Camden Tribune issue 3

Labour’s Independent Voice for Democratic Socialism |

ELECTION FALL-out

* Labour's renewal must geon

The 1987 General Election, Labour's third defeat in a row, contained many paradoxes. We ran an outStanding campaign, yet received our second lowest share of the vote since 1918. We made spectacular gains in Scotland, yet lost seats in London and the South East.

* Appeal

Labour's appeal on specific issues - health, education, housing - was a potent

“force which worried Tory Central Office every time the gap in the polls narrowed. Yet, despite Labour's popularity on these issues, we were undoubtedly dogged by an unfavourable 'image' - an image of divisions, on incdpeytence, and of the "loony left".

x Choice

We made inroads into the Conservative ideology of "choice". Increasingly

Labour challenges the myth that we are

the Party of uniformity and lack of choice, but we have much further to go. We must reassert our Party as the Party of freedom. We must recognise the extent of the "consumer revolution", and the popular desire for real and effective choice.

* Monoliths

This has important implications for the

way Labour runs some local authorities. As long as we run bureaucratic monoliths controlled from the Town Hall (no matter

how well-meaning or 'left-wing' they are) local people will not want to defend

local services. Badly managed local services undermine people's faith in collective provision. Well managed local services enhance ande develop individual choice and individual freedom.

In some parts of the country this is better understood than others. In the North and Scotland 57% of the working-class voted Labour; in the south-east only 28%. Yet only 32% of working-class owner~occupiers (as against 57% of Council tenants) voted for

us - Labour's image once again let us down. ¥ Debate

The defeat of June 1987 will properly be followed by a period of debate and reflection within the Party - demographic change, policy, constitutional issues, the "London factor" will all be discussed by the Party. We must start now to analyse how our Party can appeal to the 2/3rds of the PO pulation who chose not to vote for us.

We must develop the Party as a mass \ campaigning organisation, a Party whtch enthuses as well as a party which listens.| Laying the basis for victory in 1991 starts now.

Martin Plaut Chair

Gareth Smyth Newsletter editor

ee

’ Labour's renewal in the wake of the General Election result.

* view from the new House of Commons

* the financial crisis in the inner-London authorities

* the "London factor"

- can it be turned to Labour's advantage ?

If you would like to write for Camden Tribune or help with its production, please don't hesitate to contact Gareth Smyth, newsletter co-ordinator, on 482 1583.

| THE GHRIS SMITH COLUMN

N ELECTION night, I was euphoric. In Islington South, against

one of the strongest SDP challenges in the country, we had won — with an increased majority, an increased share of a much larger poll, anda Labour vote that had gone up by nearly 25 per cent.

It was only gradually that the full horror of what was happening around the rest of England began to sink in. Seat after seat that we should have gained remaining resolutely in Tory hands. Good friends and comrades like Alf Dubs and Nick

_ Raynsford going down to

undeserved defeat. Above all, the need to adjust our minds to the cold unlovely reality of another term of rampant Thatcherism.

Why did it all happen? Inevitably, there are many answers to that question, and

relevant a

a ga | n the next few weeks will be

filled with attempts at

analysis. I offer one explanation in particular, and itisa sobering one for all of us in the Labour movement. Thatcher’s victory was a victory for the politics of self-interest.

She has convinced a substantial slice of the population — working-class people as well as those of comfortable middleEngland — that they have a personal stake in capitalism. The sale of shares in privatised enterprises; the sale of council houses; the deliberate generating of fear about Labour’s taxation proposals: all have been designed, quite deliberately, to make voters think they ought in their own interests to vote Tory.

It has been dressed up ina bogus morality about choice and freedom, of course. But it is a naked appeal to financial interest, nonetheless. The sadness is that it’s all a glossy illusion, built on credit, the sale of assets that are running out, and an economy floated on oil. It can’t last.

Against the politics of self-interest, we counterposed the politics of compassion, we talked ceaselessly about health, jobs, schools and pensions and we did it brilliantly.

Everyone who has said that the Labour Party ran a marvellous campaign is absolutely right. We did. The trouble is that the politics of compassion is not enough. It galvanises onethird of the electorate, yes. Our voters were coming out in droves, eager to vote, far more enthusiastic than they were four years ago. But it doesn’t begin to erode the “We can’t vote Labour because it will damage our interests” argument.

socialism

CAMDEN TRIBUNE GROUP

Martin Plaut

Chair 267 — 3848

Liz Hetherington Secretary 482 0176

Gareth Smyth

| Editor 482 1583

LABOUR'S INDEPENDENT VOICE | FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

Those who are sufficiently conscience-stricken but nonetheless fearful of financial disadvantage end up voting SDP: not for nothing did it run its advertisement saying you can have your head and your heart with the cuddly Alliance.

This, then, strikes me as the central dilemma for socialists in the coming months. How do we fashion a political appeal that sustains our commitment to eradicate disadvantage and enhances collective provision as well as addressing the perceived need of those who are not disadvantaged to protect

| their own interests?

T CAN be done: the commitment of the overwhelming Brsionty of the population to the health service is an obv™s

example. The increasing level of concern about the need w curb exploitation of the environment (in the interests both of individuals anxious about themselves and of the community as | a whole) is another. The same link needs to be created in all | other areas of policy too.

