After the By-elections: Shoot the Pialist: Time to Shoot the Pianist!

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UNFERENCE ervers attended a conference at carried over: into many of the Iway Hall last Saturday, called demands: it was often not clear at Comment by John Lister The shattering defeats at Workington and Wallsall North have given an important insight into the bankrupt manoeuvreings of the 'left' and the 'right' wings within the Labour Party machine.

In comments immediately following the election and the wesitable post-mortem statemene- and whitewashing by the candidates, the real crisis of leadership within the Labour Party has come out clearly.

PINPOINTED

The one successful Labour candidate, Harry Cowan from Newcastle, for instance, pinpointed clearly the main factor alienating Labour voters:

"We experienced far more complaints about Labour's failure to live up to its manitesto than about wild left wing policies"

And the • defeated Workington candidate, a Mr. Dale CampbellSavour, also pointed out the sabotage of his campaign by the extreme right wing within the Labour Party - the so-called 'Manifesto Group'.

'The Manifesto Group for instance should never have come out with a statement supporting SPOTLIGHT further public expenditure cuts when this was the main point on which we were fighting the Tories "in Workington."

Neither of these men are left wingers. But both are clearly forced to agree that the Tory policies advocated by the Manitesto Group and implemented in the economic strategy of Healey and Callaghan -huge public spending cuts, falling living standards, mass unemployment - were key in the swing away from Labour.

CAMPAIGN

Their experience in the election confirms the necessity for an all-out campaign to remove Healey and Callaghan from the Labour leadership and to reverse the reactionary policies they have introdüced.

Only in this way can the Labour Party hope to differentiate itself in the next General Election from the Tories.

But as far as the right wingers who run the Cabinet are concerned, it was the 'left' who were to blame, for daring (in however puny and inadequate a fashion), to oppose the continuing rampage of cuts.

Of course the lefts' opposition to Healey and Callaghan remains both ridiculously puny and completely inadequate. In place of one set of reactionary policies, they simply call day after day for a different set of equally reactionary policies - in particular for the nationalist policy of import WAFFLE In place of a clear call to drive out Healey and Callaghan, the "lefts' waffle on about the need for the Labour movement to "put on the pressure now as never before." (Tribune 12th November).

indeed, if we take the case of David Winnick, the Tribuneite candidate defeated in the Wallsall North by election, it is clear that it is really only an insistent call for import controls that stands between line and ship; di defend a ment's housing relations:

DI This so-called 'alternative" that of the Labour leaderPd of course praise and good deal of the governachievements...Food and subsidies, the industrial legislation, the social contract |!!, the Empioyment Protection Act, and the intervention in the motor industry which has done much to save jobs in the West Midlands have all been of benefit to working people." (emphasis added).

Callaghar Of course every one of the "achievements' defended by Winnick represents a refusal of the Labour government to carry out a socialist programme of nationalisation and a planned expansion of production under workers' management, together with an attempt to limit and restrict the freedom of unions to function and defend their members independent of state interference.

But when he goes on to defend the social contract, the blank cheque given by the TUC bureaucrats to Healey to slash wages and proceed with further huge spending cuts, Winnick reveals the complete impotence of the Tribune group.

Winnick is not alone among Tribuneites taking this position.

The byelection results have horrified these professional left' talkers, and driven them to seek a deal with the right wing.

Thus Norman Atkinson, leading Latham, Tribune Group Chairman and (left) Heffer Tribuneitespokesman, announced in the wake of the results that there should be some agreement between 'left' and right:

"What we must do throughout the length of the country is to come to some understanding of what has to be done."

LEADING LIGHT

Eric Heffer, another leading light in the Tribuneite ranks, went even further. Even while Denis Healey and Shirley Williams, speaking for all the hard-line advocates of Tory polined into the attaboon the tet, and blamed them for the defeats, Heffer was desperately reassuring reporters that he felt no hostility towards the right wing.

"Quite honestly, people in those positions shouldn't say such things. We don't go around making statements blaming them." (Daily Mail, Saturday 6th November).

Too true, Mr. Hefter! The Tribune group do not attack the Callaghan-Healey leadership! They lead no offensive struggle to throw them out.

They mouth a few pious phrases and then turn out time after time to vote for wage cuts, spending cuts, and more unemployment.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

They offer no lead to those workers who reject the social contract - since the Tribune group itself accepts the contract.

They present no consistent opposition, no socialist programme. They, as much as the Labour rightwing must carry the responsibility for the increase in the Tory vote.

We reject the Tribuneites' line of "saving" this Labour government no matter what reactionary policies it carries through. We say they must not simply vote against the cuts and similar Tory policies in Parliament, but they must travel the length and breadth of the labour movement to build the campaign to throw out Healey and Callaghan, and replace them with leaders prepared to defend the working class.

This means an end to their line of "don't shoot the pianist, he's only doing his best. " We say pianist Denis Healey is doing his best for capitalism. It is high time he was shot.

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cor; ider ove gOV TU cap WOl LOND ABOUT 70 DELEGATES AND the London Kegional commitAgainst Cuts in Public Services. 1 morning session heard contriions from a platform of half a en speakers with experience in ticular struggles against the cuts. GLC councillor Ken Livingstone ke on the fraudulent posturings rade union leaders such as Jack es and Syd Weighell in their fence" of the transport system, . of the need to put Labour ncillors on the spot in their eptance and implementation of Government's increasingly age budget slashing.

SUSPENDED There was also an account of important fight being carried on the teachers at Little lford iool who have been suspended, eaucratically and almost hout warning, from the NUT for using to cover for teachers ent for more than three days. The afternoon was devoted to cussion of a resolution from the iference Organising Committee The resolution made many rect points. But it failed to ntify the cuts as part of an rall strategy of the Labour ernment, supported by the 5: solve the crisis of vitalism at the expense of the rkers.

Atkinson Its lack of political sharpness waum they were unrecieu. milanen the a divestor Several speakers from the floor, including supporters of the IMG (who were the main political foree behind the Conference), spoke of the need to put the bureaucracy on the spot in order to expose it.

But the complete absence of any such perspective was a major weakness of the resolution.

Speakers from the Workers Socialist League were particularly critical oi the fuzzy and misguided demand "that District Officials of the public sector unions should have regular meetings on an area basis" and of the failure to call on left-talking union leaders to organise strike action against the cuts.

COMMITTEE

A steering committee was chosen to carry forward the work of the LRCAC; but the organisation will need to develop, to put it kindly, far greater political clarity and a firmer orientation to the trade unions and the Labour Party, if it is to be able to mobilise significant numbers of workers against the cuts.

Tom Walker

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PHOTO: Chris Davles, Report PHOTO:

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