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nowfor the real verdict Life has not been easy recently for those who cling on to hopes that 'left' Labourites such as Eric Heffer will some day turn and fight the reactionary Callaghan-Healey Not only has Heffer, with his equally spineless coterie of left-talking cronies in the Tribune Group trooped time and again into the Parliamentary lobby to register support for the coalition deal with the Liberal Party, but now to add insult to injury he has gone into print with an exultant article in the Labour Party's press service bulletin proclaiming "The Social Contract is Still Alive and Well."

FABRICATED

Heffer begins this piece of professional confusion-mongering by insisting:

•.. there has been a great deal of deliberate misunderstanding about the Social Contract. It has been interpreted purely as a wages policy by far too many people."

Heffer is careful himself not to oppose the concept of an incomes policy.

And he sets out to bolster the illusion fabricated by both government and TUC that the two years of wage control was a "voluntary" policy.

In reality of course it was a compulsory policy bureaucratically foisted on their members by TUC leaders.

But Heffer "understands" the revulsion of union members against these betrayals:

'The revolt of the rank and file has been perfectly understandable. They have accepted [!] real reductions in their standard of living, and with the best will in the world, with prices and unemployment continuing to rise cannot be expected to co-operate indefinitely."

But, Heffer repeats, "the Social Contract when it was first conceived was not about wages." Benn-another left' supporter of the Lib-Lab coalition.

So what was it about? Was it about lowering unemployment, now at a record 1.61 million?

Was it about holding down prices, now soaring at 17.6% per yea Was it about improving the social services, now slashed to Following the unwritten rule of selecting obnoxious and anti-socialribbons by cuts and rigid limits straightjacket?

Was it about housing, about education, likewise laid waste by the swingeing cuts of Healey and Callaghan?

Whichever way you look, the fire of rhetoric of the Social Contract is reduced to the squalid reality of class betrayal by Labour and trade union leaders selling the interests of their members to the profit-gluttons of the CBI in the name of some supposedly common "national interest".

DIGGING This has now reached a new depth in the Lib-Lab coalition. The TUC's endorsement of an extension of the Social Contract now means fresh endorsement of a deal which subordinates the Labour Party to Britain's second string capitalist Labour Party members must heed this warning. Heffer and the "left' are digging in for prolonged and conscious support for the coalition deal.

Every CLP must be mobilised to demand the 'lefts' fight to break the Lib-Lab deal, and to remove those right wingers who aim to extend it.

The October Labour another year of rigid wage restraint and to avoid the implementation of socialist policies.

But what of those thousands of workers who still turn out to vote Labour? Are we to assume that these workers support the right wing line of Callaghan?

ONLY MASS PARTY On the contrary, Marxists have always insisted that workers vote for social democratic parties like the Labour Party not because of the reactionary line of their leaders but in spite of them.

Workers vote Labour because it remains the only mass party based upon the organisations of the working class-built by the trade union movement at the turn of the century.

When Marxists argue for workers to vote Labour against the Tories and Liberals in general elections it is with this in view. We give no support whatever to the Labour leaders. We give no support to the reformist programme they put forward.

Instead we call for workers to pursue the fight within the unions and within the Labour Party for a socialist programme and for the construction of a leadership capable of implementing that programme.

In this way we show the need for a new type of party and leadership: a revolutionary party.

COALITION

The situation is of course more complicated in by-elections at present because the Labour rightwing's policy involves advocating a continuation of the parliamentary PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report Heffer conference must be these demands:

*Break the Lib-Lab coalition!

*Labour lefts' must campaign for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey leadership.

* Adopt a socialist programme to fight the next general election.

The trial of the Islington 18 now over. The jury, after a week considering their verdicts col only return eight 'guilty' verdi, out of 51.

They could not on 28 agree on others, including th e charges of Were this coalition deal to be extended to embrace joint slates of coalition candidates in elections, it would clearly be necessary to campaign for workers to withold their votes from such Labour Party candidates, and any who endorsed the coalition.

But despite the yearning of the Labour right wing this is not yet the case. In Ladywood the Labour candidate is opposing the Liberal (however ineffectively).

The task therefore is to mobilise locally to eject Sever, along with list. Newham North East CLP and Liverpool Edge Hill have showed this is possible given a serious fight.

ORGANISATIONS There no substitute at this stage for a struggle on these questions of principle and programme within the mass organisations of the working class.

The propaganda campaigns of the two rival left-wing opportunist candidates, Kim Gordon (SWP) and Raghib Ahsan (IMG/Big Flame's "Socialist Unity" candidate) go no way to resolving this central problem of leadership.

This is why we maintain our policy of calling for a vote for Labour coupled with a fight in the union branches and Labour Parties to break the Lib-Lab coalition, for the expulsion of the crypto-Tories, and for a socialist programme in opposition to that of Callaghan and We call on all readers and supporters to rally on 5 September at 11.00 am. in Blackpool, on the following demands:

*TGWU and AUEW accept conference decisions.

*No to the 12-month rule.

*End unemployment! For programme of public works.

*Stop all sackings: occupy and demand work sharing on full pay.

*Regain and defend living standards: wage claims to restore 1974 levels with cost of living clauses.

*Full-scale blacking of Grunwick by all unions.

* National strike act action to force a halt to all cuts ir services. 'conspiracy to rob' 'conspiracy to steal'.

This is one indication of the difficulty they had in considering the statements obtained from the boys by force in the police stations of Islington.

The Judge, a former Tory MP, took time in his summing up to commend Sgt. Gallagher and his team for their conduct of the case.

This commendation is to conveyed to the police superiors and so give them carte blanche to continue their previous practices of extracting statements by force and keeping keys in order to return for raids on people's homes guilty the later searches after making dawn For those found sentences were harsh. Two were given 3 years for robbery, and fines of £150 and f75 and borstal sentences were also given. One of the 18 has effectively been deported.

His defence counsel pleaded that he wanted to go to Nigeria so the Judge set a date for his departure and ruled that he could not return to this country for 5 years.

Of those acquitted, some had spent six months detention because the police consistently refused bail, while on the outstanding charges, the Judge decided that there would not be a re-trial but has left the charges hanging over the heads of the youths, to be taken up again in the future should the authorities so decide.

The parents had sent a letter to Merlyn Rees, the Home Secretary, listing the many reasons against a re-trial. They pointed out the record length of time it had taken the jury to consider 51 out of 89 charges, that only 8 guilty verdicts had been reached and that the Judge had dismissed them before they had returned verdicts on the conspiracy charges-implying that there was very little substance to these charges.

The report of the Labour Movement Enquiry into the affair organised under the auspices of the Islington 18 Defence Committee is due to be published as we go to press.

The Detence Committee has written to all the labour movement bodies represented at that enquiry calling on them to send observers to the Notting Hill Carnival at the end of the month.

The announcement by the Metropolitan Police that they intend to have their new riot shields on hand at the Carnival is itself a provocation.

Labour movement bodies which would like to send observers to the Notting Hill Carnival should contact the Islington 18 Defence