Callaghan looks to Heath

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AS TORY politicians tried to scrätch each others' for now. But if it did come into existence, one eyes out last week, James Callaghan proposed that fundamental plank would be incomes policy. Labour leader Michael Foot should start talks with The common aim of all the Tories and camoudissident Tories, Liberals, and the SDP. flaged Tories is to restore British capitalist profits An alliance, he suggested, could oust Thatcher. at the expense of the working class. And, whatever So Edward Heath, author of the Industrial Rela- their detailed tactical differences or even their tions Act, becomes Callaghan's hope of salvation! illusions about doing the job gently, this common — at a time when the Tories' disarray and the in- aim cannot be realised without heavy attacks on creasing militancy in the factories makes defeating the Tories head-on a more and more realistic In the midst of a raging economic crisis, it would be disastrous for the labour movement to tie itself What are the dissident Tories calling for? to some slightly modified scheme for achieving They differ among themselves. Some just call this aim. The labour movement needs to direct all for a softer line — more consensus, less confronta- its strength against the tyranny of profit, and the tion. Most want lower interest rates, and they have first precondition for this is that the movement remains independent trom the avowed parties of And many of the most influential want increased 'Utur' of 1972 was inevitable and the initial intractable problems of the profit-system in public investment in capital projects, usually at the Britain. But that pressure and those problems also The splits among the Tories are not only created cost of greater cuts in current spending on wages Some of the Tory discontent represents a vague generate a fundamental unity among these Tories. by the economic crisis and the rise of the SDP, yearning for the bland consensus politics of Con- In all their battles and back-biting, not one has ut also by their fear of the growing resistance of Some of the Tory discontent is the knee-jerk servatism in more prosperous times, by MPs who criticised Thatcher's four per cent pay limit for the the working class. The chaos of capitalism has left reaction of businessmen hit by high interest rates can't tell monetarism from mormonism. We public sector. None of them disagrees seriously the ruling class no longer able to rule in their and reduced Government contracts. Some repres- should not forget that the Tory Party, just like the with the cuts in public services, and some even accustomed way. The working class is no longer ents the strategic thinking of Tories who draw a Labour Party, attracts its own type of careerists, willing to go on in the accustomed way. different lesson from the 1970-4 government. worried now that Thatcher's policies will drive What's needed now is positive leadership for (Thatcher reckons that the confrontationist line voters into the arms of the SDP as the next election At best, they want Thatcher's attacks to be the working class to seek a new way — in the first of 1970-2 — the "Selsdon' policy - was fundamen- place, to turn the fight against the four per cent tally right, though wrong in detail, and the lesson All these splits and splinters are generated by Callaghan's recommended dissident-Tory/ limit into a general class movement and to force is 'No U-turns!'. Heath and others reckon that the the grinding pressure of capitalist crisis, and the SDP/Liberal/Labour alliance is extremely unlikely the Tories out of office. prospect.

various schemes for achieving that.

and services. policy was unworkable). looms into sight. want more cuts.

slower and subtler. AN INTERESTING little quote has slipped out over the De Lorean affair, which perhape sheds light on the motivation of the Labour leaders in clinging to bipartisanship on Northern Ireland:

Nicholas Winterton, the Tory MP who started the inquiry into De Lorean's financial dealings by pass. ing documents to Margaret Thatcher's office, has said that even if there is no criminal case to answer he will be pursuing the question of the millions of pounds of taxpayers' money poured into the firm and misused.

In his statement, he let this little cat out of the bag:

"If there is the slightest whiff of a government whitewash because of the bipartisan policies On working-class jobs and wages. profit.

Ulster..."

It makes you wonder what other bipartisan whitewashes there are. WHILE the extreme right of the Tory party, the Monday Club, renews its call for 'voluntary' repatriation of up to 100,000 black people, the official racists are offering their little bit to 'encourage' black people to feel unwelcome.

A social security appeals tribunal has just upheld a decision to withhold benefit from an Indian widow because she doesn't speak English.

Mrs Fatima Varachia had her benefit stopped eight months ago; and the trib-

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