Minister for Torture s happy in his work

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' "There is not one of the 26 councils which has not had a for Norther Ireland or a Minister in our office the least desirable of all Government posts. It is an understandable view but quite wrong. poignancy(!) of this particular case, is the real cause for concern: that a broadly acceptable reform to liberalise the abortion law has come very near to creating legal approval for abortion on demand"

Perhaps this reaction will convince readers we are right to formulate our demand as "Free state abortion on demand" and not as "A woman's right to choose"

If we turn to that authority on liberal reaction -the Guardian-we find it almost at the end of its tether.

After à column of dither the paper concludes:

'We conclude not in any spirit of ringing certainty but with a painful recognition of the complexities and the surging emotions of this case-that the law is right to say what it does".

Away from the surging emotions and into the offices of the Daily Telegraph we find the leader writers linking the 1967 Abortion Act to all anti-capitalist measures.

"It must also be said that Labour views in general on such matters as taxation, inheritance, equality, health, education, the age of majority, what you will, are all more or less calculated to destroy the cohesion and primacy of the family ...

"By now the family must itself be regarded as a British social problem ... The Tories should certainly make it a party matter to reverse these disastrous social trends" work in Belfast find it stimulating, rewarding in political terms and satisfying in personal terms"

So says Labour man Roy Mason, British capitalism's current Secretary of State for Torture in Northern Ireland, in an interview with Labour Weekly.

With imperialist arrogance and reformist claptrap jostling side-by-side in his argument, Mason attempts to justify his active role in supervising the brutal military occupation and the operation of a whole battery of repressive legislation aimed at preserving British rule.

He boasts:

"There is not one of the 26 district councils which has not had a visit from one or more members of the Ministerial team"

But nor is there one Catholic ghetto area that has not been the victim of repeated visits from sqauds visit ... of Mason's troops or one opponent of British rule who feels secure to walk the streets of Northern Ireland.

"Direct rule is not Government by remote control trom London, exercised through a body of faceless men sitting in Stormont Castle. We have made it our business to get to know Northern Ireland well"

And so have the hordes of British Special Branch, SAS thugs, spies, spivs, murderers and provocateurs who are cynically referred to in the bourgeois press as "security forces"

Vicious They have broken down doors, barricaded streets, and carried out the most vicious beatings and tortures in order to "get to know" the activities of anti-imperialist forces in Northern Ireland, smashing and splintering their way into the lives of the entire working population.

Since this entire policemilitary operation is designed to prop up not simply British imperialism but also. the Irish bourgeoisie both sides of the border, the workers of Ireland can thank Mason for his personal role in the mass unemployment levels created by the capitalist slump.

Mason himself admits to unemployment running at 30% in Strabane, Newry, West Belfast and other areas.

But he does not mention that capitalism in Southern Ireland-which also rests on the counter-revolutionary presence of British nilitary occupation in the North and on investment from abroad - has a similarly huge rate of unemployment.

Beside these fruits of capitalism, •the puny housing programmes and job-creation ventures carried out by Mason are no more thar, an insult to the Irish working class-forcibly administered.

Within a week recently three anti-unionist workers have suffered violent deaths at the hands of the RUC and the British Army-three more notches to be carved into Mason's desk.

Obscene involvement This obscene involvement of Labour leaders in the oppression of Britain's oldest colony must be brought to an end.

The labour movement must step up the fight for the complete withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and for the self-determination of the Irish people.

And the Labourite butchers and police narks like Mason that have supervised and defended this exploitation must be driven from the workers movement.

----- pull-quotes -----

"Some might think being Secretary of State

My ministerial colleagues and I who