Left wing image shattered KINNOCK IN THE OPEN

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•.. IT THA INDU lose last May's general election first 972901 A Neil "green cheese' Kinnock put the last nail i the coffin of his left reputa tion when speaking to th NUT Secondary Teacher Section on Easter Saturday.

Appealing to the delegate to take a "balanced view» h he+ described at length the disaste zone that will be the stat education service after fiv years of Tory rule-withou offering the slightest sugges tion that the Thatcher goverr ment should be brought dow before ending its term o office. ' He then explained why i would be impossible for al incoming Labour administratio: to find the funds to restore th cuts.

The combination of th Tory cuts and their ideologica attack on free state educationin the form of bringing bac selection procedures, thi assisted places scheme, benefit in tha Dudrot to mahlin nahral through their "charity" statu and so on-was, Kinnock said, i lethal one.

Carlisle and Thatcher want to introduce, selection at 11, at 16 for further education and even at 14, when options are chosen for specialisation.

They, aim to make academic success the only criteria for success.

Central control

The £939 million of cuts over the next five years will be socially discriminatory and a means of exerting more central government control over local authorities.

Kinnock admitted that local councils were faced with the invidious choice of cuts or rate rises but gave no way forward for Labour councils fighting the cuts.

Nor, of course, did he make any mention of the record of the previous Labour administration, whose policy of spending cuts and similar anti-working class policies helped Labour to 1 mmm noreas ^ 1 A: -to the Tories.

Instead Kinnock placed the ball back into the teachers' Teachers, he said, must go on the offensive to save the education system-thus implying that schools had sat back and accepted the attacks made on them past and present.

"Parents and some politicians will support you" , he said"but it is your responsibility to be at the forefront of the cam"I am accused' But far from making apologies for this, Kinnock declared he would make no promises to restore education cuts. Instead he simply repeated his belief that only people who think the moon is made of green cheese would expect such promises.

For Kinnock it is all a question of competing priorities.

But since he is ready to allow the Thatcher government at least one full term of officeby which time Tory monetarism will have wreaked havoc-his priorities before restoring the cuts are apparently production and poverty.

Thus in true social democratic fashion Kinnock pledges himself to reforming the system, helping ailing capitalism back to its feet, while urging Thatcher to hand out a few more pounds in child benefit to salve his conscience.

Cabinet po

Kinnock's "balance ed view" is now tipped by the trappings of office-the ministeri ial car he already travels in-the promise of Cabinet position in the next Labour government.

• He cannot afford I to be associated now even w ith those lefts who do still talk of i mobilising the working class ag rainst the Tories and of Labour councils refusing to implement the cuts.

It's easier to talk of E "expos ing the private secti Or" . and "amending the charity laws and withdrawing finance from LEA's who send pi upils to private schools" at sor One vague time in the future thai n it is to icau a stuggle now to y the Tories and their vicious anti-working class polici ies.

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