Manchester
Since the formation of LACPT we have been fighting inside the Labour group for our political perspective, discussing with comrades who share our stand, and speaking to groups of workers and Labour Party members whenever we have been invited. Did a clear anti-cuts, non-payment of poll tax position mean candidates fared differently in the May elections?
My impression is that they fared slightly better, though it's difficult to prove from the figures, because there was a swing to Labour across the city. We had fewer party workers out than the candidates who support the council leadership, so it must have been the leaflets that made people go out and vote for us.
It was useful for people to know that there were Labour candidates making a stand for non-payment. In my area, the Greens were standing as they were across the city on a non-payment platform; but when they
face the consequences. That way you can
avoid setting up huge, expensive
bureaucracies within your own authorities,
which are not only costly, but often find it
difficult to explain to people what they ac-
tually do.
In the GLC in the carly 1980s, when
money seemed unlimited, it may have
seemed to make sense; but I don't think
there is any justification for it in the current
environment when housing is falling apart,
social services collapsing around our ears,
and we have high pupil-teacher ratios in the
schools. These are the things that have to
take priority. I think there is much more
chance of involving all sections of the local
community in an upfront campaign to defend
services if you can demonstrate that those
services are vital.
You are mounting a campaign on the finan-
cial issue - Fair Deal for Merton. Is it a
publicity gimmick?
No. We want to get out to the public and
explain the financial crisis, and that the
Tories put us in this position. We must tum
the fire onto central govemment.
The Fair Deal campaign as I see it is a vehicle through which we mobilise the public opposition to the Poll Tax and to what the Tories have done to Merton on the revenue support grant. We have to get back to some old-style on the stump campaigning rather than trying to cope with the crisis behind closed doors.
It's our only chance. If we don't campaign, people are going to blame everything on the new Labour council. We are already under fire from the right wing press: we need to win over the people who voted us into office in May. If we can get them on our side - which I realised was for non-payment they didn't even put out a leaflet. What was the response from the City Party and the various CLPs?
In some areas they tried very hard to stop us putting our point of view across; they threatened us with disciplinary action. We ig nored this because we were making personal statements, not statements on behalf of the Labour Party in Manchester or the council leadership. Now some think they would like to have us thrown out of the party altogether, while others think they don't want to make us into martyrs.
The Labour group has removed us from any positions of responsibility, where we were chairs or deputies on committees. Now we are being removed from outside bodies, too, in case we spread dangerous propaganda!
LACPT will go on trying to bring the left together, and hopefully will become stronger now that people can see how far the Labour Party in Manchester has moved to the right.
Page 9
"London voters back low poll tax' shock!
think we can with a high-profile campaign - then we at least have a fighting chance. I hope the unions will take an active part: obviously local government unions have a lot at stake in terms of jobs, especially if we get Poll Tax capped - and on current projections that seems a probability. The unions in Mer- ton need to be brought together, and we hope that kind of alliance can be formed through the Fair Deal campaign. We are going back to the old style, getting out there and having a go: it's not going to be a glossy PR-type campaign. It's going to be about getting people out on the streets, send- ing coachloads of protestors to lobby at the Department of the Environment, rather than the council leaders meeting with civil servants in private. We want hundreds of local tenants, pensioners groups and ordinary people in- volved. Some will see this as old-fashioned: but it's the only chance we've got of having a fight with this government. Some of the inde- pendents on the council may well support us, because they can see what has been done to Merton. I'm also hoping that some other Labour boroughs facing similar problems will want to Everyone's talking about the "London factor' in May's local elections. Labour won 300 seats across Britain, but London made a negative con- tribution, with a net loss of 20 seats. There was an over- all swing to Labour in Lon- don of 5 per cent (half the na- tional average). The Labour Party said that they would be launching an 'inquiry' into "the London effect'. David Blunkett stated that If local Labour Parties have not learned the right lessons we ought to be prepared to go in and help them get the right message across.' Even Tony Banks MP hit out, arguing that councils must concentrate on 'bread and butter issues. Most of the talk of the Lon- don effect is raised by right wingers looking to ditch policies they have long opposed. There is no longer any council that could really be called loony left Page 10
