HARRY SLOAN weighs up the political NOBODY will have been longing for Parliament's summer recess more than John Major. His months as Tory leader have been an almost unmitigated failure, with the grim wreckage of a decade of Thatcherism hung like an albatross around his neck.
The run-up to the MPs' holidays has been littered with disasters and embarrassmentssoaring unemployment and bankruptcy statistics, bank collapses, jail breaks and outrage at sky-high pay-offs to privatised industry bosses.
Final solution
Major's only light relief has been afforded by the Labour leadership embarking on a new witch-hunt as they seek the 'final solution' to the problem of Militant - though the Tory Party's share of votes in the Walton by-election, their lowest since World War One, was far from comforting.
Gone are those crazy halcyon days after he took over from Thatcher, in which cynical media hype about a 'changé' in line and style produced a temporary, unreal Tory revival in the polis.
Gone are his giddy days of great power statesmanship during the Gulf War, could bask in the reflected glory, of the US military effort and victory. Now the dark threats of renewed US air strikes against Saddam Hussein simply underline how little achieved the slaughter, while the grim toll of human misery facing the masses of Iraq and Kurdistan remains as à reminder of imperialist savagery.
Balmy
Long gone, even before Major took over, are the balmy heyday years of ascendant Thatcherism, with the giveaway privatisations, rocketing house prices Become a Socialist Outlook and a booming service sector manufacturing industry.
Major has inherited only the hugely unpopular Poll Tax and NHS reforms, the scandals, the astronomical mortgage costs, the housing crisis, and the collapse of developers and retail chains as the recession wipes out much of this superficial 'growth' - to reveal a desperately weak economy, now locked into the European Monetary System.
Even the victories of Thatcherism - her imposition of brutal anti-union laws and the succession of bruising defeats inflicted on the working class -offer little consolation to John The Tories may be able to kick around a servile TUC pacersaid. and management may feel stronger than ever in confrontin uw ore economy ie workers on the hop floor n the deepest, most damaging recession for many years.
Dashed
Hopes of an early, June reneral election were dashed La string of by-election ailures and dismal results it May's council elections. Since then Labour has been consistently ahead in the polls -though their margin has varied.
Now, like the captain of a rudderless ship, Major is drifting inexorably towards a decision on when to play his last, desperate card, and drop anchor by callin an elastibeen Major's choi made harder by divisions in his own party. Thatcher may have eventually announced that she will quit at the next election, but she has spent much of the summer piling on pressure, stirring I the pot of internal Tory factionalism.
Her more rabid supporters - dithering 'alternative ths Council the NHS 'reforms', education and housing policies - have created crisis situations which can only worsen as time goes on.
This is why Major and co are now glumly weighing up their prospects if they go for a November Election, in which they would hope to trade rimarily on the weakness abour's threadbare and politically conservative manifesto, but also exploit the divisions arising from Kinnock's new post-Walton witch-hunt against Militant.
Preview
A glance at the antics of Liverpool's Kinnockite Labour council - •turning viciously against its workforce, and shamelessly using redundancies and privatisation to imple ment Tory-imposed spending cuts - offers a mini-prèview of a re-elected Labour government, which would come to office pledged to capitalist policies.
Yet the bitter truth of the present situation is that the working class desperately needs to get rid of the Tories in *OOr 1O TA02in 110 11911 strength. welve years o Thatcherite onslaught, of redundancies, closures and a barrage of anti-union laws, together with the emergence of the most spineless, defeatist union leaderships for decades have ground down workers' resistance, and brought a disastrous fall in the combativity of the trade union movement.
Strikes
1990 figures show numbers of strikes down to the lowest for over 50 years; days lost in strikes are down to 1963 levels; and numbers of workers invn ven n less than a third of the average change of government en to elect Labour under Ki nock - would create the best portunity to change thi ituation. Despite Kinnocl Labour government would generate raised expectations while workers' confidence would be boosted by a Tory defeat.
Though we should not predict strikes immediately, it is clear that Kinnock's government would quickly run into conflict with the unions over pay, jobs and many of those isSTes where the Tories have already created a crisis - notably the NHS, convulsed in crisis by Thatcher's 'market-style reforms, and education.
As struggles emerge, Kinnock and the union leaders who. support him will also find themselves at loggerheads with mobilising union rank and file, creating fresh opportunities to build a fighting left in the trade unions.
This is why the task of ousting the Tories is central in strengthening the left and building a class struggle op position to Kinnock. For this reason socialists should be campaigning for a Labour government and a Labour vote not only in England, but also in Wales and Scotland the demand for national assemblies must also be fought for.
The most favourable terrain for the left is one where the working class is mobilised in defence of its own interests, and can learn political lessons in the struggle with the class enemy and its own leadership.
Socialist policies
In this context alternative, socialist policies can find the most receptive audience, and the best chance of becoming a practical guide to action rather remaining abstract propaganda and point-scoring against the right wing.