the table for the TUC leaders in his bid to gain acceptance for Phase Two of Labour's incomes policy The cards are all marked: the first, "unemployment down to 600,000'; the second, inflation is falling rapdily; the third, 'you will get it all back in tax anyway.
The TUC leaders are sweating, as well they might, for the cards are all face down. They refuse to call Healey's bluff. Let's see what's in his hand.
Trick One: unemployment
down to 600,000'. By a strange coincidence, this happens to be just the figure which the TUC considers to be an acceptable level of unemployment. Murray now feels the Government and TUC have unity on this point. The only snag, however, is that the Chancellor has refused to give any date for this promised land of only 600,000 workers on the scrap heap.
Denis Healey wrote a letter to the International Monetary Fund late last year, going down on his penacts for a loan. in it ne nad te admit that production would continue to fall until the end of 1976. The annual rate of growth would then start to rise by about 2.5 per cent.
At this rate it will be 1981 before unemployment drops to the TUC's reasonable' level of 600,000. By that time most experts reckon that Britain will be in the throes of another slump throwing even more out of work!
The Labour Government has done nothing to halt unemployment. The measures announced in Parliament last week were denounced by Tory Peter Walker as 'trivial and unimportant", and for once we have to agree with him. The only function of these measures is to reduce unemployment by 70,000, to prevent the dole queues from topping the one and a half million mark in early summer.
Healey is rubbing his eyes in disjob loss, but thinks that if unemployment tops the 'magic figure' the TUC leadership could be brushed aside by the revolt from below. This is the cynicism of the Labour leaders who shed crocodile tears over unemployment but whose only answer is to set more of the youth to work at degrading and meaningless jobs like clearing beaches and counting road signs.
Trick Two: 'inflation is falling rapidly'. The magic figure that is being bandied around by the press for inflation is now 13.6 per cent. Most workers, taking a quick look a at these papers, must think perhaps they re not doing too badly. After all, Healey said he would reduce the rate of inflation to single figures by autumn, and when he introduced the f6 limit inflation was running at 26.1 per cent.
This figure, however, is nothing but a con! The Sunday Times gave the real story: "The index is still 23.4 per cent above the January 1975 level.' The 13.6 per cent magic figure of the press is simply "the rate of increase over the last six months' (Sunday Times, 15 February). Needless to say, the press have never found it convenient to use this method before. The true fact is that workers' wages and salaries, old age pensions, student grants and other state benefits have been eaten up by 23.4 per cent in one year.
And Healey's 'new deal' proposes to keep down wage rises to SIX PER CENT!
Trick Three: 'you will get it back in tax anyway'. This is the trump card Healey has been keeping up his sleeve. He is trying to give the impression that he will return the difference between a 6 per cent limit and the previous £6 in the form of tax allowances.
This way, he claims, costs for the bosses will be kept down and no-one will suffer. It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? It is the biggest bluff of all!
under the present limit. keal earnings have already fallen by six percent since the £6 limit was introduced and will continue to fall. In addition, the Government will not be allowed by the IMF to decrease its tax revenue. In fact, to meet the conditions will have to increase tax revenue by about 15 percent.
money? It cannot come from big business, because the Government 'well, icy to boost profitability, not as corporation tax. Therefore it will have to come either from taxes levied on the working class Workers are already suffering commitments.
of getting a loan, the Government So where is it going to find the tive.
is committed by its Chequers poldecrease it through such measures on such things as food, tobacco and other "luxuries' (giving inflation The call for a special Labour Party conference on unemployment will be on the agenda of this month's meeting of the party's National Executive Committee.
This revelation came as the Tribune Group of MPs announced that they were in favour of a recall party conference. Although their paper, Tribune, was silent on the question, the MPs claimed that they would be launching a nationwide campaign. They appealed to Constituency Labour Parties and trade union branches to support this demand. Later last week, the Group's chairman Arthur Latham was reported in the Morning Star as saying that the Tribune Group was pressing for 'controlled reflation' and that the conference should 'bring the Government into line with its Manifesto Red Weekly welcomes the call for this conference by the Tribune Group. The decisions at both the TUC and Labour Party conferences last year, giving support to the Government's economic policies, are used by all the bureaucrats to justify their lack of fight. By presenting these decisions as the authentic voice of the working class, the whole labour movement is tied ball and chain to the Chequers agreement putting profitability first at the expense of jobs, wages and social services.
However the Tribune Group, by calling for a return to the Manifesto commitments, will not provide any way forward for workers who want to fight against the policies of Wilson and Healey. Whether the "lefts" like it or not, what lay at the centre of the Manifesto was the commitment to the social contract peddled so assiduously by these so-called leaders.
The call for a Labour Party conference based on such policies cannot mobilise the enthusiasm and fighting energy required to bring the Labour leadership to account. Only an independent fight by the labour movement based on unflinching opposition to present Government policies, support for every struggle against them (such as that of the miners), and centred around demands for workers control of industry can provide this perspecIn addition the Tribunites continue to peddle the illusion that their 'pressure' can force Wilson, Healey and their co-thinkers to change course. The 'lefts' know full well that this is not the case. Wilson, Healey and Varley have made it absolutely clear that their commitment is to restoring the ailing fortunes of British capitalism. If the lefts are serious about changing the course of the Labour Government they should directly challenge the Wilson-Healey clique both in Parliament - where instead they have voted for social service cuts and the sacking of 8,300 Chrysler workers - and in the Labour Party and trade unions.
With astonishing contempt for their membership, Hugh Scanlon of the