[At a time when even government figures now…]

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At a time when even government figures now show that TUC-enforced wage controls have slashed workers living standards by 3% in only 3 months-an annual rate of over 12%a policy to destroy the wage-cutting Social Contract is crucial. - But if control is to be ended there must be an all-out battle to support in action those sections of workers who now move into pay struggles.

This was the line that rang out loud and clear from the programme endorsed by the 340strong recall Conference on Wage Control and Union Democracy in Birmingham on Sunday.

CONTRAST

Communist Party, who call lor "free collective bargaining aft July" while sabotaging struggles against the current restraint.

The Conference, to which 300 delegates were elected from labour movement bodies, was called by the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement.

POLICIES

It brought together policies for substantial wage rises linked to automatic increases to match inflation, for the defence of jobs against rationalisation and government spending cuts, for action to combat racialism and for a struggle against the low pay and oppression faced by women.

And linked to all these questions, as the Conference showed clearly, is the question of the struggle within the labour movement for democratic control over officials and for the construction of a principled leadership.

In taking up these questions the Birmingham Conference stood as a direct political alternative to "protest" conferences such as that on April 3rd and the one day strikes called under the influence coalition deal which subordinates the Labour government to the whims of Britain's second capitalist party.

An emergency amendment was passed spelling out the implications of the coalition:

• the Liberal Party will be consulted before policy decisions are made, a right that has always been refused to the Labour Party Conference or membership. This increases the urgency of the removal of the Callaghan and Healey leadership.

The left' MPs should have voted against confidence in this coalition and thus forced a general election fought on alternative policies in the interests of the working class. They should vote against the Social Contract, the Budget and all the reactionary legislation and put an immediate resolution in the PLP for the removal of Callaghan, Healey and the other 18 Cabinet ministers who voted in favour of the coalition and declare themselves in favour of alternative socialist policies"

The amendment went on to Cont'd Back Page, Col. 1.

Part of Sunday's conference.

India's defeated dictator Indira Gandhi last week claimed to be the humble follower of the people's will.

Her successor, Morarji Desai, said he came to power as the humble servant of God.

But, despite such words, it is arrogance and opportunism, not humility, which are the real guiding principles of India's political leaders.

The votes which have, almost uniquely, unseated a ruthless dictatorship have, as a by-product, installed in its place an unprincipled combination of right wing religious obscurantism and crassly opportunist reformism.

This of course in no way reflects support for the right wing policies of the Opposition-but overwhelming hostility to Gandhi.

DRAMATIC

With the dramatic election results Gandhi's dictatorship was defeated as decisively as possible.

Indira Gandhi lost her own seat by a mammoth margin of 55,000 votes-crushed by the man whose lawsuit against her corrupt practices in the last election precipitated the emergency.

Her son and chosen successor Sanjay was as decisively beaten and has nothing left politically to inherit.

Down with them in their headlong fall from power they dragged the official Congress Party (156 seats in this parliament compared with ?S0 in the last one and also the abject time-servers of the Communist Party of India (from 23 seats to all Isvestia could Gandhi think of to say was that Indira Gandhi fell because she didn't follow the policies of the CPI closely enough!

Many have also said that the elections "transformed" the political face of India by ending 30 years of Congress rule.

MINISTER

This is less certain. was It striking that of the two contenders for the Prime Ministership, one (Morari Desai, who leads the so-called Organisation Congress) was for years a Congress minister and, before he broke with her in 1969, was Gandhi's own deputyThe other, Jaggivan kam (leader of the Congress for Democracy) was one of Gandhi's most important ministers all through the emergency and only defected six weeks ago.

The elections have not brought new faces to the top; they have brought the old (very old) ones back.

AGREED

After days of manoeuvring, Ram has now agreed to serve in a Cabinet under Desai. Ram thus adds the 28 seats of his Congress for Democracy to the 271 (a bare majority by itself held by the Janata (Freedom) Party.

The overall political colouring Continued Back Page Col 4

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BRIEF

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And it stands in stark contrast 3 No the treacheres are aionehe,