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Lobbu of Camden Council meeting during Inw nav strike problems of budgetting for Heseltine's cuts in the Rate Support Grant and demand for rent increases, the sharpest confrontations focus on London boroughs.

Most dramatic and immediate is the situation in Camden, where the District Auditor has lodged an affidavit preliminary to a High Court case seeking to surcharge 33 Labour councillors for a total of £2 million in council funds.

•The Auditor claims that the funds were illegally used in the settlement of the 1979 pay strike by local authority manual workers in the borough.

Through the negotiation of a "Camden supplement" the manual workers secured a £60/ 35 hour week.

Surcharge

If the court now finds in the Auditor's favour, ile Labour councillors wil each face a £60,000 surcharge-bringing with it removal from office and personal bankruptcy.

The implication of this legal attack is that the Labour council can only avoid worse penalties by offering no increase at all to manual workers in the present pay round!

But this is not the only dilemma facing the councillors.

They are already committed to raising rates by 50% to compensate for the fact they will receive no rate support grant at all from Heseltine this year.

bilise agai The problem is, however, that the Tories housing cuts place a question mark over 600 jobs in the council's Direct Labour Organisation.

To save these jobs would mean adding a turther 20% to the rates-plus a £3 increase in council rents on top of Heseltine's £3 increase.

Contradiction

Camden tenants also face a €2.40 per week increase in heating charges.. The total potential increase comes to a staggering £14 • per • week-a dramatic cut in living standards.

The Labour right wing are using this situation-and will no doubt also exploit the unexpected court case-to argue that the DLO should be axed.

The contradiction is that even to close down the DLO would cost tenants £1.75 extra per week. in rents-simply to finance redundancy payments!

it seems more than likely that the right wing and the weakest elements of the left will now hurry to cobble together a package of spending cuts and rises in rates and rents in the hopes of appeasing and the courts.

It is plain that Camden is being used as a scapegoat to intimidate Labour councils all over the country into acting as lackeys of the Thatcher government.

Resistance

The legal attack must be met by full-scale resistance by the whole Camden labour movement.

Meanwhile in Lainbeth the left wing Labour Counci has for several years attempted to compensate for government spending cuts by raising the rates. That policy has just brought an average £50 per household supplementary rate to be paid by April-and is likely to mean a 60% rate rise in the 1981-82 financial year.

Coming on top of Thatcher's tide of inflation these increases have pushed many working class families to the limit.

But they have also enraged local businessmen and reactionaries, who resent paying anything to maintain necessary social services in Lambeth. NUPE LOW says:

1 €60 NUPE S0x* NOW 1SUA*S Wage In the absence of a clear campaign from the left against the rate increase policy, it is these reactionaries who have taken the lead in mobilising several large demonstrations-up to 1,000-strong.

Among these forces are the National Front, whose new headquarters is sited in Streatham.

Six Labour councillors are currentiy under police protection after threats of violence from the extreme right wing.

The growth of this backlash is confirmation of the danger and futility of seeking to defend social services by raising the rates rather than preparing the ground for confrontation with the Tory government.

It poses important questions for workers in Lambeth who this week will be engaged in a week of action against the cuts supported by week-long strike action from TGWU, UCATT and NUPE members.

A picket will be maintained on the Town Hall in the hopes of stopping NALGO memberswho narrowly rejected a strike call -from crossing.

The Lambeth week of action is an important lead in the fight to mobilise the workers' movement.

It shows a willingness of public sector workers to fight in defence of jobs and services.

But if the anger and frustration of council tenants and working class housholders are not to be increasingly diverted along the reactionary channels of right wing-led rate revolts, the labour movement must be offered a firm fighting lead for a confrontation with the Tories, centred on demands for:

*No rent or rate increases to compensate for Heseltine's cuts!

*No cuts in services or jobs!

*Open the full accounts of the local authorities to elected trade union committees! Refuse to pay bank interest charges!

*Organise strikes, occupations and mobilise working class estates in rate and rent strikes to resist any Tory attempt to remove Labour councillors, surcharge them, or install officers of the court to close down services.

*Demand full-scale support from unions in both public and private sectors and from other Labour councils. For mass working class action to bring down the Thatcher government!

*Demand the Labour leadership pledge fully to restore public spending to 1976 levels, fully protected against inflation by a sliding scale of spending. the Lowe A Paid+ PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL

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