Gang Never mind the ballots
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-06-23Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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like the NEDC.
should do so.
we can and should prepare for it.
The Tories didn't win the election - we SDP split). The labour movement can still government to a standstill where it matters.
Chile Solidarity Campaign:
129 Seven Sisters Rd, London N7 7QG.
(01-272 4298) NEWS THAT striking ABS lost it (partly because of the téchnicians are threatening to fight this reactionary Tory black out live coverage of the Kinnock-Hattersley election will come as a shattering blow to readers.
This contest, in the best tradition of British sporting greats, brings innocent pleasure to pensioners, pundits, and Tories of every type.
Now the ABS are demanding the right to triple expenses if they have to listen to one more Hattersley speech, threatening to put the mockers on this contest.
This promised to be one of the great sporting contests since Syperbrat Tony Benn has been sidelined for calling Party leaders names.
Sick R
Now these ABS criminals expect us to listen to the election on Radio 3 medium wave.
What a sick comment on our union bosses.
How much better if they would follow Frank Chapple's ad vice and demand that the TV coverage go on - but the electior be cancelled.
Chapple knows that these things are done better in the SDP.
How refreshing to have one union leader, at least, not afraid to say what the ordinary average Fleet Street editor is thinking..
There is just one word to sum up Roy Jenkins - statesmanlike. After his great triumph at Hillhead and his victory in leading the SDP into second place almost everywhere, he had the good grace to step aside.
Hideous
And what follows? Do we get one of these hideous slanging matches like in the Labour Party, where everyone stabs each other in the back? No. We get a calm handing over of power to Dr David Owen, the man who knows the sunken Belgrano when he sees one. One person, one vote, and Roy's the one person.
As for Chapple himself. How many people does he have to béat to become chairman of the TUC? Quite.
Only last week the Queen gave her personal stamp of approval to the SDP style of leadership in a veiled way by sending a message of congratulations to Yuri Andropor of the Soviet Union.
Yuri has just been elected president. But did you have to see 15 rounds of gruelling contest first? Did you have the unseemly sight of Politburo members calling each other revisionist swine at party conferences in front of TV cameras? Of course not. Even the reds know how to do these things with dignity. Only the Labour Party doesn't.
Mob The Queen sent her congratulations. It was a veiled way of saying well done Roy and David to the two men who should have had Labour's seats in the House of Commons if only we had an electoral system which completely outlawed lefties from sitting in parliament at all.
So why is it the Labour Party has to tear itself apart in public just so they can claim they have 'democratic accountability' That's the logic of the mob.
Besides, we can tear the Labour Party to pieces perfectly adequately without wasting time on So get those ABS sods back to work. Let's have a lot more TV spectaculars on the Labour Party and a lot less of this voting nonsense. without a job, the prospects are bleaker than they have ever been.
It is not the basic message of the Party that is wrong, far from it, the problem is one of leadership and credibility.
The Parliamentary Party must understand that the battles against the Tories will not only not be won in Parliament, they will not be understood at all if the obsession with Parliamentary games continues.
The new Labour MPs met for the first time on Wednesday after the election defeat and after hearing from Michael Foot and Dennis Healey we were then treated to & nauseating discussion about the election of a speaker; the choice of Tory clothing manufacturer Bernard Weatherill was portrayed as some sort of 'victory' for the back bench opinion and this Parliamentary "matter" was then dispensed with by Jim Callaghan taking his place as "father" of the House.
To those of us sent to Parliament to fight against the ravages of mass unemployment and for a socialist system it all seemed a million miles away.
However, the Campaign Group of Labour MPs looks like being bigger than in the last Parliament, is committed to weekly meetings and to building and developing the closest possible links with the constituency and trade union lefts; our job is to be fighting, working and organising outside Parliament to defeat the Tory government, expose the crass hypocrisy of the SDP and rebuild our
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