Benn fears mass action on

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PRESS

Asset-stripping

He was speaking on Sir Keith Joseph's misnamed "Industry Bill" , which is designed further to strip away the industrial base of British capitalism, threatens a further upward lurch in unemployment.

This, warned Benn, could:

"Kill off once and for all the consensus politics of the postwar years" • Under these conditions, Benn as much as anyone else plainly fears that youth, in particular, will take matters into This was true in Corbywhere police helicopters had circled over demonstrators and police had turned out with riot shields-and also on Merseyside where there has been massi and prolonged unemploymer Preserving a silence on t own servile role in job-slashir wage-cutting Labour gover ments headed by Wilson an Callaghan, Benn. cynically declared that:

"There is no future for this country until a government is elected which makes full employment its prime objective." explained.

But Benn's speech, in calling for 100% public ownership of British oil and (like the CBI) for import controls, implicitly revealed that he still does not advocate a planned socialist economy as the way forward, and remains opposed to the nationalisation of major industries and the banks without compensation under workers' management.

His warnings to the Tory government should be interpreted in this light.

As the Tories ignore his advice and proceed vigorously mental inadequacies and will be of very limited value, largely because it was called for a twenty-four hour period onlyamounting to merely a token The call should have been for permanent occupation until She to her sion in Joan Maynard has echoed the invitation by Tony Benn for "all socialists" to join the Labour Speaking at a Labour Club meeting held in the occupied administration block of Leicester Polytechnic, Maynard declared herself opposed to all hane and proscriptions-even opposing the recent expulsion LOIS U..from the Labour Party of crypto-Tory members of the Social Democratic Alliance.

Expulsion

was then questioned as position on the expulOxford of Socialist Press GANG When a BBC Panorama team, which had allowed its cameras to focus on an IRA member came under attack from the Tory government there was an immediate response from the leaders of "freedom in the press"

Calls for the heads of the BBC Panorama team on a platter arose with one mighty shout.

• First reports were, of course, a trifle exaggerated.

The BBC had hired 100 Provos with machine guns and bazookas to hold the village for several hours.

Hooded men were supposed to have strolled the streets chatting amicably with local residents.

What? Chatting amicably?

What happened to the contempt and hatred they are held in by all decent men and women?)

Of the national British papers only the Guardian did not lead with the story.

Few headlines came more subdued than the Sun ('Blunderama-BBC's astonishing deal with the Provos').

The rest rose up the Fleet Street scale of shock-horror until they reached the supposed 'troops out' advocates at the Mirror, which outgunned all its rivals i with the simple banner headline "Treason!' But by the late editions Fleet Street was already aware that the 100 Provos had dwindled to ten, and the several hours of 'occupation' had been adjusted to 11 minutes!

The calls, for more censor:

ship that arose from all sides supporter Ted Heslin, a longstanding Labour Patty member and a delegate from the 5/833 ACTSS Branch (whose open letter to Tony Benn was published in fast week's Socialist Press).

Maynard at once pledged to support his appeal when it comes before the Labour Party National Executive.

Socialist Press readers are urged to seek simurar tur -I en-anale similar enmmitments from other NEC left wingers, and to campaign throughout the Labour Party for tha rinht of socialists to argue freely for their policies within its ranks, and to campaign for the ousting of the right wing Callaghan-Healey brought not a single blush:

"Fury swept through the Commons • astonishing irresponsibility . . • treachery Convincing detail was introduced to add that touch of authenticity.

The Daily Star reported: «Two M60 machine guns, RPG7 rocket propelled grenade launchers and many Armalite rifles were brought into the village of 400 people for display in front of the cameras".

Yet somehow news of this grand military tattoo, which took place on October 17, only "leaked' out from this integral part of the British Empire on 8 November-more than three weeks later!

The Sun reported one villager as explaining this slight hiccough in the swift process of the dissemination of news by.

saying:

"It concided with the annual excursion of the residents' To be fair to the honest news hounds who let the battle of Carrickmore slip through their fingers, it is one of the local difficulties faced by British troops that 'occupations' of Irish villages by Irish men and women are a little difficult to detect.

• They tend to blend in better with the background than, say, a friendly morale-boosting , visit from a Paras regiment.

It is also true that much of Fleet Street was somewhat busy at the time tracking down the non-existent bomb plot against Princess Margaret in America.

But give credit where credit due.

Once the truth outPHOTO: Pete Maynara that parts of Ireland had for years been occupied by Irish men and women-the press was swiftly into battle.

The Daily Mail wanted no corners to be cut in an inquiry "as searching and thorough as possible."

The Sun said:

"Within the Corporation there are clearly men either devoid of judgement, or else with a deliberate purpose to make mischief in Ireland.|!! They must be uncovered and booted out."

The Telegraph, that bastion of press freedom, said:

"Had the programme appeared, it would have confirmed the impression already widespread in Northern Ireland that many people on this side of the Irish Sea look on Ulster's tragedy with the eyes of detached spectators who feel that they are not involved either morally or politically in its outcome ...

"A member of this newspaper who was guilty of anything resembling the conduct attributed to this Panorama team would be dismissed.

"If there are journalists in the media who positively want to be martyred in what is falsely described as the cause of 'editorial freedom' their wish should be promptly satisfied."

The BBC has joined in the attack by declaring that its "guidelines" were flouted, and launching its own inquiry.

With such stout defenders of bourgeois democratic freedoms around what need does this government have for its new suppression of information bill?