Ripper Trial People's March Shows Thirst for Action

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STEWARDST A collection of £139, including a donation of £10 from Winsford SYL at the WSL Annual Conference has brought our Special Fund up to £1191.00. So the money continues to come in very slowly after an While there is still another two months left raise the total of £2,500 we don't want to leave it So if you haven't contributed yet to the please don't hesitate. Send in some money and help us push on towards our target.

Launching into action from a 5,000-strong rally at Liverpool's Pier Head, the Peoples March for Jobs has attracted wide-scale support on the first leg of its month-long journey to London.

it is the biggest initiative of its kind since the 1930s.

500 official marchers formed the initial contingent. Others will join throughout the route to provide an estimated 1,000strong march into London at the end of the month.

There were stoppages of work to greet the march as it made its way through the North West, and a strike by 4,000 steel and engineering workers when the march reached the crisis hit town of 10,000 Sheffield trade unionists joined the march which drew applause through the town centre and culminated in a rally at the City Hall addressed by Yorkshire miners' leader Arthur Scargill.

But while the trade union and labour movement have provided the backbone of the march, and strike action has proved the strength of the feeling on the issue of unemployment, the right Sheffield workers join the wing and Stalinist politics of the organisers have brought platforms dominated by full time union officials and by bishops and vicars.

The Sheffield rally featured three cierics, the Bishop of Sheffield, Cardinal Monseigneur S. Sullivan and the Reverend Frank Thewlis of the Christian Socialist Movement.

Each brought his own irrelevant platitudes to a labour movement that has developed despite the obstacles placed in its way by religious superstition. But of course praying for jobs is simply a more open expression of the protest politics practised by the Labour and TUC leaders who seek to persuade march Thatcher into changing course.

Indeed the heavy representation of union bureaucrats on a March for Jobs is itself a travesty, since these same bureaucrats have presided over the wholesale slaughter of jobs in both the private and public sector.

But of course every bureaucrat has a left' speech available for protest rallies on unemployment or the cuts.

Colin Barnett of NUPE has taken the posturing one stage further, by asserting that sponsored MPs will be expected to answer to the union if they fail to join the march.

But what is more to the point is a tangible lead from both union leaders and MPs and councillors for industrial action to defend jobs and services and defeat the Tory As the march progresses, it is clearly forming a focus for anti-Tory militancy and the frustrations of a working class denied any call to action against the Thatcher However Labour Party demonstrations on unemployment have already mobilised 200,000 on the streets against Tory policies.

For the People's March to go one stage further it is necessary firmly and consistently to raise the necessity for mass action to drive out the Tories. have obediently imposed rent increases, rate increases, council house sales, cuts, closures and "voluntary" or compulsory redundanciesincludina Camden Council on which Ken Livingstone sits.

They have become simply a stalking horse for the implementation of Thatcher's policies.

Now the electorate has spoken. Voters have shown that they reject Tory plans to slash their public services and look to Labour to bring about a change.

Confrontation

This can only be done in confrontation with the Thatcher government.

The support exists for such a confrontation but the leadership of far too many Labour councils remains in the hands of right wing time-servers who, in collaboration with union bureaucrats, seek only to maintain their own positions of power and privilege within the existing status quo.

The fight must be stepped up for the accountability of Labour councillors to local parties, for campaigns to build mass action against the cuts, and for a fight for Labour councils to spearhead generalised action to bring down the Tory This attitude towards prostitutes, much the same as the ripper's, allowed him to carry on murdering women for five years.

Is the Attorney General suggesting that if the ripper had restricted himself to prostitutes his "mission to clean up the streets" would have been more acceptable?

Such criminal comments and the media's acceptance of them are an incitement to murder women.

It is disgusting that the victims and their families are treated with no respect by the court, the police and the media.

Prostitutes have parents and children too-23 children are now motherless because of the ripper.

How must they feel to hear their mothers insulted and villified in court and in the press? How must they feel about Sutcliffe's relatives making a lot of money for telling the story of their mothers' murderer?

The police have been inexcusably biased and incompetent:

-nothing was done for the first two years and four murders when all the victims were prostitutes.

_they only started to pay attention when the first "respectable" woman was killed in 1977.

Our address is:

Socialist Press Special Fund Other people in high places have already expressed their concern: Two MPs have already demanded that the Home Secretary orders an inquiry into the police handling of the case.

WE DEMAND:

1. A public inquiry into the police handling of the case. The public is entitled to know how the £4 million allocated to this case was spent.

2. A public apology from the Attorney General to the families of the prostitute victims.

3. An end to discriminatory and sensational media coverage. All human life is "respectable"

4. An end to bias and discrimination against prostitutes by the police and the 5. Compensation for the victims and their familiesespecially for their childrenfrom the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board."

Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, London. WC1N 3XX. Printed by East End Offset Ltd, London E2. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Workers Socialist League.

fuI toc Box 5277, London WC1N 3XX

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