Is Thatcher Sharpening Pre-conference Knife?

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'This recession is proving deeper and longer than anyone expected, and its effects on particular sections of society are very acute indeed.

"The British people will not be prepared for very much longer to tolerate the worst effects of the recession if there is not a clear sign the sacrifice will have been Northumberland, August 1st 1981 Socialist Organiser Alliance To make Socialist Organiser a real campaigning paper that can organise the left in the movement, it needs its own organised activist support - and money.

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TIN THOMAS

at the coming reshuffle A RESHUFFLE in the Tory Cabinet seems certain in the next few weeks.

Press speculation has it that the reshuffle will be in the direction of strengthening the hard-line Thatcher/ Howe monetarists within the government.

'Wet' Employment Secretary James Prior may be sent to the Northern Ireland Office and be replaced by Thatcherite Norman Tebbit.

And Tory Party chairperson Lord Thorneycroft could be sacked for giving too much comfort to the wets"

Such moves will run directly counter to the trend of opinion in the capitalist class and even in big sections worthwhile.

THE ARISTOCRACY may have their Glorious Twelfth when they begin massacring fat game-birds, but for the wobbly left it marked the open season for a different type of game -'Trot-spotting'.

A rather tongue-in-cheek piece in Tribune's 'Diary' suggested the Labour Party should welcome the affiliation of the Communist Party for their undoubted talents at "Trot-spotting'.

This was answered the following weeks by Kay Beauchamp, long-time CP member and self-proclaimed crack shot at this sport.

Crimes

She justified her previously-quoted assertion that 'Trots' are totally hostile to all that the Labour Party stands for in a rather rambling letter which identified the major crimes of the "Trots' in her 50 years' experience of them.

They were 'critics who were not to be pacified', 'They want to take every battle further than it can go' (maybe she had in mind the Laurence Scotts occupation, where the CP firmly decided 'thus far and no further'), they do nut see it •'The economy is in the deepest recession I have ever known.

'I don't see it picking up wher 1am. My friends don't detect bottoming out:

It clearly has not bottomed out.

It's very, very rough indeed.' Lord Thorneycroft speaking to the Observer, 2nd August 1981 of the Tory Party. Howe's Budget this March was desFrancis Pym, speech in as one battle in which you can win what you can' 1a sadly familiar phrase to workers who try to pursue their struggles in the teeth of opposition from their "leaders').

Without wishing to nitpick, it does seem a rather feeble catalogue of crime compared to the mass murder of workers and peasants by Stalin, the back-stabbing of the workers' movements in Europe after the war, the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolution, the scabb, and sell-outs of workers' struggles, to name but a few of the points which were after all the substance of the political issues on which the 'Trots' were so unpleasantly intransigent.

Bottom of the barrel stuff, really.

Disgusting

Ignoring this for a moment (and there are plenty of nice lefts who will ignore it, feeling that it's rather bad taste to dredge up the disgusting political record of one's opponents in a debate) it is an unfortunate fact that Kay Beauchamp's words will seem as erbed by the CBI as "a kick in the teeth", and their views sweet music to the ears of many who are tired of the struggle in the Labour Party, who fear that it has gone too far, who wish to return to the good old days before the right wing and the press called us bad names.

The era of meaningful collaboration between the CP, the shaky left and the right wing is now officially opened. Stand by your stakes, witches.

SO THE last bastion of 'workers' control' in the nationalised industries has fallen.

Steel boss lan McGregor, with the backing of Keith Joseph, has refused to accept two nominees from the ISTC [the biggest union in the industry] as worker-directors on the BSC board.

The 'control' element was never very evident -the ISTC claims that their previous worker-directors were never even shown the McGregor plan for restructuring the industry with massive closures and redundancies.

And a look at the two rejected nominees - one a manager at Shotton, the other a full-time union official! - makes the term 'workers" look a little strained, too.

BSC, however, seems unabashed and has appointed that well-known son of toil, Sir John Boyd of the AUBW, as a part-time member on the board.

The ISTC's response is that 'in no circumstances would they take part in this charade'. They threaten non-cooperation with the plan and an overtime ban.

It may be a disastrously have not sottened since. Recent figures show a substantial decline in big-business donations to the Tories.

