for Grant's betraval of *People might deny what they said, they might deny feelings they once had towards the says Millard Scott, brought them a lot of success. Now they've turned their back on us.

they're using bully-boy tactics and pretending that we don't exist.' Eddie Hughes was right when he said, 'If Charles Gray (council leader) put school closures in the Labour Party election meetings in a phone box. Inside Strathclyde House, they watched last week's demonstration through halfclosed venetian blinds, and started worrying about the forthcoming district elections.

Derek Owen 29 January 1988 • 5

ico's latest mutiny backed by 100 troops and skirmish in Monte Caseros, a town 400 miles north of the capital Buenos Aires. It came only a month after he got out of jail, where he had been awaiting trial for organising another coup last April. At Christmas, however, Argentine president Raul Alfonsin released Rico from detention along with eight other midcie-tanking officers charged with human rights At the same time, Alfonsin promoted the notorious torturer, Captain Alfredo Havy Astiz, to Lieutenant-Commander.

The government's accommodation military indicates to the whatever the outcome of Rico's displays of bravado, the Argentine army is returning to power under cover ol Ever since the demise of the populist Peronist movement, the military have been the sole source of stability in Argentina. Despite their defeat in the 1982 Malvinas War, and the return to formal democracy the following year, the authorities are well- Argentine aware that at times of crisis only the army stands between them and the masses.

ABSOLVED

Rico's first coup was in protest at the scapegoating of junior army "following officers during the brutal 1976-82 military dictatorship. had turned out to back sands Alfonsin's stand against the army rebels the time. AlOnSIE promised there would be no deal and Rico capitulated. Two months later, it turned out Alfonsin had made a deal. He steamrollered punto final law, through his absolving all junior officers crimes they might have committed for 'carrying out orders" between 1976 and 1982. General Dante Caridi, Alfonsin's army chief who captured Rico in Monte Caseros, welcomed punto final, but only as a step in the right direction.

wants an amnesty for all senior officers implicated The officer Argentine the rock upon relilallis Argentinian capitalism falls. With

SUT VIVOD

concessions to the rebels after Rico's first coup and his liberation of Rico and his cronies, Alfonsin shown that he fully undernas stands this fact of Argentinian political life.

'DISAPPEARED'

The army seized power in 1976 when the Peronist movement that had guaranteed political stability Argentina for 30 years split apart and its right and left factions fought each other for control. Over the years, 30 000 left-wing arrested up to who subsequently Peronists. "disappeared". During that dictatorship, the mothers of these desaparecidos began to through Buenos Aires Plaza de Mayo every Thursday demanding to know what had happened to their sons and daughters.

The Argentine military fell from power after their defeat by Britain in the South Atlantic War of 1982.

The Thatcher's task force had brought democracy back to Argentina. In fact, Britain's victory was to have the opposite effect. It served to strengthen the hold of the Western imperialist powers over Argentina.

The West was willing to approve the installation of a democratic under regime A TONSIn. could reconcile the angry masses to _ capitalism in Argentina.

was only to provide a breathing space. Five years on the Argentine rulers have to go in hard against their people, sort economy at the West's bidding.

And as the going gets tough, the military returns to prominence to carry out the orders of Western 6 • 29 January 1988 was In Argentina last week, brief Andy Clarkson reports Argentine military, after that, orders He bankers and financiers. In credibility by telling the mothers of the desaparecidos that those in the corps guilty which army tound human rights would be punished.

either They no longer believe him. Now the president of the mothers' group complains bitterly tnal president who *based his campaign on human rights' has local army Philippines last represented little more than a of game different factions of the local elite.

But 100 parade nearly the process. Elections are traditionally a dirty bloody business and Philippines and last week's was no exception. Like a referee at some prizefight, president Aquino called for the contest to be clean, peaceful, orderly. Instead it turned into the customary brawl. By the time the vote-counting began, 86 people were reported dead candidates. Allegations of fraud and violence led to the elections being postponed in 24 provinces and seven major cities. organiser was still happy to report that, compared to the 155 deaths during the 1971 elections, this round But this was relatively peaceful. Aquino blamed the 'extremists' left-wing guerrilla fighters the People's Army. bedside of a wounded from her own party, she alleged that *the enemies of democracy...are out Lieutenant-Colonel Aldo Rico attempted his second abortive coup in 12 months. on the return to prominence of the its dereat in the South Atlantic War BUENOS AIRES NIGHT LIFE IN THE '70s — OR THE '90s?

tried to win concess oas 'shameful': of violating the still are 1983 Thursday. Now elections in the week Philippines today. musical chairs for people died in in the electoral within the Filipino ruling class.

Corazon

WARLORDS

and president's brother, Cojuangco, *Peping" including 36 right-wing chief shocked electoral purposes, family had trouble on cantates and the New the anything goes. Speaking at the candidate the

ANOTHER COUP

ATTEMPT IN ARGENTINA

"forgotten all his promises. Last week she denounced Alfonsin's minary terror. military CUTt •We believe General second coup Dante Caridi and Rico are the same thing.' As the army torturers are pardoned and even promoted, gesture the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo demonstrating every the however. women are once more being beaten

ELECTORAL CHARADE IN THE PHILIPPINES

'Undeclared martial law' to plunge our country into anarchy and derail the elections.' But there is precious little democracy in the rule to keep Aquino's elections were a charade to the millions rural peasants eking out an existence in the countryside and the desperately low-paid workers in the cities. The only had real meaning for the different factions this process. Competing power-brokers, notably demands Jose and Liberal democratic Party leader, Jovito Salonga (both nominally part of Aquino's People's Power' coalition), are now forming marriages of convenience with the and local politicians backed warlords who hold real power in the country. More naive observers were that, union Aquino aligned president of former Marcos' KBL party. But the Aquino dynasty is fighting for survival and Aquino came to power after the fall of Marcos in 1986 by winning contidence or me rebelous

THE TORTURERS

ARE BACK ON TOP

and arrested for protesting against Alfonsin responded to Rico's by instituting court martial and ordering a purge of the army. But this is a cynical from a politician who knows that he is in no position to tell the army what to do. And unlike last April, this time there was no massive display of popular population. Her regime has since resorted to its own brand of military those same masses under the heel. Few of the urban and poor remain loyal to her 'People's Power' movement. She is seeking new among the upper classes who have the firepower needed to keep control over the Philippines. The manoeuvring around the elections was part of Aquino now offers an open policy of counter-insurgency in response to for land reform and rights. use of army firepower today exceeds the worst of the Marcos era. The old dictator's notorious armed thugs, the Civilian Home Defence Force, have been re-formed in 150 stateof anti-communist gangs vigilantes. The mass left-wing trade federation, the

KMU,

describes the current situation as an "undeclared state of martial law.

Through a series of attempted coups against Aquino, the army has won concessions which restore much of the power it enjoyed under Marcos.

this background the election results — delayed by fraud and ballot-box theft - will mean sympathy for the president exhibited on the streets of Buenos Aires. These days, in 'democratic" Argentina, the only people that can expect mercy are the military.

For the masses of Argentina there seems to be less and less to choose between Alfonsin and old the army dictators. little to most Filipinos. The polls main significance is that they signal the end of the People's Power ousted Marcos coalition in 1986.

RESISTANCE

There was one other factor which nobody could ignore in this election - the growing impact of popular resistance to the Aquino regime. The organised left made a poor showing in the election: the left-wing Partido ng Bayan was unable to stand many candidates and faced active of its campaign by the sabotage But New People's Army guerrillas made a big impression. In country candidates were only able to stand with the agreement of the NPA and after paying them a levy.

Aquino's administration is starting to look more and more like a reincarnation of the Marcos regime, dominated by what her assassinated husband Benigno once called guns, goons and gold'. And, as in those earlier times, repression is making increasingly direct attractive to ordinary Filipinos.

Russell Osborne the next step

PCF PARASITES

THE 1980s have been years of steady. decline for the French Communist Party. Its membership and electoral support have fallen dramatically since its exit from government in 1983. The PCF has reacted by playing up its working class image, in the hope of holding on to its remaining support. PCF posters in the working class suburbs of Paris have stopped carring the French tricolour and started tedtanng tne hammer and sickle. This change of tack, superficial though it be, has attracted some working class youth, including Arabs and blacks. In headier days, they would have been an SOME women in Fight the Pandara Anderso Alton Bill groups think that *No return to the backstreets' should be our main slogan. But this demand neglects the fact that abortion under legal conditions can be as traumatic as a backstreet abortion. Humiliation, fear and psychological effects are the result of abortion being considered as a deviation from the natural role of women as motners The 'No return' slogan also gives the impression that concern for women's physical health is the main reason for objecting to Alton's Bill. But if physical health was our first priority, we would be better off campaigning against smoking, which causes the dealn or thousands of women each year. We must not let abortion rights become a

LABOUR

COUNCIL

COPIES

MURDOCH

AROUND 50 manual workers from Southwark Labour council's leisure a cauu department recently picketed the town hall in protest at plans to impose new contracts of employment. The new contracts mean wage cuts of up to £40 a week. To get them through with the minimum fuss, the council has dispensed with the management-union negotiations and invited individual workers to attend interviews with a mrdgemenl ledin whiuse job is to pressure them into accepting the new conditions. A year ago, Southwark Labour council kept silent when one of its members was lalled tor an ottence committed outside Rupert Murdoch s Fortress Wapping. Now the Labour group is using Murdoch's anti-union methods to goes to show how far 'leftwing councis have moved to the right. lan Southwark the next step embarrassment to the PCF's electoral designs. But the ageing bureaucrats who run the Stalinist machine are now making a play for their allegiance. nus. ine party which has always immigration laws (on the hypocritical pretext that illegal immigrants are vulnerable to exploitative bosses!), recently endorse d commdnaostyle operation by its youth section which wrested a young black from police hands as he was about to be deported to Africa. One of the stars of the PCF's recent congress was Tahar Raad, a 28-year old Arab who made 55 recruits to the party in his

