School meals campaign

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ameside slogan leadership election could be rejected by one million votes, with a further 500,000 majority of union block votes cast against NEC control of the manitesto.

The outcome on the manifesto issue could thus unusually hinge on the otherwise peripheral 700,000 votes wielded by the constituency parties and socialist societies.

Meanwhile the Callaghan/ Basnett Commission of inquiry seems likely to make a last-ditch bid to salvage something from its abortive sessions by rallroading through a recommendation for the reinstatement of the "three year rule"

This would outlaw further discussion on these constitutional changes for three yearsprobably ensuring that the method of electing the party leader would remain unchanged until the next election!

Such an outcome would greatly please both the union bureaucrats and "social democrats" , for whom "democracy" is the last thing they wish to see.

But it would spell out once more for Labour activists that the fight for party democracy is inseparable from the fight throughout the labour movement for an alternative political With neither 'left' nor right wing trade union or political leaders offering a serious programme for action against Thatcher, a revolutionary leadership offers the only way forward.

That is the way offered by Socialist Press.

Trotskyists have no illusions in the petit-bourgeois politics of guerrillaism. But our task in Britain is to win workers to the independent class war against British imperialism and to support for the struggle of the Irish people against our common enemy.

Support for Tameside means support for the slogan 'Bring the war to Britain'-otherwise the WSL is attaching the same qualifications as the TUC bureaucrats did when they expelled Tameside.

Fraternally, Socialist Press supporter. *WE REPLY In our coverage of Ireland and in our active campaigns within the labour movement, Socialist Press and the WSL fight in practice to raise the issue of the Irish war in Britain.

But the slogan "Bring the war to Britain" is in our view mistaken in that it is readily interpreted by workers as advocating bombing campaigns and similar methods of struggle.

Solidarity

Such methods contribute neither to the development of the necessary revolutionary consciousness amongst Irish workers-nor to the fight for international solidarity in the British labour movement.

In putting forward slogans that clearly oppose and fight for the defeat of British imperialism and its repression of the republican movement in the six counties, it is by no means As a result of the provisions of the 1980 Education Act, it has been estimated that about 600,000 school children (approx. 50%) previously eligible for free school meals, will no longer qualify.

The requirements of the Act have been rigorously carried out by many county councils, not the least of which is the virtual withdrawal of the school meal service in Tory-controlled Dorset, with a loss of 800 jobs ensuring that hot meals are no longer available to any children under 12 and that those 'in need" are discriminated against by the degrading handing-out of County packed lunches.

The proposed cash-cafeteria £1 school dinner in Lincolnshire which will be likely in January is further evidence.

Lancashire County Council are carrying out government cuts in school meals with equal vigour.

Drastic reductions in the threshhold levels for free school meals have proved a massive incumbent upon revolutionaries to use formulations that foster unnecessary confusion in the labour movement-as the Tameside slogan unfortunately does.

We have, however, consistently defended the right of Tameside Trades Council to use this and any other anti-imperialist slogan in its struggle for solidarity with the Irish people and against the chauvinist reactionaries of the TUC bureaucracy. burden on many low-income families, now faced with a weekly school meals charge of £2 per child.

The local education office is refusing to give details of families affected.

The 14.3% increase in the cost of a school meal and the erosion of their nutritional content under the revised menus are forcing more and more children into taking packed lunches.

Destruction

Cabinet proposals for further £50 million cuts in the Education budget are bound to result in the virtual destruction of the school meals system in most countries.

But parents and workers in Lancashire are fighting back.

The recently formed 'School Meals Campaign' in the Hyndburn/Rossendale area, involving parents, teachers and trade unionists is determined to defend jobs and to fight to retain what is left of the limited school meals service.

The group are equally determined in their struggle to see the full restoration of the provision of school dinners for all, a service which has been eroded by Labour and Conservative governments alike, almost from its inception.

The progressive nature of the campaign's positions are reflected in the linked demands of no more cuts' , 'extend the school meals service and free school meals for all'.

The campaign is hoping to link with other "anti-cuts" campaigns in the area and with struggles to defend jobs, the school meal service and, therefore, living standards throughout Lancashire.

Support is being sought from local Trades Councils, workers, teachers and trade unionists and from community and oneparent family groups.

Tameside lobby at Brighton TUC