ting Committee Against Cuts in the NHS whom it was possible to contact by Monday afternoon: STEVE JOHNSON, Nora Beloff, political corespondent of the Observer, has returned to her favourite job of red-baiting. Announcing what she calls 'New evidence of Trotskyist infiltration of the Labour Party, she explained: "The International Marxist Group is playing a leading rold in the "direct action campaign" against private medicine and cuts in the NHS.' Beloff, who is not notorious for getting her facts right, is spot on with that one. The IMG is playing a leading tole in that campaign. We have every intention of putting the full weight of our political and material resources behind working class resistance to attacks on its health and living standards.
We are not prepared to stand idly by whilst Wilson, Castle and company carry out policies which mean pain and suffering for millions of working people. under capitalism there can be no adequate and proper health service. Furthermore, we will argue in that campaign that to resist the Labour Government's cuts and to transform the NHS into a service responsible to the working class means a real fight against the Wilson leadership.
The 11 October Conference of MCAPP, the success of the report-back meetings, and the campaign being organised by the broad-based National Coordinating Committee is setting the pace for a real united movement to fight the cuts inside the health service. These kind of movements cause real concern inside the ruling class circles.
Trots on new warpath™ It is this concern that lies behind Nora Beloff's anti-Trotskyist article - hence the season of the witch-hunt. As she says: 'Labour Ministers are worried about campaigns for direct action, particularly in the NHS...?
of the 30-strong NCC are IMG members, her attempt to prove a conspiracy falls flat on its face. If she wanted evidence that the IMG took the campaign seriously, all she had to do was to read Red Weekly.
After an open debate involving 395 delegates from a whole range of trade union and labour organisations, the 11 October Conference democratically elected four IMG members to the NCC. uire, was elected assistant secretary and national organiser. the result of some clever subterfuge, but because the conference recognised the leading role that she and other people - most of whom are not IMG members - played in building the Conference.
But then such open debate and democratic discussion is alien to the Beloffs of this world. She is more at home in the dinner parties of S.W.1. There the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party consort with the academic intelligentsia and the top civil servants as well as the direct representatives of the ruling class.
That is a world of cliques and elitism, where contempt for the working class runs riot. She and her paper are the direct mouthpieces for that conspiratorial clique which represents nothing more than sordid greed and When she attacked the Militant we explained in Red Weekly that her attack was directed at the revolutionary left with the aim of discrediting the entire left in the labour movement. their ruling class backers will not rest content with the heads of the 'far" left. Given success in that field, they will go head-hunting after Tribune and any other opposition to their pro-capitalist policies.
Ms Beloff is concerned about the IMG and the Labour Party. Let us say quite candidly that we have many supporters inside the Labour Party Many of its members read Red Weekly.
What is more, we intend to fight in that campaign to show that Despite Beloff's innuendos and her 'revelation' that four of the members One comrade, Janet MagThis was not The Beloffs, the Jenkinses, and cuts More hospital closures on the way. More sackings. Reductions in staff intake.' This was the warning given by members of the National Coordinating Committee Against Cuts in the NHS (NCC) at a press conference in London last week.
Dr Paul Stern, secretary of NCC. reported on a secret document dealing with the North East Thames Region: "Less capital allocation will be provided in the next two to three years. There will be no money for new developments unless it comes from redeployment of existing services.' Referring to a document prepared by the South Glamorgan Area Health Authority, the NCC organiser Janet Maguire noted that: "The Welsh Office's Working Party have decided that the development monies allocated to the Authority should be re duced by a total of tl million in real terms in the next ten years.
The document, she said, candidly admitted that 'it would not be possible to remain within its allocation 6 The members of the National Coordinating Committee who were elected at a broad and representative labour move21 Th0 IntArM0An /h w40Nmala note the article in Sunday's Observer (23 November) by Nora Beloff attacking the campaign against cuts inside the health service. Beloff uses the fact that organisations like the International Marxist Group are involved in the campaign and thereoy uries to aiscreai me campaien This is no more than a smear to try to undermine the fight against cuts inside the NHS. We would remind Beloff that the NCC was elected by 395 delegates representing some one million workers. It was elected after a democratic vote and on the basis of policies discussed and decided by these delegates The Conference, like the NCC, was made up of trade unionists and members or the Labour Party and other working class organisations. The chairperson of the NCC is Ernie Roberts, Dr Paul Stern, Secretary of the NCC, holding up the North East Thames cuts document. for staff within the financial year without imposing an immediate ban on the replacement of staff lost through wastage..?
Already 32 nurses due to start their training in the area have been told just two weeks before their course is due to begin that they cannot start because of lack of cash. At the Heath Hospital 52 newly qualified nurses have been made redundant. At the same time the South Glamorgan AHA are not asking for more cash because they claim they are overstaffed!
Maguire reported that the NCC in South Wales is already organising a vigorous fight back against these proposals. It has demanded that the books be opened for all the workers to inspect them, and has challenged the Secretary of State for Wales The following statement in response to the Observer article was issued by those members of the National Co-ordinaPETER AMLOTT, PAUL STERN, ERNIE ROBERTS, RAY PERRY, and JANET MAGUIRE.
the crisis in the NHS and proscriptions.
to debate a panel of elected trade unionists on TV about the proposed secret cuts.
Pointing out that the NCC fully intends to fight these and all other cuts, Steve Johnson - a member of the NCC and a full-time health officer for NALGO - said that the Welsh miners 'were prepared to take industrial action to defend the NHS.
Ernie Roberts, assistant general secretary of the AUEW and chairperson of the NCC, explained that a series of regional conferences were being organised against the proposed cuts, and that the NCC would make make available all these documents and plans to the whole labour movement.
The NCC was also calling for a nation al demonstration in the Spring on this issue. assistant general secretary of the AUEW and a well known act ivist in the Labour Party. We welcome the support of all indiv iduals and organisations who are prepared to struggle around We are concerned to defend the health of working people and aim to work towards a health service that fully serves the needs of and is responsible to the working olass. Beloff's article ois notming more than an artempt to discreait tne campargn anc support those people who want to run down the NHS.
We therefore reject this witch-hunt and reiterate our firm conviction that all members of the workers' movement who support the democratically agreed policies of the campaign are welcome to work in it, and if elected are free to act as its officers and spokespersons witnout te restrictions or any bans Campaign Against the Cuts in Public Spending in Birmingham, 13 December Assemble 10.30 in Victoria Square boeakers include om uitterick Mr Ernie Roberts, Asst Sec AUEW; Jeff Rooker MP: Ken Barlow, UCATT; Val Coultas, NUS; Chris Adamson, NUPE; Gordon Green, NUT Birmingham