ALTON AND BACKSTREET ABORTION

medical matter. Our campaign should be basee oa uae ecoaon that Alton's Bill stretches beyond the pain and terror of a backstreet clinic. Any further restriction by the authorities will mean that tewer women wil view abortion as morally legitimate whether ther fuifil the legal conditions or not. It will mean that

BROAD LEFT BEATEN

ELECTIONS for the national leadership of the transport union (TGWU) end on 5 February. Described in the media as a battle between hard and soft ett the realitv Is a sorry contest between leadershin lovalisis and right-wing hacks. The broad lett is running on a ticket of full support for •PeSe e ane Todd. They don't come much more soft lett than that. Yet his followers have been described in the bress as extremists. Subservience to Todd, matched by his loyalty to Kinnock, means that the broad left is unable to stand up on any real issues. Its timid platform has failed to generate the support which it needs. John Prescott's decision to scotch the deputy leadership contest indicates that the broad left knows it is beaten. Prescott and his backers knew that the broad left would not get a majority first three hours as a member. The delighted bureaucrats had to break un his cell to make it more manageable. The fact that the PCF IS able to play this game is an inaictment or tne French left. Dissident breakaways and Trotskyist groupings alike have preferred to censure the undemocratic nature of the party rather than challenge its underlying political outlook. Until this is done, Stalinist parasites will continue to survive on the backs of a new generation of working Louis Dufoix Paris women will be seen by more people as natural mothers and carers; and lt will indicate a degree o confidence among the moral guardians of the establishment. We need to break that confidence by fighting for .a celdl. independent place in society. Paula Clapham on the union executive, and that he would not get the union's one million block vote. without that, he faced utter humiliation.

but tne brodd lelt lids always been about capturing positions rather than changing the transport union. For many years the quickest route to a full-timer's job was to join the broad left. With the right in the ascendant, that route will be closed.

The remaining broad left executive members will be furious when the right hand-picks its own officials. But while the broad left gets upset most members will remain disinterested; and that's how they feel about the elections. They have nothing to gain from the sight of two electoral machines competing for the privilege of exercising patronage within Britain's biggest union. Mick Gavan TGWU member East London letters page

SIKHS

NEED

NOT

APPLY

WHEN I applied for a job at Famous Names chocolate factory, the health officer told me I would have to remove my turban to comply with the health and safety act and the company's hygiene rules. She said | would have to wear a white hat to stop 'foreign objects' falling into the food. I suggested I could wear a white turban which I would leave to be cleaned in their chemicals This was not accepted 1 rang Bristol Commission for Racial Equality. They rang me back within five minutes to say that the company could get away with it. The CRE in London said nothing could be done, and they wouldn't offer legal assistance. I then attended a Campaign Against Racist Laws meeting where | met Usif. Together with my THE dispute over nurses" unsocial hours payments shows how the government treats its workers, and how the current political atmosphere has the unions in a state 01 indecisiveness. It took a strike to get the threat to unsocial hours payments withdrawn - • a strike which should have been national, if the health service unions had taken control of the situation.

Instead, just one hospital (Manchester) began the show of nurses strength strength which seems to have been forgotten by government and health service unions alike. On the day after the strike, all negotiations were handed over to the union leadership. The result of their talks was referral to the pay review body. Prior to the 1987 general election was the only time the Tories have accepted this body's recommendations. If this is not an indication of the lack of leadership, you only have to look at Yorkshire where the unions had agreed to a cut in the subsistence allowance paid to mobile discrimination. can be done Kamaljit Singh, Bristol

HEALTH WORKERS

NEED NATIONAL ACTION

blood transfusion workers. On Implementation, workers walked out and union ONaS Cu LU rc' negotiate. How about addressing the closure of hospitals at a national level? Plans for 7000 YTS places in the NHS should also be publicised. The future of NHS workers is in the hands of health service unions. It is up to them to tap the streneth shown by the nurses and be decisive with every grievance. Liverpool health worker

SUCCESSIVE

governments have taken for granted the goodwill father, we formed the Kamaljit Action group. We sent letters to Famous Names but the company ignored it, so we started to hold meetings to publicise the case and fight it.

It's not just me who's getting pushed around. There were others who did not get a job for the same reason. But they did not take it up because they did not have the back-up. IfI can get it, l thought, why not fight the case to prove we can stand up for ourselves? After we got leaflets out and held our first meeting, a lot of people started to get interested, including some of my Jamaican friends. Together we can fight this kind of My advice to others is to fight, but get the support first.

You can't take on big companies alone. But don't go to people like the CRE. They fob you off and tell you nothing Protest outside Kamaljit Singh's industrial tribunal: Prince's House, behind the Arnolfini, Prince's Quay, Bristol, 10am 8 February.

of health workers, who nave aas peen reluctant to take strike action. we understand the risks and dangers to those we care for. But the real danger lies in the contemptuous attitude of the present government. Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital closes on average twice a week due to lack of beds. Emergency admissions are sent across town to another hospital, which may also be closed. In these circumstances, patents may be sent to another hospital which is ill equipped to deal with acute admissions. Clearly their lives are at risk. Peter Sheffield Write to tns

BCM JPLTD,

WC1N 3XX

29 January 1988 • 7

DEPUTY LEADERSHIP (

THE CAMPAI

have always made it clear that my prime intention was to place the question of the role of the deputy leader at of the debate, declared a humbled John Prescott last week. He was trying to put a brave face on his decision, under sustained pressure from the Labour leadership to call off the campaign to replace Roy Hattersley launched that he the Blackpool last Septcongress But, the ember. year impending world capitalist re- Tory renewed and offensive on the working class in Britain, who wants a debate about the role of Labour's deputy leader?

"The deputy leader", according to Prescott, "would typity the new campaigning approach - travelling the country, building the party and leading the way in creating a mass, mople will want to join and vote modern. dynamic This is typical of the sort of waffle that Neil Kinnock has made characteristic Labour Party response to any political event.

would like to What eve poet is exactly how Prescott know revive Labour's proposes popularity and electoral performance.

Prescott's draft manifesto for the deputy leadership, published in the 15 January, Guardian on •First, emphasises two key issues.

the party's chronic Inere membership crisis a problem he proposes to resolve by offering cutmembership to trade unionists. But it is not the cost of a membership subscription deters trade unionists from joining the Labour Party. The problem for Labour is that neither the party's programme nor the performance of its leadership inspires the vast majority of trade members. This is why most trade do MeT OCIS

•HOU

VOLC

Labour and only a tiny minority bother to become party members.

Prescott is aware of the high indifference level towards Labour among trade union members. His second key theme is the need to give our members and potential supporters greater and conviction in understanding our case'. His solution is to relieve the deputy leader of his shadow cabinet Parnamentary sponsibilities so that he can stump the country campaigning to win popular support

TOT

policies. But what policies? Here Prescott is silent. He leaves the matter of Labour's programme to the policy review that was set up by Kinnock and is proceeding under the firm grip of Bryan Gould and the rest of the leadership clique.

While giving the leadership a free hand to push Labour even further towards the sort of pro-capitalist policies that filled its last election manifesto. Prescott can emphasise the virtues of the office of deputy leadership. Many Labour activists feel that Hattersley spends too much time on long lunches in Westminster and in maintaining his reputation Yorkshireman as a professional through memoirs and whimsical newspaper columns. No doubt a hardworking, barnstorming Prescott would be a dynamic deputy leader. attracting appreciative audiences at Labour clubs around But these would of dwindling gatherings Michael faithful and discovered in 1983 that rallying the the activists

HOL

Labour's appeal widening winning elections. It will take more subscriptions and than cheap forceful speeches to Prescott's build a mass, modern, dynamic party around the Kinnock and Gould. The same 8 • 29 January 1988 team, we should recall conspicuously successtul election. June's general Prescott has now settled for the promise of a debate at this year's party conference on the role of the deputy leader — a pledge instantly repudiated by the Kinnock team the grounds of the constituof the party tional impropriety leader setting the conference agenda.

preoccupation Prescott's narrow with the deputy leadership post and his utter neglect of the critical issues of policy that face the labour movement in Thatcher's third term the inward-looking reveal empty character of the inner-party opposition to the leadership. Indeed the pathetic of Prescott's leadership collapse bid marks the dead end of the drive to use the Labour machine to make the leadership more responsive to the rank and file. This perspective has dominated the activity of the Labour left since the campaign the heyday Labour Party democracy early eighties. Tony Benn's campaign deputy leadership in 1981 was the high-point of left-wing influence in the Labour Party in the post-war fact he period. The that within a hair's breadth of defeating of rank and file animosity against old guard that had all discredited bv its involvement in Wilson-Callaghan ments of the seventies. campaign was the climax of the movement for consututona reform around the demands for the reselection of MPs, for widening the process of electing the party leader beyond the parliamentary party and for conference control over the maniesto. Benn and his supporters today. policies of the Labour Party te made of the Labour Party to it an effective make defending working the impact of precedented Tory attack on jobs and working conditions. campaigners for demo- Radical cratic reforms in the Labour Party argued that the reason tor the betrayals of the Labour governments of the seventies was that the leadership was not accountable to file Hence, and TalIk Wilson, Callaghan. argument ran. Healey and the rest wage controls, unemployment, cut welfare spending. send in the troops to break strikes, etc, — all in defiance of the decisions of a left-dominated party For conference. une to change the

SOLULIOH

Was structure of the party to ensure that in future the leadership would the will of the rank only carry and file. Measures to compel all sitting process during each reselection parliament were designed to put pressure on MPs to support the policies approved by the activists on the constituency management committee. the proposal thal thic leader should be elected by electoral college. which included representations from the unions and the constituency parties as well as from the parliamentary party.

aimed to make the leadership more accountable to the wider labour The the movement. be conference control over the party's election manitesto aimed to end Foot the state of affairs where a leader like Callaghan could veto what the left regarded as key policy items on the eve of a general election.

and The campaign for Labour Party reform took off after Labour's 1979 election defeat. mandatory reselection had been of adopted and a new college system in was not Yet and Kinnock for in the for the been govern The Benn

TIRED OLD RADICAL: TONY BENN

force in class unan the could raise

LO G

an Although the left never won its demand for conference over the manifesto, it did succeed in changing the balance of power inside the party. The left's muchvaunted conference triumphs demand for 1980 and 1981 were enough to drive Four' - Owen, Williams, Jenkins and Rodgers — out of the Labour Party to form the ill-fated Social Democratic Party. Benn's defeat by momentum for reform was lost.

