Thatcher's man sharpens his axe

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Healey's proposed 1979 Budget was turned by events into simply a routine "care and maintenance" motion placed before a dying Parliament, the same will not be true of the real Budget that will follow the election.

Indeed if the Tories come to power workers will swiftly taste the bitter reality underlying Thatcher's cant about the "spirit of enterprise".

Attacks already partially launched by Labour Chancellor Healey will be carried through ruthlessly and swiftly.

One of the first moves of likely Chancellor-to-be Geoffrey Howe will be to slash the 83% rate of tax paid by top managers and directors.

Howe:

The Tories intend to cut this rate to as low as 60%funnelling huge amounts of extra cash into well-lined management pockets.

But scarcely any cut is likely in the basic rate of income tax-the rate that actually affects the working Class.

The tax perks for top bosses will most likely be paid for by increases, in VAT or other indirect taxes, which of course are paid by workers in purchasing everyday necessities.

The first Tory budget would almost certainly also declare a new, savage programme of cuts in public spending, which will begin to bite home a year later.

In fact the oniy promise being made by Tory spokesmen is to cut taxes. They remain diplomatically vague about precisely which areas of public spending they will cut in order to pay for such concessions.

But we know that two areas -arms spending and the police force and "law and order" apparatus-are not on/y immuné from cuts but destined to receive added millions of government money.

£1.5 billion cuts :

Already Howe has declared that the government's spending programme is £1 billion too high. His initial cuts could amount to well in excess of £1.5 billion, throwing thousands more onto the dole queues and further destroying health care, education, housing and social services.

Nor should there be any illusions that these cuts will be in any way compensated by any increase in real wages.

Inflation is already on its way upwards, and will rise faster still under the impact of the oil price increases to come; and the Common Market's lunatic agricultural policy-which the Tories will defend to the hiltwill ensure spiralling food prices for the foreseeable future.

Indeed the more exposed is the anarchy and colossal waste of the EEC agricultural policywhich last year spent £5 billion in 'destroying mountains of "surplus" foodstuffs in order to keep prices high-the more tenaciously top Tories come out in its defence.

Sabotage

Last week saw Peter Walker -a surviving relic of the Heath era-blaming Labour leaders for the widespread popular hostility to the EEC in Britain; accusing them of "sabotage"

He called for an all-out effort by Tory campaigners to revive "the hope and the vision" which he claimed was refiected in the 1975 referendum.

Translated into practical terms, this means that the Tories will continue to force British workers to help foot the huge bill for the EEC's wanton vandalism and price-fixing.

In every respect the .reelection of a Tory government would represent a major setback for the labour movement-a setback prepared by five years treachery and Tory policies under a Labour government. weeks holidays.

I would like to comment on this at this point.

I believe that even though the "official bodies" said they would fight strong and hard to try and get these conditions, they seem to have lost sight of these things.

At this point of time, eight to ten weeks after the Day. of Action, our members are now bewildered at the turn of events since then.

I firmly believe that we have now been left in limbo, or some place known as 'no man's land' , and that the paid officials of this and other unions which were involved in this dispute have misdirected the members of their unions.

From the beginning, we were not given any clear indication as to where we were going.

As tar as 1, personally am concernea, whenever i tried to get information or a direction from any of our officers I simply could not get any.

The General Office at Stockwell may quite easily not have been there.

For days on end I myself tried to get in touch with any officer at Stockwell, and was persistently told they were "not available" or they were elsewhere.

This, I presume, will be readily denied by the officers.

If not, then we shall in all probability get the usual spiel, claiming that they are "'overstretched" and so busy they find it difficult to

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SOCIALIST PRESS, K'ednesday 11 April, 1979 Page 5