IF THE pundits are correct, time Socialist Challenge streets Denis Healey will have topped the first ballot in the contest for the Labour leadership, and Michael Foot will be in with a shout when it comes to the second ballot on 10 November.
The experts say that Foot is tiable to pick up the majority of the votes of the Poter Shore and John Silkin supporters the second time around, and accordingly we are in for a close-run race.
foot s chances were reckoned to be strengthened at the weekend when Eric Hefter told a rally at Blackwood, Gwent, that all left-wing MPs should vote for Foot.
He argued that 'a clash between the parliamentary party and the constituencies has to be avoided, and that supporting Foot was the best way to prevent such a confrontation.
Such logic is probably sound, the problem is the premise on which it is based.
Clash Michael Foot may well be the best way to avoid a clash between the 267 members of the Labour Party who happen to reside in the House of Commons and the hundreds of thousands of Labour Party members elsewhere. but where is the merit in avoiding such a clash in the first place?
Ever since the the majority parliament has offered compromise and concession to the party's right wing.
A few days before his endorsement of Foot, Heffer was saying that the election shouldn't take place at all. A surprisingly high number voted to postpone the election.
by the hits the Blackpool conference of Labour's left-wing in MPs FOOT (right) was Callaghan's faithful deputy Now the expectation is that most if not all of them will troop into the Foot lobby when the vote takes place, thereby giving crediblity to the whole process. Such attitudes sum up the thinking of many of the left MPs principle.
state a principle and when that principle isn't accepted, drop it, and put into practice the contrary Socialist Challenge is against MPs participating in the vote. Some would say, no doubt, that this isn't 'practical place illustrates why.
the leader.
democracy needs to be parliamentary rootsie with the Labour right fie who are the losers The decision ticularly regrettable.
Winterton U-turn would not help. If there were a change of Prime Minister to Mr James Prior or William Whitelaw would not help.' Instead, said Benn, it was necessary to 'look beyond the life ofthis tony Bent.
Benn did
not sav is that it Is important that the government's But we would suggest that if the 66 MPs who voted against the election taking place didn't vote it would be much easier to argue the irrelevance of the outThe more serious argument against Eric Heffer is that a to-the-death 'clash' between the rights of the 267 MPs and those of the majority of the Labour Party members is not something which should be encouraged. The election now taking What it is about is not just this or that candidate; rather it is an act of defiance of the Labour Party conference decision to widen the franchise for the election of The right wing of the party and the majority of MPs have decided on that act of defiance: it is they who are promoting a clash; their challenge to Labour Party taken on, frontal. Instead Heffer and others in the As a consequence, whoever wins the left have opted to present election, it is the Labour rank and of those who have sought to represent the rank and file -the Rank and File Mobilising Committee and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy - to also endorse Foot is par Both these groupings correctly advis. ed Tony Benn not to stand, because of the fraudulence of the election process. Now they say Foot should be voted for. It might be all very well to have your cake and eat it, but to take away the cake ana then promote the feast is gastronomically unsound and politically inept.