The fact that the left chose to By 1981 challenge the leadership on issues of organisation, rather than matters of policy, allowed the electoral right-wing old guard place. HUMBLED AND HUMILIATED: JOHN PRESCOTT ANNOUNCES HIS CLIMB-DOWN DECISION TO THE PRESS control programme austerity a decade. After "Gang of Kinnock and emerged as leader respectively. Yet Healey, the While the to rally

JOHN PRESCOTT

John Prescott's decision against challenging Ro the position of deputy to Neil Kinnock is not humiliation - it also exposes the e constitutional reforms won by the Labour around Foot and the same old of counter-crisis measures on which Labour had been campaigning for Foot's 1983 defeat by Thatcher, the first beneficiaries of icalli the left's electoral college were advertising Hattersley, who deputy and of 1981, One of the first casualties of election Thatcher's third election victory last year was mandatory reselection.

precise form of constituency selection remains to be resolved, Kinnock has made speech clear that parties which defy the Hattersley leadership in these matters will C

LABC

DEM

IS DE

eighties. Mike Freeman and have candidates imposed and if they object they will be suspended The 1987 election campaign also made clear that when it comes to Labour's making policy, party conference is subordinate to the public relations of and consultants Kinnock's private office.

Seven years after the heady days the deputy leadership ultra-democratic electoral college - is about all that remains of the left's historic conference victories.

Prescott's anticipated conference the role of Roy will provide a fitting epitaph for the left's drive to turn

BANDONS

HALLENGE

N FOR

AD Hattersley for nly a personal otiness of the ft in the early Hann explain Andrew Calcuti of the ne bureaucracy into a vehicle for the interests of the working class The humiliation of the left at the hands of the Labour leadership over the past decade follows from misconception of its basic nature of the Labour Party.

fundamental problem Labour Party is not its structure, its politics. Labour's gramme expresses the commitment of the leaders of the trade unions and the party to the survival of British capitalism. neare ot left challenge the the to capitalist policies of the leadership on and comestic issues in the early eighties ensured

UR PARTY

OCRACY

TOO MUCH TIME ON LONG LUNCHES: ROY HATTERSLEY

labour that the leadership political control, even though the left gained limited influence at certain levels of the party machine.

On every key issue the left lacked independent and on the the voice The unemployment in 1980-81, on the with the hunger-strikes

TICA

on the Falklands War in 1982, on prothe miners' strike in 1984-85. The the initiative and could easily move control re-assert machine, leaving the left isolated and ineffectual. pro- The plight of Group following Prescott's withdrawal from the fray reveals the While no friends distinctive deputy rapid rise article In 1980-61. newfound democratic gain' weeks ago the right retained over the But he has no the Campaign the

POSTER:

conference grinder?" the Prescott to left Kinnock the leadership. career and ravid pressing impotence of the Labour left today.

of Prescott Tony Benn and Eric Heffer abhor the Kinnock leadership and, full of nostalgia for 1981, they cherish the elections, leadership election. the current issue of Campaign Group News describes the electoral college as 'the party's Two Benn declared his approval for Prescott's proposed challenge, emphasising that such electoral contests were a vital part of Labour's internal democracy.

more ideas than Prescott about the sort of policy left should put forward against the Kinnock team.

ERIC HEFFER COMMISERATED WITH PRESCOTT,

BUT DID NOT COMMIT HIMSELF TO TAKE HIS PLACE

This week the Campaign Group is launching a major drive to end Labour Party support for the Nato alliance. This may be no bad thing, but it seems a strange place to start to build the sort of resistance to the Tories that the labour movement so desperately needs. Now that Prescott has pulled out of the deputy leadership contest the left's bluff has been called.

Heffer turned up at the press announced his withdrawal, but was reticent about revealing his own Dians to contest nececuen He said that the Campaign Group would carefully consider putting up candidates against Hattersley, the or even against Kinnock: *Why go for the monkey, not the organcontented himself with condemning of the leadership in leaning so heavily on dissuade him from standing. Whether or not the hard cecides humiliation at the hands of the it lacks any regime, distinctive policy positions which it can put forward as the basis for a challenge to ponucal Prescott's half-cocked campaign against Hattersley expresses the resentment of the only member of Kinnock's shadow cabinet with any rools in the trade union movement at the influence of the Party. Labour former seaman and union militant in the sixties, Prescott has worked his way up through Labour's ranks.

He now finds himself surrounded by former student politicians like Jack Straw and Robin Cook and Bryan civil servants like Gould and Frank Dobson. In 1985 Prescott played an 1986 important role as intermediary between the party leadership and the unions. He was instrumental in the unions to accept unpopular policies on jobs, wages and union legislation. However, in the run-up to the 1987 election of Prescott baulked at the brazenly of the anti-working class style Kinnock team and found himself sidelined while Gould moved to Though he came second in the July shadow cabinet Kinnock gave him only the low ranking job of energy spokesman. Prescott resented his exclusion from the Kinnock clique, but he was deeply compromised with the Kinnock policies - especially ir the unions. Nobody did more to sell Labour's support for wagg controls and pre-strike ballots to the unions than Prescott. Hence it was not surprising that he found andrew calcut little support for his deputy leadership challenge in the unions or in any other section of the party The leader of his own union - Sam McCluskie of the National Union of Seamen - played a key role for Kinnock in persuading Prescott to back down. There was little sign of any other prominent trade union leaders rushing to his rescue. The Tribune group of MPs, which Prescott has DeCl his prominent member since arrival in the house of commons in 1970, made clear its disapproval of his his candidature. Even •own constituency party was far from unanimous in backing his stand. In end the only support for Prescott came from the Campaign Group rump, the tired old radicals whose speeches sound like a record on wilen une necare golstuck some time towards the end of 1981.

The experience of the left since 1981 offers conclusive proof of the futility of the project of trying to democratise the Labour Party.

The left turned its back on the real world and devoted its energies to transforming the Labour Party Its transient successes macalle merely reinforced its attachment to Labour while never loosening the grip of the labour bureaucracy over the party. The Labour Party was oundea by ine leaders or lne trade unions to pursue their interests in the political sphere; they have always provided the money - and much of the organisational expertise - anc they stil rule today the unior cabal Trade Unions for Labour provides the cash while hacks like general secretary Larry Whitty or Kinnock aide Tom Sawyer are effectively seconded from the the "party. The unions Labour Party cannot be made accountable to its rank and file because already fully 1S accountable to the labour bureaucracy. Its programme expresses the bureaucracy's commitment to the British establishment, while trying to appeal to the bureaucracy's base support in the working class movement. The left's drive to reform the structure of the Labour Party while accepting the programme of the bureaucracy, ensured that the domination of the leadership would Benn's vigorous challenge to Healey in 1981 expressed the confidence and dynamism of a left that still had some belief in itself and some hope that the Labour Party might be transformed into force for Prescott's abortive challenge to Hattersley reveals a left consumed bv tatalism and despair, lacking even self-respect and confident only of its inability direction the an ence Kinnock's party. 29 January 1988 • 9

John Lloyd of the Financial Times and Polly Toynbee of the Guardian have both tried to deal with the possibility of a backlash against homosexuals. But, argues Don Milligan, their articles only reveal the limits of the liberal conscience he British are decent chaps, who like to do things moderation and play cricket.

This prejudice is dear to the the educated of middle classes and their representatives in the church, the media, and the professions. According to their philosophy the British people possess a keen sense of justice and fair play, which has always inoculated the nanon against extremism. All this is now being called into question by the growth intolerance against homosexuals. The Tory crusade against lesbians and gays and the gathering backlash against homosexuality are imposing liberal severe 3UI1 establishment that prides itself on its independence of thought and its compassion for the underdog-

EROSION

Two prominent uberal lournalists, John Lloyd of the Financial Times and Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, have recently wrestled with the implications of the antihomosexual offensive. The fact that they have felt compelled to put pen to paper to address this issue in selt-conscious such Way revealing. conclusions indicate the rapid erosion of the conscience" "liberal impact of the advance of reaction.

In a piece entitled No Chance of a Backlash' Lloyd nails his colours firmly to the mast. He argues that there of bigotry Chance gaining a hold on public policy and behaviour because 'we are now too and everse. TO0 secular individualistic for an illiberalism to become a backlash' (Financial Times, 14 January). Lloyd draws comfort from low church attendances and from the small number of people drawn to fundamentalist Christian sects. He contends that because religious observance is a *there minority pursuit generally recognised central. autnority on waich to base such a backlash.

PROSCRIBE

The decline of religion was also a feature of late Victorian society.

not noid back the social

CHHCEECHCC

movement in the 1880s and 1890s preached bigotry which The fact homosexuals. official morality is not the private preserve of the church. The state is the central, generally recognised ultimately responsible authority for enforcing the moral code. The against homosexuals today is in keeping with the establishment's concern to proscribe all alternatives to family life as immoral and sinful.

Lloyd ignores the fact that most people who have joined in the chorus of condemnation against lesbians and are not at all raving Ten mists. Marjorie Seldon put the 'secular" 10 • 29 January 1988 evolutionary Communist Stop the Tory

FIGHT F

LES

AND

in case succinctly in a letter to the Independent against the promotion of homosexuality in schools: *Most parents know that boys and girls in adolescence can be ambivalent about their sexuality.

