THE HISTORIC whitewash of the Tory Party in the Scottish council elections was wrongly hailed as a victory for 'Tony Blair's Party'.
In fact the Tory failure to win control of a single one of the councils they had hoped to gerrymander was much more due to growing hostility to their policies than public enthusiasm for Blair's selection of soundbites and evasions.
This was also underlined by the strengthened showing of the Scottish nationalists, who cashed in on the anger at Major's remote and arrogant government imposing reactionary policies without any shred of a popular mandate north of the border.
Further sweeping Labour gains are also being predicted in the English council elections on May 4 -again on the basis of the most ambiguous and evasive policies from Blair's team.
By focusing the full brunt of Labour's wrath on the Tories for increasing taxes, and on Tory councils for charging higher levels of council tax than Labour councils, Blair's team are cutting off any possibility of a Labour government reMajor's policies are driving voters to Blair versing the cuts that are devastating education, social services and other key council services.
Labour councils elected on this basis, like some Blairite Labour councils which are already attacking the jobs and conditions of their workforce through competitive tendering and imposing a combination of cuts and new charges in social services, will offer a foretaste in miniature of life under a Labour government.
Some union members are waking up to this danger, and are beginning to fight now for policies that they want to see implemented by Labour in government.
The Scottish TUC, in voting unanimously for renationalisation of public utilities, and an extension of industrial common ownership, also went on to stipulate £4 an hour as its target for a minimum wage. UNISON delegates, fearful that Blair will continue Major's onslaught on the public sector, voted down his revised Clause Four.
Three teaching unions, who have been offered nothing by Blair, have defied Blunkett and decided to ballot on industrial action to fight cuts.
The political battle lines are being drawn now: but the decisive battles cannot be won in this situation of 'phony war', when the top of almost everyone's agenda is wiping out the Tories.
A labour movement that has seen the defeat of the Tory government will be much more confident to challenge the pink Toryism of Blair's half-baked policies.
That's why, regardless of the decision on Clause Four on April 29, socialists urge a Labour vote on May 4, and a redoubled fight for the policies we need from Labour in local and national government.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 82, April 29 1995, Page 4.