BANGING THE DRUM of morality and Christian virtues, Keith Joseph tossed in his bid for the Tory leadership last weekend.
Intent on curdling the blood of the retired colonels and the country vicars he raved on about Teenage pregnancies, "sexual offences", 'drunkenness" and 'crimes of sadism surprisingly enough a certain Lord of Janie Jones fame did not get a single mention!
Casting his eye towards the legions who support The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child and the Festival of Light he relerred to that bigot and philistine Mary Whitehouse, as that admirable woman'.
Careful not to ignore the racists he said: The balance of population, our human stock is threatened..."
Present day Britain -where hundreds of thousands of workers still get less than £25 a week, where the Health Service, the education system, and the public housing sector, are all tottering on the brink of collapse, and inflation is cutting into workers living Standards at around 20 per cent a year-was described by Joseph as the "New Utopia'.
Joseph's supporters in the Tory Party must have stuck their heads between their hands and reached for the aspirins when they read the speech, His opponents no doubt spent the day in heady self-congratulation.
It is one thing to lean back in your West End Cluh having alcoholic and nostalgic dreams about British capitalism's glorious imperial past. Those were the days when a massive empire and an industrial supremacy enabled the ruling class to treat the working class with contempt and, what's more, openly express their contempt. But today, these dinosauric figures have to remain in their clubs. When they come out with such a line in public it does nothing but damage to the Tories.
Heath with his confrontationist policies lost the February election. Compared to Joseph's latest ravings the Tory election policies of February look quite mild.
The dominant section of British capitalism the industrial wing was against Joseph's call for deflation and high unemployment. It fears both the economic and political consequences of such a policy. Now his new tirade makes him an electoral liability in their book Joseph's outbursts show the deepgoing political crisis of the ruling class, and its main political party. This has produced a situation where the Tory leaders are 'sadistically savaging each other and political "licentiousness" runs rife. No wonder the "human stock' of the Tories is threatened.
Bob Pennington ten deys before the election, edly went to the Liberals. But the Dear Red Weekly, SIONE members of an opprissed nationality of a backward capitalist nationalism. note the existence of a national questween his class and his nationality.
WHO PUT DOWN THE TYNESIDE FASCISTS?
We were disappointed to read in last week's Hebburn Trades Council and of South Red Weekly your comment on the National Front, that in South Shields "their vote fell disastrously mainly to the Liberals. with no mention of the campaign waged in the ares by the South Tyneside AntiAs reported in a previous issue of Red Weekly, a highly successtul public meet ing was orgunised in South Shields agsinst the National Front, which raised C3Б This money was used to produce leaflets, 33,000 of which were distributed in the The swing of 63.7% in South Shields against the Front was the highest in the country. Some of these votes undoubtprime cause of the swing wes the activity of the anti-fascist committee, which en sured that every elector in the constituency had the opportunity to find out the real nature of the Front, The antifascist committee was broadly based in the local labour and student movement.
It received the support of Jarrow and SCOTLAND AND THE ELECTIONS I must take issue with the misrepresentstions and confusions in Colin McPherson's under the imperialist State. Insofar as article Parliament useless in London or Edinburgh" (Red Weekly. 3 October).
His explanation for Labour's loss of support to the Scottish National Party only reinforces the inability of the labour movement to get to grips with the basic problems of the Scottish working class which is at the root not only of defections to the SNP but of the very emergence of Had the labour movement set itself to end the national oppression of the Scots people, those sections of the Scots peop mittees and other le now awakening to their subjection as would not now be driven into the arms Insofar as Colin McPherson fails to son, let alone to site it in its proper place licensed only to beg. as an integral pert of the class struggle, he encourages the prevailing criminal illusion has to choose bet Our chronic social problems are the Shieids Trades Council.
We feel that our experience in South Shields should be an encouragement to other anti-fascist militants in areas where the Front are present. We refused to be LETTERS Red Weekly welcomes letters from our readers, but contribut ions longer than 400 words may be cut at the Editor's discretion.
product of the neglect of our country the SNP opposes imperialism fat any rate in Scotland), though not capitalism- their country anywey because it was pub a position untenable in the 20th century world of international capitalism- it appears to offer an answer, it appears to offer national freedom. The Labour Party does not even appear to oppose either capitalism or imperialism.
So what does Colin McPherson propose? Well, he tentatively suggests an Assembly called by the STUC 'with delegates from factories, tenents com working class organisations' - and then he withdraws the idea before he burns his fingers, Very sensible. We've had assemblies summo ned by the STUC bureaucracy before, and, not surprisingly, they were unrep resentative, class-collaborationist, and ence of oil and oil-related industry work. ers. Does Colin McPherson then believe that oil is the mystery ingredient of the put off by many who claimed that we would only be giving publicity to the Front and so assisting their electoral inter vention. We feel that, for the time being at least, the Front have suffered a severe setback to their attempts to gain a foot hold in the North East.
But no-one should feel complacent about the ability of the Front to re-emerge If they are given the opportunity. Alter the result was announced in South Shields, the Frone's humiliated candidafe William Owen and his accomplices showed their roal faces by clicking their heels and giv ing the Nazi salute in the Town Hall, A great deal of time and peinstaking effort went into this anti-fascist campeign.
When the Front do not hold public meet ings or demonstrations, it requires in many weys a much more comprehensive campaign to combet them. The committee still hes to cover its electoral expenses, and any contributions from your readers would be wermly appreciated. Please and them to: South Tyneside AntiFascist Committee, People's Place, Derby Terrace, South Shields, Tyne & Weer MIKE PEEL and DAVE CARTER.
SNP? The significance of oil is merely that it wipes away the national inferiority complex so long sustained by the chauvinist assertion that the Scots could not run sidised from Landon.
Colin McPherson's conference will not therefore halt the SNP advance any more than it could, by itself, meet the sociat needs of the Scots working people. Nevertheless, such a conference, raising the de mands that comrade McPherson outlingsin the context of (1 progressive national isation without compensation, under workers' control at all levels, of all industries, including Scots warkers' oil; and (2) the creation of workers' councils of trade union ists in every place of work and the direct election of delegates from these councils, Dy-pessing the burcaucrats of the STUC, to a Soots Workers Council would place the Scots working class on the road towards the solution of its problems, towards the build NORMAN EASTON (Press Office, Scottis Workers Republican Party)
BRITISH LEYLAND-An Economic Report", pomphlet on the background
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TRADES COUNCIL STOP PROPERTY SPECULRTION MPLAIRC succeaded in causing ten times as nich obstruction as before without giving the coppers a lag to stand on.
No, comrade McPherson retreats to 'a ing of world socialism through the medium much more modest venture like a confer- of a future Scots Workers' Republic.
Probin Police moved in again last Saturaay on the Islington tenants" picket outside Prebble's the estate agents. They threatened to arrest everyone unless they got moving, but this time the picketers refused to be intimidated and simply paraded round instead. This