Right wing ammo for the media

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Join LABOUR AGAINSȚ THE WITCHHUN' 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 12 noon, Camden Town Hall, Judd St. entrance. candidate for Woolwich There were two principal causes for the defeat. One was that most of those running the campaign simply weren't in sympathy with the policies on which they were running, and it showed. The manifesto wasn't put across in a credible manner.

They accepted the manifesto, but they either had no intention, or were incapable, of running a campaign on it.

This was compounded by the fact that it was very much a television election, and all attention focussed on our leader. Leaving all other more complex matters aside, whoever designed Michael Foot's programme really needs serious examination.

So on every level, from the level of the merest question of competence right through to the key politics, it was a disaster.

On defence, they didn't even succeed in capitalising on the fact that the majority of. the population doesn't want Cruise.

If the local campaigns had been run at that level of competence, then we would have finished up with no MPs! The fact is that, certainly in my area, you had a contrast between a really hard-working local campaign and every possible clanger dropped nationally.

I've heard it said that the Labour Party is grief stricken, and I think that's true. I hope that as well as being griefstricken it's also very, very angry.

We're in a bad position. At a deeper level, I think that there has been both lack of political education in Britain, and miseducation by the ruling elements in the Labour Party, for many, many years. It takes an awful lot of overcoming.

People reacted best to the defence of the Health Service. Other socialist policies we haven't been so successful with. I think it's partly because we haven't really listened — we've gone in too much for experts and not enough for the people at the receiving end. Jerry Hughes, secretary Labour Against the Witch Hunt and political assistant, London Region Co-Op committee The results of the general election in London disguise the details of how local Labour parties fought the campaign, and the significance of this for a future Labour victory.

In the four constituencies in which I worked, the Labour Party presented the electorate with a socialist candidate standing firmly on party policies, at no point trying to fudge the manifesto. In all (Ealing North, North Westminster, Hornsey and Wood Green, and Hackney North and Stoke Newington) the party did not rely on the 'traditional Labour vote'. '. On the doorsteps, on high streets and in public meetings, the party argued "the case for socialist policies. Publicity material not only took up local issues, but related these to the national fight against Thatcher and for • Listen Accompanying the candidates in each constituency, I found voters wanting to know what Labour policies really were, and a willingness to listen and more often than not to be persuaded.

The national election campaign influenced the individual constituencies through the media, and through visits of the national leaders. Neither can be said to have helped the campaign.

In Ealing North, North Westminster, and Hornsey and Wood Green, canvassing revealed a high number of undecided voters. These people were doubtless helped to their final decision by the party's national projection. They saw a leadership that was unsure of its policies and unclear in its delivery.

The media found leading Labour figures providing them with ammunition to attack the party. At the local level, Dennis Healey waffled in a speech in Ealing North, and Michael Foot never quite made his appointment in Hornsey.

The general election found constituency Labour Parties willing to fight a vigorous and committed socialist campaign that could win support. We have got a strong grass-roots organisation in many constituencies. What we need urgently is a party leadership and National Executive Committee equally committed and positive.

We need now a party leadership that fights the Tories with as much determination as the old leadership attacked the members and policies of its own party.

ABOUR

bèing prime minister.

So obviously the leadership of the Labour Party is important. The other lesson that we've got to learn is that if we're going to have policies which are different from the past, like unilateralism, then we've got to have two or three years at least campaigning hard for them, as a party, in a unified way.

We found no end of people who said they weren't going to vote for us because of our defence policy -_ and the Common Market, too: they were afraid that they were going to lose their jobs if we pulled out of the Common Market. There just hadn't been the kind of campaign that would offset those fears.

On the Labour Party leadership - we have a problem that the Parliamentary Labour party is not as left wing as we hoped it would be. I don't think there's the slightest possibility that we could get anyone of the hard left elected in the present circumstances. My own view is that it's obviously going to be between Shore and Hattersley and Kinnock, and I think it's in the interests of the whole • left that we support Kinnock, although it may go against the grain with us because of his role on the National Executive. Party affiliates, and individuals.

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Organiser no.137 1983 Page CLPD

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AGAINST THE WITCH-HUNT!