LOO

"Crushes" other on boys, are a passing phase. For an adult, a teacher, to identify such ambivalence as sexuality to be helped by disservice motion" is a might ruin young There is no mention here of St Paul, no attempt to appeal to fundamentalist simply states that sexual orientation is not as fixed as many would like, schools and theretore exercise guidance and discipline to ensure that as many people as possible prevented are harbouring homosexual desires. In purity assuming that against and Seldon demonstrates none of the that respect for imagines will prevent the backlash against homosexuals. In declaring *the draconian necessary' (Clause 28 of the Local BIll

LOVC CHL

promotion of homosexuality'), she shows how middle class intolerance leads on of repression.

OUTSIDERS

Lloyd sticks blindly to his belief in widespread tolerance of diverse sub-cultures. says, 'It is hard to imagine that it is Revolutionary Communist Party Stop the Tory bigots

FIGHT FOR

LESBIAN

AND GAY

RIGHTS

01-29 0441

THE LIMITS OF

sub-cultures: outsiders. girls, OUnCI legalised the latent homo- "prowhich classroomthought of as outsiders! Seldon

INDIFFERENCE

HEUSU

think from enthusiasts Methodist chapel. homosexuality children, diversity that Lloyd on gay events in the ille clause banning the the For Lloyd rights by the state acceptance of indifference. and will Of the gay scene he terms as everyone else. Revolutionary.

FIGHT FOR

AND CAV

HOMOSEXUALS

BLAMED FOR BACKLASH

LIBERAL TOLERANCE

not just one more sub-culture in a society very largely composed of accepting ittev it is because almost every group, and many individuals, now prefer that designation.' Thus crumbled. Lloyd implies that the exclusion of homosexuals from ordinary society, the the criminal status of homosexuality in the public policy of the state, the bashing insistence that no positive mention of lesbian or gay sex or lifestyles must sully the innocence of the - all this is the result of lesbians and gays 'preferring to be attack Toynbee bigotry Lloyd likes to think of the gay scene in the same way that one of model railway or perhaps a local Perhaps thinks that the fire-boming of the Capital Gay offices in December.

the organised beatings of gay men in the streets, or mass police raids bars are just ordinary of any

SUD-

culture? Perhaps next week it will be the turn of Angling Times or the members of your local rotary club?

homosexuals — the denial of equal similar - is a matter

COSSULLE

"There It is so irrelevant that he denies that Clause 28 is part of a backlash, contribute further attacks on the rights of lesbians and gays to live in society on the same Communist Party Stop the highs

LESBIAN

*the

RIGHTS

Lloyd, for Polly Toynbee has no difficulty that there backlash against homosexuals: ears. *It started with Aids and the when the "gay plague" panic, grudging tolerance won by gays accelerated. Help lines around are reporting an increase by about 30 per cent in the numbers of calls reporting gay- Gay The incidents. London Policing group reported four times more attacks on gays in three months of last year than in the entire year before. There was a pub on gay Rochester." (Guardian, 14 January) open about the 1S unleashed against homosexuals by right-wing moralists and government policy.

But she argues that homosexuals have only themselves to blame: *The tragedy for the gay movement is that it has nurtured within it the seeds of its own destruction.' What Toynbee means is that the gay movement has invited stigma and proscription through its 'extremism and lack of moderation'.

CONTRADICTION

Toynbee concludes her article in fashion to Lloyd by her readers that liberalism is still alive: still and large powerful well of liberal tolerance.

a natural majority in the land that is not hell-bent on persecution. But it will stay a silent majority in a clash between the moral right and extreme left-wing gay militancy.'

Toynbee's whole article Could dicts this conclusion Her view is that so long as they keep themselves to themselves, and behave themselves in public, then can be tolerated. homosexuals This is also the view of many reactionaries, and was the premise on which the 1967 Sexual Offences Act was passed. Toynbee's attack on Jenny Wilson of the moderate Organisation for Lesbian and Gay Action (Olga) for donating books on lesbian and gay themes school libraries is a consummate Toynbee, expression of this view. liberal' any whe lesbian or gay groups that insist on fighting for equality as extremist", has much in common with Dame Jill Knight, "the bigot". So too has who article that British culture preserves *a "live and let" attitude only by constant care on the part of the gay 23 minority. (Financial Times, January)

CONVERGENCE

government's attack on homosexuals and its insistence that the schools and the local authorities should be prevented, by law, from promoting equality homosexuals put Bas champions of liberal tolerance on the spot. It has compelled Toynbee and others to come clean: they all draw the line at telling the kids that it is alright to be lesbian or gay.

Lloyd is not so outspoken only that the because he recognises efforts of one or two education authorities promote homosexuality have been 'nipped in the bud by parents, teachers and/or bureaucrats. Toynbee and Lloyd are united in their opposition to the promotion of the homosexuality Idea that should be afforded the same status as heterosexual forms of expression and pleasure. They therefore share a common platform of opposition to equal rights with right-wing bigots whom they hold in contempt.

Whether they accept it or not, the middle class leaders of liberal opinion in Britain have moved into ine with the right-wing moralist.

and the Synod of the Church of England. They do not agree with equal rights for lesbians and gays.

and like Toynbee they are prepared to attack us for fighting back against our oppression. The middle ground has disappeared.

The appeal of moderate homosexual organisations and groups for the defence of civil liberties and human rights are falling on deaf Their trust in moderate opinion, and the hopes that they have placed in the strength of the have been liberal establishment, Today it has become betrayed. acceptable to label homosexuality as "sin", and to preach intolerance against sinners.

DECRIMINALISATION

We cannot make concessions to the moralists or the liberals. There can be no compromise on the issue We either of homosexual rights. give them up or we fight for them.

Neither should we be scared off by ovnbee's tirade about the gat movement being "hijacked" by the Communist Party Revolutionary and the Socialist Workers Party.

The march of events only confirms that we need a political movement that is prepared to stand up to the bigots and fight for our rights.

should be satisfied with We complete nothing less than the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

The response of Toynbee and Lloyd shows that we cannot look to liberal opinion for back-up Instead, we must fight for the working class to up

WINE

esbians and gays in the struggl for equality. We have to fight for acceptance throughout society of the view that an individual's choice of sexual partner is not a problem Those who seek to make it one are the real problem confronting the working class and the oppressed.

the next step

t four per cent, last year's A rate of growth in the UK economy was the biggest annua micrease since tne sixties. Scarcely a day now puffed-up without some Basoco Tory minister coming on announce that Britain is now on the verge of economic greatness once more. Yet all of the posturing British capitalism being aDoul born again is based on a few carefully massaged statistics and Havel British hype, Dentit economy has no way of coping with the approaching world recession.

Britain's economic growth over the few combates favourably with that of its rivals.

The revival of UK output since the 1980-81 world recession bases Britain third in the growth table of the top 12 capitalist nations behind only Japan and the USA.

Throughout the sixties Britain was bottom of the league and languisnea mn elevenin place in the seventies.

MODEST

This improved international standing has nothing to do with British capitalism being rejuvenated.

In the booming sixties UK growth averaged a modest 3.1 per cent the 'miracle' annually. since 1982 growth has averaged an modest 2.8 per cent. Even optimistic forecasters expect So the growin statistics do not suggest that any real economic Britain's underway more favourable standing merely shows that the crisis facing the capitalist world has caught up with its stronger rivals over the past few years. The 5.4 per cent rise in UK manufacturing output in the year to November 1987 has provided more ammunition for those who Britain's economic boast about Yet here the between Tory fiction and economic the next step reality is even more apparent.

Britain might exceed many of its rivais in overall economic crowth today, but tne manufacturing sector worse in the eighties. Every major capitalist nation except Japan experienced a big fall the 1980-81 recession. However, all except Britain regained their pre-recession

OULDUL

1983. Britain did not reach this position until last year. By then manufacturing years was a third up on 1979 Despite a sustained shake-out in UK manufacturing in the eighties it continues to be dominated by sectors of declining importance in the world. Britain has lost 40 per of its clothing and textile cent industry since the early seventies.

Yet it still employs some 500 000 people — a staggering 10 per cent of all UK manufacturing workers.

accounts for a high proportion of Britain's largest private concerns.

Electrical engineering steel, shipbuilding, goods and metal engineering are a shadow of their gap former selves. But these decrepit

THE 'SERVICE ECONOMY': POOR PRODUCTIVITY, POORER WAGES

THE BRITISH ECONOMY NOW

CRASHING, NOT

BOOMING

Tony Kennedy reveals some home truths about British capitalism sectors still dominate the UK manufacturing scene. British Capitalsls all-important UK the presence in has fared profitable, hi-tech sora cons levels by (and onented Britain's output try. technology-intensive sectors restricted -LO behind America, lorded over by ICI.

FOREIGN

heavily investing Britain. electrical mechanical waves, nated by the Electrolux (Swedish), British-owned sector in Europe cent since 1979. In West Germany the figure is 33 per cent and in Japan 30 per cent. America is the only major power with a lower figure than Britain for the share of its output which comes from manufacturing. This so-called deindustrialisation of Britain is now a hotly debated topic among economists. The point at issue is whether or not British capitalism can sustam is internatonai position while production becomes more service-dominated. In the four years to June 1987 jobs were added to the nonmanufacturing sector in Britain.

