Camden's Budget Cuts

YET MORE CUT

fa) wo

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Inerable, ing Wellesley House, th

0 cut would decimate the centre, with 14 women's g eviction and two workplace nurseries (with 65 at. It is this last cut which is mobilising the The Council aim to make the Centre self-financing

t glance, the borough's 89/90 budget is an anodyne affair, featuring the Poll Tax implementation (never fully discussed in

the Labour Group or Parties? and a vacancy rate of 10% (i.e. job

t will leave some services staggering from one disaster to

er, Libraries and social work will be the hardest hit. Further dewn agenda is the creation of a Direct Services Department - on the

wodel of Tory Wandsworth. In this set-up, managers recruited by South African linked head-hunters with commercial attitudes will effectively

undermine direct labour, leading to over 100 manual and admin job

s. The irony of this is that no piece of Tory legislation forces

n to go down this road, nor has any other Labour Borough attempted

estroy public services wholly on its own iniative.

rents are going up by an v ze of £2.16 a week (higher than the rate of inflation). Seven

abour councillors voted against this and may face disciplinary action. LCC are clamouring for expulsion from the Group and the Party.

eral councillors, who last year consistently opposed cuts and were pended from the Labour Group as a result, voted for both a rent rise and the budget at the full Council meeting. Although going down on

ord as opposing cuts, they perceive the lack of activity outside the il Chamber as a reason for hanging on within it. Their position in Labour Graup assumes a central significance : a case of the procedural tail wagging the political dog ! The logic of this mistake can be followed through, but it is essentially false. No debate on the size of the cuts can obscure the need for socialists in local government to oppose any capitulation or refusal to fight back against the Government.

Padrig Jones Holborn & St Pancras CLP, Camden Nalgo.

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NEXT CAMDEN LABOUR BRIEFING MEETING

MONDAY 20 MARCH, 7.30pm

Swiss Cottage Community Centre,

Yinchester Road Address.....

seaneeessceesscsucossceverenees.

CAMDEN INVESTS IN APARTHEID

Camden Anti-Apartheid was recently going through tke register of shares of Shell. This company is high on --the AntiApartheid Movement's boycott list. What a surprsie it was to find that 316 950 shares with a value of £3.5 million were registered in-the name of of the Mayor/Alderman/Burgeress of Camden | These were a straight investment and not part of a pension fund. Such a large investment could not have taken place without the knowledge af the leader of the Council (Tony Dykes in case you had forgotten). And if it had been done

without his knowledge, this is surely a scandal!

CAMDEN KICKS ANTI-POLL TAX CAMPAIGN IN THE THETH

The first anti-poll tax meeting was held on the 14 March with 120 people attending. This was a success as many local tenants attended and declared their support for the campaign. Although the Mayor is a sponsor of the campaign, and the council chamber was booked through a councillor, the Council has sent a bill for the use of the room! Sorry, but can't pay, won't pay !

NEXT CAMDEN LABOUR BRIEFING MEETING

MONDAY 20 MARCH, 7.30pm

Swiss Cottage Community Centre, Winchester Road

ON THE AGENDA :

STAND BY SALMAN RUSHDIE ! Discussion introduced by Dave Palmer of Haringey's Reading Matters

Bookshop, known for its stand on ‘Positive Images' and now organising with other London left bookshops support for Salman Rushdie.

CAMDEN'S BUDGET What is really in the budget? What does it mean for services and the

community? What should our response be to it ?

LABOUR GROUP ELECTIONS Should the left councillors support anybody ? and if so whom ?

Labour twisting in the breeze

The latest twists in the Rushdie affair have been dis-

turbing but predictable.

Douglas Hurd, having lectured Muslims in Manchester about the obligations Incumbenton “law-abiding” Brits, then turned on Rushdie, snidely clalming the author didn’t understand “British institutlons”. Howe and Thatcher have expresed thelr general disapproval of The Satanic Verses, and clearly a big push Is on for some | “diplomatic” (i.e. self-serving) solution to the BritishIranian conflict.

Meanwhile publishers Penguin (owned by multinational Pearson Group) are said to have pulped the first run of the paperback edition. The publishing industry and the bourgeois | media in general are dithering and preparing the way for a climbdown.

- This retreat from Rushdie's defence was inevitable. It’s not | just that someone in Thatcher's eyrie has finally read his book and discovered that it is far more offensive to the Tory regime than to the tenets of Islam.

It is that defence of the book and the principles of free ex-

’ pression are not in the interests of the class represented by

the’ government. Labour's leaders, as usual, have not been so clear about the interests of the class they represent.

Paddy Ashdown took up the cudgels for Rushdie against the Tories, while Kinnock kept his lips buttonsd.

The problem with leaving this battle to the likes of Ashdown and the bourgeois liberals pontificating in the “quality” press is twofold.

First, most of these people have a pitiful track record on free speech. Where were they when Perdition was effectively banned from the stage? When Sinn Fein was gagged? When Clause 28 was pushed through parliament? Some protested, but these cases never received the kind of outraged advocacy being shown in the Rushdie case.

Second, they refuse to place the current controversy in the context of the grossly racist society which is. Thatcher’s Britain, 1989. Not only such devotees of literary freedom as the Sun and the ‘Mail but also Hugo Young in the Guardian and others have used the affair as an excuse for racist and inflammatory attacks on Muslims.

it is vital that the labour movement stake out a clear and principled position here — and argue for it forcefully not only in parliament and through the media, but in honest, direct dialogue with the Muslim communities in Britain.

We have to stand up against botii racism and censorship,

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