We need a firm commitment against witch-hunts

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Membership open to Constituency Labour Parties, trade union organisations, Labour Fee: CLPs and unions £10, wards £5, indivi duals and other organisations £3. Write toLAW, 11 Wilderton Road, London N16. Next National Council meeting, open to delegates from CLPs and trade union bodies: Saturday July 2, 12 noon, Camden Town Hall, Judd St. entrance. Ken Livingstone was speaking at a meeting on June 13 organised by Socialist Action. Afterwards, he discussed some issues further with Martin Thomas.

You talked about the need to present alternatives to the Herbert Morrison model of nationalisation. What are your ideas?

I think, to be quite honest about it, no work has been done on working out the detail. We have relied on slogans, and I have very little idea in my own mind of the exact mechanism by which, say, British Telecom should work under workers' control.

We have to hear from those unions where the Broad Left are now in control what their thoughts are, and use those models.

I think it's much easier to be clear about the central theme of control of capital. That's much easier to get across, because people are shocked by the scale money leaving the country. They can understand that fl billion a month is a vast sum which could be put to more productive usé in rebuilding our economy and rebuilding the structure of the welfare state.

So I think that's the one to start with first of all. You've got to convince a lot of workers that there is the wealth here in society to do the things we're saying. Half of them have taken on board Thatcher's propaganda that it can't be done because the money just isn't there.

The second stage, I think, is the question of what you mean by popular control when you talk about nationalising the profitable sector of the economy, and I need to hear other people's views before I finalise my own on that.

You also mentioned defence. Don't you think that to be convincing the Left must put forward its own alternative defence policy to nuclear weapons?

If we have a radical socialist government in this country, I think we would need to have a strong defence, because we could very well find an intervention from America to try and overthrow that government. And therefore I don't think we can talk about a completely civilian-based army. We'd need the necessary hardware to resist aggression from the Pentagon. But in terms of the control of it is where you need to think again. I don't think that what we want to see is a defence force that is organised and controlled in the way that the existing armed forc"es are in this country.

You need, once again, a method of popular control. You need to base that defence force, in much the same way that some of the Third World liberation struggles have been, in the community it is defending.

I think the initial thing to get over to people is that we should not be part of the NATO defence strategy. It's called a NATO defence strategy, but it isn't even that. It's solely and totally a Pentagon defence strategy, in which Europe and Canada are the front lines.

In an interview with Socialist Orgniser two years ago (April 4 1981) Ken Livingstone explained that he saw the GLC manifesto policies as "something like the Alternative Economic Strategy. Not in any sense revolutionary - because the Labour Party isn't at that stage.

The problem isn't so much what your notional policies are, but whether you'll fight to implement them...

The next stage should be a left Labour government following Bennite policies. You can't jump from the Callaghan government to a perfect revolutionary position. You've got to go through a spectrum of left wing opinion...

It's easy to popularise that question of Britain needing to step out of that once people realise that it isn't our own defence -we don't even control Polaris, it's targetted- by the Americans . when you make the point that we are just being used as the front line by the United States. It gets much more complicated when you get onto this question of how would a radical socialist government organise its defence.

Isn't there a danger here of falling into the same trap as the Left has fallen into before? If you talk to a lot of people on the Left about the AES, they say: 'Yes, it isn't too wonderful, but we should get these issues over to people as a first step'. Isn't there a danger you just take it a stage further with control of capital and getting out of NATO, and in five years' time you'll be saying, 'We didn't make it clear enough. That wasn't convincing...

I think there is a major difference in terms of control of capital and being outside of NATO. It's not just a slight shift along the spectrum to the left, il is the fundamental point at which you cross the major divide that takes you outside of Western capital. And I don't think it's going to be that easy to achieve that. You are saying to the Labour Party that the time has come to make a break with the existing system.

Clearly, if we had done these things, there would still be other problems. But I do think you've got to go through those changes to be aware of what the problems are at the second stage. You can start to construct a theoretical case about what the next stage of problems and the next things to go on to are, but it is such a massive transformation in those very simple phrases...

In an interview two years ago, you said that you saw a left wing GLC as a sort of mini first run for a left wing Labour government. In the light of this Tory victory, how would you see the GLC's strategy now?

i we had elected a government on this manifesto, and it had carried it out, it would have had most probably worse problems even than the Labour GLC has had.

The GLC has a very limited range of responsibilities and powers, and nothing that the Labour GLC does challenges the structure of society. It raises issues, it promotes campaigns, it makes small shifts in wealth - they're all things that a Thatcher government could live with if the truth were told.

In a way we are a trial run for what that sort of government would have been, but we are not a trial run for the sort of election that I'm talking about now. A Labour government elected on that basis would be in a position to actually transform society. No Labour GLC, whatever basis it is elected on, is in a position to transform society.