In the same period manufacturing employment fell by 325 000. This million manufacturing jobs in the 1980-81 recession. Changes in non-manufacturing employment primarily involved an expansion of private sector services - banking, insurance and finance, hotels and catering, retailing, wholesaling and leisure, cultural and personal The criterion of capitalist strength is profitability. Profits originate in that portion of labour performed by workers which goes unpaid. Creating this 'surplusvalue is the aim of capitalist The foreign capitalists have little newer, more sectors manufacturing. There is no British company of international renown in the field of consumer electronics TV, video and audio equipment). Those that exist in semiconductor-based to either defencestate-sponsored), investment. narrowly specialised or just smallphase out second aerospace, Lucas ues and chemicals, Japan Where manufacturing in Britain the USA. shows signs of life there is usually a foreign company close by. Austin Rover may no longer be a mass car producer but American, Japanese and French motor companies are Plant in new plant The domestic appliance sector (washing machines.

the gap cookers, vacuum cleaners, microetc) is increasingly domisubsidiaries of investment. Philips percentage (Dutch), Bosch-Siemens (German) and General Electric (American).

faltering CONCeS

-BOW

constitute the smallest appliance America. - only a third of British the size of its Italian counterpart.

anufacturing accounts for less than 23 per cent of annual output in Britain value is productive. I today, down from 26 per was on top of the shake-out of two sectors. Howest performance of superior Britain last based on their ability to modernise through investment in fixed capital.

Few British capitalists are able to match their overseas rivais ir this. Figures for fixed investment in manufacturing in the eighties reveal how lory policy has onl given a shortlived superficial boost British industry. In 1984 and 1985 there was a modest increase in However, this Was provoked by government plans to capital • rellet on investment in 1986. Once the tax took effect capital investment faltered. In 1986 UK investment per employee was only half that of that and two thirds that of Even these figures understate the size of the 'investment gap in British manufacturing. Low rates of investment over decades mean

HUL

and equipment Britain are much older and less efficient than elsewhere. To close capital must outpace its rivals in the proportion of domestic resources devoted to Yet investment as a of domestic fairy product in Britain is half that of Japan and significantly below the Europe and Talc. reanty capitalists claim thal capacitv constraints are the mair Why manufacturing matters production. For capital, only labour which produces surplus- Manufacturing is crucial to surplus-value production because of the relative ease with which productivity increases can be made in this sector, mainly Touse e neonor or technology. Rising productivity enables the goods which the working class consumes - from food and clothes to cars and videos — to be produced in less labour-time. This leaves more of apropriated by the capitalist as surplus-value. Rising manufacturing productivity also cheapens the cost of machinery, which helps maintain profit rates.

Employment in service industries may or mav not be a source of surplus-value. The problem from the standpoint of capitalism is that productivity increases in service industries are difficult to achieve. In Britain productivity growth in hotels, catering and various personal services is only a sixth the rate for manufacturing. In effect, these industries contribute little to raising the rate of exploitation of the working class. The need to compensate for this explains why wage levels and conditions tend to be particularly harsh in service barrier to continued growth in manufacturing. The image of UK factories working at full-throttle seems reassuring, In lact. capacits that simply capitalists have exhausted the potential for running clapped-out breakneck speed machinery al with harassed workers on the West. wases underlines the inability of British tide of capitalists turn the decline through long-term and large-scale investment Since 1980 labour productivity in British manufacturing has risen between 25 and 50 per cent. But this has little to do with investment in new machinery. Most of the gain is due to the massive shake-out of workers from industry since 1980.

left oenina a smallel workforce producing more in less Although output increased year, another 66 000 jobs disappeared from manutacturing

SUBSTITUTE

Despite its improvement Britain continues competitors in productivity performance. Recent figures from the International Monetary Fund show that labour costs embodied in each unit of UK manufacturing output are increasing more rapidly than those of its major rivals.

Workets in West German and French manufacturing are 55 per cent and a third more productive UK respectively counterparts. This doesn't mean workers in Europe

WOTEK

harder or earn less than the British.

In fact, the opposite is true. The figures show that imposing slavefor investment in technology will salvage Britain's ailing industries The public pronouncements of business leaders and politicians on British economy pear relation to the real state of things.

But the fact that the official opposition parties now repeat the tale of booming Britain shows the Tories' success on the ideological front. Popularising an economic analysis that reveals the of capitalist decline essential in the struggle to get rid of this degenerate order. The financial services sector has become the central source of profits for British capitalism in the eighties. Paradoxically, workers in the banking, insurance and finance sector yield no surplus-value. Financial services involve managing paper assets (money, stocks and bonds) which constitute claims on values produced by productive labour elsewhere. These bits of paper have no intrinsic value; shuffling them around the world - one of the City of London's main functions — can't create anv nev value either. The profits in the financial sector represent a deduction from the surplus-value created in the productive sector of the world economy. When the pace of these financial operations slows down the City will cease to be the jewel of the British economy. More importantly British capitalists will have little to fall back on. This is what the October stock market crash heralds for British capital.

The decline of manufacturing and the expansion of the City Snow the parasitic character of •British capitalism today. With its manufacturing base decimated and the bottom falling out of the coupon-clipping business, there is nowhere left to hide. 29 January 1988 • 11

srael's brutal clampdown on the Palestinians has led to sharp criticism from its closest ally.

For the first time since Reagan office the

USA

took condemning Israell tactics in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The White House has issued a statement against Israel's 'harsh security and excessive measures use of live ammunition'.

SNUG

The Reagan administration has had snug relations with Israel in the past. Between late 1980 and the end of 1987, the USA vetoed 14 United Nations resolutions which it considered to be anti-Israeli. Yet last month the USA abstained on a resolution deploring *killing and wounding of defenceless Palestinian civilians', and this Washington even month ported a resolution calling on the Zionist state not to deport Palestinians. Despite appearances there is no fundamental shift in US policy.

George Shultz, the US secretary o sate maeruneu uns bout d UN statement after UnC against deportations. He said the USA was upset bv the upsurge in the West Bank and Gaza - Hol tal ps. *The US regards its friendship with Israel as key unshakeable relationship. No one should misinterpret VOTe meaning anything else. In fact, 1 suppose the ability ocasionally with a friend shows depth of that friendship. une (Jerusalem Post, 8 January) smoothing whte was the US with words relatons was speaking

COHEI CO

louder with money. Israel already gets $3 billion a year from the USA, far more than any other American ally. Now a refinancing on Israel's debt will mean an extra $2 billion hand-out to the Zionist state. Since Israel's Jewish population is only about 3.5m. this adds up to an American subsidy of well over $1000 for every man, woman and child.

PRIVILEGED

To clear up doubts about the US commitment to the Zionist state. Washington is also beeting up the Israeli military machine which has murdered more than 70 Palestinians in recent weeks.

special $180m US grant to develop defence anti-missile marks Israel's entry into the Star The Wars programme. Reagan administration has also signed a 10-year agreement granting Israel non-Nato ally status. This gives the Israeli military industry privileged access to the US market. All of this American aid to Israel is not motivated by altruism. In Reaganspeak the Israeli state is a 'strategic asset for the USA.

In for its dollars and return political support Washington gets an ally that can be relied upon to counter any anti-Western developments in the Middle East.

American politicians know that Israel is unlike any of their other in the Middle allies East. Israeli state was imposed Palestine after the Second World War with the backing Western powers. existence denies the Palestinians their right to self-determination. Thus, Israel will always generate hostility in the world. To Arab counter the continuous Palestinian threat to its survival. Israel must rely on the continued support of the USA.

Any challenge to Western interests in the region is therefore a threat to Israel, and Washington knows that the Israelis will wade in on its side the Arabs. against Nixon captured essence of the US-Israeli relationship in the seventies. When asked Washington why continued Zionist state. the replied that it was cheaper than sending in the sixth fleet.

political return tor support, Israel has 12 • 29 January 1988 1S the sup- VOLe but and differ even system loyally countered Western interests in the region.

• In 1956 Britain Israel invaded Egypt after Nasser, the Arab state's radical leader, ordered the nationalisation of the Suez canal. Israel's desire to crush the Palestinians in Gaza fitted in The well with Anglo-French ment at Nasser nationalising their on canal". The Israel and the Europeans of the without its permission, and soon three forced the withdraw. But the uncharacteristic rift was quickly smoothed over and Washington resumed its alliance with Israel against the Arab world.

• In 1967 Israel crushed the armies of the surrounding Arab states in the Six Day War. The war enabled Israel to extend its control over the Palestinians by West Bank and President battering SUBe image of the radical Arab leaders.

the After 1967 Washington threw its full weight behind the victorious Israelis, and Israel came to rely on the USA, rather than the other Western powers, for its survival.

• In 1978 and again in 1982 Israel and invaded southern Lebanon. Israel's main concern both times was to push

BACKS ISRAEL BECAUSE...

"T'S CHEAPER

THAN THE

Despite its criticisms of Israeli tactics in the occupied territories, Washington remains the main force backing the repressive Zionist state. Daniel Nassim explains

AMERICA'S LOCAL BOOTBOYS: ISRAELI SOLDIERS AT WORK

threats to France and resent- USA was upset at aggressors to the occupying Gaza. while and

IN LONDON LAST WEEK

THE USA STILL

SIXTH FLEET'

Israel stands oppose the Jordanian anti-Western USA itself danger can the Palestinians even further from ington's Arab world its borders. It also wanted to maintain what was left of the sectarian

THOUSANDS MARCHED IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIANS

this could leaders. and always wealth Lebanese state. Israel's invasions provided the pretext first for the entry of UN forces and then a 'Multi- National Force including US, French, Italian and British troops.

as constant reminder to its Arab neighbours of the risks they run if they try to

USA.

Egyptian, and Syrian encer. know that if they do not deal with their in countries, there is always a threat that Israel will move in. Israel also provides a convenient focus for the anger of ordinary Arabs which can from the Despite Israel's loyal service to the USA their relationship can be strained, as recent events contirm.

Israel's immediate concern always to find ways of dealing with the threat from the Arab world. In particular Israel must counter the way posed by Palestinians fighting for their freedom.

Washington recognises the value of Israel's special role, but has far broader concerns in the Middle East. The USA must try to maintain good relations with the Gulf states and the other main Arab regimes. Israeli aggression Washsometimes threater wider interests in may •s condemnation of such US UN Israel's deportation policy earlier month prompted by was Washington's messages from Arab allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They warned the Reagan regime that unrest in the occupied territories their ability damage

USA.

