Kelvingrove Is Katie’s Toughest Fight

EATH of Walter Elliot left his wife Katie, who ‘would. like to keep [Kelvingrove]. as a kind of - memorial to her husband’ with the toughest battle of her career. If she manages to retain the seat as a monument it will rest on a large, hostile, but split anti-Tory vote.

The prevalent mood of the voters is one of fear and anger. Increased rents, probable evictions, rising unemployment and the hydrogen bomb are the dominant issues.

With an electorate of 40,000. Kelvingrove contains within its bounds the University, the ‘posh’ Park Ward (severely hit by the Rent Act), the ‘poor’ Anderston Ward (a sprawling mass of degrading slum tenements, . with their. ‘single-ends’. and outside lavatories) and ‘a_._from.Labour.-His-support-for--unilateral. action -on-the-heavy concentration of industry. Hotels, “hostels and ‘model’ lodging houses contain the floating voters.

FIRM ‘OFFICIAL’ LINE. ‘Follow Rochdale’, plead the Labour posters, and the candidate Mrs Mary McAlister tours the constituency on this platform. ‘Though supporting speakers demand the repeal of the Rent Act, local voters question the candidate’s admitted support for a ‘review’ of all rents by the Glasgow City. Council.

Declared support for the manufacture of the H-bomb, and firm support for the ‘official’ line, leave the impression. that if Labour wins it will be despite the candidate and despite policy statements.

Mrs. Elliot. has left her 5,000-acre farm on the Border GAAP A ASP ASP LDP PPD PIP LL LL LIL LL ILI III IL ILI PIII When I spoke I warned the management that the Dalkeith tenants would resist; that if new missives were served they would be destroyed; that if court action were attempted the town council would..consider_ giving financial, help_to the tenants from the Common Good Fund.

The Association chairman said no increase would be made until all views had been considered.

It is quite clear that the mass pressure since the Association first tried to increase. the rents last October has forced them to retreat. .

A liaison committee has been formed between the Dalkeith and the Easthouses tenants to co-ordinate activity.

Unfortunately the Labour-controlled Midlothian. County Council has increased its rents by 6s. a week, and in the absence of organization the tenants have signed the new missives.

A resolution condemning the increase was defeated, after a stormy three-hour debate, by the casting vote of the chairman at a special Labour Party conference. :

The Left is now charging the executive with manipulating the vote by unconstitutional means and is demanding another conference and another vote. and her fox-hunting to fight on a ‘Defend the Pound’ programme. To constituents faced with increasing local redundancy and ‘higher rents this offers little encouragement.

Tory meetings have been well attended, in the main by hostile audiences.

Vague warnings to landlords and evasive answers on the unemployment problem, even to. the extgnt of the candidate admitting that she was unaware that ships were lying idle in the Clyde, have failed to satisfy questioners.

Of the intruders into this battle, Mr William Park (Independent Labour Party), declaring himself to be the only socialist in the election, will take some votes H-bomb is the cornerstone of his campaign.

POSITIVE PROGRAMME NEEDED. The LiberalHome Rule candidate Mr David Murray is a man who has made a habit of standing under many banners. His entrance, after the announcement of television coverage of the by-election, will take a few. dissident Tory votes.

Committee ‘room reports: indicate that a high poll is to be expected in this first by-election on the Clyde since the Tory offensive got under way.

Whatever the result the reaction of the voters in the preliminary rounds shows: that.an anti-Tory platform is not enough. Labour must bring forward a positive alternative programme.

group, Mr Tom Cheney, the district organizer, Mr George Kelly, and the chairman of the Shop Stewards’ Council, Mr Bill Caldwell.

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They .offered an-immediate return to. work if-the fifteen sacked workers were reinstated and a disputes panel were set up to discuss alleged wrongful dismissals and the whole question of redundancy. The management rejected this offer.

‘The feeling of the workers is very strong. The solidarity is terrific, says Mr Caldwell, who is a Labour Party member and a former Councillor.

Men and women have turned out on the picket line in the bitter-cold. Neighbouring houses have. given them hot drinks.

‘We are fighting a return to the thirties,’ Dennis. Barker, secretary of the local branch of the National Union of Furniture Trade Operatives, told me.

There have been many expressions of sympathy from other trade unionists and Labour Party member in Bury, where there is increasing short time in the cotton and woollen mills, in the slipper works and engineering factories.

GEORGE MANN STEWARDS FIGHT FOR JOBS