[Tory publicity chief Angus I sometimes get a…]

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Tory publicity chief Angus I sometimes get a little peeved at people who say, "Why do we only see and hear Opposition speakers on television and radio, and hardly any Conservatives?" Not to put too fine a point on it, that assertion is absolute poppycock. I know by precisely how many the number of Conservative spokesmen appearances on radio and television has outnumbered those by the Opposition, and the figures might surprise you. However, since I do not want to start a lot of aggro from the Socialists I shall keep them to myself"

New pamphlet explaining\ why it is necessary to fight to bring down the Tories in In hrins down the Tories in the coming months and the need to take up a fight against the union bureaucracy who refuse to lead that struggle.

Price 42p including p&p from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WCIV 6XX. lude made the following point the following "When all that is said, you have to face on the doorsteps a lot of complaints. The reason is simple enough, and you know it. People just do not like the effects on them of what the Government has had to do, plus the impact of a major world recession. And why should they? How can anyone be expected to like the reality or the threat of unemployment, or high interest rates, or higher energy prices, higher rents and rates, prescription charges and the rest? They do not like them and you cannot make them"

"Please don't go around just telling people that it is all their own fault, or even that it is all for their own good. I really do not recommend that approach to the young man or woman who desperately wants a job and cannot find one, or to the man who has just seen the business he built up from scratch go bust. That sort of tactlessness is at best divisive, and at the worst it may get you a punch on the nose"

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'Oh look, dear, are those some unemployed over there?' WE CORAL as the clapping began to flag some old hands could be heard sa, ing unemployment.

After all, as one Birmingham back bencher complained on his way home, every Tory activist knows full well the bitter hostility to their recessionary policies.

"They really give me some stick in the pubs and clubs round our area," he told a fellow party worker from the pp A glimpse of the sheer weight and scale of oppres sion suffered particularly by women in the home as a result of the continuing government cutbacks in health and social services was given by Social Services Secretary Patrick Jenkin.

Speaking enthusiastically in support of a resolution which tacitly endorsed the cuts by stressing the importance of "voluntary" services, Jenkin went on to point out that:

'No speech on volunteers would be complete without a mention of the family, because the family is the biggest voluntary body of the lot... One of the gravest problems that we face in Britain is the rising number of very elderly people *ho suffer from dementia, I estimate that there are now some 700,000 such people in the country today-a formidable problem. Only 13,500 are being MAG North West," after all, they're all getting laid off or made redundant"

"I know," replied his companion, "the main firm up our way is on a one-day week!"

Tory delegates (or "representatives" , as they prefer to be called) did not travel to Brighton to hear of such problems. They encounter them cared for in hospital and, overwhelmingly, the rest are being looked after by their families in the community. It simply is not fair to accuse the modern family, as some do, of shuttling off its responsibilities on to 'the State. It does not. More elderly people today are being looked after by their families than at any time in our history, and it is right to remind ourselves of that"

In other words on these figures alone women in no less that 686,500 homes in Britain are saddled with the burden of full time care for elderly relatives, while hospital facilities continue to be slashed back.

As Jenkin pointed out "that is what our social philosophy is all about" . And as nurseries are closed, and child care facilities axed, he stressed that this is no accident of policy.

"We do not strengthen the family by relieving parents of their responsibilities» every day.

They went to hear ministers one after the other get up to reassure them that they "will not flinch" , that they "must succeed" , and warn chillingly of the "totalitarian utopia" that the Labour conference has supposedly threatened to bring about if they fail.

Platitudes

They came to hear a range of platitudes, back-slapping, and grovelling compliments to Thatcher that made even the seasoned hacks on the press benches wince, grimace, and at times even giggie uncontrollably.

They came to read out hackneyed speeches of a uniform dullness and stupidity that made even the most incompetent speech at the Labour conference sound like the height of sincerity and eloquence.

Indeed so juvenile is the level of argument developed in the Tory "debates"-in which all the speakers both "for" and "against" the vague resolutions get up and either endorse government policies or urge them to go further and further in their attacks on the working class-that it is difficult to tell whether it is retarded adult Tories who draft the inanities mouthed by the "Young" Conservative speakers or sixth formers who write the speeches of the adults!

Indictment

Certainly the pathetically weak intellectual content of the speeches is a crushing indictment of the level of education in the public schools and further testimony to the value of comprehensive education!

But in such a ludicrous gathering perhaps it is the "Young" Conservatives who are the most grotesquely revolting. Sporting such badges as On and Khomeini is a Sruise On' and "Khomeii is a Shit they emerged as some of the most bloodthirsty advocates of capital punishment, anti-union laws and Cold War.

They must have been well pleased with the sabre rattling speech from Defence Secretary Francis Pym, who assured the conference that Tory plans-at a time of draconian cuts in social services-include a new tank, new armoured personnel carrier and additional selfpropelled guns for the army; new ships and weapons for the Navy and the Tornado strike aircraft.

Gunboat

There were-albeit faint and rather ironic-echoes of the grand old days of British imperialism when the audience wildly applauded Pym's announcement that he had responded to the Gulf war by redeploying ... well nnt a fleet nerhans hut palaus, vul one destroyer to the Gulf of Oman.

There was no laughter when he followed this by declaring that "we cannot leave it all to the Americans"!

Yet even Pym's ministry is feeling the financial pinch of Thatcher's monetarist policies -and was forced to admit that cash limits have brought about a temporary moratorium on lucrative arms contracts with which it greases the palms of some of the Tories' main industrial sponsors.

well, as Chancellor Howe pointed out in yet another of an incessant flow of trite cliches, you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs-which is why it is best for the Tories not to count their chickens until they are hatched!

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