[Local MP lan Mikardo was the 'star' speaker…]

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Local MP lan Mikardo was the 'star' speaker at a meeting called on Thursday September 7 by the Save Bethnal Green Hospital, Campaign.

But his attempt to present himself as hero of the people battling to save the hospital was a sorry spectacle.

He had, he said, gone over! the strategic plan with a toothcomb and discovered that the closure decision was based on! extremely faulty statistics.

He himself had been refused a hearing by the Area Health Authority, had had nine meetings with Minister Roland Moyle in the past ten months and had a stack of correspondence and notes: of telegrams sent on the matter.

Criticism

Can anyone tell what more I can do?, he said.

There was no shortage of criticism from the 200-strong audience of his failure to admit that the responsibility for thei cuts falls on the Labour govern-' Mikardo ment.

Chairman John Snooks made repeated appeals to speakers to 'keep politics out of it' and to restrict themselves to Bethnal Green, but in vain.

But the contribution which most flustered Mikardo and which brought much the strongest applause came from a WSL member.

She challenged him with being completely disingenuous in pretending that the figures on Bethnal Green made it an exception to the other 100-plus hospitals which face the axe in London.

She also challenged his pretence that he did not know what policies were necessary to win the campaign.

She challenged him to deny that the EGA closure had only been postponed because the surrounding hospitals had been poised for strike action and because the Emergency Bed Service were defying management and continuing to refer patients there.

Didn't all this dangerously threaten the trade union bureaucrats' strategy of avoiding all-out direct confrontation on the cuts? she demanded.

She called on him to use his influence to directly encourage such action in Bethnal Green and to help the Joint Shop Stewards Committee.

The action already being taken by the occupation to physically prevent the change of use from surgical to geriatric beds was actually assisting the 'Communists' Against Revolution, containing the import. ant essay "The Theory of Structural Assimilation" by Tim Wohtforth is the book on post-war Stalinism that Mandel and Healy would not discuss.

Make sure you gat your copy -guailable at £1.75 plus 20p p&p from: WSL, 31, Dart: mouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR CUTS KILL cuts, she said, and widespread strike action would be necessary to restore the services.

Why, if Mikardo really had voted against every cut in Parliament, as he claimed, had nobody heard about it, she continued.

Finally she challenged him to conduct that campaign in such a way that it hit the headlines and to include in it the fight to kick out Callaghan and Healey who are responsible for the cuts.

Mikardo's attempt to fob off this attack as 'politically motivated' was shouted down and he was forced to agree that industrial action had been the key to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.

Unfortunately not that much support from surrounding hospitals had been forthcoming at Bethnal Green, he said And as a politician, and conveniently forgetting the social contract, he could not of course interfere in the affairs of Green DANGER. unions, he lamented.

Myrna Shore, one of the more militant members of the support campaign agreed wholeheartedly with what the WSL speaker had said and went on to demand that the local health unions and also the Trades Council take very much more decisive action.

Another WSL speaker called for a London-wide committee of health service stewards and also took up Dan Jones, secretary of Stepney and Bethnal Green Trades Council for his failure to organise sufficient picketing and to call the necessary action.

The bankrupt character of the Socialist Workers Party and their inability to put forward any meaningful policies was very clear.

They had considerable forces at the meeting including Dave Widgery, a local GP and chairman of the campaign committee.

All he or their other speakers could do was call attention to the danger towards jobs and the importance of the Right to Work Campaign, and like the speaker from the militant group, make a plea for 'socialism'.

NUPE member, called for a fight in NUPE to withdraw the sponsorship of Roland Moyle, David Ennals right hand man in the health cuts.

The audience which included many local hospital workers and other campaign supporters was fully aware of the need for such concrete policies against the wishes of the bureaucracy and most particularly for all out strike action.

The delegate conference called for next week by the Joint Shop Stewards Committee must ensure that local and national leaders are forced to prepare for this and to carry it out. NUPE

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PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Wiard, Report

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