are as high as 50 per cent.
and rates rises to save council jobs and services.
Their argument :is simple one: Blame the increases the Tory government. There's some truth in that While the axe on council spending began under the Callaghan government, has set bout sharpening it with vengeance. in 1980-8 the Tories aimed to cut back local authority spending by over 5 per cent pared to th previous year.
For 1981-82 they want further cuts of 3 per cent in current expenditure, 3 per cent in housing ment, and 7 per cent in other building projects.
Government ministers haven't just made these es appealing for cuts. They lave brought legislation changing the •basis which councils receive central government funding, and enabling Westminster to keep tight controls on local authority spending.
The system is now rigged to favour the Tory rates rises which in some parts of the country Rents on council houses have also come in for high-rise treatment, and it's Labour coun cils which are to the fore in this cost-of-living escalation, a number of them choosing rent - or partially save shires, while central government runas to tic deprived inner-city have diminished.
Councils which defied the Tory dictats or cuts have been penalised even bigger axe on they Westminster, / and vote haven't Tents cad:
based on assumption that the answer to local need lies in the pockets of the working class. It hards defiance of the Tories Yet this has been the policy advocated by leftwing Labour councillors, while the Labour right has thrown. in a package of cuts, too, encouraging the Tories to push their luck still further next time.
If the Labour left believes it is following lesser-of-two-evits policy many working class people disagree. In Scotland ten of thousands of council tenants are on rent strike, and underway Engernd and Wales leslie parts are of There is one way that Labour councils can gair working class support and hasten the end of the Thatcher government. That is by refusing to make any cuts, or to increase rent or .. Tales.
Socialist Chi It is not a novel idea. It was among the proposals adopted at a conterenc held by Lambeth council last November where over labour movement organisations were represented. But it does re quire real defiance to im plement the plan.
Labour councillors ask • money Is sup posed to come from if rent and MalC aren't raised They should take a look al the baoks. In 1979 the bie made b BOU banks totalling f1,562m notched profits and with sky high interest they have been raking it in since then. years when it cost an incredible £120,000 on average to provide a coun cil home, 88.3 per cent of this sum went on interes Charges Refusing to pay the money lenders would be a stride towards nationalis ing the banks and finance houses workers control, a policy which the Labour government should be committed to -If, probable Labout councillors would be farids game they wi the Tories' game, need to summon mass sup port to mount buc resistance the government can be forced to bow to.
pit quickly enough when miners took to the picket lines.
Poplar • Left Labour •COMI cillors claim that that seep port wouldn't be : thate How ther know they've never called for is one of the mysterie our time. They prefer la recall that come out on to the street Poplar in Support jailed councilors th the .1920s. Labour next Thursday a Sweeping Tories from and defiance from Labor councilor! many he 192 elections whom the would bring the kind o mass action needed to ca sure that development.
Out soon:
Socialist Challonge pamphlet on no con , and No ront or rates
refuse to allow the families' He went
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cuts) WITHIN days of the 7 May local electiona, many working class people will have received
Pay parker, and se