Wilson hot air about parliamentary institution

OPPOSITION leader Harold Wilson yesterday likened the Tory Cabinet to the board of directors of a property company.

Addressing a parliamentary press gallery luncheon at the Commons, Wilson said:

'More and more I getand others get-the impression of a Cabinet which is managerial Thirteen councillors face jail Rally round Clyde rent rebels BY PHILIP WADE OUR HOUSING CORRESPONDENT CLYDEBANK councillors say they will not be intimidated by the government and are not overnment and are not deterred by threats of imprisonment now hanging over their heads for not implementing rent rises under the hanging over their heads Tories' notorious Act.

'We are not going to courts of the Secretary c a leading Labour non-imp He was one of 13 councillors who on Tuesday night voted to ignore a court order instructing them to implement the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act.

This decision means at the end of a seven-day periodwhich expires next Tuesdaycouncillors face direct collision both with the courts and the government.

judges could summons councillors to answer for their contempt. Imprisonment and fines could follow swiftly.

It would lead to their disqualification from their elected positions.

The stand taken by the majority on the council has split the Labour group down the middleeight voting for implementation and seven against. Other nonimplementers are Communist Party and Scottish Nationalist councillors and one Independent.

'If you believe in something, you put up some kind of a struggle. The alternative is to may said chir Band usecl as a doorsaid Clir Bauld.

'We must stick to our principles. Nowadays some of our members just bend and they don't want this conflict Cllr Bauld indicated that those in the Labour Party who did not want to fight should resign. Of the Labour leadership at Transport House, he commented: "They have been sitting on the fence, refusing to come out into the open.

'Our position is quite clear. We have taken a stand and there can be no retreat from it now. The right to fix our rents in our towns has been taken away at the stroke of a pen.

We are determined not to accept these dictatorial powers, added Cllr Bauld. We were elected legally to do our job and not become a rubber for the Secretary of State, Stamp Clydebank was a 'distressed area', he added. • Unemployment was running at a staggering and savage ll per cent. Over 20,000 jobs had been lost from the area in ten years.

'Now they want us to impose a flat rate £l increase on everyone, including old age pensioners It is all very well talking of rebates, but the pensioner wouldn't get the full fl back, explained Cllr Bauld.

'If we implemented the Act it would hang a rope round our necks and just cripple the town. We have to fight for the will and aspirations of the people' Published by High Plough Press Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UG. board, the directors' room of a property company, with the modern indifference to shareholders and shareholders' meetings which • characterizes much of modern industry.

"The board decides. Tell them as little as is compatible with the Companies Act. And get the meeting over as quickly as possible.' He warned that the problems were only the tip of the iceberg ... 'and the be intimidated by the law f State,' Cllr Joseph Bauld, lementer, told me yesterday. The threat of imprisonment or fines would not make him change his mind.

In fact the 13 against the Act will not meet again before the seven days are up to reconsider the position.

At the moment they are campaigning for a massive demonstration at Clydebank on Saturday morning, assembling at the town hall at 10.30 a.m. They are appealing for support from every section of the labour and trade union movement.

But it is Clydebank cillors can one way.

The campaign in their support must be aimed at mobilizing the entire working class in a struggle to bring down the Tory government and return a Labour government pledged to socialist policies, including the repeal of the Tory rent Acts.

There can be no in this fight as made clear.

THE TORIES' state from 1,000 British And at depots throughout the Birmingham area yesterday drivers were confident that the government will have to allow payment of £2.50 bonus by BRS.

More than 10,000 Midlands car and car component workers were laid off as a demonstration of the drivers' powerful position.

Seven British Leyland factories were hit, including the giant Austin Morris complex at Longbridge.

The bodies and mally ferried into tories by the big and transporters.

On Monday of this week the drivers handed in to shop stewards their Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) licences which became compulsory for driving the lorries from that day.

They are demanding the payment of a £2.50 bonus which is already being received by men working for more than 170 private transport firms in the area. The drivers emphasize that they are not on strike-and they are angry at what they believe are Tory-inspired reports that they are already earning £43 a week. clear that this vicious the basic rights of workers and counonly be defeated in compromise Tories have Lorry ferry drivers defy state pay law From David Maude pay legislatic Road Servi parts are norcar facBRS vehicles dangers of continuing this trend are a growing cynicism, a loss of confidence in parliament'.

Wilson's fear for the institution of parliament is nothing more than reformist hot air.

If the Tories are using parliament as a rubber stamp for their anti-Labour legislation then no one carries greater responsibility than Wilson himself.

All the Tory legislation Rail pay offer In has run into :es transport didn't either.

being railroaded through parliament by Heath was originated by Wilson: • The Industrial Relations Act has its seeds in the Labourite plan 'In Place of Strife'. • The Housing Finance Act owed its origins to the Labour 'fair rents' scheme. • The European Communities Act was actually drawn up while Wilson was still in office.

BRITISH Rail has still not answered the train drivers' demand for a £40 basic wage put forward by the locomen's union ASLEF.

At yesterday's protracted talks over a new pay structure for 30,000 drivers, British Rail could only tell ASLEF they would get an offer 'as soon as possible'.

ASLEF secretary Ray Buckton said afterwards the executive would consider the situa tion this morning.

'We do not want industrial action. But if we are forced into a corner, I hope the public will understand it's because stiff opp osi ion drivers Ted Groves, a driver at Oldbury BRS depot in Birm ingham, told me: 'This is the only job where you actually havr pay to go to work.

"They class us as unskilled, but I have to have two licences and a medical certificate before I can start work. You pay £l for this new HGV licence and £4.50 for a medical.' For a 50-hour week Ted Groves took home £29.50 in his last pay packet-and that was including £2.50 bonus.

This was the highest pay slip that I saw at the Oldbury depot. Most men, driving 24-ton lorries for which . the HGV licence is now needed, are taking home beTWPAN I £23.50 and £27 for 50 and 56} hours respectively.

The pay rates at BRS are in fact £4.60 lower than those for firms in the Road Haulage Association, driver Bill Garner said.

Bill Fletcher, shop steward for the Transport and General Workers' Union at Oldbury, said: 'We didn't ask for these licences, they've been imposed on us by law.

'We didn't ask for the pay freeze ASLEF general secrotary Ray Buckton • Heath's state pay laws are a harsher step along the road paved by the Prices and Incomes Board. In conclusion it must be said, if Wilson is so upset with the Tory presidentialstyle of rule, why isn't he joining with the TUC in mobilizing the labour and trade union movement to force the government out? Wilson will not answer that question. of British Rail's delay and procrastination,' he said.

The new structure, added Buckton, had been under discussion for two years.

The only thing ASLEF got out of yesterday's talks was BR's dropping Its scheme for dividing drivers into three grades for pay purposes.

ASLEF's claim for a £9.25 increase In the basic rate is separate from the annual pay revlew for which no claim has yet been sent in.

The National Union of Railwaymen was also at yesterday's talks, but is known to be critical of the ASLEF claim. DEFEND ALE DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS DEFEND TRADE ISM AND BASIC LIVING STANDAROS. IN A I TO MAKE THIS TORY GOVERNME RESIGN- THE ROAD TO POWER IS THROUGH THE BUILDING THE BeVOLUTIONARY PARTY TICKET 21 SPECIAL LECTURE: Given by G. Healy, SLL national secretary Marxism and the Road to Workers' Power SUNDAY FEBRUARY 4, 7p.m. BEAVER HALL, (nr Mansion