Using the policies we fought for

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WHILE Labour leaders seem to be joining a competition as to which of them can publicly junk the greatest number of manifesto commitments before polling day, many local Labour Parties are sticking to their policies.

Mick Cashman from Wallasey CLP told us: "We're fighting on Labour Party policies, and we're confident of winning. We've had a lot of support from trade unionists, including the Labour Party workplace branches at Cammell Lairds and Vauxhall, and CND members and tenants' associations are also helping with the campaign. We're recruiting new members"

Many Iocal Labour Parties are campaigning boldly on unilateral nuclear disarmament even where they have fudged other issues. Some women's sections and LPYSs have written their own leaflets - Peckham LPYS and York LPYS, for example, have been able to get out youth leaflets based on the 'Socialists for a Labour Victory' text - and won the right to platform speakers at Lab: our election meetings.

Examples of Labour election campaigns being linked in with direct working-class struggles are unfortunately none too common. But in Basingstoke the election address includes not only items about what a Labour MP would do in Parliament if elected, but support for industrial action against cuts and privatisation: and one ward has put out a leaflet on election expenses to campaign against the plans by Tories on the local council for privatisation of refuse collection.

From all indications Margaret Thatcher's "chance to wipe out Marxist socialism" line will be reproduced, only more crudely, in local Tory campaigns - and Alliance campaigns, too. Take Istington South, for example.

SDP candidate George Cunningham's first leaflet contains not a single policy item, but a picture of a boot stamping on a snake labelled 'creeping extremism'. 'The extremists are taking over in islington" , it says. "They've got control of the Borough Council. They've got control of the GLC. But you've still got George Cunningham..."

The Tory leaflet also has no policies. It takes the argument that "a Socialist MP would be a puppet of the extremists" for granted, and directs its main argument against the SDP: "Only a Conservative vote 'can beat the left wing Socialists".

apologies, timid disavowals, and 'more moderate than thou' acts. Working-class voters want to know what Labour will do about jobs and bombs. Clear socialist answers can convince them and leave the Tories and Alliance screaming their abuse into deaf ears.

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'Red menace' campaigns like this cannot be fought by shuffling