I DON'T think the Tories have much cause i for satisfaction. They have claimed a series of successes for a strategy that was designed to avoid the calamities which befell the Heath government.
The deflection of the general strike threat in South Wales öyer jobs; the removal of Derek obstacle in British Leyland; and the decisions of some local and one national trade union body to oppose action on 14 May have been examples of a policy designed to split the working class and sap its tremendous organisational strength.
while real, have to be set against the fact that 14 May will be a massive display of working strength; that the cost for the Tories of not entering into conflict with powerful sections of the working class, such as the miners, has been a rate of wage increases that has kept abreast of intlation; that the Treasury has been forced to mark. up public sector wage costs to 25 per cent in the public expenditure estimates, and that the principal aim of Tory strategy against the working class in the first year - smashing some of the weaker sections was confounded by the great struggle of the steelworkers.
The steelworkers' strike sums up the situation very well. Tories' steelworkers as a lesson to the rest of the working class was frustrated; but the steelworkers did not win a settlement that was in any way adequate They were sold out.
the Tories have admitted that their attempts to secure a more solid alliance between the West European powers and US imperialism have been a series of blunders. Only in Zimbabwe have the Tories any cause for satisfaction, but even they realise the political stabilisation of the country is of a temporary character.
The labour movement has resisted major defeats, but it has not scored any major victories either. The greatest threat facing movement today is the danger that the international crisis is used to convince the British people over a period of years that they must be ready to die in wars to preserve British profits abroad and accept austerity as the price of increasing profits here.
There is a pacificist tradition British labour movement which can be led in an anti-imperialist direction that's why Labour Party demonstration called against the Cruise missiles on 22 June is so important. It is the most significant call to have come from the Labour Party for years.
Since the predictable success of the left at the -Labour Party conference following the election, and then over the terms of reference and composition of the commission or inqulry into the Labour Party, I think that the performance of the party must be disappointing to many of its HECTOCS.
The of the Parliamentary Labour Party has, of course, beed; scandalous. The right-wing leaders have aided the Tories in their attacks on the trade unions — Eric Varley's speech supporting state-financing Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 8