LINING UP FOR THE ELECTIONS
By T, Jd. Peters
Along with the “emergence” of a new leader, the Tories have been pulling out ofthe hat a "new" program for the coming elections, Ever since _ Sir Alec Douglas-Home (alias Lord Home) became Prime Minister, they have been watching trends and moods in the electorate (particularly its "floaters") very closely, and adjusting policy accordingly with their usual lack of scruple or inhibition. These bold political buccaneers leave "gentle-. manly" notions, inspired by their "way of life," entirely to their oppon- — ents at moments when their own fate is at stake. ears
The recent by~elections at Luton and Kinross provided them with ready . test-tube experiments. A reverse was expected at the first of these, a — sizeable industrial town formerly represented by a leading Tory publicist» and minister, Dr. Charles Hill. The second was merely a platform to show the extent of the popularity of the choice of the new leader in a safe Scottish agricultural constituency. The aristocratic Sir Alec was “standing" for Kinross in order to qualify for a seat in the House of Commons, a necessary formality for a modern. Prime Minister. These by~elections. were _ so arranged that the expected loss in Luton, announced on a Thursday, would be offset in publicity media by the announcement of the "victor" at Kinross the next day. The Tory managers don't miss a trick big or small in this game of manipulating the news «- and the public, ~— = =.) . .
Luton went over to Labour by a 3,000-odd majority. The Tories retained Kinross with a majority of some 9,000. A lot of juggling with the figures has been done by the psephologists, the experts in this new "science" of electoral statistics, to show that in the best case Labour is in for alandslide based on the first result, and at least for an adequate small majority based on the second, judged by the swing in voting percentages. At present the "findings" of the pollsters are most useful to the Tories —_ to-arouse their ranks to the "danger." In actual fact, however, the Luton victory for-Labour was real enough. It showed that upper strata of wage workers, even where they have remained relatively prosperous, fear the effects of automation (which, by cutting down overtime -~ let alone jobs «threatens their credit payments) and are disillusioned enough with the fake promise of a "property-owning democracy," to reverse their drift . towards the Tories, They are rejoining the solid 12,000,000-odd block of Labour voters who have maintained their loyalty throughout the years of — “affluence.” Kinross, on the other hand, shows that under the most favour-able circumstances far them, the Tories have been able by changing Home — for Macmillan to bring back their faltering. petty-bourgeois following that nas been voting with its feet -- staying away or increasing the poll of the impotent Liberals, A tough contest, with the edge still rather in Labourts favor, can be expected at the general elections.
a Light~Fingered Politicians _
Although they beat the drums hard for the personal "triumph" of the . Prime Minister at Kinross, the Tories have shown by their subsequent
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actions, particularly in the proclamation of policy that still goes under the name of "the Queen!s speech" at the opening of the current session of parliament this past week, that the lesson of Luton has not been lost on “them, They have been quick in fact, as The Times has pointed out, to “steal Labourts trousers." That is, they have virtually taken over whole-~ sale the essentials of the whole carefully elaborated platform of reforms of which the late moderate leader of the Labour party, Hugh Gaitskell, was the chief inspirer and author.
L Harold Wilson, Gaitskell's successor, although considerably more to -the left, has not made any drastic changes in this platform beyond giving it a more militant gloss, His apologists explain this by concern not to alienate the "floating voter” in the first place, and not to antagonize his own right wing in the course of establishing the necessary unity for the-electoral battle, But it is a fact that by all tests, Labour's popularity and Wilson's own standing in the public eye’ were highest at the very time when he was first elected Labour leader and, in the face of Tory challenges in the press, on television and in parliament, proclaimed his adherence. to the famous Clause 4 (for the nationalization of. the basic industries) in the party constitution, which Gaitskell had fought hard and unsuccessfully to remove, That is, a fighting stance on principle proved to be an electoral asset rather than a liability, particularly because events were moving in a direction to show its practical validity, Wilson appears to have learned nothing from this, Perhaps the Tories! grab for the Gaitskellite clothes will force him and his associates to think again.
That the Tories see fit to dress themselves in reformist garb is in. itself an indication that the old gimmicks that have been their stock in trade since the early fifties cannot hope to work in the developing conditions of "stop-go". crisis, They got a sharp warning last winter.
. Automation, coupled with a shrinking capitalist. market for which competition is becoming ever keaner, announce the need for more drastic measures in an economy already in a weakened condition, Its growing effects on housing and living conditions will not fail to find an echo in the Labour party, based as it is on the organized working class, The left wing of this party is bound to be roused to new life and to exert its _ pressure on the Wilson leadership. Where does this left wing stand and how does it face up to its tasks in the stormy period ahead?......
Obligations of Left Wing
The left wing reached the heights of its achievements in the Labour © party at the Scarborough conference of 1960, where unilateralism and the socialist essence of the original constitution (Clause 4) were successfully defended, against Gaitskell and Co, It had the rank and file of the activists (the "Constituency parties") solidly behind it’ and had just received powerful reinforcements in the trade-union wing of the party led by Frank Cousins of the Transport Workers union, Its weakness lay in lack of an _ organized -and aggressive force within the parliamentary group, which Gaitskell then used to subvert and undermine conference decisions, . It . lacked the will and the resolute leadership to follow up its success with © an organized drive to rout the right wing, Along with this weakness, and an expression of it, was the absence of a concrete program of the next
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practical steps to implement its victory.
‘The. coming elections offer the left wing another oppor tunity, and place upon the Marxist tendency within it the obligation to help in lending ° it clarity and cohesion, The capitalist class under the Tories is clearly in "ideological" retreat and trying to regain ground by giving itself a new image, to cover up its loss of credit in all layers of the population, simultaneously borrowing from the remnants ofthe feudal past for prestige and "stealing" from the reformists for modernization, Clearly, the threat of automation must be met not only with an appeal to the advance of science, which the Tories can ape, but with a concretization of the abstract social~ist program, running from the basic proposition to take over and nationalize industries under workers! control to bold transitional measures such | as, for instance, the establishment of a 30ehour week at the average weekly wage for ‘each worker, The program of economic expansion, to be distinguished from the Toriest, and to make sense, has to be tied up with a sweeping plan for trade and co-operation with the "underdeveloped" countries and the Soviet bloc, where mutual class interests make for a naturak common market, Opposition to the "independent nuclear deterrent," if it is not to remain negative and if it is to continue to stir active support, has to be followed up by concrete proposals to pull out of the capitalist powers! NATO so as to free a Labour Britain's hands for world-wide cooperation with its natural allies in the former colonies and in the east, to make for a genuine drive for peace and for prosperity under world-wide socialist planning. To make such a long-range policy possible, bold measures to mop up the feudal past, like the abolition of the House of Lords and establishment of a republic, mist be outlined,
The developing crisis in Britain offers a challenge to the left wing of the Labour party to work out 2 program and strategy that will change | the whole course of history and gain not only the allegiance of the masses of the people at home, but an enthusiastic response to British. socialist leadership throughout the world, It places upon the Marxists within it an obligation to take the lead in this task and gives them an opportunity to show the superiority of socialist theory and of principled revolutionary politics «~~ firm in essence and flexible in application,
CEYLONESE