Fighting health cuts cuts and rent Elitism or struggle?

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TWO councillors on Stoke City Council, Jason Hill and Arthur Bough, have had the whip withdrawn from them by the ruling Labour Group. The two councillors had opposed a proposed rent increase.

Both councillors are now banned from attending Labour Group meetings, so in effect THE soft left's attitude on it left's attitude on the rent rise has been most instructive.

At the November Group meeting the soft left responded to the 5% proposal with a proposal to adopt the "Sheffield system"

This proposal was moved by Mick Williams, a leading soft left. in anonrianno policy of his branch, Hartshill. artwuauce wiln tne The intention of the "Sheffield system" is to achieve a rent freeze for employed tenants by increasing the rents of those receiving Unified Housing Benefit and who thus would not have to pay the increase anyway.

Because of the massive right wing majority in the Labour Group (about 45-12) this proposal was rejected. But instead of then supporting a rent freeze, the soft left proposed an increase of 2½ %.

In the case of those councillors from Hartshill this was clearly against their branch policy of supporting the Sheffield system which is designed precisely to have the effect of a rent-freeze.

The 2½% increase proposal was also supported by another long-standing soft left, Jean Edwards, who represents the same branch as Councillors Hill and Bough (Burslem Central). Yet the branch has a long established policy of opposition to cuts, and of mandating its councillors to vote against them at all times.

When even their 2½% proposai was defeated, the soft left surrendered completely. Mick Williams recommended a vote in favour because he said the Housing Chair had stated that it would be a maximum of 5%, and this left it open for the Housing Committee to agree on a zero increase.

Arthur Bough was absent from this meeting which left Jason Hill as the only person to vote against.

n tact, the Housing Committee subsequently voted to increase the rents by slightly more than 5%.

The scene of the dispute then shifted to Burslem Central Branch. The Branch Secretary moved that all the Councillors be asked to oppose the increase in full council. The soft left then proposed an amendment that he councillors oppose the increase, but walk out of the pounci meeting rather than vote Against. This amendment was carried by one vote.

A further amendment was arried overwhelmingly that ifter the walk out a press stateaf we stand Socialist ORGANISER racinet Two Damphlets for 45n including postage, from Socia ist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane. London N8.

they have been expelled.

The council's finance officers proposed an increase of 11½ % - an average of £1.36 a week.

The right wing majority in the Labour Group proposed instead an increase of up to 5%. It is possible the finance officers' proposal was a 'bargaining' ploy to make the increase which they By why they had walked out why the branch opposed the increase.

A few days later, however, councillor Jean Edwards wrote to the branch saying she would not carry out the decision - a decision she had voted for!

'This trom a member of the soft left who until then had been berating the right wing for lack of accountability.

At the full council meeting Councillors Hill and Bough carried out the branch's decision. As a result they were disciplined by the Labour Group at a specially convened meeting on 9 January. Again, the soft left showed their true colours.

There were only five votes against the Group's action. Leading soft lefts like Mick Williams not only • voted to suspend, but spoke in favour of It.

Only a couple of years ago some of these same soft-left councillors themselves walked out of a council meeting in opposition to cuts. So wlat has changed? The answer lies in both local and national developments.

On the one hand these soft lefts acted as uncritical cheerleaders Kinnock leadership campaign, and acted in a crude bureaucratic manner to prevent opposition to Kinnock and support for Heffer being presented.

They have collapsed politically into Kinnock's project of building party unity by watering down Labour's policies. As a result they are opposed to anything, including seriously challenging the Right,.. which appears to "rock the boat"

actually intended appear more reasonable.

Councillors only received the statistics on the Housing Revenue Account two to three days before the Labour Group so it was impossible for the councillors to consult their branches.

Nor was there any attempt to have the matter discussed at the attitude has shown them to have an elitist, administrative view of socialism - give us a Labour Group majority and we'll create socialism for you.

Of course, when the actors in this play don't carry out the parts the soft left have drawn up for them, they have to be brought into line.

At the moment it's only a matter of controlling two councillors, but what when it's the working class who don't conform to the soft lefts' plans. In essence this view of socialism links the soft left to the right.

Serious socialist politics, however, requires a principled THE STOKE Labour Party's idea District Labour Party, which is supposed to be the body which determines policy.

The decision of the Labour Group was therefore, right from the beginning, undemocratic.

Both councillors are appealing against their expulsion from the Labour Group. stand at all times against stand at. all timeo attacks on the working class and a focus on and attempt to give leadership to today's struggles rather than subordinating them to some vision of a socialist future which will arrive miraculously by some means other than a working class struggle.

Socialists can never see their role as administrators of capital. alism. Whether in local national government, our job is or to use these institutions as a platform from which to mobilise the working class to struggle against - and ultimately overthrow _ capitalism. That is the conception of socialism comrades Hill and Bough have been fighting for.

OCCUPATION PICKET ROTA em CEL COHSE SUM rises 324 jobs and four hospitals are to go in the North Staffs District Health area, making it the worst hit area in the West Midlands in the current round of government health cuts.

The area is already £8 million a year under-financed. Now they call for a further cut this year of £ 691,000!

Just how poor health care in the area already is was brought out in a recent report by a DHA working group. Wards in the City General Hospital, they said, The Longwol hospital occupati showing the way to fight health cuts were "seriously sub-standard"

The report says that mental in-patient services are currently deprived of about $1.6 million revenue. At the main hospital handling mental patients, Edwards, that 70 mentally handicapped patients are scattered in various wards, and it urgently recommends that they be moved to more appropriate facilities.

Opposition to the cuts, closures and re-organisation began on 16 November, when the 'Friends of Westcliffe Hospital" launched a campaign to save the hospital.

Westcliffe is an old 146-bed geriatric hospital in the north of Stoke-on-Trent. The DHA says the hespital is in poor repair, and that closure will save money. But 'a state of disrepair' is an argument for making repairs, not for closure.

As the Friends of Westcliffe say in one of their leaflets, 'If better care can be given, by spending money on facilities which will take five years provide, why not spend some of that money now at Westcliffe."

The hospital, besides being in the local community, also has pleasant surroundings. As their leaflet says 'why spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on almost rebuilding old buildings at the City General Hospital (where the patients are to be transferred)? Why, when the best that money can buy at the City General will result in beds for only 100 patients, who will look out of the windows at brick walls. No gardens and

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