THIS WEEK, Mr Leon Brittan, chief secretary to the treasury admitted that government borrowing last year would exceed the £7.5 billion. forecast, but claimed there were encouraging signs for the economic recovery.
m une same week le President of the Bank cap hand to Margaret Thatcher to back a large l crcase In loans to the Poorest of the countries.
He's trying to raise £10 billion loans to keep the 'poorest of the poor countries in the capitalists' pockets.
Borrowing With so much borrowing going on, may wonder what all the . fuss is about the Socialist Action Spring Appeal. After all we are only trying to Well, paltry £19,500. I guess you all know the answer, or you should do if you are a regular reader of Socialist Action.
Like Leon Brittan, we can see encouraging signs for the future. Busy We see the sales figures of the paper on the increase, and a busy ahead WILD the Peoples' March for Jobs. the Youth CND Carniva the 24th Womens' Day of Action.
This is a month when the sales should increase, figures on our logo will begin to link up right across the country.
There must be bank accounts over country just aching to be uscu Use it wisely, make out a chedue or standing order to your paper today! Thanks this week to:
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Bermondsey Labour Party won't be standing Tatchell as their candidate in the general election, as a direct result of the media witch hunt against him.
Peter has written up a speech hitting back at the press which he gave at the recent LPYS conference fringe meeting on gay rights.
THROUGHOUT the Bermondsey by-election, popular press and opposition parties took a sudden extraordinary interest in the issue of gay rights.
But it was not in order to add their weight to calls for homosexual equality.
Rather they played
gay rights and homophobic prejudice in order to undermine support for myself and Labour at the polis.
For fifteen months, in the run up to the Bermondsey by-election yellow rags of Fleet Street ran a series of sensational stories: Red Pete went to the Gay Olympics' (Sun), 'My fight for the Gays I support them says Pete' (Sun), row Labour' (News of the World), Gay Old Battle in Docklands' (Daily Express), etc.
All these stories clusively on myself and the Labour Party. They conveniently ignored the fact that several of the leading figures in the Bermondsey either gay or supporters of gay rights.
Indeed, in Bob Mellish, the people of Bermondsey have had an MP for the last 37 years who supports gay rights. The new Liberal MP, Simon Hughes, is also a supporter rights - or at least he has claimed to be since the election!
But Fleet Street chose not report such 'unpalatable' facts which might have harmed their political objective of bolstering the anti-Labour vote. What. hypocrisy standards! Throughout campaign It WaN teresting to observe tne wåy in walca the media portrays my defence of gay rignts as a personal rather than advocacy of official Labour Party policy.
Official Whilst I do have a personal commitment, gay rights is official policy, and, as such, every Party member is duty bound to fight for its implemenThat includes Michael Foot, and even Denis Healey, Labour parliamentary candidate!
Just as I supported gay rights in Bermondsey, so did the Labour candidate in Darlington, and so will the candidates beyond. It's our official policy agreed by conference!
post-mortem followed the Bermondsey by-election, it has been instructive to witness the way many people, even some within the Labour Party, have said that a more 'suitable' or less Labour candidate might have been a wiser choice. More "suitable whom?
What they really mean is more 'suitable' to the Tory press and more in conformity with popular judices. That effectively means more clones Labour candidate factory: moderate, middle-aged, married, macho and male! Heavens! We already have far too many Labour MPs of that stereotype.
If merely continue reproduce that traditional style of Labour candidate we will never get an Peter the on the rocks 'It's a focussed exby-election were adequate of gay cing them by parliamentary selection to candidates' and opposition parties.
double the byalso in"idiosyncracy' SDP.
Judging from tionalism offices in government.
plus every Cardiff and parliamentary open which has Bermondsey. Protect 'vulnerable establishment, and, pre allies in Fleet Street.
Nowadays, representation of womer and black MPs. Instead of overcoming prejudices, we will end up reinforconducting conferences within the parameters of 'acceptable as defined by the media Allowing Fleet Street to dictate the type of candidates we choose is only one step away from allowing it to determine our policies as well. If we permit ourselves to be bullied and intimidated down that road, we will be colluding with the transformation of Labour into a 'second eleven' for the the press sensasurrounding Bermonasey, one would have thought that there flinch. had never been any gay MPs inside the House of Commons. Far from it! Of course there are lots of homosexual MPs from all parties and both - and there always have been! Some of them have held the highest Their sexuality does not in any way diminish their ability to be good MPs. Indeed many are held in high public esteem for their conscientious service Regrettably, none of these gay MPs feel able to be their sexuality, fearing exactly the kind of anti-gay witch-hunting which I experienced in Of course the establishement does protect its own. Most of the homosexuals in parliament are part of the providing they maintain a degree of discretion, they are protected from exposure by their tar-brush homosexuality is largely only used by the mediadagainst left-wing socialists. In my own case, Fleet Street's real objection was to my socialist policies.
