f 3 An appeal to Jennie Lee be 9 C.S.E. news, " 4 U.S. notes "1° Package deals. " 5 V.S.C. activities "ll U.S. civil rights movement. e 6 Scottish notes "12 = +The rape of Formosa, WELCOME BACK, FRANK} "The most politically significant resignation since Aneurin Bevan's in 1951", wrote The Times, in its sour editorial on Monday, after Frank Cousins had ~ left Mr, Wilson's cabinet rather than endorse the new anti-union legislation which was published immediately afterwards, For once, The limes is rights Frank Cousins, slone smong left-wing members of the Government, has stood by his pledges: and the sight of a man of this Government taking his own past promises scriously will have an electric effect upon the whole Labour movement. Mr, Wilson cannot accuse Frank Sousins of inconsistency, Right at the beginning of the incomes policy debate, at the T.U.C. in 1963, he set the pattern of his present actions Gerrge Woodcokk, he said wanted to influence governments: but "I am not conceited enough to think that they are influenced by what I say, I think they are influenced by the power of the people I represent, “hen I talk to the Governmenteseeethey are much more influenced when I am saying the things my members want me to say, than when I am saying the things they do not want me to say, and we will not have restraint, whoever brings it and wraps it up for us," ihn his resignation statement the same thought stands out clearly: he rightly accuses‘the architects of the policy of believing that wage restraint is a substitute for an economic policy, Of course, Mr. “ilson has an economic policy: it is a policy of saving sterling, and making the capitalist economy viable again, and no-one can say that it is meeting with any appreciable . success, He would have been more usefully employed if he had stayed at Ozford and worked out how to square the circle, But Frank Cousins is demand~ ing a different policy: a policy along the lines of the 1963 speech he made to the Labour Party Conference, in which he promised to support Mr, Wilson, because "He is wanting to be part of a team that is going to change the system" "We want," he said then, "a planned rate of growth which will enable us to have improvements in our real standards of wages," It was Mr, “ilson who changed, and the resignation statement makes this perfectly plain, The proméses given by the Government to the bankers represent "a wrong attitude and a contradiction of the philosophy upon which our party is based," In 1963, in the same speech to the Conference of the Labour Party, Frank Cousins _ made great stress of the attitudes and intentions which underpin economic policy. hen, he took Mr. Wilson's promises in good faith, as we did, and as very many of Labour s supporters did. Now, he says on the basis of deep ' experience of the behind-the-scenes influences on policy, that these essential attitudes are wrong, 2nd must be opposed. We agree with him, We would add two appeals to this. To the left M.P.s, we would say "back Frank Cousins for all you are worth, and oppose the anti-union bill" 4nd to the left members of the Government who remain behind, we would say, "for conscience" sake take stock of your position, Join Frenk Cousins in the fight for real socialist policies now, while there is still the chance to save the Labour Party from the miserable effects of Wilsonism}
The WeekThe Week Vol. 6, No. 1, 7 July 1966
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