IMGpapers 1980–83

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1980–83

Council unions stop Heseltine Turning off the tap to the town hall

Socialist Challenge No. 179, 6 January 1981 · p. 5 of the scan · 773 words

The scan: sc-n179-jan-08-1981.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-2 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 5 of the scan

present to spending: Labour who avoided making cuts in 1980 face an impossible situa tiòn in 1981.

The only choices now open January is a broad whether we put up a fight/ The cuts and the con ference haveshe same effect of briaging people together.

Both sectie sun this department the building erafts now together:

the first time in ing that the conference will help the same thing to hap actoss the country. citor from Keat on toant I watched a Tory and you would have thought, he talking rather working people He wanted everything torned over 10 privale enterprise nerviewer asked him: What about the subhe dida care be one workers? he WarEnE save money Drain They want to bring in contractors sunnosed y save one "tie cuts place a drain on all services Now there are no pomes Fories want to the conweek of action after the I conference which passed a resolution should take industrial ac tion if necessary to fight th Support Nowadays working class afford to be out indefinitely week of we i start, and finish be able to 1 Thatcher can see that enough people are at the then she'll have to change ter poletes. With a week of action the tories will not be ahlete there's support for a fightback. Sis. One of percent behind the reasons is that we went Task them to take action unless ts serious Central Hall, Westminster The recall Lambeth conTerence agamst the cuts on 17 January will be the next na tional focus for opposition to the Tory cuts. Below we take a look at the effects of the latest cuts package and speak to militants from Lambeth on fightback they are FLOWN HALL axe falls government main aspects:

ding.

rural areas.

vestment Programme.

cent inflation their cutbacks working people. this £12m from i the Southwark Tory-controlled Bournemouth employees or "more rate and rent rises to balance their books tainly mean that provements being Miralready begun being abandoned ‹sort of loss overspent of resources who refuse to cut. from the Parliamentary Labour Party conference on ference held last November.

Where Heseltine's THE latest round of Tory cuts tak the form of a reduction in centra support loc authority spending. There are for * A one per cent cut in the total govern ment contribution to local authority spen * A huge redistribution of the govern ment rate support grant away from poor inne city areas towards the wealthier cities an government contribution to the Housine in * A cut averaging 15 cent in * The imposition of a six percent himi on local authority wages at a time of 15 pe By redistributing money from the poore areas, the Tories have shown the real aim to attack and demora Tribune has estimated tha measure will lead to an eventual cut c inner London borough increase of f1.6m for The wage limits will force local authoritic to impose wage cuts in real terms for thei Levy the extra money from ye This will put extr pressure on councils to look to redundancies Perhaps the most sinister measure is the cut in government support for the Housing Investment Programme. This will almost cer.

the moratorium on council house building will continue at leas until 1982. It will also lead to repairs and im delayed and projects For Lambeth council the HIP allowance has been cut from E53m for 1980 to under £40m for 1981/2 before inflation. Rate rise would need to be 100 percent to cover that council has already this year by 19.5m Sheffield council face an even worse situa tion. They face a loss of £1 3m in housing sub*sidies and a further f10m in the redistribuțion It will also lose the rate support grant under Heseltine's penalties for councils There has been no serious response as yet Labour executive The official cuts held las autumn produced nothing but hot air.

The only national lead for an organiser fightback of the labour movement against the Tories cuts has come from the Lambeth con Every trade union and Labour par ly branch should be represented al the recall conference on 17 January. Week of

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was another vicious package of outs in local gavernment

to them are to attack working: class living standards or to koow that the working class have had enough' ALF SHERWOOD,, convenor, Lambeth direct labour unions:

ference, It's a question of what ac- tion people are willing to take, and

MICHAEL Heseltine's XMAS lead a national fightback. working people

leading, "We have to let the Tories 6WHAT we want to see on 17

← Roy Mason, a suitable candidate for reselectionSolidarity needed →

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