WEARE so near - and yet so far. For the second time in history a Labour government has a majority big enough to do whatever it wants: but Tony Blair's policies are so right wing his team makes Clement Attlee's war government look like a hunch of rotskvists Millions of workers have voted Labour longing for a real change. for radical policies, disregarding Blair's constant efforts to dellate and defuse such aspirations. How 18 miserable years of Tory onstaugnis, oc direcica towaros tac fight for socialin policies? vival of the left in the labour moveknives for a renewed and even more sever once and for all the links beions and working class which Past experience suggests that workers will be more willing to fight for their interests now that the Tories have been defeated. In the past these demands have been successful.
The last Labour government, elected 23 years ago, in March 1974, began as a minority government and only won a majority of four (dropping almost at once to three with the defection of john Stonchouse) in the follow-up clection in October.
Pressure
Yet the pressure on that government was sufficient to force through much more radical policies than anything now on offer from Tony Blair: among the concessions We an occase poons a the establishment of a link between the state pension wages, the repeal of anti-union laws, and the introduction of the Employment Protection Act, the Health and Safety at Work Act, the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Immediately after the election, in an ill-fated effort to contain wage demands by holding down prices, Labour spent hundreds of millions in food subsidies designed to keep below the level that would trigger "threshold"
Working class militancy, which had helped to precinitate the elec tion, continued and even increased, despite the spineless performance of the union leaders, as workers quickly calisca they could not ex• pect the new government to solve all their problems.
The clection had been triggered by Tory leader Heath's attempt to whip up an anti-union "who runs the country" hysteria in the midst of the miners strike, while infla. tion, boosted by the increase in oil prices, was gnawing away at wages and salaries.
Harold Wilson's was no left wing cabinet: it included Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams who would later found the SDP, Reg Prentice (soon to detect to the lorieslim Callaghan and Denis Healey.
Michael. Foot was hailed by the Tory press as an "imaginative" choice as Employment Secretary. The economy had - [as now - been trashed by the Tories, and the Financial Times pointed out sympa "Labour is faced with the unsharp reduction in real incomes der to make resources available for the balance of pavments."
Within a week of taking office Harold Wilson's Oueen's Sneech had not only ditched all of the parter paying out sufficient to end the 3 wage controls imposed by Heath's government.
Tory laws
The new government also avoided any commitment to repeal the Tory Industrial Relations Actor the Housing Finance Act which had jacked up council rents and led to heavy surcharges on Clay Cross counciliors who defied it. And the six building workers (Shrewsbury o) talled on frame-up charges for picketing were to remain in jail under Labour. Labour's NEC called on the government to lift the Clay Cross surcharges. while the TUC was lobbying for the Shrewsbury pickets - both were ignored Healey's first budget, three weeks after the clection. confirmed the Tories' massive cuts in public spending, and pumped 1300m into food subsidies- propping up profits while appearing to curb prices - but sharply increased charges for electricity, phone calls, stamps, rail fares, petrol, alcohol, tobacco and confectionery.
Two days later the engineers' unon AUEW was fined 547.000 by the National Industrial Relations Court NIkk, banging the total maes to over £200,000 - including £217 to cover tae cost or a companyfinanced holiday for three scabs! tions Court threatened to scize the entire assets of the AUEW after it refused to pay the £47,000 fine, but still the government made no move to repeal the Act. The AUEW reDor Nurses joined marches, lobbies and strikes in 1974-and won - despite being denounced by bureaucratic union leaders taliated by threatening national strike action, which received overwhelming support. On the eve of the strike an anonymous donor paid the union's fine and costs, and the strike was called off.
But by this time the NIRC was scheduled to hear a £3 million damages claim against the GWU - and Michael Foot was finally persuaded However Labour ministers and the top levels of the TGWU bureaucracy blatantly connived in the ter the 1974 victory to smash the sircast or trac union mutancy in the car industry, which had led the fight to defend living standards and working conditions.
They - and the Tory mass media - saw the Trotskyist-led workforce at British Leyland's Cowley assembly plant as a key threat to any attempt to "solve" the economic crisis at the expense of the working class. In April, amid a succession of stoppages triggered by new speed-up on the production line, BL management stepped in to withdraw recognition from deputy convenor Alan A month-long strike in Thor. TGWU inquiry cleared him of the company's allegations, but criticised the running of the union in the plant, and ousted convenor Bobby Fryer and the former leadership by imposing new elections by ballot in the teeth of an unprece As the Labour government turned increasingly to union leaders to curb the actions of their rank and file members, there were to be more witch-hunts and victimisa. tions of left activists in various in. dustries and the public sector unions.
But in March, health unions had thrown out a pitiful pay offer for nurses and other NHS professionals. And at the end of May, nurses -denounced by NUPE leader Alan fisher as "irresponsible, amateur adventurers" • foox up a pro gramme of industrial action against the continuing Tory pay laws. This included demonstrations, canteen company sector and shifting re sources from consumption into inUnion members were even less their attitude to the Social Contract list of closures and redundancies: by April 1975, unemployment had reached 950,000.
While Labour ministers pumped subsidies into the coffers of private industry and attemptco to dciver 4 low-wage workforce to ensure the