"A world where people pay taxes in order to meet the cost of interest on the national debt, while the standard and quality of public services .. are eroded further and further.' This was how Peter Jay of The Times greeted the new era ushered in by the Labour Government with the publication of its White Paper on public expenditure.
It is true. The Labour Government cannot pretend that the money chopped from the provision of social services is simply going to finance new investment to save jobs in British industry (we explode that myth on page 6). The Government raised money over the last few years by selling an enormous amount of securities to the money men. Now these parasites want their pound of flesh.
Cuts are to be made in all areas of public expenditure. But this will still not satisfy the finance houses. The amount of money due to be slashed is £3,000m. The provision for debt interest increase is £3,300m. by 1978-79 and another £1,300m. in the following year. There are yet more cuts on the way!
A further reality underlying the cuts is that they will not reduce the burden of taxation on the working class. Because the increase in debt charges wipes out the effects of the cuts, a raising of the tax threshold which could keep pace with the rate of inflation is not possible.
The cuts in health, hospitals. schools, transport and housing are the complete opposite of the Labour Manifesto pledge much touted by Tony Benn to effect a transfer of wealth and power to working people. Instead, the Government is using taxation to transfer wealth directly from working people to the financiers and other 'assisted' capitalists.
The burning need is to fight for policies which stop this flow of wealth into the pockets of the capitalists. The books of the finance houses and hanks must be opened to prepare a plan for the nationalisation without compensation of these institutions under workers control. for Government policies is stabbing them in the back The cover of the Government. that the interest paid on the national debt goes to such institutions as pension funds, must be swept away by the demand that such funds be placed under the control of the trade unions and not of the trusts, and that such pension funds are paid compensation by the Government - TRIBUNE'S The claim by the Tribune Group that Healey's White Paper marks a watershed for the Government and is equivalent to In Place of Strife begs the obvious question - what are they going to do about it? Eric Heffer has provided an immediate answer. The left Labour MPs are so annoyeu about ims cocument... mat they are not going to vote against it.
The left MPs are running up an impressive track record of fighting opposition" to the Government's policies. They fought tooth and nail against the Chrysler deal... and voted for it. They bitterly opposed Healey's April Budget wich cut trism. trom nousing, toom. THE MONEY OF MARK STRATFORD EIS Jack Jones welcomed pensioners' demonstration at TUC in Blackpool-but his support for increases in inflation. The vast sums made in profits by the banks can be turned to such a purpose.
the trade unions and Labour Party and acted on by the rank-and-file.
to a halt TRIBULATIONS from education and £75m. from health ... and a few even dared to abstain. Now as many as 30 MPs may apparently rewal•.. rom voung for tne ynite Paper.
The argument that if the Tribunites voted against these cuts they would bring down the Government is a sham. Some of them even admit it. Brian Sedgemore MP openly stated at the recent IWC conference on the motor industry that the Tories would not let the Government go down to defeat at the present time. So will he vote against the White Paper?
will return.
Only these policies, fought for in can bring the capitalist helter-skelter when given a lead over a new leaf. Two years ago this week the Labour Government came to office, swept there by the victory of the miners over the Tory Government. It was the greatest political triumph for the working class since Labour's gigantic electoral victory in 1945. It was gained through four years of working class struggle against the Tory Government.
Since that victory, however, the Labour leadership has had only one refrain: Don't defend your jobs and wages against the ravages of capitalitalist crisis. Call off the struggle. If you fight to maintain wages you will bring down the Government. If you fight unemployment the Tories will be back. If you fight social expenditure cuts, Thatcher the milk-snatcher Two years later the results of these disastrous policies are clear for all to see. Living standards are down below the level of the three day week. At nearly 1½ million, unemployment is twice as high as the average under the Tories. The welfare state is being cut to ribbons. Every step that Wilson and Healey take brings a return of the Tories nearer. The workers who put Wilson in office will understandably feel that fighting and voting for the re turn of a Labour Government is a waste of effort after the sustained attacks it has made on the working class.
BIG BUSINESS DELIGHTED Big business is delighted. "What has happened, of course, is that we now have, to paraphrase the style of Lord Butler, the best Government we have. In other words, a Labour Government is pursuing pretty orthodox Tory economic policies.' So crowed the City Editor of the London Evening Standard on 13 February. At the same time these people will not hesitate to ditch the Labour Government once its policies begin to meet real opp osition in the working class.
At the same time the middle classes are increasingly feeling the squeeze. With the labour movement providing no answers for a working class solu tion to the crisis, they will look to reaction for a lead The people in the best position to stop the rot, the trade union leadership, have done nothing.
Wilson and Healey, conniving in their policies and policing them in the working class movement. £6 limit, mass unemployment and the huge cuts in social spending could never have been made to stick RIGHTEOUS ANGER Meanwhile the lefts' in Parliament, despite floods of righteous anger against the 'betrayals of the Manifesto', are refusing to fight and vote against the Government's policies. They argue that such action would be "adventurist', that it would let the Tories back in. But every day that Wilson is allowed to continue with his anti-working class policies without opp osition makes a Labour defeat more certain. If the 'lefts' were serious about defending the interests of the working class, they would vote against the cuts and all other anti-working class measures. and demand and campaign for recall Labour Party and TUC Conferences to throw out the £6 limit etc. and determine the policies and leadership of the Labour Government. Massive support and action could be won in the working class for such a clear lead.
Despite the passivity of the 'lefts' and the docility of the trade union bureaucracy, the anger of the working class against the policies of this Government is beginning to assert itself. The belated 100 per cent strike against management's anti-union offensive at Chrysler's Linwood plant: the battle of steelworkers against the British Steel Corporation and their own union leadership; the mass action taken by aerospace workers against redundancies — all these show that the working class is prepared to fight LABOUR MOVEMENT ASSEMBLY The recognition of the need for centralisation of these fragmented struggles is also growing through support for such events as the Labour Movement Assembly against unemployment on 27 March. But organising a permanent labour movement opposition to the policies of the Govern ment from this conference will involve a determined struggle against the Instead they resolutely grovel at the feet of Without the support of these betrayers, the
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