Editorial A "A tribal gathering of the well-heeled and well-oiled... rough ONE person, one vote. That often misused slogan is given another twist of meaning by the Tory Party, whose system is so brazenly undemocratic that while 2,500 come to its Conference, only one person casts a vote that means anything -Margaret Thatcher.
Never mind your union block votes, or your wayward Young Liberals, never mind your right wing SDP consensus: Tory "representatives" may speak, and even raise their hands to vote - but they all know that the speeches have been vetted, the resolutions neutered, and the decisions bind nobody to anything. The only speech that matters is Maggie's final day battle cry. Looking for serious debate at a Tory Conference is as naive as looking for principles in Congress House, Marxism in the Kremlin or common sense in the White House. The Conference is always a tribal gathering of the well-heeled and well-oiled to cheer wildly at the old
Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 1
arguments and try to outlast previous years' standing ovations for Margaret Thatcher.
This year the security was tighter, the initial mood more one of a conference under seige. But as the representatives brandished their British Telecom share certificates as entry credentials, swapped yarns about jobless scroungers and sympathised with Jeffrey Archer, who exploited his street credibility by declaring: *I know what it's like to be unemployed and owe £400,000," the whole affair barely reached sixth form standards of rhetoric.
Individually unpleasant enough, the collective gathering of crawlers and reactionaries, overloaded with business consultants, lawyers and landladies, frothed over into a boiling lather of undiluted hate at the slightest whiff of blood or gunfire.
Like a seething pack of Daily Mail leader writers, nourishing their venomous exasperation and pent-up class hatred for the oppressed, they longed only for a mention of one of this year's hate figures - Neil Kinnock; Bernie Grant; Arthur Scargill: Ted Knight against whom they could fume.
So it was not surprising that after three standing ovations for the tuxedoed bootboy himself, Norman *Frankenstein" Tebbit, wild applause for the privatising zeal of a bulging Nigel Lawson, and Douglas Hurd's pledge to lock up anyone who even so much as irritates an old lady. Peter Walker's cowardly references to unemployment went down as well as a fart in a public library.
The man was dumb enough to say that the Party looked as if it didn't care about the unemployed!
But Tories do care, passionately: they HATE the unemployed. each and everyone of them! They begrudge evey brass farthing handed out in benefits to the jobless. They know hardly any of them will ever vote Tory; many live in inner cities, where hardly anyone votes Tory - and lots live in the North, Scotland, and Wales, where there are even less Tories!
Tebbit's line - different from Archer in being more low key on the whole issue - is clear. The next election cannot be fought by the Tories on jobs - however
much Peter Walker - chief closer of mines whinge into his hankie. Thatcher will offer no new jobs to the 3} million on today's dole queues.
Instead, the election will have to be fought on the basis of witch-hunting the Labour Party,on pillorying the TUC, and on a vicious "law and order" ticket, given a veneer of credibility by exploiting the new rebellions of alienated, dispossessed youth in the inner cities.
Tory economic policies, cuts and wage cuts, coupled with the brute violence of racism and police harassment, have stripped a whole generation of youth not only of jobs but of status, self-respect, identity and any hope for the future: they have shattered any bonds that might link some youth to society outside their immediate social group.
In a country where the plunder of the poor by the rich has become such an institutional bedrock of government policy, who is to persuade kids who have nothing that it is wrong to exploit the few occasions that they have power on their side? Who believes that when such frustrations burst loose, some innocent victims will not suffer, and some brutal deeds will not be done?
Having themselves destablised the slums, ghettos and industrial wastelands, driven youth to desperation and seen them strike back at the police, the Tories now move cynically to exploit the fears of the elderly, the middle classes and others who look on in horror as the buildings burn, wondering where it all will end. SORRY, BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE
TO FUND YOUR PENSION.. Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 2
With Labour's refurbished right wing leadership skilled primarily at sticking its own knife into the backs of those in the front line of the fight and preoccupied with masquerading as a reborn SP; with the Labour Party's youth organisation reduced by the politics of Militant to a dwindling, sloganising handful on the edge of the working class, the initiative stays firmly in the hands of the Tories to shift the ground of battle and catch the workers' movement unprepared.
The Tory speeches Thatcher, Lawson, Tebbit -showed it, and Walker rubbed the point home: the Tories have abandoned the argument on jobs - but they have not given up the fight to continue in office, lining the pockets of their friends and business
The defence of those councillors who speak out against police violence and harassment; the defence of Liverpool and Lambeth Councils' right and duty to defy the law; and the demand that a Labour government act to free and reinstate the sacked and jailed miners and recompense the NUM for fines and losses inflicted by Tory judges pursuing vicious class law; all have become key dividing lines in the workers' movement.
While one-time "left" toadies join the right wing bootlickers in Kinnock's new gang, Labour's left has urgent work to do, organising and preparing a fight back on these very issues at the centre of the class struggle. BUT YOU SHOULD BE TRATEFUL -TO PAY YOUR OWN WAY AN FOR THE OPPORTUNITY...
For labour movement action to back South African struggle!
By HARRY SLOAN "THE Labour Party and the trade unions can take a number of initiatives on their own - by working for a total break of economic links. Workers can refuse to load
18A South African cops move in. DE IN YOUR SELF-RELIANCE!
ships or offload ships from South Africa and they can refuse to buy South African goods." President of the Congress, to this year's Labour Party went conterence predictable loud applause. But this was Tambo's appeal for specifically work- ing class action; and there is little sign that any of the union leaders pre- sent have any Intention of even carry. ing out this much solidarity action Indeed courageous Ireland, who toured the TUC and Labour conference seeking support THE 350 strong section of the British Library Lending Division Institute of Professional Civil Servants has voted to 65 to 62 to boycott requests for material from South Africa. Garth Frankland, Socialist Viewpoint supporter and Chair of the Joint Trade Union Committee, moved the resolution. He explained that if action was to be carried out in support of the South African Division supplies around 20.000 pieces of information a year to South Africa. They are mainly in the field of atomic energy, electronics and computers. The South African regime will not be able to get this information so easily from other sources. Some weeks ago, the South Africans requested information on 19th century British flogging practice! Gradually the boycott is strangling South Africa's scientific information. Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 3
came These words from Oliver Tambo. African National down with the the sum total of of the representatives Africa. Dunne's strikers from movement. not to buy depots action. workers the time to act is now. This is The British Library Lending degree: the by the