Blunders on the right

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WHILE THE Labour leadership flaps, fumbles and retreats on conference policies, dismaying many supporters and alienating the undecided, the Tories too are making some blunders - though their friends in Fleet Street ensure them minimum publicity.

First there was the Saatchi and Saatchi gaffe - a party political broadcast which involved hiring a deserted ward in the axed Mildmay Mission hospital and filling it with actors dressed as doctors and nurses.

NUPE in IT IS with deep regret that we have to report the death of Simon Katz, for several years a member of Birmingham IMG and a popular figure on the left in the arta. lie offer our sincere condolsos to all Simon's family. triests and cameraces. Hamlets threatened to strike if the filming went ahead; and the affair leaked to the Guardian and the Daily Mirror - but was largely ignored by the hardline Tory press.

Then there was the absurd Tory leaflet aimed at black people — Labour says he's black, lories say he's British' - which the Caribbean Times refused to print and which was widely condemned by black leaders as a complete travesty.

There was Thatcher's visit to her Finchley constituency which was met and surrounded by a large, angry, chanting crowd of Labour supporters. They were filmed and recorded only by foreign TV crews, while BBC and ITV focused obediently on the Iron Lady of the Falklands.

And the proliferation of embarrassing leaks of economic forecasts and draconiar. plans to attack union rights and the welfare state are fended off with the aid of friendly editors - whol will join Dennis Healey in the queue for more New Year's Honours in 1984 if Thatcher gets back in.

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West Bromwich: women workers greet the March Peoples 10t JOHN HARRIS started.

march.

Peoples Peoples arch Job The People's March in Coventry Socialist Organiser no.133 Page MIZA

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Simon Katz