I'm not arguing for a moment that we should cease to be an | altruistic party, and try to play the same selfish game as the | Tories have been doing for centuries. I’m arguing that we must | make our altruism relevant to those who at present are simply not responding to the call to have a conscience.

The finest speech of the whole campaign was Neil Kinnock’s_ | first — about the thousand generations who had had no | platform. ;

It set out graphically the case for socialist values. It took | head-on all the tawdry Thatcherite moralising about choice and it made the case for enabling community provision come alive. We need a lot more of that: a lot more explaining about what we stand for, deep down, asa party over the next four years.

I’m disappointed but not downhearted. The opportunity is there, infinitely more accessible than it was in 1983, for us to transform the political argument and the direction of political thinking in Britain.

If we think intelligently about how we make our socialism relevant to the great mass of ordinary people, we’ll derive rich rewards in popular support. If we don’t, we'll be here again in four years time — and the analysis will be far, far more difficult then. It will be far less hopeful too.

@ Chris Smith is Labour MP for Islington South and F insbury.

| The Third Tory Term

x A Stralegy fpr Camden Council r

The overwhelming Tory election victory | afipcnt- ie services on June 11th brings to an end an era in local Governiwent. Onimous remarks about the 'inner cities' from Thatcher on election night and the Tory commitment

to 'tackle' education and housing bode

ill for the future of authorities like

The Priority over the next three years has “to be the maintenance and improvement of front-line services to working-classs people. It is in this context that the call for a full review of the Council's

ILEA and Camden. | system of management is growing - @ Strategy 1. It is far from easy to identify savings To deal with this situation as success-i' which can be made in the Council's Town fully as possible the Councils need to Hall bureacracy. Savings in front-line ““ adopt a strategy. Too often in recent services, by contrast, are relatively years Camden Council has drifted along easy to.identify. Cuts in housang ech ' with no definite direction, buffetted have already been made - like in decorations by pressure groups and steered by a for OAPs and charging tenants for certain leadership group unable or unwilling repairs - bear this out. to take tough dectsions. “he 26% 2. Council services need to be improved increase in Council spending since in quality. Fundamental problems must 1985 has been the result - making be tackled - including absentee rates future decisions even tougher. of up to 40% in some departments, poor We must now look for a strategy for the industrial relations, Councillor/ officer next three years leading up to the local demarcation and responsibility. elections in 1990. @=Priorjties Options must be brought forward now for In consultation with the Party, Camden such a review. A combined team of, eg, Labour Group must adopy clearly defined -krivate sector consultants, Councillors priorities as to what we want to achieve. from northern authorities with far lower The fiasco of sending the Party 4-inch rates bases than Camden, senior officers thick "consultation™ documents besed:‘on from Scots authorites, may provide insights \ line-by-line committee budgets must be into the workings of our system from which

ended. The Party is here to take we can benefit.

strategic decisions, not to be Sittin ke bamboozled. BONE ve premsicn

It will not be easy to develop and improve front-line services in the difficult times

@ Aveidi ng disqu alification

A speedy consensus is emerging that, at which lie ahead. This will not be a period least for the immediate future, the of leisure. ;

Council must stay within the law. This But the restoration of popula faith in will avoid immediate disqualifications collective provision will be an important and permit strategic planning to take part of our Party's wider reviva?. Camden place. Handing the Council over to the spends more per head of population than any Tories at this stage will not be thought other borough. in the country, yet there is of well by our supporters, and the time significant working-class consumer dissafor posturing is well and truly past. tisfaction with the services provided.

The Council must avoid any drift into We have now to work to put that right in disqualification brought about by extemely difficult circumstances which are lethagy or excessive caution. not of our own making.

LAPOUe Cir Patrick Denny

Ca TE PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST PAN RS

LABOUR CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE CONFERENCE

LABOUR’S RENEWAL— THE NEXT STAGE -

Saturday 4 July 10.30am — 6.30pm South Bank Polytechnic London Road, London SE1

(Elephant & Castle Tube)

LABOUR OM OROININ

COMMITTEE

Speakers include: DAVID BLUNKETT, SARAH BENTON, ROBIN COOK, BRIAN GOULD, MARGARET HODGE, ROBIN MURRAY, BEN PIMLOTT, TOM SAWYER, CHRIS SMITH, BILL SPIERS, NIGEL STANLEY (other speakers to be announced)

Sessions on: WINNING NEXT TIME, BUILDING AN ANTI THATCHER MAJORITY, THATCHER'S THIRD TERM, LABOUR & DEFENCE, LABOUR’S ECONOMIC PROGRAMME, LABOUR & SEXUAL POLITICS, LABOUR—UNIONS & THE WORKING CLASS — WEAKENING LINKS?, THE FUTURE OF MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM

Creche available only if notice given by June 28th. Registration fees — £2.00 unwaged, LCC members: £3.00 out of London, £5.00 London, £7.00 non LCC members.

Further details and registration forms from: Ken Hulme, LCC Organising Secretary, 9 Poland Street, London W.1. Tel: 01-734 9520