Tape-recordings

REPORTS of collusion between the British army and the para-military Ulster Defence Association have now been backed up by details of tape recordings of military transmissions during fighting in Belfast last week.

Paddy Devlin, Social Democrat and Labour Party 1 MP for Falls, has announced he is sending a report on the alleged collusion to Opposition leader Harold Wilson to see if existing Labour-Tory relations underwrites this activity.

Devlin alleged that in the last week east Belfast 'Tartan gangs' had terrorized Catholic families by open intimidation and outright attack.

And he claimed that where these gangs operated, only token army patrols were observed and 'bigots' had complete freedom to shoot and petrol-bomb Catholic families.

'This is not an oversight on the military part to let this happen every night. It is a deliberate and calculated policy not to intervene to prevent Catholics being attacked, he remarked.

Devlin said he had heard a tape of military transmissions for last Thursday morning during mob violence in Belfast's East End.

In one extract the army officer commanding east Belfast speaking to patrol commanders, told them:

I have spoken to a senior UDA man. He is now going to put the UDA out on the streets to stop the trouble.' In another extract the officer said: 'The senior UDA man informs me that the UDA now will take action against the Tartans. They are to be allowed to do so.' An Army patrol later asked the commander if a UDA patrol in a Land Rover at the junction of Holywood Road were to be allowed down the Newtownards Road. He replied:

'Oh yes: UDA has full moveSaid Devlin: 'These extracts indicate sinister collaboration between an illegal para-military army and security forces. They indicate constant dealing and horse-trading between the UDA and military locally all of it with high-level approval ...

It is essential that these facts relating to this military conduct, including the tape I have heard, be sent to Mr Wilson to see if the bipartisan policy which exists between the Labour Party and the Conservative government in Britain underwrites this activity.

'Harold Wilson must be made to understand the real consequences of this joint activity. The abominable behaviour of the military by their refusal to protect unfortunate Catholic families and their property in east Belfast-while intensively persecuting the innocent people of west Belfast-is the equal of any crime ever perpetrated by British troops in the struggle to cling to colonial holdings.' • Earlier this week, UDA leaders admitted that American Vietnam veterans were giving weapons training to their members in Northern Ireland.

Scottish beer and bread in short supply BREAD was in short supply in Glasgow yesterday because of the bakers' strike which began on Monday last week.

Secretary of the Scottish Master Bakers James Dandie said all the big bakeries in the capital were closed. Three in Edinburgh were also affected, but Mr Dandie claimed that management and supervisory staff there were continuing to produce bread.

About 3,000 workers are on unofficial strike at the bakeries, protesting over a wage deal concluded by the Scottish Union of Bakers, which would give The UDA Is given free range by army in east Belfast, claims Devlin. Above: a 'stop and frisk' checkpoint BY PHILIP WADE Our Housing Correspondent THE TORY government has sent letters to nearly all the Labour councils in Britain still defying the 'fair rent' Act, giving them 28 days to fall in line.

Only Conisborough, Yorkshire, and Camden, London, councils have yet to receive the Tory message. If the decisions not to implement remain, the Tories can then move in a Housing Commissioner.

These governmentappointed overlords will take over all the housing affairs of the council concerned.

Another threat is, of course, that of surcharges. Individual councillors who voted against the rent increases could find themselves landed with the bill for the money which should have been collected from tenants.

Prime Minister Edward Heath made it clear in his closing speech to the Tory Party conference at them an increase of about a week on basic rates.

THE POSITION was unchanged yesterday in the strike by bar staff employed by Tennent Caledonian Breweries.

About 70 pubs in the managedhouses division, mostly in Glasgow, were closed as a result of the strike, and supplies of beer from the brewery in Glasgow and Edinburgh have been halted.

The bar staff are demanding negotiating rights for the Transport and General Workers' Union and a £6-a-week rise. 'Army B0182548 Blackpool on Saturday that the government would not hesitate in moving against those defying "law and order'.

Among the tenants fightng increases passed on by abour councils-and there are over 340 of them-one of the strongest areas of resistance still appears to be in Manchester.

Said Mrs Connie Fahey, ecretary of the Mancheser and Salford Tenants' Action Group, yesterday:

•All over the weekend JAMES CALLAGHAN, Labour Party . treasurer and former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Wilson government, today becomes a fully-fledged merchant banker.

Callaghan is a director of the newly-formed Commercial Bank of Wales which today launches a public float of two million fl shares. Three million ordinary £1 shares have already been issued, so when the bank opens its doors in Cardiff on October 30 it will have a capital of £5m.

Chairman of the bank is millionaire insurance and property magnate, Sir Julian Hodge, and other directors are former Labour Secretary for Wales, George Thomas, Lord Harlech, and two executives from the First National Bank of Chicago. Joe