16 OCTOBER 1975 The bitter truth about the Labour Government's plans for the Health Service became even clearer this week. Confronted with the offensive of the bankers and the consultants, Already the waiting lists for hospitals are longer than when the NHS was established in 1949. The Camden and Islington Area Health Association admits that in its area alone the expenditure called for by Labour will in the next 10 years only be one third or one half of what is needed. Now further swingeing cuts are being called for.
As one London hospital administrator told Monday's Evening Standard: "We are going to have to make reductions across the board in staff and facilities. It is bound to have an impact on patient care. It will mean fewer patients will be treated. There are going to be more ward closures during the summer months because of staff shortages.' To prop up a decaying, decadent and crisis-ridden capitalism, the Labour Government is prepared to sacrifice not only the productive power of industry and the income of the working class, but the very lives of working people. Every cut which Wilson imposes - leading to 50 nurses being sacked in South Glamorgan, 80 nurses sacked in Portsmouth and hundreds of Delegates voting at the MCAPP Conference for a campaign of action against cuts in the NHS WEEKLY No. 121 other medical workers laid off throughout the country - is a condemnation to illness, pain and premature death for thousands.
Wilson now says that to safeguard the profits of the juggernaut god capitalism you must not merely sacrifice your jobs, your houses, and your standard of living, but you must remain crippled with arthritis, condemned to see your children suffer through a hundred easily cured illnesses, and die from pneumoconiosis. Even before its dying agonies bring forth fascism, racism and dietatorship, capitalism shows the world the true face of barbarism. Wilson and his ilk are not merely traitors to the working class, they are in the most literal sense murderers of the working people.
GREAT BEGINNING Fortunately the working class movement is beginning to fight back against those who betrayed its great vietory in bringing down the Heath Government. Against unemployment, the cuts and the đ6 norm a new stirring of resistance is taking place. Conferences in Liverpool and Brent last weekend were the latest meetings to discuss the way forward. The 26 November lobby against employment must be the greatest working class demonstration since those against the Industrial Relations Act. All the cuts and all the attacks are linked. They must all be smashed - unemployment the £6 limit, education cuts, the slashing of council house building, and the blow to health On the NHS a great beginning was made last weekend when 395 delegates from 18 different unions met to discuss how to fight the cuts. This Conference organised by the Medical Committee Against Private Practice was one of the most significant meetings in the workers' movement on Health since the founding of the NHS. Its key demands — no cuts in the NHS; open the books to reveal the secret plans and the profits; automatic increases in expenditure to compensate for inflation; nationalisation of the drugs and supply industries - chart a way forward against the plans of Wilson and the ruling class.
By its programme and by its serious attempt to build united resistance it can and must build a massive movement to fight the crisis in the NHS The next step will be the local conferences action committees and demonstrations called for at the conference. With a militant follow-up to the lead which has been given, every attack on the NHS can be rolled back. The struggle to defend and extend the health service will be a vital step to defeating Wilson and opening the road to socialism.
MCAPP Conference Report - Pages 10 & 11. was a veritable fire-eater in his denunciation of the reactionary Franco dictatorship at the Labour Party Conference. Yet last week the Foreign Secretary sent Britain's ambassador hurrying back to Madrid, to carry on his hob-nobbing with Franco's bloodthirsty lackeys.
cine ambassadors return exposes LIe 'protests' of the European Governments at the recent executions for what they were - empty words designed to pacify the indignation of the workers' movement wurnout sunking any kind or real blow at Franco and his cohorts.
Wilson, Callaghan and the other Gov ernment cues or europe nave arcady demonstrated their hatred of the Portuguese revolution. They have done everything in their power to sabotage the struggle of the Portuguese workers, and will do the same in Spain it the need arises.
That is the job which the amoas sadors are being sent back to Madrid to carry out. Their task is to help Continued on page 9........
_ red weekly 16 october 1975
----- pull-quotes -----
Wilson and Castle are preparing to destroy the backbone of the welfare state.
4 PAGE 2,3,485
DOSSIER ON SPAIN Two weeks ago James Callaghan