Ray Gunter, explaining on television his reasons for resigning from the Labour Government, spoke of the growing gap between the administration and the working class. He urged the need for the Party to get back to the grass roots. With all this no-one will disagree, least of all socialists, What they will question, however, is Gunter as the self-appointed champion of a return to working class politics.
In the course of the interview, Gunter claimed that he, as Minister of Labour, was able to talk to trade unionists because he was one of them. What he meant, of course, is that as an old-time trade union bureaucrat, he was able to meet his fellow-bureaucrats on equal terms, Between them they could agree on compromises which took no note of the demands of the rank and file.
The reasons for the growing chasm between the workers and the Government are simple, Labour was returned to power because the great majority of the working class expected from a Labour Government, if not socialism, at least a substantial improvement in their living and working standards, Instead they got a curb on wage increases and unemployment, while prices soared and profits rose. They expected an expansion of social services; instead they got prescription charges.
While all these anti-working class policies were being rushed onto the statute book, Mr. Ray Gunter remained a member of the Cabinet. Not a peep out of him to indicate that he was in any way in disagreement, On the contrary! He constantly threatened draconic action to curb the workers' right to strike, He was particularly vitriolic about unofficial strikes, Few will forget his out-burst at the West London Air Terminal during the strike of airport porters, "Disgusting" was the word he used when he found he had to carry his own luggage,
As chairman of the Labour Party's disciplinary committee, Mr. Gunter took the lead in witch-hunting critics of the Government's policy out of the Party or preventing them from becoming Parliamentary candidates. Few who were present at the Blackpool conference in 1965, will forget how Gunter, as chairman, stifled the expression of left-wing opinion.
If there is that gap between workers and government, it is Gunter and his former colleagues in the Cabinet who have created it. No-one will be deceived by his crocodile tears and his expressed desire to return to the "folk from whence I came." He long ago deserted his folk for the flesh-pots of capitalist society, Labour will return to its grass roots only when it is finally purged of its Gunters and all they stand for,