-Build The Fightback - Unshackle The Unions Conference Printed by Tridant Press, Edenbridge. Püblished by Idolrare Ltd, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Copyright © 1994 The Tory 'Back to Basics' crusade lies in tatters as the Tim Yeo scandal reached its height with the revelation of his fathering another child outside marriage.
Following hot on Yeo's heels is the resignation of MP Alan Duncan as parliamentary private secretary to Health Minister, Brian Mawhinney, after revelations of dubious morality in a property deal involving two ex-Westminster Council houses.
The issues in themselves are not the point. The Tories have been caught out by a monster of their own creation. Bereft of any policy solutions to the crisis, their solution, to attack single mothers and bemoan the lack of basic 'moral' values has backfired.
'Back to Basics' follows two other discredited con tricks - the ill-fated Citizens Charter and consumer KEYNOTE SPEAKERS include John Hendy QC, Patrick Sik orski (RMT), Christine Hulme crime, (CPSA), Tony Benn MP, Ronnie McDonald (OILC) and Jaide De Barrieros (Teachers Union and PT South Para, Brazil). THE SATURDAY sessions of the conference will focus on particular areas of struggle including defending the welfare state, fighting unemployment, privatisation and the anti-union laws.
The Sunday sessions will open with a discussion 'For Political Trade Unionism' followed with . - … choice - in the dustbin of history. All three were designed to provide a distraction from the inadequacy of Tory policies, the mess they have made of the economy, and the devastation they have wreaked on the welfare state.
But this fraud has been going on for years - the natural successor to Thatcher's 'Victorian Values', Major's 'Back to Basics' covers similar terrain. Whilst espousing the importance of individual moral values the state attempts to intervene more than ever into people's personal lives.
Crime
The Tory policies of the market are their true 'basics': they have brought us soaring unemployment and while the Thatcherite cult of individualism, rejecting any concept of society and collectivity, have caused the problems Major now claims to be so keen practical forums on trades councils, left formations in the unions and TU/Labour Party links. Saturday Evening rally and social at 7pm with speakers from Cuba, Bosnia, Sinn Fein, Kurdish solidarity and Jaide De Barrieros from Brazil. Jaide is the President of the teachers union in Maraba in South Para, Amazonia. She is a head teacher in a community school where she has been elected by the school committee formed from the teachers, students, cleaners and parents. She Oh Yeo of little faith! The man of the moment, who wishes he wasn't.
to put right. slashes support for poor families. has had to fight to keep her position and defend her school from military police who used tear gas against students demonstrating in her favour.
A veteran of organising women's struggles, bringing together women from urban and rural areas, She is also a long standing environmental activist and has been involved in land occupations and fights against landlords. She is also on the regional executive of the Brazilian Workers Party, the PT.
-This government announces 'Back to Basics' - but at the first whiff of scandal denies it has anything to do with morality; it proclaims the virtues of the family then denies them in practice, with a Budget which Pamphlet Then they spend f2 million sending round a 30-page pamphlet telling parents that they should create spare space and unpressured time to cosset their children!
Single mothers on income support don't need f2 million spent on John Patten's moral homilies on the virtue of giving kids breakfast: they need enough money to be able to give them breakfast.
The fiasco of Back to Basics underlines once more the painful truth: this Tory government has run out of luck as well as ideas: it is kept in office now largely through the ineptitude of a spineless opposition.
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