[The press was only mildly concerned. Harry West…]

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The press was only mildly concerned. Harry West exuded confidence. The SDLP were going to spoil their votes. The army had taken charge of the ballot boxes.

God was in his Protestant heaven and all was well with the world.

Bobby Sands' election as MP of Fermanagh and South Tyrone shattered this confidence with a brutality which left Fleet Street dazed and disorientated.

The Daily Mail didn't report the election at all until page nine. The Daily Express had front page banner headlines: Elected the Hon Member for for years the Provisionals lave been accused of lacking support and of not daring to ›ut themselves to the test of he ballot box rather than he bullet.

Now the press found tself calling for Sands to be riven the bullet.

The Times called for his mmediate expulsion from he House of Commons.

Vith the timeless doublealk of the bourgeoisie it emarked coolly:

"That would be an ntirely proper thing to do ince he is precluded from ttending the House for the auranion or nis farlament. montine of ali- Mauli_..- - A 99 Yet even the Times was forced to concede:

"It is a brilliant propaganda coup for the Provisional IRA. It authenticates their H Block protest as never before."

The Daily Telegraph described it as "a major political disaster" and also gave an approving noc to his 'expulsion' from the House of Commons:

"in order to give Fermanagh and South Tyrone a chance to elect a suitable representative."

(Harry West for example? -but how do you expel someone from Westminster when he has never left his prison cell?)

The government must stand firm, said the Telegraph, but it complains that such firmness:

"will now be misrepresented as an attack on the electoral rights of a Parliamentary constituency."

There is no misrepresentation required. The outcome of the election forces the capitalist class to spell out that its "democracy" extends rights only to those prepared to work within the system, and denies them to all others.

The Guardian-no wet liberal over Ireland-was honest enough to admit that with the election, years of myth-making had gone out of the window.

"The biegest myth is that the IRA in its violent phase represents oniy a tiny minority of the population •.. Scarcelv a Catholic can have voted for the Union as it stands now. That fact alone must colour all policvmaking between London, Dubun and Beltast."

Shock has a way of making people say things they conceal in calmer times.

If Bobby Sands could only get the British press in his H Block cell he too could guage how deeply his election has shocked the system of British imperialism. ment, thus rebuffing the propaganda of the Zionist orientated capitalist press.

On some of the other international resolutions, a degree oi confusion This conference may well witness the emergence of fores pre pared to challenge provide fighting policies and zuaru allu tnus resolute leadership. Alan laden