[This election is a watershed. The Tories threaten…]

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This election is a watershed. The Tories threaten more nuclear weapons, more unemployment. They will cut or privatise anything that moves in the public sector. They will continue to attack the trade union and democratic rights of those who oppose them.

The Tories intend to create a climate bitterly hostile to the rights and values that have been established through the Labour Movement's influence. We are not just electing a government — we are also deciding the entire pattern of the country's political and social In this situation every trade union and campaigning organisation must throw its weight behind Labour. That goes for the NUT, too. Ur until now the NUT has seen itself as 'non-political'. This attitude is n longer a realistic one. If it wants to defend education and protect its aim of equal opportunity then thé Union must oppose the Tories.

Here we do what the NUT should have done: set out some reasons Because a Labour victory would shatter the pattern of the last four years. It would mean a government elected by those who want jobs and peace. A Labour victory would encourage those who have been battered into passivity by the Tories to again take action to defend Because Labour will stop the new growth of selection and privilege in education. It will make nursery schooling a right. It will reduce selection within schools. It will withdraw charitable status from the public schools. It will stop subsidising them through the assisted Because Labour will pull out of the new build-up of nuclear weapons. It will move towards getting rid of all existing nuclear bases and Because Labour will repeal the measures taken against trade union and black people. It will get rid of Tebbit's laws against trade union Because a Labour victory will halt the work of Mrs Thatcher's 'Family Policy Group' '. It will stop the moves to recreate Victorian family 'values' and to push women back into their homes.

A Labour government will not deliver all we want. Labour is not intending to alter fundamentally the present balance of wealth and power. Its unilateralism is not clear cut. It will be reluctant to suppe those who take action to defend their jobs and living standards. Bul Labour victory will restore the spirit of those whom the Tories have attacked. It will be a framework for our fight for a properly funded educational system, responsible to the needs of the majority of Teachers should vote Labour - and be out antig tg for a I CAMPAIGNS in workplaces for a Labour vote can be used to That way, workers can be mobilised not just to vote but also to take up a fight within the Labour Party to call their representatives to account and for policies corresponding to.

You need ten members to start a branch in any workplace. ¡ The definition of 'workplace' is left open in the rules: separJate branches can be established in separate sections of a large The Labour Party membership of workplace recruits has to be processed through their ward branches. But the workplace branch can send one delegate to the Labour Party GC in each constituency where it has at least ten members living. West.

The Tories have two Harrow schoolmasters standing in their Hampshire North constituencies. Basingstoke has a particularly delicate flower who has refused every public debate during the campaign.

Howeyer, the local paper -unashamedly Tory - has made up for this by printing, on his behalf all the things he would have said if he wasn't too busy campaigning.

James McAllister is the best candidate Labour has ever stood in Basingstoke. Support from the Labour Party nationally, though, has done him no favours. We got Merlyn Rees and his three bulging-suited Special Branch minders and Bill Keys of SOGAT 82.

The Special Branch panicked when they lost Rees during a walkabout, and James McAllister had to rescue him from questions he couldn't answer.

The SDP - standing the former MP for Caerphilly, HudsonDavies - seem content to run a red scare campaign and are touting-round a copy of Socialist Worker containing a letter from Alasdair Jamison CLP chair and a supporter of Socialist Organiser.

This paper has been waved around at every public meeting with the sole effect of producing Tony Gard, Socialist Teachers' Alliance.

The STA has done a national leaflet, Why teachers should vote Labour'. We've printed 5,000, and an STA member who is a Labour candidate in a safe Tory seat has put them on his election expenses.

Mostly the leaflets have been life.

why teachers should vote Labour.

their jobs and rights.

places scheme.

weapons.

solidarity and repeal the Nationality Act. students - not to the few who benefit from selection.

Labour victory. ¡factory or office complex. leaflet distributed in union branch meetings. Many NUT branches have held meetings on the election: they have to invite all the candidates but usually the Tories don't turn up.

In Hull been the leaflets have distributed the throughout schools.

JOHN HARRIS

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Ilaunch Labour Party workplace branches. their interests.