It merely used my sexuality and support for gay rights as a means to 'discredit' a socialist candidate which WId it wanted to see defeated at the polls. If I had been a Tory, Liberal or SDP candidate, there would have been no innuendo about my private life at all - just as there were no press smears about the sexuality of candidates who stood for those parties in the Bermondsey by-election.
Even in defeat, one of the good things to come out of the Bermondsey by-election was Labour's refusal te concede an inch to anti-gay prejudices despite all the abuse, threats and violence which marred the campaign. No other party has ever had its support for gay rights put to such gruelling tests of commitment as Labour experienced in Bermondsey. when the crunch came, we didn't Guts Unlike the other parties, Labour confronted bigotry head-on. We had right, even in the face of adverse contribute to the courage and convictions It is all very well for the Liberal victor, Simon Hughes, and his party judices after the by-election. But if they are so principled, why didn't condemn it during the camgay rights was shown up for the sham it is. Not only did the Liberals evade the issue, they positively added to the 'queer-baiting' atmosphere of the campaign by wearkissed by Peter Tatchell'.
should also show a little honesty and humility in recognising Labour's own record on gay rights leaves a lot to be desired. There are those on the 'left' dismiss because it is 'not a class issue'. Well, it certainly is!
•Of three women and men, majority most likely to suffer the full brunt of our homophobic laws, homosexuals can use their wealth and powerful connections to 'buy' way out of discrimination and harassment. Money talks — even for gays.
I am reminded of the case of a wealthy Labour MP who felt obliged to marry to disguise his homosexual preferences in view of the climate of public and press hostility. Several years ago, he was arrested for importuning late at night. However, a couple of telephone calls to the solicitor and a 'friendly chat' with the local police commander at 4am in the morning apparently release without charges. That would not have been the fate of an ordinary working class homosexual arrested in similar circumstances.
While Labour-controlled authorities such as the Greater London Council, Lambeth and Islington have pioneered municipal gay rights many backwaters still remain. A couple of years ago, council sacked Susan Shell. nure v and simply because she was a lesbian. Prejudice In the wider society too, prejudice still runs deep. Several years ago, a husband murdered discovering that she was having a lesbian affair. He was given a 12 month suspended prison grounds that his wife's lesbianism was a serious provocation. Last year a 22 year old man who dared to love an 18 year old was convicted of illegal sexual relations and was sentenced to two years in prison!
Lesbian mothers still often have a battle to children in divorce proceedings — as if their sexuality makes them any less caring and loving towards their kids!
In the context of such harsh opSocialist Action 22 April 1983 isations seem people pay benefit. cludes . the taken for ty.
mitments demands:
with Photo• CHRIS DAVIES (Renort Scotland, Armed Navy).
activity punishable fences million gay the overwhelming are working class and are services whereas rich also to their best secured his local SPECIAL ISSUE Barking's Labour his wife after Women lovine sentence on the now speeches Tatchell secure custody of their pression, relatively small grants made by the GLC and other local authorities to fund gay counselling organmodest indeed What is astonishing is the Tory and media outcry against such grants. Gay taxes and rates like everyone else. They have a right to expect that some of their contributions to the public purse are used for their At present, a lot of the taxes and rates paid by homosexual women and men are used to finance their own oppression in the form of police harass ment and discriminatory legislation. Gay people pay TV licence fees to finance the BBC which virtually exfrom its programming and frequently denigrates them in sensationalist news reporting and mocking prejudicial comedies.
It is long overdue that gay people democratic : human rights as many other Britons have granted. If socialism about the liberation of all nations, all classes, all peoples, and all minorities from all forms of oppression, then the Labour Party must be in the forefront of the struggle for homosexual equaliIn place of the often vague comProgramme '82, we must fight for more radical • Reduction in the age of consent for male homosexuals to 16 in equalit heterosexuals (including the North of Ireland, the Forces and the Merchant • The repeal or amendment of other sexual offences legislation (such as the laws on soliciting) which specifically penalise homosexuals where a similar between and women would either not be an offence or be by a lesser sentence, thereby ensuring common sexual oflaws that treat homosexuals and heterosexuals equally. • A generalised Anti-discrimination Act to make it illegal to discriminate against homosexuals in employment, housing and the provision of other For to incite hatred and violence against gay people (the ac cover women and black disabled and other minorities). • The right of young gays not to be deprived of their individual liberty b 'protective' custodial orders, and th right of lesbian mothers not to be deprived of custody of their children in divorce proceedings on the grounds of their sexuality.
I would urge that resolutions to this effect should be passed through local Young Socialists and CLP branches, and to get their branches to affiliate to Gay LPYS and the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights.
Blackpoo Report '82 Foot upset hampeign for Gay Rig • A special issue of Gay Socialist is available which contains rights by Tony Benn, Jo Richardson and Ken Livingstone as well as Peter Send plus stamped addressed envelope to 19 Hamilton Road, Southall, Mdax. Labour campaign fre Gay Righes • See page 5 for report
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