FEATURES create a broad front against the goverment. Has there been much anti-Poll Tax activity In the borough? What of the Labour Party nationally? You gratulations after you had won in May. found out. Westminster and Wandsworth really played into the Tories' hands. With more campaign resources in Merton we could have won a much larger majority: and I think we could have seen victories in Hillingdon and Enfield, too. overspenders*. In the late 1970s and early 1980s London local authority spending dramatically increased, often through the flawed tactic of increasing the rates. Now with the Tory attacks biting, and the failure of the 'municipal socialists' to offer resistance, those days are long gone. Thatcher has claimed that the results were a vindication of the principles of the poll tax: the community charge is beginning to work'. Yet the two highest chargers, Haringey with the highest Poll Tax of £572, and Lambeth with the second highest Poll Tax of £547, retumed Labour majorities similar to those achieved in 1986. Labour suffered its losses in the next band of poll tax levels. In Brent, the Tories played the racist card (as did the SLD in Tower Hamlets): Labour, which had made years of brutal cuts, lost overall control. Bryan Gould admitted that la sensible Labour leadership was unable to cope
fight alongside us on these issues and help us Not particularly strong. That kind of cam- paigning hasn't happened very often in Mer- ton: there aren't the organisations with cam- paigning experience, it's just not that sort of were hardly Inundated with help or even con- Part of the problem was that neither the Labour Party nor the Tories nationally took any notice at all of what was happening in the borough: then suddenly on May 4 everyone was running round trying to find out where we were. Roy Hattersley probably still hasn't I think the Party's obsession with Past retreats catch up on Labour Labour lost Ealing (poll tax 6435) with a 6 percent swing to the Tories. All sections of the Labour Party seemed surprised. Gould said that the result came as a shock...it was a good coun cil that deserved to win. Even Labour Briefing was shocked because the Council had suffered "no scandals' and 'had a good manifesto' (sic). But voters did not forget that Labour had raised the rates by a preposterous 65 percent three years ago. The Tories had led a racist campaign against "fringe groups", and their first act was to sack workers in the equalities units as a start to getting poll tax down to £370. But what of Wandsworth? Its poll tax of £148 was clearly seen as a litmus test. There was a 7 percent swing to the Tories and their majority was increased from one to 35. The £148 figure meant that local taxation fell by 28 per cent. £17 million was taken from reserves. Without the fiddles, the poll tax might have been £432. A council spokesperson accepted
There was a real contrast between the level of support from the London Party for the cam- paign in Merton and that in Wandsworth. We got on with the business - while all the help went elsewhere. We failed to win one seat by just three votes in Pollards Hill on a racist vote - we had an Asian candidate. Three votes is the kind of margin that could easily have been made up by a little extra push. I gather Hillingdon and Enfield had some similarly close results. Yet a friend of mine in Wandsworth who turned out to go knocking up at seven o'clock - the busiest time - was told they already had the whole patch covered, and was sent away. I hope the Labour Party nationally will give us some support in the campaign, espe- cially now that Tory MPs from obscure parts of the country are already asking questions in the Commons on Merton's finances. We gave the national leadership an opportunity to boast about a Labour gain in London after losing ground in the boroughs they had bragged they would win: we can't afford to allow the front bench to sit back and let the Tories attack us without a sturdy response. that the low poll tax was unsus- tainable. In Maidenhead and Berkshire, where the poll tax was £449, Tories complained that if they'd had as much help they would not have had to set a poll tax and would have given voters €200 each! One local voter told the papers that he was "basically' a Socialist but voted Tory because all Labour offered was a massive local tax. In Westminster (poll tax - £195) there was a 7 per cent swing to the Tories and Labour lost 12 seats. Local taxation fell by 66 percent. Voters were not attracted to paying for their prin- ciples. New realist Labour has failed to challenge in action the class economics of the Town Hall. This is not so much a London ef- fect as a credibility gap. Is it any wonder that people were not in- spired to vote for Labour coun- cillors who will raise the poll tax while offering no fight to defend and extend collective provision? Steve French SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 25, June 1990
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