A united face for the Party Detection of a 'strange man'

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La go at doing cartoons? Our cartoon. other comrades to share the load ide more variety. Send your sketches Group leader and anxious to secure a safe seat), to the chair of East Ward.

The selection meeting on November 6th went according to the rules. The notices to members were distributed by hand well in advance. As usual, more members turned up for the meeting than normally attend the branch. But the surprise came when Laurie Bullas was defeated heavily on the first ballot by a local AUEW shop steward.

Straight away there were howls of disbelief. The Membership secretary questioned two members' right to vote, and his mother queried the honesty of the tellers.

The District observer overruled these two objections, and the disgruntled losers adjourned to the local club. By morning they had their solution.

Losing

The membership secretary had 'discovered' that he seven membery, delivered seven members and so the Chairperson (one of the losing candidates) wrote a complaint about this to the District Secretary.

The re-run selection meeting on November 24th was packed out with members rarely seen at normal meetings. Predictably, Laurie Bullas won the ballot (but by a small margin) and his supporters returned to St Bede's club to celebrate.

on we will organise to recruit people who will work for working class policies here and now, and not wait

for elections.

GEORGE Cunningham is a strange man. Not many Labour MPs stand for reselection, tell their GMCs they "couldn't give a fig" whether they're selected or not, still win, ассері a front-bench job in the same week, and then quit the Party saying he's been "stabbed in the back ' But, as the papers last week never tired of saying, George Cunningham is a "singular" MP.

Personally, the only thing I've ever found 'singular' about the man is his resemblance to those rather exotic creatures that have started to appear on fishmongers' slabs recently: distinctly unapproachable, stone-cold, but still somehow fishy.

His chilling Labour Party members had to be seen to be believed. The very idea of having to 'submit himself' to the reselection obviously filled him with profound disgust and loathing. He was as touchy as Pinocchio about the thought anyone might describe him as a puppet.

The politics that lay behind this all too familiar Ever had ist wants and prov to Social London N8. attitude were 'singular' enough though. George Cunningham is second only to Enoch Powell in his calculated wild-eyed enthusiasm for the 'British constitution' and 'an MPs right to independence' The tragedy of South Islington Labour Party which reselected him on Wednesday, is that so many party ist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, NIK BARSTC reports o latest defector members seemed to agree with his views. Some have left too, but others like New Statesman editor Bruce Page, have stayed and been kicked in the teeth after publicly arguing for Cunningham's reselection.

Sympathy, however would be a little misplaced. As the Barnsbury ward's secretary Derek Hines told SO, "They knew full well he was likely to leave, they did this to us, they're to blame"

Cover

Derek spelt out how all the sophisticated-sounding theories on the constitution were a cover for rather less-pleasant sounding reasons. "George Cunningham has never lived in this constituency. He started ou out as a career civil servant, he's ended up as a career politician. The Labour Party is well-rid of people who are in it to follow their own personal ambitions."

The Labour Party, not just in the Islington 'defectors' paradise', but nationally, has to understand that MPs have to be representatives of the working class and the Party, not representatives of themselves:

Respect The local activist who narrowly failed to unseat George Cunningham at the reselection conference, Charles Chapman, expressed best what lessons there were, "We might have lost an MP, but we've gained a chance of getting back some self-respect as a party. If we've got the self-respect we can get down to really campaigning for working people's interests, and be listened to" HUGH McCLUNG reports on the Scottish unemployed conference, called by Edinburgh and Stirling Unempluyed Workers Associations in Stirling on November 28.

The 78 people attending the conference came from Trades Councils, unemployed associations, and claimants' groups all across Scotlana, to discuss now the unemployed could organise for their own demands and force the labour movement to take them up. Rowland Sheret of Stirling Trades Council introduced the conference, along with Dave Milliken of Edinburgh Unemployed Workers Association.

The conference then broke up into workshops to talk about the experiences of various associations, in particular the Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumfries, and Westerhailes groups. General feeling was hostile to the funding of UWAs by the Manpower Services Commissions, especially after the experience of Dumfries UWA, which is now controlled by the MSC.

The role of women, publicity in the organisation of the unemployed, were also discussed. The conference agreed to campaign for free public transport for the unemployed. The recent decision of Aberdeen council to grant this will be a boost.

A steering committee was set up, with two representatives from each region in Scotland, and will plan a recall conference for early spring.

Part of the resolution said: 'Conference resolves to mount a major campaign to defeat the proposed legislation (Heseltine's). Should this fail, conference believes that Labour councillors must refuse to make cuts that will be needed to balance the books.

And let's make no mistake about it, Mid-Glamorgan councillors may think, 'On well, one per cent isn't very , but they'll be back without a shadow of doubt asking for more cuts to balance the books.

After I spoke in council arguing against any cuts, and för a policy of non-cooperation with Government agencies, the Group executive suspended me. Then I was expelled from the Group on November 26.

The Group leader, Bill Squires, refused to read out my letter explaining why 1 had voted against cuts. and kept on interrupting me saying that the only issue he wanted to discuss was the fact that I had voted agains! the Labour Group.

It didn't matter to hir what Party policy was.

The letter was eventuall! read out, I was told to leave and the vote was carried tr expel me.

Yet there's been little o no debate on a strategy tr fight the cuts in the Group and the Group executive ha not consulted any bodies i the Party, not even the loc:

Mid Glamorgan Party.

Collaboration

In the whole of Wale there has been no fightbac the record has been one ( full collaboration with th Tories. It's the bureaucra in the Party who feel the are accountable to no-one.

There have been no Tor sanctions in Wales again Labour local authorities, b cause the Labour burea crats have been doing ti Tories' job for them.

I felt that I could ni renege on Labour Pari policy, and I am 100% dete mined to campaign to dra support round a no cu position, which I know the Is support for in the Wel labour movement.

I'll be speaking at t Cardiff Socialist Organis meeting next week, and the forthcoming Labo Coordinating Committ conference on fighting t cuts.

CORRECTION: The CL column last week written by Rachel Lev not Mandy Moore.

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Scots jobles fight

youth, the trade union movement, and press and