The Tory Party have had their thunder stolen by the Labour Government this They did score one significant vicTo nowever we cercal or comorehensive education in Tameside.
The Tory Council's efforts to reverse the existing plans to eliminate educational privilege were met with immediate action from the local labour movement. NALGO and NUPE members threatened strike 2LOn teaching unions voted to take no part in selection procedures for the grammar snools. ine trades counci pledged itself to back all actions against the Tory schemes.
But the unions' main aim was to demand that the education minister at the ame, rred muuey, snowd intervene under the 1944 Education Act. Mulley based his case on the grounds that the Council was unreasonably. While the unions marked time, the Tories seized their chance. . Reactionary teachers were lined up by the Tories to implement their selection procedures.
By staking everything on Mulley's efforts to defend the comprehensive system through the law courts, the unions allowed the Tories to go ahead and missed forcing the council to change its plans. The unions were left helpless when the Law Lords backed the Tories to The Tameside experience should be a sharp lesson. The Labour Government and the National Union of Teachers were unable to defend comprehensive education -a central plank of both their programmes - against the opposition of one reactionIt is true that the Tories of Tameside had the massive financial support of the National Association for Freedom behind them, the sinister organisation which maintains links with the Tories through Boyson and Thatcher and the far right through Dowager Lady Birdwood. They got the support of the Law Lords, and the weight One w Denia them But the Labour Government could have mobilised even more powerful forces in jetence of comprehensive education. Thousands of local trade unionists were prepared to strike to defend this gain. Such action could have rallied the support of the whole labour movement on a Future But the Labour Government did not take that path, nor will they in the future. In fact they are quite prepared to uphold the methods by which the Tories gained their victory - as the continued persecution ol the Clay Cross councillors under the Labour Government showed only too But there is another reason. The Tories chose the method of confrontation and the axe to defeat the purpose of comprehensive education. The Labour Government applies slow strangulation through cuts in educational expenditure. Tameside's teacher-pupil ratio was and is the very worst in the whole country.
Comprehensive CaucaLon and teaching methods associated with it can only start to succeed if they are properly resourced, ine Labour Government Is intent that the social services and the living standards of the working class should bear the burden of the economic crisis. Even without the able assistance of the Tories, comprehensive education is suffering massive blows.
For this reason the Labour Government is more afraid of a movement that could take on the Tories one day, fight the cuts the next, than it is of the Tories themselves Knodes Boyson and te rest or tne Black Paper demagogues in the Tory Party will feel heartened and encouraged by the Tameside The Labour Government must feel that they have got away lightly. Ine real loser is not Mulley but the working class. Particularly those under sixteen.
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