The victory for the Government's economic policies at Blackpool has becn widely described as a hollow one - itself a towering overstatement of the narrow margin by which legislation was_ accepted, and one which carefully overlooks the means by which it was obtained. With the vote safely in the bag, Richard Crossman has raised the curtain on the Covernment's future intentions by making it quite clear that the freeze was not — introduced merely as a 12-month interruption of normal practice. Admittedly, to many of us the curtain was no more than a thin veil in the first place but it was apnarently thick enough for the myopic atmosphere at Blackpool. The effect of this deliberate misrepresentation by the Government of its intentions was heightened by two other major factors. Tirstly, the utter inconsistency of the stands taken by USDAW and the NUM on two of the motions. As the following table shows this alone is enough to nullify the vote on one or other of the two final motions:
Union and ! General ; Composite Composite ; Composite
i
Block Vote { Council motion | motion } motion
Report ; Supporting opposing against early
accepting {standstill | standstill] warning