lessons of Lothian's 1981 fiasco!
ficult because many of the threatened jobs are not unionised and there is a tangled web of different unions often workers. The union bureaucrats will same sections workers. not be anxious to encourage strike action. They will be looking for a get-out proposal - opting for in-house tenders and biding their time until the hoped-for "next Labour government". But, at the rate the Tories are progressing, there will be very little left for a Labour government to defend when it does come to power.
We cannot wait until then. We cannot just let the Tories reverse 40 years of the build-up of the welfare state. It will not be an easy fight. We are struggling under a vicious govern-
By John MacDonald LABOUR'S victories in the local government elections last May gave rise to considerable optimism. Many activists on the labour left saw this as a chance to defeat the government's policy which has decimated local services over recent years However the optimism was not tounded on any particular strategy or realistic appraisal of the forces needed to defeat the government. This was particularly apparent in Edinburgh where a landslide victory left Labour in complete control of the city by a larger majority than that which the Tories had enioved over their long period of neglect.
Socialists in Edinburgh and the Lothians are very aware of the problems involved when a local Council takes on the government. Lothian Region did it in '81... and failed. The Labour group who were at the time in control of the Council, refused the demand Semetary of State for Scotland, that the George Younger, Council revise their budget by making cuts and repaying rates. Lothian's retusal to comply with the government on this occasion was by no means tokenistic, and it is useful to examine the positive and the negative aspects of this tight.
John Mulvey, Jimmy Burnett and the other Councillors of the Lothian Left were by no means in the majority in the Labour group but they were the main influence in the formation of Regional Labour Party olicy. Through their willingness to con ront a new situation and explain their thinking to traditional Labour Councillors, they had taken the lead in the group when the crisis occured in summer 8l. It was agreed that camp would Worker
embracing workers through their unions, people who used the services through community and tenants groups, Labour Parties, etc.
Many of us argued at the time that the campaign would have been much stronger if it had not been based on the rates-rise position which made it comparatively simple for the Tories and ratepayers associations to turn sections of the working class and