[Sternly reproving and cosily familiar by turns, Callaghan…]

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Sternly reproving and cosily familiar by turns, Callaghan has long cultivated the image of a father-figure to The Nation'.

But last week, when he addressed that • sturdy socialist gathering, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Labour Party leader gave a new meaning to this homely manner.

After pontificating to the presbyterians on the virtues of wage control and the glories of North Sea oil, Callaghan added to his workaday homily a passage on youth and crime.

To resolve a situation where increasing numbers of youth seek to overcome their frustrations through violent action, he proposed a renewed emphasis on the values of the family Remote The terms in which he described this institution were startlingly remote from the experience of everybody who has endured this mode of oppression and the rigours of capitalist society:

"The place where we care for each other, where we feel our responsibilities for each other, where we practice consideration for each other ... the caring family is the basis of the caring society"

Cant

But such sanctimonious cant is all the more obscene from the lips of the leader of the Lib-Lab coalition.

The Labour Party leaders point proudly to their record in the fight for the liberation of women.

But the imposing array of legislation barely DATIO conceals a contradiction in the recent development of bourgeois society.

As capitalism experienced a renewed period of expansion during the 'Long Boom' , considerable numbers of women were brought out of the home into social production.

Once involved in the arena of public life, these women began to develop politically and raise demands for equal rights with male workersdemands which even the tactics of the labour bureaucracy could not succeed in stifling.