Mr.Wilson's right wing, ably represented by the estimable lir.Gunter, have begun to show their teeth, The Minister of Labour's appeal to the National Society of Metal Mechanics, last Sunday, took the form of ana attack on skill differentials and a demand for a halt at the top of the wage scale while the low-paid workers clanbered up. Of course, in practice, the militant best paid workers have un to now set the pace in wage breakthroughs, often to be followed by much wider strata. But the skilled men and the low paid man (who in real life are often not two separate categories) will both quickly learn that the real teeth of the incomes policy, the attack on "restrictive practices" will bite far more uncomfortably than the attack on wages. Whilst full employment lasts wages will in any case be maintained by employers' competition for labour, But "restrictive practices" are very often only "restrictive" of the employer's authority: they represent an important part of theelement of workers' control which has been growing up in British Industry since the war, Neither Mr. Gunter nor old Nick will make very speedy incursions into such fields as this: but their very attempts to do so will provoke a reaction which could quickly revalue last Friday's line-up.
The attacks will mount, But the left can firht back, and may well be able to imnose new goals and priorities on Mr.Wilson, who anpears an uneasy captive at this moment, What Labour needs here, above all, is, we must repeat, an offensive strategy.The arsument about incomes policy must be turned against the employers, by callinz for creater areas of workers’. control and union power, rather than defending existing controls and powers in a half-hearted way. Onen the books ! Prevent profit inflation by a trade union insvection of accounts! We must evolve an azfressive incomes policy, which on a base of expanding structural reforms, nationalisation and workers' self-management, will speedily ensure a ravid redistribution of wealth towards our own people.