The cooperate with the Irangate revelations about secret us arms acals already severely strained America's relations with conservative Arab Washington now especially keen to keep on the right side of its Arab allies The US autorities need to keep up a delicate balancing act to maintain good relations with Israel and ergules. sometimes to play the two off against each other. This is reflected in the tension between the Arab and pro-Israeli Washington. lobbies in supporters in the USA claim that the interests of the Zionist state are of danger overwhelmed by superior Arab and lobbying

BOWCE

Zionists the state point department, the American equivalent of the foreign office, which has more than 20 desks dealing with Arab states and only one for Israel. They bitterly oppose arms sales to une Alad stales The argument that Washington is dictated to by the Arab states has little credibility. The

USA

still wields far more economic, political and military might than all of the Washing- Arab states combined. ton's close relations with Israel are themselves an indication of the weakness of the Arab lobby.

FAVOURITISM

The view thạt the Jewish lobby" in America runs US policy in the Middle East might appear more credible. The 50 000-strong American Committee (AIPAC) is among the most efficient lobbying isations in the USA. In his recent book, They Dare to Speak Out, former Republican congressman Paul Findley outlines a popular US of interpretation policy, which has made the book a best-seller among Palestinian sympathisers: It is no overstatement', he declares on the first page, to say that AIPAC has ettectively gained control of virtually all of Capitol Hill's action on Middle East policy.' Things may look that to Findley, election after AIPAC launched a campaign against his mildly anti- Israeli views. But in reality, the US calls the important governiell shots in its relations with Israel.

Washington's favouritism towards Israel is not a result of "Jewish voting power'. The USA gives enormous privileges to Israel because it knows the Zionist state is a reliable ally. While Arab rulers they vacillate

CONS

under pressure from their own Israel such people, has problems conducting defence of Western staunch interests The ability of the USA and Israel to disagree openly while remaining as George firm allies is, Shultz says, an indication of the closeness of their relationship.

consider America's need and broader regional factors means there is always room for conflict with Israel's narrower concerns. But the vastly superior political economic, and military weight ensures that it is the dominant partner in relationship. Criticising Israel is a convenient way for the USA to minimise its own embarrassment at the unrest in the West Bank and Gaza. The provides conveniently powerless forum in which Washington can sound concerned about the plight of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, every Israeli soldier terrorising the Palestinian people is fed, clothed and armed with generous helpings of US dollars.

the next step

Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell, Sweet Freedom, Blackwell, £5.95 The first edition of Sweet Freedom was hailed as a women's movement, and so ll was. Il uacca, ceany and accurately, the development of the movement from the sixties on, and it dealt thoroughly with the position of women at work in the tamilv. In education and in the unions. his revised and updated edition provides on the social changes alrecung women which have taken place since the book was first published in 1982. It also includes an account of 'the dramatic developments of the eighties: Greenham Common, the peace movement, miners wives, black women's groups, reproductive rights controversies, women against sexual harassment, and the new women's committees. Not a lot has changed for the better since 1982, and much has changed for the worse. The authors document the continuing discrimination against women workers despite legal changes, the increasing burden of domestic work even for omen and ine "community care Unfortunately, Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell haven't changed much either. They claim to have suffered a certain loss of anger and the next step While London Burns

SAMMY & ROSIE

gellais

¿ WOMEN'S LIBERATION FIVE YEARS ON

urgency', but in truth those qualities were also lacking in the first edition.

And the central weakness remains: the failure to acknowledge that the explosion in energy, anger and ideas which characterised those early years never produced a serious strategy by which women might fight their oppression. The four demands of the Women's National Coordinating Committee in 1971 (Equal pay now, Equal education and job opportunities, Free contraception and abortion on demand, and but there was never any cone enor consis clu attempt to organise middle class feminists like coote ana vampbell celebrated our very reviews page

'A LOSS OF ANGER

AND URGENCY"

weakness, the diffuse nature of our ideas and organisation, ds a posilive virtue. It is hardly surprising therefore that the movement barely touched the lives of working class women. The emphasis moved away from fighting Tor what the Mass OT women needed and on to personal politics, individual choice and stale old Labourism; a process well-exemplified in the shift from 'Free abortion on demand' to 'A woman's right to choose to Defend the '67 Act. The movement imploded Labour Party, not in body Despite five more years evidence, Coote and Campbell are still trying to brazen out the fact that Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Stephen Frears (Director) Writer Hanif Kureishi and director Stephen Frears the team that hit the jackpot with My Beautiful Laundrette, are not going to have it so easy with their new film. First, they had to endure the ludicrously ignorant abuse of Oxford historian Norman Stone on the 'rancidly provincial", and insulting', nature of their work. Apparently Professor Stone (and the writers) object to 'depressing films, "messy" plots and most of all unrepresentative views of little England. With complaints of this calibre Kureishi was already what they call 'one of the developments of this for itself. To compensate, they exaggerate bot une incidence and the influence of feminist ideas, as for example when they claim the fighting contribution of the miners' wives as 'an expression' of changes in consciousness, and irresponsibly overestimate the significance of this contribution for the advance of women generally. They brazen out too the surrender to the Labour Party of their much-vaunted autonomy, to a party which can find space for only one woman in its shadow cabinet. hev recommend acain. in suitably coy terms, that intervening in the politics of Labour' is the way to engage with power directly. The authors sum up the project thus: The women's movement variety of theoretical and practical approaches to understanding female subordination and asserting the power of women with individuals and groups torming different kinds of alliances around different issues.' This evasive formulation is an attempt to mask the empty centre of the movement, and to deny the experience of confusion and retreat which so many women MENe Tell mportantly it is a denial of the urgency of starting to fight again around those first four demands for what we need. Sara Hardy

$ ANOTHER FILM ON

SAMMY AND ROSIE

GET DEMORALISED

congratulating himself, but now most of the serious critics have dismissed Sammy and Rosie Get Laid with the condescension they usually reserve for the one after the promising debut. Sammy and Rosie Get Laid is a restless meditation on the problems of everyday life

IOC DUNCO

deracinated people living In a decaying Europe as one of the characters puts it) which you and 1 recognise as Notting Hill Sammy (Ayub Khan Din) is a freelancing, alternative sort of accountant of Pakistani extraction and his English wife Rosie (Frances Barber), a social worker of middle class extraction who is not yet entirely numbed by the exigencies of her work and way. Their open relationship, already under strail, 1s thrown into crisis by the arrival of Rafi (Shashi Kapoor), Sammy's father, a once prominent (and still wealthy) Pakistani politician who it Laus cowad responsible for considerable repression and torture. Ties of family and friendship, selfinterest and political entangled and strained. This highly dissatisfied trio have no firm bearings or values on waien the can rely. Rafi is the hardest case. He can only buy his son's affection, but even so his daughteri-law rejects nim. ne wanders through a riottorn London which bears no resemblance to the England he knew long ago, failing to rekindle an elegantly fading old flame, Alice (Claire Bloom), and finding real friendship only in an enigmatic black nomad, Danny (Roland Gift) who picks him up along the way. The hard pragmatism which has served Rati in the past is no use to him now; but then Sammy and Rosie's *freedom with commitment' and Alice's loyalty and honesty' have failed them too. Danny is me only person who call handle it, the only person who looks as he belongs in this thankless inner city, and it is he who expresses the shrewdest understanding of the situation This is a much superior film to My Beautiful Laundrette, which for all inclined to the glib and whimsical. Those tendencies are not entirely absent from Sammy and Rosie, but this is a more serious and dyspeptic work. Critics who complain of the riots, the police brutality, the evictions, etc, as being a trivialised backdrop misunderstand

THATCHER'S BRITAIN

their function. For the characters these are public events, part of the fabric of their social life, exerting their pressures just as much as Margaret speeches. For the most part, however, they are not experienced directly but rather as spectacle and background, upon which they have no immeciate purchase. The point is made most sardonically as they stroll through the riot as if invisible - or as if the police and rioters are waiting for them to move on before resuming 4 The quickfire public and private, and the brisk use of stylised chunks of dialogue or surreal fancies (such as the ghostly ex-victim who now ferries Rafi to his new underworld) work well. There is a wealth of surface detail but little enough to get a grip on but that Is the problem facing Sammy, Rosie and Rafi too as they struggle to survive and, if they can, do right by themselves and those around them. There are some dud and heavy. handed scenes and some clichéd images (such as the ragged troupe of busker/hippies) but the film does not lose sight of the main problems. to which credit is also due to te actors, especials Frances Barber and To be sure, , Kureishi has nothing to offer his benighted characters other than the old refuge of personal and sexual relationships. Sensual

C CURCE OU

large as the only relief une Thn Has avalaoic and it ends with a desperate hug. Yet when the characters get laid, it unsatisfactory climax in any sense that it is entirely appropriate for the whole business to be sent up as it is with the cheeky use of a triple split screen. This is a bleak film, a study in demoralisation which in many ways is demoralised itself. Being neither a social worker nor a politician Kureishi is obviously not in the business of making helpful recommendations, but it is difficult not to feel from this graphic account of bewildered impotence that he is as transfixed as his characters by their preoccupations. Should I Should i hate my father on account of his political misdeeds? Important problems no doubt, but there is more to life than that, even (perhaps especially) for three people adrift in Notting Hill. Pat Ford 29 January 1988 • 13

The January meeting of the Revolutionary Communist Party's Political Committee discussed the current international situation and the balance of forces in Britain. Here we reprint a summary of the discussion A DECEPTIVE calm now prevails in the Western world. Despite last year's crash, the ruling classes are determined to keep up an attitude of business as usual. Goverments are making a concerted attempt to talk up the prospects for the world economy. This hype has reached its most bizarre heights in Britain, where politicians and pundits still have the nerve to predict more 'economic miracles'. Despite all of these assurances about prosperity ahead, the last few months have been marked by sharpening tensions in the world economy. There is now a greater awareness that an economic war among the major capitalist powers could break out at any time. The European press is full of pessimistic warnings about the future.

