ANY SUPPOR Con Saturday June 6th Lewisham' Lines Grove, Plus Irish videos, Exhibition, Bookstall, Raffle, Disco. entrance price t l unwaged, £2 waged, p+p. soualist action 1987 8.30pm til late Club.
Lewisham, London SEI3. THE NORTH West of England has more marginal seats than any other area of the country. Twenty-two are on Labour's target list. In Liverpool, the Alliance expresses itself confident of making gains, particularly in Broadgreen where Terry Fields won the seat for Labour at the last election against an uninterrupted Tory rule. Fields was aided in 1983 by the fact that the Liberal Party and the SDP both stood candidates in the significance of the local election results for Labour and why the fight is on in Liverpool.
AGAINST all odds, Labour did extreme v well in Liverment elections on Once again we control the city council.
This was a clear deteat for the SDP-Liberal Alliance which as confident of continuing to lead the counci atter the elections - and a vindication of the council's fight against the Tory attacks on local government. With the publication Ene general election manifesto, It hatchel were elected for third term. the attacks on local jobs and services would be accelerated.
Labour won 43 of the 59 seats at stake in Liverpool on a higher than usual turnout. More than 50 per cent electorate which was 5 per cent up on the poll of the previous year.
We retook the city coun cil by a majority of three seats. holds against the Alliance's and the Tories 4. The Tories the 10S LIlICC scals Alliance, but Labour also lost tour to them. three from Broadgreen.
Labour's vote not only held up but increased Liverpool city. While the vote went up overall, it did so mostly at the expense of the lorv Party. Their vote collapsed -they lost all three of their contested seats.
If this support for Labour is continued in the general election, the party would do well in Liverpool. But not all seats are safe. In Broadgreen and varston. the Alliance did better than they ought, partly counted for by the fact that last time the SDP Liberals stood candidates against each other. Work is needed here.
The Alliance is cock-ahoop at the collapse of the Tory vote. They are hyping this up, attempting to sug Dest alour Is on the decline. But this has already been disproved in the tirst week of the general election CanDaleil.
The local government elections in Liverpool show exactly what the Alliance is about. They are no alternave to caboutnereds elsewhere, their function has been to provide an alternative to Margaret Thatcher's government which is deeply unpopular. The purpose of the Alliance is to attract the anti-Labour vote. It is the junior Tory Party.
Media And that shows the purDOsC and the danger of the tactical voting campaign that the media have run at full steam over the past few months.
In Birkenhead, Labour MP Frank Field has publicly joined the tactical voting campaign. But his efforts to persuade the people of Liverpool to vote against left wing Labour candidates have come to nought. The truth of the matter is that if
IN MARCH of last year, activists in the NUR formSocialist Action 29 May 1987
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the Broadgreen seat. This time round the Alliance is sporting a single candidate. ERIC HEFFER explains