Silkin-the Tories favourite "left"

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mandated to vote for Benn. weaknesses and inadequacies And the work of com- of Benn's reformist promitting Labour Parties and gramme must be drawn out port Benn as the frontline and a principled leadership must be stepped up in every moving forces within the Who the hell is John Silkin? This question will be on the lips of thousands of Labour activists and trade unionists in the next few months as the Tory press throws its weight behind his candidacy for the Deputy leadership of the Labour But to be more accurate, Silkin is standing to secure Dennis Healey's reelection against the growing challenge presented by Tony Benn.

Benn has shown that his platform of defence of Labour Conference decisions, party democracy, unilateral disarmament and left' reformist policies is capable of rallying large rank and file support within the labour movement.

Against the pleadings of. Clive Jenkins he won the endorsement of ASTMS. Left talking union leaderships in TASS and SOGAT have supported him.

While Dennis Healey got a hostile reception from a depleted audience at the FBU conference, Benn got a standing ovation.

Real chance

And if Silkin were not running, Benn would seem the automatic choice of delegates at this year's TGWU conference-acquiring a real chance of defeating Healey.

This horrifies the Labour right wing and their sponsors in the Tory press.

And it enrages those self-styled "lefts" within the Labour Party who have no intention of fighting the reactionary policies of the Foot-Healey Concannon But these "lefts" have found it impossible to get a credible candidate to stand against Benn. Heffer, for instance, was isolated even from his own constituency Hence the last minute promotion of nonentity Silkin as a deliberate ploy to split the "left" vote and take the heat off Healey.

The intention is clearto get union nominations for Silkin in the first round of voting, thus leaving it up to union executive committees to cast their vote for Healey in the final run-off.

This cynical manoeuvre must be stopped in its tracks. The confused and rightward-moving TGWU leadership must be called to order by delegates at its Brighton conference and other union bodies to supopponent of the right wing ared.

At the same time the Silkin (left) boring Stan Orme in the course of the debates, built among the leftward labour movement, A staggering £900 million is to be hacked immediately from the budget of l 300 local authorities in England and Wales by millionaire Tory Environment Secretary Heseltine.

Grants amounting in some cases to tens of millions of pounds will be withdrawn from councils whose budgets for 1981-2 exceed Heseltine's vicious cash limits.

Councils had been ordered to cut spending to 5.6% below the real level of spending in 1979. With unemployment and poverty on the increase, even several Tory councils have found this impossible to achieve.

Now Heseltine's penalties mean that these councils will be faced with the choice of making further draconian cuts, utilising cash balances Tory-run shire countiesstand to lose another £200 million under the new penalties.

• This stands as a threat to the newly elected Labour GLC-which came to office pledged to increase social spending. Council leader Ken Livingstone has reaffirmed there will be no retreat on these pledges.

Lambeth council leader Ted Knight, who had led protests and repeated retreats in the face of such Tory threats has once again announced that the new penalties will bring urban councils into conflict with the government.

Industrial action

"Either they all agree to go for a supplementary rate !! or come together to organise a . counter action against the government. This has to be the answer."