The £1,000 million package of cuts imposed by Denis Healey is only half the real figure. This has been revealed in evidence presented to the Commons Committee on Public Expenditure by the Civil and Public Services Association [CPSA] and the Society of Civil and Public Servants (SCPS], and based on an assessment of what the 'cash limits" system introduced earlier this year will mean for the expenditure programme.
when introduced. the cisn mits were based on me treasury s official estimate that inflation would have been brought down to below 10 per cent by the end of this year. The fall in the & has forced the Treasury to revise its figures. But needless to say, no appropriate modification of the cash limit ceilings has been announced.
The evidence presented by the CPSA and SCS argues that, based on the real inflation rate, a failure to modify the celings would mean a 2.8 per cent cut in planned expenditure. The effect of a 2.8 per cent cut would be the loss of some £800 million.
The unions argue that this is still not the true picture. The labour movement is not entitled to information on the full range of Treasury secrets. They argue that as 'a matter of urgency" the Treasury must be instructed to publish the facts.
These revelations should give a real impetus to the fight for the labour movement to conduct its own enquiry into the social services. Such an enquiry would be the first step in mapping out a programme to fight for social services based on the needs of the working class. It would include the demand for the restoration of all cuts and the protection of future spending against the effects of inflation by ensuring automatic increases to keep pace with the increasing costs.
It would also give a major impetus to a campaign of mass action against the cuts as spelt out in Composite 26, passed at this year's Labour Party Conference. The Composite supported those Labour Councils refusing to implement cuts, and called on others to follow suit. Already Brighton Labour Party has called a Sussex-wide Cuts Conference to lay the basis for a campaign to by the local Council. movement.
local enquiries. Conference. task is possible. implement Composite 26. Similar moves are underway in Gwent.
suen conterences snoule take mne lencirom Conference against the cuts sponsored by the Labour Party and involving some 50 Labour Party and trade union delegates in Bury. The Conference decided to set up a local workers enquiry into the cuts to build on the success already achieved there in keeping open three institutions due to be closed as a result of cuts Such enquiries would base themselves on evidence from the working class and put forward plans for services based on need. They would report on the attitude and voting record of all labou movement leaders, from MPs and councillors to shop steward and union officials. All councillors sitting on Area and Region Health Authorities etc. should be forced through a campaign of mass action to expose the plans of these bodies to the labou The basis would then be laid for any labou movement leaders supporting the cuts to be removed and replaced by those prepared to base themselves on the findings of But the campaign against the cuts cannot be limited to the local level. Already some leaders of the public sector unions are attempting to get themselves off the hook from building a rational response after 17 November by arguing for local action NURE'S Alan Fisner spent unis out aline Labour rar The figures exposed by the CPSA and the SCPS show that th task before us is to build on the local activity to promote a NATIONAL CAMPAIGN OF MASS ACTION to reverse cuts. This means both forcing Labour MPs to vote against cut and a campaign of rolling industrial action spearheaded by public sector unions until the cuts are restored. The thousands of workers who will be on the streets on 17 November show that this Denis Healey's claim that the lefts lost Walsall and Workington for Labour ments in Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.
came in Newcastle, where they managed to beat the Tory into third place bound to win popular support.
that the Tories have begun to win back - at least in England Labour Government.
bureaucracy and the Social Contract is seriously questioned.
MPs have behaved in the most unprincipled fashion. The By-By Labour Elections?
was as inevitable as it was wrong. Nor were the results a mandate for the Labour Government to pursue tougher cuts, as the press boasted. On the contrary, the election results are further proof of the massive disillusionment of Labour voters with Callaghan and Healey's anti-working class policies. They parallel the downfall of rightist social democratic governThe by-elections did not only reveal the confusion which Labour's policies and the lack of a clear alternative have created in the working class. For the Liberals they were a disaster. Their only crumb of comfort This merely revealed the fact that anybody who seems to be seriously prepared to resolve the chaos created by the corrupt and inefficient Labour Party controlled local government machine in the North East is Elsewhere they were decimated by the Tories. This is proof positive substantial middle class base they lost when Heath was tumbled from power in February 1974. With the re-integration of Heath's policies at the last Tory Conference and the healing over of their massive divisions of the last two years, they now appear a credible, if weak, alternative to the This does not mean that the ruling class will pull out all the stops to bring down the Labour Government, as the apologists for the left MPs' inaction would have us believe. The Labour Government will retain their support until its ability to control the working class through the union But the Labour Government is in a precarious state. It has only a one seat majority in the House of Commons, and relies heavily on the two Scottish Labour MPs and Irish MPs Gerry Fitt and Frank Maguire. Already Maguire has threatened to withhold support from the Government over the treatment of Irish Republican prisoners in British jails. But the SLP
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