UNION OF WORKERS Will communications unions unite in action against privatisa tion? step.
Transport
freight services all are up for grabs Ministry Not transport.
stallations controlled and the vanced stage public service, revenue for the state. happening constantly being withdrawn for cannihalisation the programme resulting in shortage of replacement rails is a radical change of policy.
closure of 54 freight yards by 1982 The still left.
name of profit THE nationalised rail industry has always provided a cheap subsidised service for private industry. The hiving off of profitable sectors to private interest is therefore a logical next Hotels, Sealink and The 1981 Transport Act enables the British Rail Board to turn its subsidiaries into private companies and to sell shares in them subject to approval of the It also allows the Ministry to instruct the BRB to transfer any assets to a named subsidiary and then sell it.
Finally it sets up a company called the Harbour Company' consisting of all harbour inby Sealink Hovercraft. This is a definite statement of intent that Sealink and Hovercraft will be sold off and that plans to do this are already in an adThe Tories have no interest in maintaining a nor in protecting a source of Long-term investment has been static for the last five years at £330m.
BR has a lower level of investment per train kilometre than in any country in Europe. 98 per cent of diesel and 60 per cent of electrics in BR's fleet of 10,000 are over 15 years old. Just to replace them means an increase in investment of 30 per cent in the next ten years. This is not The entire fleet of shunting locomotives was built between 1948-56, and nothing has been added since. Replacement programmes postponed and loco:
In 1978-79 there were too few locos to cope numbers trains widespread cancellations. The means speed restrictions and 3.000 miles of track will have to be closed by 1990 for safety reasons unless there Only 16 locos were built in 1979, the vear in which £10-15m of profitable freight traffic had to be turned away because of lack of rolling stock. In August 1980, BRB announced the electrification programme has been slowed down, and passenger fares raised by 19 per cent since September 1980; 40 passenger lines are threatened with closure to save minute amounts, while investment in rolling stock and increased electrification, which would lead to a greater return on capital, remains at a stand.
in mind: the selling off of all the profit-making sections of the rai industry to their frende private ownership, and the deliberate and cold biooded running down of the 'service' that is They will pursue this policy regardless of the ettecis it will have on ratiworkers ives andan deed on the lives of the thousands of railway users. It is the destruction of a service in the Socialist Challenge 3 December 1981 page 15
as a Labour MP were:
Harn said ther Cune ningham Then the Monday declared himself Labour Party, and independent Labour' MP.
Socialist Challenge THE LAST words George Cunningham wrote 1 want to pay tribute to Michael Foot. whose respect for the force of rational argument and whose toleration of dissent I have particular cause to appreciate, and whose deep personal commitment to true parliamentary democracy should be appreciated by us all.
Foot's closest political allies, had said that Tarig Aom he Labour should excluded Party: and the day after Foot was reported to be backing a witch-hunt of left wingers in the party None of which persuaded Cunningham stay in th: Labour Party.
The lesson of that is that no matter how many concessions are made to the Cunninghams world they will remain determined to wreck Even witch-hunts will not satisfy those who have turned their back on the labour movement, that is one, very practical witch-hunts should be opposed.
There is another practical reason. That was evident in the result of the Crosby by-election. The parliamentary party, in the and among some people on the national executive of the party, is how to witch-hunt the left.
But apart from these practical _objections wite rundamental and tundamental political reason to oppose such operations.
CUTICIS
and organise around their This democratic principle should apply to the right-wing Solidarity Militant. farol, the the left- softleft' Tribune, or those who supported the Benn campaign for deputy-leader H Michact Foot tends to attack this principle then it is not surprising that he is paid elonuent inbutes from George Cunningham. But for those who preter to stay in the Labour Party and fight for their Foot's of dissent becoming a sick joke. toleration of dissent from 11 15 ine right, but not from the left.
Thus 15 a recipe fo disaster. For, is By Tessa van Gelderen
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This concerns the the Labour Party to argue for