[imposing any cuts. FOR A CUE Tories are…]

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imposing any cuts.

FOR A CUE Tories are determined to oppose. One thing is absolutely clear: the all-out confrontation with central government which has been looming for the past two years can no longer be postponed. Thatcher's summer Cabinet reshuffle which ousted the wets' (now affectionately dubbed 'blue chips' by the media) represented nothing less than a declaration of war on the local government public sector. With Tebbit lemployment), Joseph (education), Fowler (social services) and Heseltine now firmly at the helm, local authority that we absorb the lessons of that defeat.

Firstly, Lothian showed that it is possible to mobilise widespread support among public sector workers on a 'no cuts' platform. However, once the council stepped on to the slippery slope of 'minimising cuts, support waned and eventually evaporated.

Crumbs

While the Heseltine law provides an opportunity to unite the movement, its implementation will undoubtedly be selective.

Heseltine will try to buy off Only when they are faced with a challenge which threatens their power to rule will they make the slightest concession.

So where does this leave us in London?

We have the GLC, and aiter May 1982 we will probably have a few more radical Labour councils. The problem is that we can't wait until May 1982.

Existing Labour councils must be forced to act. They must refuse to draw up the "savings' budgets which Heseltine is demanding. If necessary they should immediately disengage rather than endorse cuts budgets, thus challenging the local Tories (or Social Democrats?) to do their worst, and then voting down the budget they present. This will provide the Labour Party in London with the opportunity of mobilising the working class now against the Tory plans.

Moreover, it will clear the decks for an election campaign based on no cuts/no rate rises and a confrontation with the government.

Of course, there is no guarantee that existing Labour groups will be bound by the discipline of the London Labour movement. Nevertheless we must bring maximum pressure to bear.

Otherwise the election will be utter confusion, with Labour councils imposing cuts and rate rises, while their local parties campaign against such policies.

What happens after May 1982? Clearly at this point we can only outline the bare bones of a strategy. The first priority is to ensure that, immediately following the May elections, the London Labour Party conference is reconvened to allow the fullHESELTINE'S proposed law to stop business rate rises has forced many supporters of rate increases to change their policy.

While still arguing that rates have been a form of wealth re-distribution to working people, Ken Livingstone of the GLC and Lambeth Council Ted Knight have now come out with a policy of 'No cuts -freeze rates • An emergency motion to Labour Party conference, moved by Knight and carried against the NEC's recommendation, called for a mass campaign against Heseltine's legislation and for Labour councils to refuse to cut in order to balance the books.

For such a policy to succeed, council unions and tenants must be mobilised.

Exercise

But Ted Knight has responded to Heseltine's call for local referendums as follows: 'Labour Councils would stand in a referendum of our own, on a clear policy of no cuts, a freeze on rates and more government cash. This would reduce the referendum to a straight 'yes' or 'no' vote"

Turning Heseltine's referendum gimmick upside down is not the best way of answering it. Referendums generally prove what the people who set the question them want prove. In practice, Knight'e proposed referendur would probably meet al effective boycott from loca Tories and SDPets.

Rather than trying to org anise their own pseudo democratic farce to counte the Tories', Labour coun cils should be organisin labour movement confer ences and meetings to ror their anti-cuts fight firm! in democratic accountabi ity to the local workin class in the factories an offices and on the estates.

The task is not to pros our case' with a cleverl; staged voting exercise, bi to mobilise local worke and tenants in struggle defend. their service jobs, and living standards CHEUNG SIU MIN Ted Knig