Notebook
Blackpool g The real reason for the witch-hunt is to try to win the support of the ruling class back for another "safe" Labour government from the bosses point of view. Militant are being offered up as a sacrifice to prove to the ruling class, and middle- class defectors to the SDP, that the "safe" light wing are still in control....The witch- aunt... must be fought and defeated — it cannot be appeased.' Thus a document called Unite and Fight, produced by the Wood Green Labour Party. The amount of pam- phlets, leaflets, periodicals, newspapers and so on produced and distributed — very often very well and very insistently — at this week's Labour Party Conference is stagger- Tg. Whoever may be losing the present light within the Labour Party, it is certainly not the printers, who are winning hands down• Who, then, are losing? The Left has lost a couple of seats on the National Ex- ecutive, although in the constituency party section, where the trade union votes are not Counted, they kicked off Joan Lestor and replaced her by Audrey Wise; a hard-left gain at the expense of the soft-left. In the week's most celebrated decision, the Con- ference decided to set up a register of non- affiliated organisations, in order to exclude Militant, which, as a party within a party, is held to be breaking Clause Two of the Par- ty's constitution. For this precise and sole Purpose most of the big unions got together and cobbled up a card vote of 5,173,000 to
has to eject Militant. And when that 'las been done and said, that is the extent to
which the Left has lost. None of the im- mense, indeed revolutionary policy ,ehanges, it has won in the last three years has been reversed: all of the constitutional changes it has forced through — on man- datory re-selection and the election of the leader, for examples — remain intact. For good measure, they voted on Monday to Wednesday all private medicine and on yvednesday they got their two-thirds ma- '1°1.4 to enshrine unilateral nuclear disar- 41,ament 'among their binding constitutional antis.
The right continue moving to,the left just t, about as fast as their legs can carry At a forum conducted by New Socialist — yet another publication — Roy
Left is regarded as a traitor by the
1-fr for siding with Foot, which shows the viirulence, confidence and extent of the Left. h attersley is an arch right-winger. As such, ,e went out of his way to say: 'Of course I accept Clause Four' (bringing into public dwnership and control the means of pro- _,nction, distribution and exchange). He declared the need for a voluntary agree-
ment, not statutory controls, on the level of money wages. And he said that there were all manner of things an imcoming Labour Government could do without spending money. 'We could abolish the public schools, as I'm sure Neil will do,' he said, turning to Kinnock. 'We can abolish the House of Lords, as Tony says,' he said, tur- ning to Benn. 'We need the evangelists', making a conciliatory obeisance to the fun- damentalists. Even his Common Market fervour was dimmed. Declaring that fewer and fewer people really feel we will actually leave the Common Market, he asked: `What is wrong with the Castle solution?' which former anti-Marketeer and European Assembly member Barbara Castle has come out with. This in crude terms would involve Britain pursuing whatever economic policies it wanted, whether or not in con- travention of Common Market rules and regulations, but nonetheless staying in the Market. Hattersley gets more and more like Harold Wilson, except that Hattersley is trimming to the left whereas Wilson trimm- ed the other way. They share an ingratiating and often funny kind of cheeky chappie manner which goes down very well. Hat- tersley might make as good a leader of the party as Harold Wilson did — and those who may think that is small praise should ponder a while and ask themselves: would the Labour Party be in its present mess, and would it have shifted so far to the left as to have lost touch with the middle-of-the-road electorate, with Wilson in charge? It would not. It needed Callaghan's indecision and obtuseness followed by Foot trailing clouds of glory and his coat to let the Left lay the Labour Party low. Hattersley might make it: Healey still just about could, if the unions could bring themselves to face him: but my money remains where it has been, on Peter Shore: the least worst from the Left's point of view because of his unsullied anti-Market record, acceptable to the unions as Wilson's protégé, and — that rare thing in the Labour Party — a patriot not scared to speak his patriotism, which might well earn him Foot's support. Foot, like Shore, supported the Falklands task force.
Fringe meetings swamp the Conference itself. More goes on, much more is said, ranted and roared, outside the Con-
ference hall than is said inside it. There are dozens of them each midday and evening and Tony Benn manages to put in an ap- pearance, and make a speech, at a vast number of them. His outpourings are as prodigious as his fluency: he affects the tone of sweet reason. He does not so much lead the Left as hold it together in his per- son. He and the Left are essential to each other, and he will do all he can to see that not by a jot or tittle is the Left diminished.
`There must be no expulsions' is his line, ac- cepting the Conference's decision to set up
a register like the good democrat he says he is. I did more than my stint or fair share of fringe meetings: a task unpleasant in itself, largely on account of the stridency of the speakers, the uniformity of their hectoring tones and formula phrases, but also because of their preoccupation with and hatred of what they call 'the gutter press' from The Times upwards, downwards or sideways. The Morning Star they except. Thus Ken Livingstone, improbable leader of the GLC, king of the leftists' court in County Hall, distributor to his favoured courtiers' and causes of public-funded largesse, declared: 'With each week that passes the British press sinks lower and lower....Our entire press is a fraud. People assume they are buying a newspaper. They should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act but instead Sir David English gets a knighthood.' He rattled off some accounts of Tory skulduggery in a couple of housing associations which, if true, should certainly be exposed as vigorously as any other corrupt use of public funds should be exposed. His and the rest of the Left's other pet theme he put thus: 'Labour now has a responsibility to women, the ethnic minorities and the Gays. We have to build a huge base. You can't change people's lifestyles and habits without women, without blacks, without Gays. We've got to find out what women want to do, what blacks want to do, what Gays want to do.' I went to a meeting of the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights in an endeavour to find out. It was held in a base- ment of the Cliffs Hotel, in a room past the Gents and Ladies. The room was crowded, hot and stuffy. Before the meeting began (late as usual) a woman got up and said: `We've got Gay comrades who haven't got seats. Could the press, who write disgusting articles about us, give up their seats?' The chairman, having declared that for the first time Lesbians and Gay men, as he called them, had provided a public presence at a Labour conference, declared: 'The press, the gutter press, is determined to undermine our campaign. We discussed what to do about the gutter press. Three papers we voted to exclude — the Sun, the Mail, the News of the World.'
`Out' they shouted and shrilled. 'Chuck them out.'
At this point most of the press, myself included, decided to leave, for a breath of fresh air and a drink. The atmosphere was rancid with Gay hate.
George Gale
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