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Why a vote for Labour is a vote for gay lil THE Times on May 24 reported a comment that goes way to explain Labour's problems in this general election.

As Jill Craigie went on a walkabout with the press in Bermondsey, the first voter she met was Karen Downey, who asked her: "What are you going to do for the country? They say Labour's working class, but whoever gets in it's the rich for 'fighting in the Labour movement for lesbian Ms Downey had voted Alliance in the February by election.

Labour canvassers will have come across the same response time and again - working class voters with a pretty clear awareness of the basic facts of class inequality, who nevertheless may abstain or even vote Alliance or Tory because of despair at Yet many Labour leaders seem set on deepening that despair.

John Silkin last week said that Labour's policy to cut defence spending did not mean that spending would actually be cut. The percentage of national income taken by defence would be reduced - by national income rising. How all this related to Labour's pledge to scrap nuclear wéapons, he didn't explain.

James Callaghan - with Michael Foot silent beside him on the platform - told a meeting in Cardiff that Labour's "no wage controls" pledge meant wage controls. The National Economic Assessment would include regulation of wages: "I say to the trade unions if they have any mental reservations on this, they will not be playing fair by the next Labour government, or by Len Murray was revealed to have consented in a National Economic Development Council meeting to the suppression of an NEDC report on the economy because it was too gloomy!

Dennis Healey has assured voters that Labour's policy of scrapping nuclear weapons actually means keeping nuclear weapons, only promising not to use them first. The Labour manifesto promises no return to the wage-control policies of 1975-9 - and Healey has declared that wage controls must be introduced quicker under a new Labour government.

So while the Tories are campaigning on the basis that Labour represents the demon of 'Marxist socialism' , Labour leaders are busy declaring that all their radical policies really don't mean Labour thus loses out both ways. Its policies are denounced by the Tories, and instead of defending those policies, the Labour leaders rush to explain that no offence was meant really. So there's no fight to convince people of Labour's radical Those who agree with policies like unilateral nuclear disarmament see Labour as unable and unwilling to fight for them. Those who see these policies as evil and dangerous hear no counter-argument: instead, the Labour leaders' frantic effort to distance themselves from the policies will tend to confirm all We have to answer in equally clear terms. We have to convince those voters who despair that if they not only vote Labour but also join their Labour Party and trade union and fight with. in them against the leaders who seek only to placate the Estab the rich and the poor for the poor."

Labour's record. those who are unemployed." what they say at all.

policies.

these fears.

What the Labour leaders won't do, local Labour Parties must do. The Tories have posed the issues starkly: capitalism versus lishment, then society can be changed.

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