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WHILE KINNOCK and Gould set out to widen Labour's horizons by chopping down the traditional shrubbery of Clause IV. Thatcher's demolition squad are using gelignite to reshape the whole political and social
Alrcady many familiar landmarks have bitten the dust. Anti-union laws and jackboot management have risen in place of the old edifices of class collaboration. A liftime of low pay and Micky Mouse jobs now threatens youth, in place of apprenticeships and regular wages. Newly privatised firms have taken over the task of ripping off punters needing gas, phoncs or airline
The pace of change is accelerating: the Conservative Party has with messianic veal embraced the mission of wiping socialism from the map — helped by the timid "revisionist" efforts of the Kinnock team.
Third term Thatcher has since Junc embarked on a rapid succession of major initiatives which have left Labour and union leaders gasping and dumbfounded. • By next April, social security as we know it will have been abolished: claimants will be forced to bid against cach other for repayable loans from a cash-limited "social fund' in place of special needs payments: child benefits face the axe, and each month brings fresh cuts in benefit. • Already the health service has been deliberately plunged into a deep Ginancial crisis to create conditions to slaughter this most sacred of welfare state cows. • Education faces both an ideological crackdown through the national curriculum", and a frontal onslaught on comprehensive schools through Baker's opting out plans. • Tory minister Waldegrave has admitted that new housing legislation is designed to halt all council housebuilding. It also aims to sell off existing council houses. either one by one to tenants or in job lots to speculators through pick a landlord' schemes. • Local government faces further devastation through the poll tax and other restrictions: and of course more industries face privatisation.
The aim of this blitzkreig attack is clear enough: the Tories want to establish a totally new fait accompli by SOCIALIST OUTIOOK no 4 November/December 1987
Tory hurricane of change
the time of the next election, to exploit to the hilt the appalling weakness of the Labour leadership,
Branded sub-Thatcherism' by its opponents in Brighton, and deridingly welcomed by Norman Tebbit in his Tory conference speech, Labour' current line amounts to complete capitulation. • In place of Thatcher's policy of privatisation, share ownership and sales of council houses, Labour's dynamic lcaders propose •. to accept privatisation, to advocate share ownership, and to consider selling the remaining council housing stock. • In reply to Thatcher's onslaught on local government, Labour has replied by .. launching its own witch-hunts against lelt-wing councils. pledging to abide by Tory laws, and waging only a half-cock, parliamentary, opposition to the hated poll tax. • To challenge Thatcher's commitment to the reactionary NATO alliance and a 'British' nuclear cieterrent against the myth of a Soviet threat". Labour offers unshakeable commitment to NATO, and a rethink" of its unilateralist policy (which has already been watered down even by many on the left to a "non-nuclear defence policy'). • While Thatcher presses confidently ahead, tearing up cynical election commitments to safeguard the NHS, Labour's front bench team are nowhere to be seen or heard. • Labour Icaders will be even more tonguc-tied in defending social security — specially since shadow chancellor John Smith has already announced his conversion to Thatcher's low-tax' philosophy.
So the rot goes on. At root the problem is a basic political onc — a lack of socialist policies or class commitment from the leadership of the labour movement — leaving the working class defenceless in the face of a ruthless and relcotless Tory attack, which will now be compounded by the consequences of the stock market collapse.
With the crisis of capitalism once more exposed for all to see, the role of Socialist Outlook and other currents of the hard left must now be to fight in every arena of the labour movement for a coberent socialist programme that will mobilise the working class to meet the crisis. Why not join us in this task?