Join LABOUR Local government is not going to bring down central government. It never has been a possibility. At the end of the day you run into the problem that if you openly try and challenge the law. your officers won't carry out your instructions. A Labour government elected on the sort of programme I'm talking about is in a position to transform society in a way that no Labour GLC is.

So you see the GLC's strategy for the next five years as essentially a straight contination of the last two years?

Our problem is that we are in a position of responding to what the Tories do. Were not in a position of being able to initiate, because we aren't in a position to mobilise the sort of forces required. You come back to what's always been the case - without the trade unions mobilised benind the Labour Party locally or nationally, there's a very limited amount you can do.

What are your ideas our Party leadership?

We've got to wait to see if there is a left candidate. I've heard that Heffer may stand. But I think we've got to make it quite clear that if there isn't a left candidate, and we've got to choose between candidates of the right like Hattersley and Kinnock, then there should be no support for any candidate without a firm commitment against witch-hunts and purges and without a firm commitment to support the existence of re-selection and the electoral college. I don't care which of the right-wing candidates gives those commitments: that will be the candidate who should have the support of the left if there isn't a left candidate.

AGAINST THE WITCHHIIN* Party affiliates, and individuals.

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For the first time ever, a smaller proportion of women than of men voted tory - little thanis to Labour's campaign effort leaflet, going little further than a appreciated being given leaflets few anti-Tory comments and aimed specifically at them.

"accident" in Peckham. A canvasses — particularly useful leaflet was drafted by some on estates durins the dav. where YOU'D never have from following the campaign that the Party fought this with its best policies en yet.

After long battles to develop Labour's awareness of the needs of its women members and electors, we've won the token paper commitments, but still no life behind supporting them. Except, that is, where women were strong enough to organise and make an impact on local campaigns.

There were 76 women standing for Labour in this election, and in some places, this helped shape and balance the local campaign.

Yet the successes of the women candidates in themselves betray Labour's tokenism. Of the candidates, ten were elected, only 16 came second, and 49 were in third place, with one fourth. Women generally were allowed a look-in in the unwinnable seats, doing the donkey work - but where there's a chance of success, that's still men's work! . Faced with the task of making Labour's policies known, (after all, how many voters get to read a party manifesto?) many parties produced leaflets to put the point across.

Many of these leaflets seem to have met with unfortunate "accidents". . Women from the London women's Committee produced a leaflet, only to find when it came back from the printers that the centre pages had disappeared, taking with them the best bits of the politics and leaving a much weaker 16 1983 guessed national on womLabour promises.

There was women from the women's sections, together with the candidate, Harriet Harman.

Left in the hands of the candidate and the agent to be sent to the printers, the leaflet came back totally watered down, unrecognisable and late.

The Nottingham East agent eventually agreed to produce a women's leaflet, but saw fit to lot it ha daaalinatad er i ve upucarea, ana very badly at that.

When women's leaflets were handed out, though, the response was generally very good. At Bethnal Green's 'Play Day', in Peckham market places, in Manchester shopping centres, in Cardiff, women obviously to all As well as leafleting, many similar areas organised women's women on their own in the house are often scared to open the door - and the increase in women's membership of the Party seems to have brought more women out canvassing with wards.

To help women get out, Cardiff organised creches, one all day on polling day.

The most imaginative campaign seems to have been run by Rochdale, where Val Broom was standing for Labour.

Their women's leaflet, produced by the women's section, was distributed throughout local hospitals and schools, often through shop stewards.

It was also given out in the town, at nursery schools and playgroups.

One of the playgroups Val lets THERE are 13 Tory women in the new Parliament, five of them there for the first time. And it's good to know that most of them will be following in the traditions of their leader.

Edwina Currie, MP for Derby South, has always admired Mrs. T. "We both have the same birthday, we both went to Oxford on scholarships, and both our fathers had shops" she told the Observer.

They have even more. in common: 'I think she has made it easier for women in politics to be both ladylike and aggressive. I am both, and so is she."

She believes that only incompetent women believe 'women's rights' They also follow the Thatcher line on the wonders of traditional family life. Ann Winterton, NOW is the time to check whether your Constituency Labour Party (CLP) is one of the many entitled to send an extra woman delegate to Conference.

The advantages of sending an extra woman delegate are clear.

It's not just a question of preventing Labour Party Conference from being as male-dominated as most other Labour Party meetings. Reporting back how many women members the union has, but there are two ways you can estimate female membership.

Any trade union affiliation fee over £5 (the minimum) can be broken down to give the total number of members affiliated. You can then estimate what proportion are likely to be women (depending on the union), and arrive at a number

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your extra Jenny Fisher

PHOTO: JOHN HARRIS PHOTO.