Continental capitalists are publicly voicing their fear of being squeezed out by Japan and the USA. They are even debating the prospects for establishing a common Eurocurrency to help fight their overseas rivals. Everybody now accepts that, until the US presidential elections in November, Washington is in no position to tackle its deen-seated economic problems. It would De portical suicide tor Reagan's Republicans to implement the unpopular austerity measures which US capitalism requires for its survival. This means that Japan and Europe will have to carry the extra economic burden of keeping the USA afloat. Reagan's inaction may help to create an impression of stability in the short term. But it also stores up bigger problems for the future. Time is a luxury that the US ruling class cannot afford. The longer it vacillates on the economic front, the more difficult it

IN LIMBO: REAGAN

14 • 29 January 1988

REPORT FROM

THE POLITICAL

COMMITTEE

makes the job of maintaining some sort of equilibrium in the imperialist world. Since the crash, competition between capitalists has become more intense and bitter. There is a new boom in takeover operations. Large cash-rich companies are buying up bargain' shares in competitors hit by the crash, as a prelude to taking them over. Survival is now seen as a question of cut-throat competition, and it is clear that the number of casualties will be high. In such circumstances, the next crash will not simply effect shareholders and bankers.

More and more, such a crash threatens to have a knock-on effect on industry and production. The perpetuation of a degree of economic calm is only made possible by the relative absence of open class conflict within Western nations like Britain. This continuing political stability has given the Tory government a breathing space to try to sort out its economic affairs. Political trends which we have often discussed in tas have been consolidated over the last few months. In Britain the Tories have experienced a decline in popularity, but the lack of an effective opposition means that they can carry on.

It is evident that the Thatcher government has lost its direction. It has no meaningful policies to offer its allies in the capitalist class, and its outwardly confident pronouncements have a hollow ring. The Tories have been put on the defensive over their handling of the health service.

This issue can cause them problems in the short run.

However, as long as Thatcher's difficulties are restricted to the NHS the Tories will be able to ride out the storm. has never been a for trump card. They can only be finally defeated if they are tackled or the issues where their strength defence, etc. The break-up of the SDP/Liberal Alliance has become obvious to all. The farcical merger negotiations reveal the insubstantial base of these narties. The attempt to construct a non-class party makes no sense in a highly polarised society such as Britain. The political centre has proved to be an illusion in Thatcher's Britain. Against this background, the paralysis of the Labour Party has become the most important feature of British politics. This paralysis is not a new phenomenon; what is new is the extent to which Labour has been marginalised. To all Intents anu surposes, Laboul has ceased to be a focus of opposition even within the walls of parliament. It has failed entirely to take advantage of the demise of the Alliance. Labour has become a caricature of the Alliance with its attempt to become a policyfree listening party. Labour leader Neil Kinnock now sounds even more verbose and hollow than before, and carries less and less conviction with the electorate. Labour has abandoned the role of parliamentary opposition to disgruntled Tory

MORE VERBOSE: KINNOCK

backbenchers and mavericks.

by the ineffectiveness of the Labour frontbench in its response to the recent rebels were publicly The NHS following topics: Street, London WC1. ..... I enclose £ .......

NAME

ADDRESS

UNEASY CALM

BEFORE THE STORM

simple one - Even Tory MPs were surprised education Bill. In the end Tory its London HQ. complaining of Labour's failure

LIMNG

MARXISM

Many people nowadays regard Marxism as a dry old dogma with little to offer in the present. Living Marxism is a series of discussions on current events and issues which aim to demonstrate that Marxist theory is an invaluable tool for understanding and analysing the world in which we live.

The Discussions are held on Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm. The first series this year will cover the 9 February: What is imperialism?

16 February: Marxism and literature 23 February: The arms race and the problems of peace 1 March: Reform and revolution The venue is the University of London Union, Malet The tickets are £1.50 per session (£1 unwaged) or £4 (£2.50) for the course.

To order your tickets in advance and get a suggested reading list to help you make the most of the course, fill in the form and return it to Wendy Ellis, London WC1N 3XX. Or phone us on (01) 729 0414.

•••••••• I would like ....... tickets for the whole course/ session no Postcode Telephone Make cheques payable to RCP Association.

to fight Baker's Bill. Outside parliament, Labour plays even the medical establishment to lead the opposition to une Tories' health cuts. Elsewhere, Labour's slogan remains a retreat. A corollary of Labour's paralysis is its growing tendency to accommodate to me poes me one media. Labour's main concern is not to offend, and to gain a reputation for pragmatism and respectability. Local Labour authorities are now busy implementing cuts and making deals with private industry.

Labour's much-vaunted campaign against the poll tax in Scotland is just a press release filed away somewhere in the Walworth Road offices of The Labour left has become invisible. The fiasco of John

BM RCP,

Prescott's aborted campaign for the deputy leadership is symptomatic of the left's malaise. There is now an undeniable crisis on the British left. This crisis shows itself above all at the level of ideas and political perspective. The old hand-me-down ideas of the past are proving less and less plausible with the passing of time. All that most of the British left can look forward to this year are reunion events to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of their golden hour in 1968. The present period presents exciting possibilities for Marxists. Despite surface appearances, the capitalist system can only survive through the sharpening of its internal conflicts. Those who grasp the underlying tendencies at work, and who are prepared critically to examine the world, have the potential to influence events in the world. The intellectual crisis of the left makes it more possible, and more important, to demonstrate the relevance of RCP politics and theory. The party must be ready to learn from its experiences and to study the prevailing trends, so that our ideas are adequate to resolve the crisis facing the working class. This must be a key element of our preparation for the coming economic recession and social crisis, which will engulf the capitalist world and decide the future of the working class in Britain and around the world.

BECOME AN

RCP

SUPPORTER

Name Tel Postcode the next step

AROUND the country Revolutionary Communist Party supporters have been mobilising support defence of wages and working conditions in the health service. Our objective is to rally the widest posible united action of nurses and other hospital workers to torce the Tory government to pay up. As momentum gathers for all-out national acton te portical direction of the dispute becomes more and more important. Here are some of the arguments that have been coming up in the course of our intervention in the hospitals. • 'Taking it out on the patients' Thatcher and her ministers are stepping up the counter-attack against the nurses by arguing that maustral acton can only injure hospital patients.

ine same argument Is being pushed by the leaders of the Royal College of Nursing, the professional organisation with more than 250 000 members. This cynical a cases commitment to the care of the sick cuts little ice with hospital staff who daily witness the effects of government cuts on standards of healthcare. Everybody knows that the sick are dying because beds have been closed and operations postponed. Others are suffering because they do not get adequate care in hospital in understaffed wards or because they get discharged too early as a resul orenuess Costcutting. ne currea wave or protests shows that nurses are defying the prejudice against industrial action which has helped to put them among Britain's lowest paid workers. The revolt against the no-strike policy of the Royal College of Nursing reveals a growine recognition that a profesional lobby inadequate for nurses who need coordinated, hard-hitting action to win decent wages and working conditions. The existing health service unions - Nupe and Cohse - have lost influence since their disastrous leadership of the 1982 dispute. Now is the time for members of nurses, porters, cleaners, workers in the kitchens and laundries - to get together in the hospitals to organise joint action under the control of the rank and file. It is important that emergency cover is oeviuce se ual the Tories cannot seize on propaganda advantage. Ordinarv hospital workers know what is required to emergency service and they should not let anybody else interfere in organising it. • 'Distracting attention from parlamentary manoeuvres Tory backbenchers who de chucao me government's health porcies nave urged nurses not to take industrial action, lest this the next step astract autention Trom their attempts to press the government to make more funds available for the NHS. This argument has been echoed by Labour Party spokesman Robin Cook and, in more muffled tones, by Rodney Bickerstatte the Nube general secretary. Both have taken an equivocal line in response to the upsurge of militancy, emphasising the virtues of their propaganda attack on the Tories in parlament and the media and expressing concern that adverse publicity about hospital strikes might hamper their subtle diplomacy. Politicians and union making Inmated assessments of their own influence in the world. What Cook and Bickerstaffe seem to forget is that the only reason why they are making speeches in parlament or appearing on television is that the nurses took strike action, first in Manchester, then in Scotland and then at hospitals around the country. The real situation is the exact reverse of the bureaucrats prejudices. The only thing that puts any pressure on the government is industrial action and the manoeuvres of the politicians can only undermine the momentum that is building up in the hospitals. • 'Save our NHS' There are two distinct, though related, issues in the current controversi around the health service.

decade of cuts, initiated by the last Labour government and stepped up by the Tories, on the quality of healthcare. While, as Thatcher never tires of saying, overall spending on the health service may have increased since 1979, this has fallen far behind the rising demand resulting trom demographic factors and the need to replenish decaying buildings. The second issue is the living standards of workers in the health service, which includes some 500 000 low-paid ancillary workers as well as a similar number of nurses. Not only are waees poor. but many hospital workers encuen neusoca hours in difficult conditions. The effect of the financial crisis is to intensify the burden of work and to end job satisfaction, leading to a At present the resistance to the Tory government's health service policies is focused on the issue of declining standards of patient care.

