Tories' stiff lip upper

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Miners step O.K., Norman, but if you stitch us up like this, how can we get our hands on our members to From front page ular cutbacks in the NHS. Election pledges to scrap metropolitan councils which the Tories cannot control and cap rates have brought divisions and arguments among Tory councillors.

And perhaps at the forefront of the thinking of many conference delegates - there have been the recent scandals: the revelation of the extent of fascist infiltration of the Tories already heavily racist ranks, and the public flaunting of the Mary Whitehouse "morality" espoused by so many Tory landlords and landladies by none other than boy-wonder Cecil Parkinson.

What else was there to do, therefore, other than resort to the old stiff upper lip, and comeout with a grim mixture of paperthin good humour and traditional Tory red-baiting, bloodthirsty tub-thumping from the Blackpool rostrum?

A SCOTTISH miners' area conference this Tuesday, 11th; voted to call for a Scotland-wide one-day strike next Monday, 17th.

The strike will be in solidarity with the miners at Monktonhall colliery, who are in their fourth week on strike against the rundown of their, pit and who lobbied the area conference, 300Home Secretary Leon Brittan, wiping the egg from his face after the fiasco of the hanging debate, came through with some of the goods: a pledge of heavier-handed prison sentences - but the conference was disappointed not to get more promises of violent reprisals.

Environment Secretary Patrick Jenkin hit more of the right note when he bemoaned the fact that in Thatcher's wasteland Britain, so many voters are low paid or on social security that they receive rate rebates: yet their views still influence decisions.

Reactionaries

"In some areas it is only a small minority of the voters who pay full rates - too few to influence elections.

«Conversely many households have votes, but pay no rates because they are on rebates or get social security." ;

And, to the usual audience of well-heeled and assorted reactionstrong.

The area conference also rejected the Coal Board's pay offer, and decided to press at the National Union of Mineworkers' special national conference on Friday 21st for an overtime ban on the issue. Scottish area president Mick McGahey said that Continued on page 15 aries, Jenkin waxed eloquent about: "councils hi-jacked by Marxists" " who can be defeated not through the ballot box but only by centralised government decree.

There is little doubt that the conference can only be retrieved from the brink of disaster by a consistent resort to such rabblerousing by the Tory leadership.

An indication of the mood delegates is that the topic of immigration controls has been forced onto the agenda against the wishes of Central Office -and is likely to provide a prominent platform. for the National Front-style policies of Billericay's ultra-right MP Harvey Proctor.

Though Thatcher is likely to escape any serious disturbance in the conference itself, the lengthy standing ovation she can look for ward to on Friday will do nothing to resolve the externat problems which have helped push the Tory leadership into its present disarray.

Group : August, Sept and October 20.50 26.00 An i nn 205.47 53.30 58.00 28.25 88.50 48.60 44.50 79.50 390.94 THANKS this week to: a Cardiff reader £40; Glasgow supporters/ £10; Alan Johnson, Manchester, £5; Steve Hall. £5.

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INSIDE The solid rank and file response which there has been to the clear calls to action from the new leadership is an indication of what can be achieved. Yet the special conference censure of Editorial - page 2 the new executive for its refusal to renominate Golding to Labour's NEC is a stark warning of the need to continually inform and educate the rank and file right across the union if the right wing are not to chop away at the control of the Broad Left.

The left must continue to turn outwards to the rank and file at every engineering centre and exchange,.. and build active links with militants in other trade unions and the labow movement as a whole, to prepare a basé of support for the sharper struggles to come when the law • is- invoked, and the struggle spreads beyond London.

And the executive must take the initiative in spreading the struggle. The hard fact is "that Project Mercury and privatisation will not be defeated without national all-out strike action.

It may be difficult to build up to that national action: the level of militancy in the union is uneven. *But that must be the perspective.

Boldness British Telecom and the Mercury bosses have taken the initiative to escalate the dispute. The POEU leadership must match that boldness -calling out big city areas on a Jarge scale.

And if the executive falters, the Broad Left meeting for its AGM this Saturday - must not go the same way. It must map out a militant course, organise the rank and file, and keep up the

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Miners s up fight

bu Stockport dispute, p.1