[PRESS A central feature of the Tory attack…]

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PRESS A central feature of the Tory attack on the working class is the huge wave of cuts in public services-in particular the health service, education and social services.

Bitterness at such cuts and willingness to fight them has emerged in a large number of local struggles and a few national protest demonstrations -but has been largely contained within the confines of protest gestures by trade union leaders determined to avoid a full-scale confrontation with the Tory The toothlessness of such an approach is well reflected in the motions on the cuts in the Labour : Party conference agenda.

Not one resolution declares support for the struggles that have actually taken place against the cuts-in particular the occupations of nurseries and hospitals.

GANG From the Prime Minister's Press Office: To all Fleet Street Editors.

Re unwanted attacks government's policies.

It has come as something of a disappointment to the Prime Minister to find that our policies are not being defended with the vigour to which we feel we are entitled.

Last week unemployment passed the two million figure. I would remind you that two million is a statistic like any other-not necessarily of any significance in itself.

The way in which the newspapers went out of their way to draw unnecessary attention to this figure was indicative of the fact that you seem to have forgotten this is your We understand that we can expect little else from the Mirror. 'Betrayal of a Nation' is about what we would expect from Callaghan's speechwriters.

We felt however that it was unnecessary for the Evening Standard to headline the number of unemployed in numbers several inches high.

This shows lack of imagination in headline writing-2,001, 208 could as well be a film title as the number of people out of work.

(We have written separately to the paper's owner, Sir Victor Matthews, since. Mrs.,Thatcher had understood that he was COHSE leader Spanswick Nor do the major public sector unions NUPE, COHSE, the GMWU or the TGWU, have any tangible policy to offer Labour activists: instead all resolutions on the cuts reduce themselves to the "solution" taking personal responsibility for the headlines. Don't forget where that Knighthood came from, Vic!).

The Daily Telegraph showed uncommon lack of tact. The combination of the two headlines (Jobless rise to over 2 million-Policy is right says Thatcher) contained an implication that our policy is high unemployment-and it surely has been clearly understood that this is not to be said.

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An adjacent story about the engineers' 20% wage claim was well placed since it highlighted our message that efforts to keep up with the cost of living throw people out of work.

But next to that was a picture of Mrs Thatcher with a wasp on her nose! She was clearly flinching!

1 sometimes wonder if the Daily Telegraph does not have a Trotskyist mole somewhere on its staff, If so he or she should be rooted out at once.

Headlines aside, press defence of the government is now flagging-often little more than exhortations not to do a 'U turn'. There is a dire need for innovation.

XXXXXXX On a more cheerful note, the Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your of waiting until the "next Labour government" comes to office-in four years' time!

In this light of course some resolutions appear to offer some very left wing demands-for an end to private medicine and private education, ending prescription, dental and opticians charges, a reversal of the cuts, nationalisation of the pharmaceutical industry, and many others.

Relegated

But-as ever in social democratic politics-these lofty objectives are relegated to the indefinite future, while in the real world of 1980 workers are offered ... not even a minimal protest campaign.

The fact is that the only way mass support will be mobilised to achieve a restoration of the public services that have been axed by Labour and Tory governments in the pursuit of profits, is through the developThe better Callaghan ment of struggles now against every aspect of the Tory attack.

Threatened facilities must be occupied; local cuts campaigns must fight for supporting strike action on a local and national level; and the full resources of public sector unions must be made available to support and extend struggles against the cuts into an all-out fight to remove the Tory government.

Opposed

Under such conditions workers would be best placed to focus their demands for socialist policies on the Labour leaders, and to remove those who betray the struggle.

Union leaders have repeatedly shown they stand in practice opposed to such a fight.

Labour leaders, too, have accepted the "right" of the Tories to govern-and slash public services-for five years..

Serious fight

The Callaghan leadership has declared that Thatcher can only be removed by the ballot boxand has opposed industrial action against the Tories.

A serious fight against the cuts is therefore also bound up with a fight in the whole labour movement to build a new leadership that is prepared to fight now for action to defend the working class.

Only in this way can the socialist aspirations of many rank and file Labour activists be transformed from a fardistant fantasy into the basis for practical action.

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The h way.