But the entire philosophy of the Thatcherite leadership is based on pig-headedness elevated into a principle.

The top Tores drew two conclusions from the hasco of the 1970-74 Heath government.

'Reflation' in economic slumps is. they believe, useless indeed harmiul. Public spending to reduce unemployment just pushes prices up taster.

But at Tory conterences they also concluded, "We do not Want to return to the hostility and bitterness Which was seen in the 1970belater death-bed conversion, but with luck other workers may take the point about phoney 'workerdirector' schemes.

THE MANAGEMENT and unions at Remploy. a govemploying 8,200 severely disabled workers, have 1981 - the Year of the Disabled - cheap labour.

Under a new pay comparers should have received a 17°% rise this year, equivalent to £12. Instead they will get only £5, giving them a basic of £60.06 Organiser supporterO Name ......

Address CLP 4 period. We do not want to go through the humiliation or an Official Sollicitor."

Norman Tebbit himsel told the 1977 Tory conference:

"I am a hawk and not a kamikaze pilot. We are right to disavow any • heavy-handed legislation."

Rigid So their policy is to take on the unions cautiousiy and selectively - while a rigid monetary and publicspending policy makes industry "leaner and tauter"

Milton friedman and the other economic witch doctors assure them that it will all come right in the a week.

The original formula, agreed by both sides, was seen as something of a breakthrough. It was based on a comparison with male manual workers' earnings in seven different groups. such as furniture and textiles.

This year, mindful of government spending cuts, the unions, led by • the G&M, agreed to the inclusion of another group of workers in the comparison - low-paid women workers in packaging and light assembly - thus dragging down the average.

If 'woman is the nigger of the world' • then disabled people fare little better. end. The Tories are not quite sure how.

Keith Joseph declares:

"We do not really know the secret of economic growth or how to generate it ... Economic growth began thousands of years ago, as a result of people following self-interest...

But the hope that liberated cut-and-plunder economics will lead to revival is all they have to cling to. It will take more than a few bad by-election results or defections to the SDP to shitt them.

Thus the wets' , Who want less of a blunderbuss policy, probably cannot change the government's THE HARD-faced piratical nature of capitalism feeding off the profits of North Sea oil is epitomised by Alan Bristow, chairperson of the helicopter firm.

The week before last, within 36 hours of each other, two Wessex helicopters owned by Bristow's company came down in the North Sea. One life was lost in the first crash, and 13 in the second.

Bristow's comment was that, looked at in perspective, "this tragedy doesn't seem quite as tragic' . He went on to arrogantly defend the reliability of his machines and their safety record in the North Sea.

But he was soon to change his tune with a decision to suspend operations of his Wessex craft and to level accusations against their makes, Westland, his former employers.

Bristow's buccaneering attitude is no better than can be expected from a man with a record of being a mercenary attached to the French Foreign Legion in Indochina and a notorious strike-buster over the last 20 ycars. 'Turn back?

Hell, no; we only just got here.

Margare Thatche direction decisively without getting rid of Thatcher. And to get rid of a leader in the ultra-hierarchical Tory Party is not casy.

Chaos

for the labour movement the task now is to take advantage of the chaos and division in the Tory ranks. The Tories are half-unable ta govern already.

A decision by the labou: movement to break al! collaboration with the government, and to launch a serious offensive. could cripple the Tories completely and drive them from. office.

When one of his pilots refused to accept an overseas posting in 1976, he was sacked. Fifty more pilots who took sympathetic action then lost their jobs. and Bristow lambasted the union, BALPA, as 'fanatical and destructive' Despite his bluster. Bristow has no doubt been shaken by the revelations in the Sunday Times of Augus:

16 of 14 serious crashes by Bristow owned helicopters over the last ten years, with 59 deaths and many injuries.

Private operators have constantly evaded adequat= safety standards in the North Sea. There are seriou problems of overloading. an:

whereas Dutch, Danish ari Norwegian operators mus use two pilots, British haicopters have only one. *=..

in "blind' weather.

The whole question:

safety in the North Sea O operations, as well 1s:* particular circumsati surrounding the crashes, urgent!! rec investigation and ...:• by the Scottish Tle =-:

affiliated unions involes the industry

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do diD: Organiser, Thursdal 27 August, 198/ Page 4 August, 1981 Page

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