Brian Moore describes a Powell meeting in S. E. London

June 18 DATELINE: ERITH I REMEMBER a Billy Graham rally at Earl's Court. At the end of the meeting it was customary for the repentant to be called forward to God, to come to the platform and renounce the devil and the ways of communism.

At this meeting the main arena was so crowded that the ove flow audience could only wätch the proceedings outside on a television monitor.

moment decision Like some weird piece of science fiction, the sinners approached and touched the television tube. I was witnessing either the power of God or the power of technology.

It was as if dark medieval fears and superstitions were confronting the 20th century. It was a striking contradiction.

Grandmother

I had a grandmother also who saw the first live telstar transmisison, I believe it was Harold Macmillan's face that wobbled uncertainly on the screen.

Is that the man in the moon?' she asked, her own superstitions redefining science in order to grasp a meaning.

I watched a similar process take place at Erith on Friday, when Enoch Powell came down by the riverside.

A squad of police signposted the meeting hall. On a factory gate overlooking the Corinthian Restaurant, workers had placed a simple and improvised protest slogan out of chalk and cardboard. It read ' Vote Labour'.

Inside the heat was intolerable. TV cameras waited with a threatening battery of lights. Over the speaker's table was draped a faded Union Jack.

Powell came through a side door escorted by police, the prospective Tory candidate Jackson and the chairwoman of the meeting in a floral dress.

I would about THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE • Fill in the form below and SECRETARY, SOCIALIST 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, Name Address Behold The cheers and boos out.

Powell's supporters rose to their feet, clapping and cheering. "Three cheers for the red, rzhite and blue': 'Down with the red flag'.

They were like some grotesque Greek chorus of excited middle-aged women.

I watched them during the meeting. There was that same intensity throughout, a voraciousness for his words that they really couldn't comprehend.

They waited for his more obvious statements that were Fervent Support:

Some Tory women responding to Powell's speech. racialist, or anti-communist or vulgarly patriotic, that their minds i could dimly conceive, and then trembled and shouted their approval.

In them and on their faces you can see the scorings and etchings of psychological deprivation, frustration and neurosis that capitalism gives as its legacy, the disease of a diseased society. And it is on this that Powell plays, on ignorance, frustration, repression, puritanism and violence.

The sheer ugliness and ravages of capitalism are in their eyes.

Powell like information send to NATIONAL LABOUR LEAGUE, LONDON, SW4. the evangelical don speaker is a mixture of dogged evangelism and donnish emphasis.

Television clips exaggerate him. At length and 'live' he is dull and repetitive, a blunt flat edge to his voice.

He is built up as the man with the common touch with the intellect of the classical scholar.

But what he specializes in is chop logic in the guise of common sense.

At Erith it was his speech on economics and value. Significantly he sets out to woo Divine intervention perhaps? workers and trade unionists. Perhaps with this man He attacks the Labour gov- Lord might send down pennies ernment for betraying the very from heaven to put the econunions that brought the Labour Party into existence, for 'denouncing the workers and trade unions as the cause of the crisis, tor a crime for which it is itself guilty.

He reveals now the conspiracy of the Labour govern'Let us suppose a powerful trade union succeeds in obtaining a large wage increase, say 25 per cent. They [the Labour government want you to come to the conclusion that because wages have gone up in one sector of industry then all other wages will go up, and then all prices will go up' But in reality 'A rise in wages in one sector of industry means less money for everybody else'.

Behind this is the notion that there is a fixed pool of wealth, only so much to go around. Where then does the extra money come from? Like a conjuror about to produce th rabbit from that hat, he leans forward.

One authority 'There is only one authority in existence that can produce money, the government. Only the government can keep that tap of money hard on, which torces up every price.' Why do they do it? 'In order to finance its own expenditure.

'It's common sense,' he declares, as though he has just brought the tablets of stone down from the mountain, and his supporters peer at him uncertainly, but feeling that it must be so, for he has said it, and furthermore he was a one time University Professor in Classics.

The gaggle of women rise to their feet and clap ecstatically.

In her eagerness one jumps to her feet and her handbag falls on to the floor and florins and pennies clatter and roll around the ground. omy right. He'd have to.

Powell is a demagogue. He deals in half truths and evasions. He stands there, the implacable enemy of the work1ng class. 'the virus that kills socialism • A Tory lady presents him with a bouquet of flowers and wishes him a happy birthday. From the back someone throws a missile and is removed by the police.

Jackson, the prospective Tory candidate stands up to speak.

This one's seen the old movies. He rants and screams, waving his fists.

'At my adoption meeting I said I would not just defeat socialism in this district, but we will bury it with your help.

'The Labour Party is the party of the queers, the party of the abortionists.' Hysterical cheers from front three rows.

'And I would like to that I support Mr Powell imigration.

At this, uproar in the hall. A coloured youth rushes up to the table, shouting. 'How could you run the buses and the railways without coloured According to the press reports a group of skinheads removed him from the hall. In fact something much more interesting happened.

Far from escorting him the hall, they were won over VOTE LABOUR, by him and another Indian worker. They ended up opposing Powell.

The meeting is in a state of flux like this, like the economic and political situation at large. It begins to throw up all kinds of contradictions.

Ulrta-right

I am reminded of Brecht's play 'Arturo Ui'. Brecht follows the fortunes of an ultra-right; what brings him to power is not his fatuous charisma-he 1s a dull nonetity - but an economic crisis that rallies the capitalist class to his side to defeat the working class and continue their economic domination.

This election reveals the deep crisis and uncertainty within the capitalist class and their parliamentary representatives in the Tory Party. For now there is a reluctance to accept the policies of Powell.

But now is not for ever.

It is a developing crisis that brings out the splits left and right within the Tory Party, that gives impetus to Powell himself.

A deepening of the crisis can sweep aside the gentlemanly reservations now obtaining and bring him to power.

Only the working class can defeat Powell by defeating the very system that spawns him.

Revolution

In the coming period the workers' revolution and the establishment of socialism is urgently on the agenda.

History may not repeat itself in the same way, but it contains the warnings of past experience and defeats. Germany is the lesson here.

This election demands urgently one thing. Don't underestimate Powell. An improvised protest slogan hung on a nearby factory gate.

Richard CLEMENTS Raymond FLETCHER