The impetus for the current wave of publicity about the inadequacy of facilities for heart surgery for children comes from the highest level of the medical profession. The royal colleges have got together to launch a highprofile campaign to embarrass the government into paying out more money for particular medical priorities. The doctors' campaign has given the green light to the nurses and the ancillary workers to take action against the

NUYE

CAINST

NO TO PRIVATISATION, CERTAINLY, BUT NO TO IN-HOUSE

TENDERS TOO

government. They too have emphasised their concern, not merely to defend their own living standards, but to win more resources to improve standards in the health service. The danger of health workers emphasising their commitment to improving standards in the health service is that it makes them vulnerable to Tory attempts to improve standards at the expense of the wages and conditions of hospital workers. The government has made clear its interest in raising the emcency or te nearn service and in exploring alternative sources of funding such as private insurance and charity, which is already playing a vastly expanded role in popular areas such as children's heart and kidney surgery. Many senior doctors would be with measures to improve funding for their specialities and for party page

HOW HEALTH

WORKERS

CAN WIN

PRIVATISA

NUPE

specialist nurses. Such measures would do nothing for the vast majority of nurses and hospital workers except to intensify sectional unity even further. If health workers are even to defend their existing wage levels they are going to have to emphasise that, however the Tories want to fund the health service hospital workers must have decent pay and conditions. It is essentia that nurses and other Anti-racist benefit for Workers Against Racism

THE HIP FLASKS, THE BATS,

THE BIG FUN CLUB

The Riverside, Newcastle Thursday 11 February, 8pm Tickets £1.50 or £2 on door o workes done allow their struggle for a living wage to be channelled into a debate about whether Nigel Lawson should cut taxes or increase health service spending. No matter how Lawson balances his colleagues will be trying to health service to work ever ceroeven ese money. The preocupation their own spheres of provide no protection for the position of the nurses, the porters and all the rest. It is worth remembering that when the doctors were satisfied with their own position in the health service they were bitterly hostile to the attempts of hospital workers to improve their poverty-line wages through trade union organisation and action. At a time when everybody is declaring that the best way for health workers to defend their position is by proclaiming their commitment to patient care, it may not be popular to argue that we should put the interests of health workers to the fore.

Of course we believe that the government should be forced to pay out more money to provide decent healthcare for everybody.

But we must recognise that for 40 years, successive govemments have exploited health workers commitment to patient care to maintain some of the worst wages and conditions in the country. If we are to defend living standards in the health service against the ruthless lores. we cannot afford to give any ground to the sentimenta propaganda that has aiways unacimied ult unity and efectiveness of

WITH: POP, DICK AND HARRY,

industrial action in the health service. Let the Tories and the royal colleges haggle about where the money comes from and we can concentrate on uniting our ranks against them. •'Stop privatisation' In Scotland the main focus of militancy in the health service is the govemments arive to push out domestic catering and laundry services to private contractors. The first round of health service privatisation has already swept the hospitals in England and Wales. Since 1983 costs in these areas have been cut by 18 per cent, at the expense of thousands of jobs. Even worse than the effects of privatisation have been the consequences of the in-house tenders accepted under threat of privatisation in many health authorities. In these tenders health with the cooperation o union officials, have drawn up schemes for running services with drastic cuts in jobs and changes in working conditions. In 1983 tns was the first paper to expose the complicity of the union officials in inhouse tenders and RCP supporters were active in campaigning against them. Workers in Scotland should be forewarned by the shameful record on privatisation of the health service unions in the rest of Britain. Scottish Nupe leader Ron Curran has pledged that his union will not cooperate in eficiency-saving or in preparing in-house tenders. This is a welcome stand which health workers must make sure that the union sticks to in every hospital. "No to privatisation. No to in house tenders' is the only slogan consistent with the interest of all health workers. • Rank and file organisation It is important that health workers do not allow me asoales in fragmented 'days of already sponsoring limited actions on different days around the country, while some talk about a national strike on NHs day' in July. But we can't months! We need some short, sharp, all-out industrial action now. Workers in the health service have long suffered from sectional divisions, from the influence of professional organisations and prejudices and from ineffective trade unions.

lo pursue ettective industrial action in the hospitals workers neea to set up action committees that bring together nurses, ancillary and technical staff to organise joint action under the control of hospital staff not managers, doctors or union officials. Such organisation can provide the basic units from which nationwide action can be coordinated and from which a united hospital workers' trade union can Mike Freeman 29 January 1988 • 15

ine next step Sixteen years since Bloody Sunday

BRITISH TERROR

BEHIND CLOSED

Sixteen years ago, on Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972, British marchers in Derry. Today Britain terrorises Irish nationalists less of British torture. CASTLEREAGH is the most notorious interrogation centre in occupied Ireland. Situated in a mainly Loyalist area of Belfast, it fits perfectly your interrogators' first and foremost purpose as part of your torture: louLAIuN. Ine ony uerence dsamst this is to remain silent.

Looking at the place from the outside it looks just like any large police station. But behind all the false impressions and - more to the point - behind the main building surrounded by a brick wall, encing and barbed wire are the interrogation chambers. They are in a woodenstructured, two-storey building which consists of 30 cells for holding prisoners, both male and female, and about 20 interrocation rooms with no windows. You do not see daylight for the seven days you are likely to be held: CONFINEMENT! The only defence is to remain silent.

From the moment you are arrested every move you make is written down: how long you sleep, how much you eat, every time you go to the toilet or take a drink of water, blink your eyes or cough. They can tell Hee BBu dre a very strong or weak person, and depending on this outcome they

RALLY

Speakers: Mick Hume and Derry activist 7.30pm Friday 29 January, Caxton House, 129 St John's Way, London N19 (Archway tube) Followed by a benefit disco.

Admission (rally and disco) £3/£1.50 unemployed paratroopers shot dead 14 unarmed publicly, through SAS executions in the dead of night and sessions inside Castlereagh torture centre. Below Derry nationalist Charlie McMenamin gives an insider's view of Castlereagh. Opposite his brother Frankie describes recent cases decide best on how you should be interrogated. Your whole background and character are looked at to see what type of temperament you have: ANALYSED! The only defence against this is to remain silent.

Any person who might have the misfortune to be detained in this place will have, at the end of their stay, suffered some of the most degrading and humiliating talk and treatment. You will have been subjected to all the usual derogatory remarks about your family; for example, your mother's a woman of the street, your father goes to bed with your sister, etc: HUMILIATION!

The only defence against this is to remain silent. Threats on your life and that of members of your family are common.

Large numbers of interrogators gather outside your cell and make threats about how they are going to beat vou up it vou retuse to speak They will slap you about the head to try to confuse you, bend your fingers back, pull your hair, punch your privates and make you stand Tor long periods. Each interview lasts no less than four hours; now and again they put their coats over the video cameras that are supposed to be there to monitor the interrogations.

Needless to say, they serve no purpose whatsoever. In the past they have been known to bring guns into the interrocations to scare people into making statements: FEAR! The oriy derence agamist tis is to remain silent. during interrogations, even to the extent that the torturers can take over their minds. They use the hard maso man terlouge Branch man will tell you that he is only there to help you, and he won't let any of the rest of them abuse you, he'll get you out and home, etc.

hen anther one will come bursting In and start slapping you about, snoulng au you, temne you your

DOORS

silent. rish treedom

IRISH PEOPLE!

Saturday 30 January to mother is dead beause of you and so on. This is repeated every couple of hours. People have been known to become so scared and confused that interrogators in Castlereagh and others have tried to commit suicide: DISORIENTATION! The only defence against this is to remain silent.

When a person is put through all this they get to worrying about their family and friends. Your mind becomes clouded, your thoughts crowded. You get to a stage where all you can think about is what might happen next: ANXIETY. The only defence against this is to remain All this amounts to nothing less than torture. It happens day in, day out to people as young as 14 or as old as 60. The aim of the incarceration in Castlereagh is to take people away from their normal environment, detached from friends and society, usually for seven days, dehumanise them, break the will and spirit of the prisoner. The one and only defence against all of this is for the person to use their right to, remain silent all the time This Saturday we have the chance to speak out against British terror in Ireland. On the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we will be marching gainst the Britsh occupation of the North of Ireland, and all of the brutality that it invoes. we will be marching to show our support for the fight for

TROOPS OUT NOW!

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE

MARCH

Assemble 12.30 Whittington Park, Holloway Road London N19

DERRY

VICTIMS

IN the past few weeks the Royal Ulster Constabulary has lifted about 30 people in Derry, and taken them Castlereagh holding centre in Belfast or Strand Road barracks in Derry for long bouts of interrogation and abuse. This level of harassment is 'normal', but the ill-treatment is getting worse. • Jim Meenan from the Bogside was heading into town with his bab!

daughter a week last Saturday when he was stopped by the RUC and taken to Strand Road station. While he was still holding his daughter three RUC officers began to punch and kick him until the young girl became nvsterica. Meenan was separated from the baby and dragged into a cel. Where he was subieter to further physical and mental abuse.

His cantors insulted his tamilv and cracked jokes about IRA volunteers wica e escouto ecs eeldr was held until Monday afternoon. The noo orered mim money to turn informer. He refused and was released without charge. • Arthur Forbes from Strabane was arrested by the RUC two days before Meenan and held in Strand Road during interrogations. 'I was poked and slapped in the face, and they kept accusing me of carrying out a blast bomb attack in the centre of the town.' The RUC accused Forbes of being an IRA member, and told him that his brother who was arrested at the same time had turned informer. They kept hitting and striking me throughout the interviews. The last interyiew was the worst because five RUC men gathered round and started calling me a "murdering terrorist". Forbes spent five days in hospital on an oxygen tank with a burst ear drum and other injuries. • Paul Caruana from the Creggan has been waiting three and a half the torture he underwent in Castlereagh. In August 1984 he was arrested and held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows seven days' detention without charge. He was beaten constantly for two and a half days. 'I was slapped about, punched, kicked, spat upon, black bags put over my head to stop me breathing. They gave me even kind of beating, like being spread on the floor and them jumping on me.

You name it, they did it. They held my mouth open, spat in my mouth and closed it. Then they put plastic bags over my head.' The RUC threatened Carana's life, before despatching him to hospital. This month his case came up in court.

only to be thrown out by the judge who ruled that the doctors were lying, and Caruana's injuries had been self-inflicted.